I just discovered that short video about Don Valentine thanks to the VC factory article about this gaint of VC.

It’s not the first time I mention the founder of Sequoia Capital. Here are reminders :

– October 2019 : Another Giant of Venture Capital is Dead – Don Valentine, www.startup-book.com/2019/10/28/another-giant-of-venture-capital-is-dead-don-valentine/

– November 2010 : When Valentine was talking – part 2 www.startup-book.com/2010/11/10/when-valentine-was-talking-part-2/ and part 1 – www.startup-book.com/2010/11/05/when-valentine-was-talking/

and of course watch Something Ventured, here is his piece [Valentine] So we had our meeting. I went to Steve’s house. And we talked, and I was convinced it was a big market… just embryonically beginning. Steve was in his Fu Manchu look, and his question for me- “Tell me what I have to do to have you finance me.” I said, “We have to have someone in the company… who has some sense of management and marketing and channels of distribution.” He said, “Fine. Send me three people.” I sent him three candidates. One he didn’t like. One didn’t like him. And the third one was Mike Markkula. Mike Markkula worked for me at Fairchild before he went to Intel.

and one of my favorite quote “Founders are genetically impossible by choice. There were only two true visionaries in the history of Silicon Valley. Steve Jobs and Bob Noyce [Intel’s founder]. Their vision was to build great companies… Steve was twenty, un-degreed, some people said unwashed, and he looked like Ho Chi Min. But he was a bright person… Phenomenal achievement done by somebody in his very early twenties… Bob was one of those people who could maintain perspective because he was inordinately bright. Steve could not. He was very, very passionate, highly competitive.” By the way, Bob Noyce mentored Steve Jobs.