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Invest Like the BestInvest Like the Best

Former Sequoia Chairman Michael Moritz on Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and the Price of Greatness

Michael Moritz joins Patrick O’Shaughnessy for a wide-ranging conversation about the forces that shape exceptional people. Moritz reflects on growing up in a family of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, the outsider mentality that followed him throughout his life, and why he spent so much time studying the childhoods and backgrounds of founders. He shares the questions he used to understand people, what he learned from decades around extraordinary leaders, and why complete obsession often comes with a cost. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:53 Family History & Identity 7:03 Survival & Outsider Instinct 18:53 Studying Exceptional People 33:50 Self-Doubt & Success 41:17 Steve Jobs & Obsession 52:50 Joining Sequoia 1:03:22 Leadership & Alex Ferguson 1:08:25 Elon Musk & AI 1:17:12 Becoming Who You Are #MichaelMoritz #SequoiaCapital #InvestLikeTheBest #SteveJobs #ElonMusk #VentureCapital #AI Presented by Ramp: https://ramp.com/invest Sponsored by Vanta, WorkOS, Rogo, and Ridgeline: https://www.vanta.com/invest https://workos.com/ https://rogo.ai/invest https://www.ridgelineapps.com/ ****** Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of Positive Sum. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinion of Positive Sum. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of Positive Sum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. To learn more, visit psum.vc

Patrick O'ShaughnessyhostMichael Moritzguest
Sep 16, 20261h 34mWatch on YouTube ↗

Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:53

    Intro

    1. PO

      The episode with Jobs and time was so fascinating in your history, and I'm sure frustrating for you

    2. MM

      You know, sadly, as a result of that, really never repaired the relationship with Steve.

    3. PO

      Were you in awe of him?

    4. MM

      No.

    5. PO

      Have you ever been in awe of anyone?

    6. MM

      You know, the people that I've known who have done incredible, remarkable things are also flawed individuals.

    7. PO

      Mm-hmm.

    8. MM

      And if you get to know them well, you also see that aspect of it. So seeing that up close makes it difficult to hold anybody in awe because you see the flaws as well as all of their accomplishments and virtues. [upbeat music]

  2. 0:53 – 7:03

    Family History & Identity

    1. PO

      When I was reading your book, one of the lines or the ideas that has really stuck with me ever since is where does one person end and the next person begin?

    2. MM

      [laughs]

    3. PO

      And this deep dive that you took into the impact of one's history, family history, heritage on who a person is, [laughs] I'm interested in this from so many angles, as a parent, as a person interested in history, as a person interested in genetics, nature versus nurture. If I were to sum up the book in that question, what, what is your answer to that? Like, where do you think... What did you come away thinking after this deep study of your own family's history?

    4. MM

      One of the things that came out of the book, uh, which I didn't really expect, was discovering who I am and why I became whatever it is that I've become. Um, and that was an sort of unexpected gift of, of the writing, and it came from an exploration of, this exploration of my family's past, in particular my parents. And, um, going back and excavating the deep memories of childhood and the sort of atmosphere in, in our home and in the general milieu in which I grew up helped me understand a lot about why I am who I am and react to certain things in, in the fashion that I do. Because unwittingly, obviously, every parent, uh, leaves an imprint, uh, on a child. And I think that's, uh, obviously especially true during the formative years. Whatever the formative years are, I'm no sort of child, um, um, um, specialist or scientist, but those, uh, [inhales] you know, before you turn 12, 13, 14 years old, those imprints that you've absorbed in some manner, consciously or unconsciously, those remain with you, and are both the, um, angels and demons, I think, that you deal with for the rest of your life.

    5. PO

      Hmm. What were yours? So I'm, I'm so curious that you're performing on yourself the exercise that you're famous for doing with others-

    6. MM

      [laughs]

    7. PO

      ... that you invested in or hired, focusing on these first 14 years. What, what new understanding of yourself came out of this exercise?

    8. MM

      Well, I, yeah, I grew up as, as you know and as the, as the book talks about, in this, um, family of, uh, refugees from, uh, Nazi Germany and Wales. And, uh, refugees by definition are a minority. Um, Jewish refugees in Wales during the 1960s [laughs] and 1970s were a, a further minority. And I think if you gr- uh, although even if pe- you know, people look at me today and they think, "Oh, here's this old white man. Um, he's not a minority," but um, and I can understand that, but it's how an individual feels rather than how, uh, other people might, might look at you. Um, but I think i- it touched me in a variety of ways. Um, my parents had gone through these... I mean, although they were never in the camps, they'd got out, they'd got out of Germany in the 1930s, and they were loath to use the word survivor because they always felt the word survivor denoted somebody who actually had survived the camps. But they were refugees, and in their own way had survived. [lips smack] And that, uh, motive to survive no matter what the odds were, even though the odds that I faced growing up [laughs] weren't like my parents', I think the, uh, the need to survive, and when, when you think about surviving, you're thinking about, to some extent, living by your wits, being very suspicious of the motives of others, wondering where and how bad things will occur and happen, and guard m- uh, guard against them, um, I think gives you, uh, most certainly ga- gave me in retrospect, I didn't understand it at the time-

    9. PO

      Hmm

    10. MM

      ... um, a sort of drive and, and grit that I wouldn't have had-

    11. PO

      Hmm

    12. MM

      ... uh, without that, uh, particular atmospheric backdrop.

