Sequoia names Alfred Lin and Pat Grady as new co-founders after Roelaf Botha steps down

Just over three years after taking the reins as leader of Sequoia Capital, Roelof Botha is stepping down as a senior steward at the famed VC firm. The company announced Tuesday that partners Alfred Lin and Pat Grady will replace him as co-stewards.

Lin joined the renowned company in 2010, where he made large investments in category-defining firms such as Airbnb, DoorDash and Kalshi. Meanwhile, Pat Grady has been a partner for almost 19 years and has led Sequoia’s growth-stage investments since 2015, supporting iconic firms such as ServiceNow, OpenAI, and legal AI platform Harvey.

Botha assumed the leadership role in mid-2022 and immediately ushered in a period of upheaval. He took the helm just as the economic downturn decimated public markets, severely depressing the valuations of many of Sequoia’s portfolio firms. The company also wrote off $200 million when its investment in cryptocurrency exchange FTX blew up – a small loss in the greater picture for Sequoia, but a financial hit nonetheless. Moreover, in 2023, amid rising political tensions between the United States and China and regulatory pressures on each side, Sequoia spun off its India and China operations into separate independent firms.

This 12 months, Sequoia became embroiled in controversy over partner Shaun Maguire’s comments attacking New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, calling him an “Islamist” “coming from a culture that lies about everything.” Although Maguire later walked back some of those remarks, they sparked significant response and debate online. In August, Sequoia’s chief operating officer, Sumaiya Balbale, a practicing Muslim, resigned over the company’s decision to not discipline Maguire over his comments, first reported by the Financial Times and confirmed last week at sitting on stage with Botha during the TechCrunch disruption.

When asked about Balbale, Botha said Sequoia does not routinely comment on personnel matters and that she appreciated the whole lot Balbale dropped at the company. Asked about Maguire, Botha replied: “Internally we celebrate diversity of opinion and we need spiky people at Sequoia.”

Botha continued: “We have a few of our partners who are very active in philanthropy or a few [other] private interests and are simply not as vocal as Shaun on social media. We have always respected the right to freedom of speech of each of our partners.”

During the same interview, Botha maintained that his role as senior steward was not one of absolute command, emphasizing that other partners had almost as much power to steer the direction of the company. “There’s a reason my title is Steward – it’s just one step above the word ‘introductory’ in the dictionary,” he said. Then, in a comment that drew laughter from attendees, he added: “This is mainly because the Global Supreme Leader was not available.”

When TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loizos asked Botha who could replace him as the firm’s leader, given its historic emphasis on ensuring smooth handovers (Botha himself has risen multiple times on his method to the top of the firm), Botha replied that Lin, Grady, Luciana Lixandru, who leads Sequoia’s European investments, and Andrew Reed, a partner whose investments in Figma and Klarna went public this 12 months, “have an incredible depth and work as a team.”

Botha also identified that each investor in Sequoia votes on investment decisions. “We want the triumph of ideas, not the triumph of seniority,” he said.

News of the move, nonetheless, suggests that the stewardship position has real importance. While Sequoia has continued to enjoy strong investment success during Botha’s tenure, the leadership change comes as the company seeks to navigate through a difficult period into its next phase.

Indeed, Sequoia, one of the world’s preeminent enterprise capital firms, recently renovated its office, installing a wall on which each investor inscribed a handwritten reminder: “We are only as good as our next investment.”

Last week, the company announced a $750 million early-stage fund aimed at Series A startups, as well as a $200 million seed fund.