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Nearly 50 years ago, Sequoia Capital was one of the earliest investors to take a swing on the personal-computer startup Apple<\/a>, Inc. Now, the venture capital firm\u2019s managing partner has revealed how Sequoia goes about looking for the next Steve Jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Speaking at the Fortune<\/em> Brainstorm Tech conference in Park City, Roelof Botha told Fortune<\/em> editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell that Sequoia is constantly looking to evaluate the quality of an idea, rather than the credentials of the person who\u2019s pitching it.<\/p>\n \u201cSteve Jobs originally was not funded by other people because he wasn\u2019t wearing shoes and was unconventional,\u201d @sequoia<\/a> Managing Partner @roelofbotha<\/a> says at #BrainstormTech<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cYet, Don Valentine saw through that because he saw the quality of the idea.\u201d https:\/\/t.co\/vc0m8sRbaa<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/YIfdr6B58B<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 FORTUNE (@FortuneMagazine) July 17, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cSteve Jobs originally was not funded by the people on Sandhill Road because he wasn\u2019t wearing shoes and was unconventional,\u201d said Botha, who was a top executive at PayPal<\/a> before joining Sequoia. \u201cYet Don Valentine saw through that because he saw the quality of the idea.\u201d<\/p>\n Jobs\u2019 career trajectory is renowned for his unlikely rise from college dropout to co-founder of a revolutionary tech company. When Sequoia founder Don Valentine met him, he was working as a technician at Atari. But he pitched Valentine on an idea for a personal computer that the venture capitalist saw potential in.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI went to Steve\u2019s house and we talked, and I was convinced it was a big market just embryonically beginning,\u201d Valentine recalled in 2011 documentary Something Ventured<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The rest is history. Sequoia would end up investing $150,000 in Jobs\u2019 startup, and in 1980, Apple, Inc. went public.<\/p>\n That same attitude, Botha said, is now being applied to founders in the burgeoning artificial intelligence market.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the companies we\u2019re backing in AI specifically are some of the world\u2019s leading researchers in a particular domain,\u201d Botha said. \u201cBut then we listened to a founder who had a brighter idea for an application\u2014they\u2019re fresh immigrants, they\u2019re a team of three, and they have no academic credentials that we can easily verify. But the idea is interesting and they have customers that can reference the quality of what they\u2019re producing.\u201d<\/p>\n David Kang, a professor of international relations and business at the University of Southern California, told Fortune<\/em> in 2023<\/a> that when he first began tracking the alma maters of Fortune<\/em> 500 top executives in 1999, seven or eight CEOs had never even completed an undergraduate degree.<\/p>\n \u201cThe results were stunning,\u201d Kang said.<\/em> \u201cLike everyone else, I thought Ivy Leagues would dominate. But the largest place they had gone to was no college at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Of the 2023 Fortune<\/em> 100 CEOs, only 11.8% attended Ivy League schools as undergrads, and less than one-in-ten obtained an Ivy League MBA. The majority of the top 20 CEOs went to public universities, and five didn\u2019t have any kind of graduate degree at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur job is to not to look at the surface level of what people can accomplish,\u201d Botha said at Wednesday\u2019s conference. \u201cBut rather to look at the quality of their idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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