    13. PO

      When you study it and you think about your own childhood, how did that transfer from your parents to you? Was it the stories they told?

    14. MM

      It was definitely not the stories they told, because they didn't tell the stories And I didn't really get to know the stories until I sat down and began work on this book. What I did know was the general arc of history, obviously, and the world, you know, this miserable, ferocious, catastrophic whirlwind in which they and millions of others were, um, caught up. But they, they didn't talk about the past in the real detail that I much later when I sat- you know, when I was thinking about the book, became, uh, interested in. It was just broad sweeps. So, um, I think it was much more the daily behavior, the reaction to events, the reaction to things, the sense that, uh, that doom was not very far away. Um, and, uh, the fact that, um, if horrors had occurred in the past, um, uh, there was a real need to be vigilant

  3. 7:03 – 18:53

    Survival & Outsider Instinct

    1. MM

      and wary about, um, navigating daily life.

    2. PO

      Hmm. There was just a couple stories in the book, one in particular where you talk about two separate people, one who decided to stay in Germany and one who decided to leave. It's quite a poignant and an interesting on this topic of survivor, you know, outsider early instinct when things are changing to take notice and not, not double down and stick around. What, what-- Maybe tell that story and, and explain what you learned from that contrast.

    3. MM

      Well, the, the two indivi- the, the two individuals, Patrick, that you, uh, referred to were my, um, grandfathers, my maternal grandfather and my paternal grandfather. I'll start with my paternal grandfather, who was a civil servant. He was a sort of lower level judge in the judiciary in Bavaria, a province in, uh, in southern Germany. He had, um, fought in World War I. He had, uh, somehow or other survived the horror of Verdun. He had been given his, um, Iron Cross. Um, and he was, um, I think a great believer in the German state and, uh, in the security that the state offered. And then much later in nineteen thirty-three, he, he lost his job. Uh, but somehow I think because, uh, uh, this is my assessment of the situation, because he was, um, a civil servant, he was by nature conservative, by nature somewhat cautious, but also had this great belief that in the state, in the endurance of the state, in the durability of the state, and that eventually the storm would blow over. And he also had a pension, and the pension was very important to him as a, as a means for survival. And so I think it was a combination of all of those things that he wasn't oblivious, obviously, to what was happening around him. But it did make him more reluctant to leave Germany, I think, until it was, until it was too late. And people forget there were, there were any... Even if you decided to, somebody had decided to leave Germany, there are all sorts of obstacles in the way. You had to find a place elsewhere that would accept you. You had to pay big, um, um, taxes to, uh, the Nazi government in order to be able to secure your exit visa. So there were all, all these sorts of obstacles. So that was my paternal grandfather. And he and his wife eventually, uh, were shipped off east and disappeared from history. And my maternal, uh, grandfather was cut from a different cloth, and he, he was, um... Again, I was too callow as a youth to really understand this, but I knew him as a, as a-- He died when I was about sixteen. And, um, he had been a, um, cattle trader, which was one of the, the occupations that Jews were really permitted, uh, to do in, in Germany. But he, he was almost b-blind as a young man and b- completely blind by the time, uh, that I met him, but somehow or other had been able to carve out a comfortable living for himself and his family by, uh, trading in cattle in a rural village in, uh, northwestern Germany. My assessment of him w-was, again, in retrospect, was that he was more street-wise. He was more ent-entrepreneurial. He didn't, wasn't burdened by the need to remain and collect a state pension because he had always been able to sustain himself and, you know, look out for his future. And he got out with his wife, my grandmother. But they got out by the, by the skin of their teeth. They got out, um, seventy-two hours before war broke out. So seventy-two hours later, they too would have perished.

    4. PO

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    5. MM

      I'm not sure that it's all that relevant to, uh, um, the people I- I've encountered in, in this journey through life, but it certainly has had consequences for me, particularly in times like the ones that we are living through at the moment and the atmosphere that is prevalent to some extent in the US and also, um, in Western Europe. Um, I think the, uh, necessity for always feeling that you have a bolt hole, that you have some place to go if the fire gets too hot, um, that's the lesson that I took away from my family history. Glibly saying, um, that you can never have enough passports.

    6. PO

      Hmm. Do you feel that especially true now?

    7. MM

      Yes.

    8. PO

      Say, s- say a bit about the state of the world, how you perceive the state of the world.

    9. MM

      It's an uncomfortable place for minorities, the United States and Western Europe writ large. Um, it doesn't matter whether you're Asian or Muslim or, or, um, Black or Jewish. Um, and, you know, I understand, understand the reasons, and I want to be careful as well. I am not whining about antisemitism. I'm not complaining about it. I long ago came to terms with the fact that it's just a fact of life. It's been around for 2,500 years. It's not gonna disappear in 2026 or 2030. It's always gonna be with us. And in fact, as we were talking about a few minutes ago, I think the fact that antisemitism was around and has been around and has been something I've been conscious of, um, all my life or, or my sentient life, um, it's m- it's made me stronger. But I think, uh, it's disquieting if you're living in a society where, [sighs] you know, in America, I think my, my simplistic way of thinking about who feels safe in America is, I think the, the contingent of Americans who feel safe are white Christians who own guns. Everybody else feels a degree of insecurity, whether you're pursued by ICE or you go to a house of prayer that, um, has to be guarded by police to ensure that, that that's safe. And that exists in America. Uh, it exists in the United Kingdom, in France, in other countries around Europe where far-right governments have, um, have come to the fore. And obviously, everybody has read about the recent elections in, in Germany of a far-right party in, in the Saxony province. And I think in times of economic distress where you have millions of people who've been... tens of millions of people who feel they've been left behind, that feeling of, um, despair, um, can easily be whipped up into a, um, horrendous stew by leaders with, uh, authoritarian impulses.

    10. PO

      Hmm. If I force you to put on your optimistic or hopeful hat and thinking about the future as it relates to this problem.

    11. MM

      Well, Viktor Orbán was booted from office, and he was riding high a couple of years ago. I think, uh, i- in some places there clearly are pushes to the center, which would be, uh, I think very consoling for people and a, a return to some modicum of civility, uh, in the various societies in which, you know, people like us, uh, uh, us travel. So here in America, uh, clearly the midterms and the next, uh, and the 18 months or t- after that are really gonna shape how we're gonna live in the next decade because the last decade has been, there's been the imprint of one person on the last decade in America. I think in, uh, in Britain, the person who's identified with the far right, Nigel Farage, may well have had his best day, and his best day may well b- be behind him. I think it's different in France with Marine Le Pen and the elections next year. It's different in Spain, and, uh, it's potentially different in Germany.

    12. PO

      Do you think that the internet fundamentally changes the potential for civility and political moderation because it so rewards extremes in, in attention?

    13. MM

      I, I think the three-letter answer is yes. I think it's been true of every form of new media that, um, and from the beginning of the printing press. Uh, but obviously the internet and mobile telephony, uh, has made it far easier to spread false memes and, uh, innuendo. Uh, but, um, i- i- i- it's a much larger, more, um, um, a much more amplified version of what, um- occurred in Germany when, uh, radio took off during the 1930s, and where the radio waves were dominated, uh, by extreme, um, propaganda and racist views and loud lies told frequently.

    14. PO

      Hmm. Hmm. Going back to your family's history, one of my favorite topics is this idea that you can learn so much about a person from what happens in their first 12, 13, 14

  4. 18:53 – 33:50

    Studying Exceptional People

    1. PO

      years, as you said. Carl Jung had this great idea of studying the unlived life of the parent. Another way of framing it would be, this is a little trite, but you should be like who your father was supposed to be. Like, you should live the life that he was unable to or-

    2. MM

      Mm

    3. PO

      ... or didn't quite, and that there's a part of that imprinting is s- um, children observing their parents, what they're not going after, the risks they're not taking, and maybe running in that direction is a, is a great way to explore. And back to the point about where does one person end and the next begin-

    4. MM

      Yes

    5. PO

      ... like the break from the parents-

    6. MM

      Yes

    7. PO

      ... is really important. And so I'm curious how you arrived at this method of yours, this first 14-year interrogation method. Like, when you first did it and, and why you find it so... How you do it. Like, what the method is and, and why you find it just so impactful in understanding a, a new person.

    8. MM

      I suppose I first came across it, um, oddly in Detroit when I was a correspondent for Time Magazine.

    9. PO

      Hmm.

    10. MM

      And, uh, with a colleague, um, I wrote a book about the Chrysler Corporation, but m- more importantly, the person who turned around Chrysler at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, and the man who was for a time, uh, the best-known business figure in America, even though today most people struggle to pronounce his last name. But he was, uh, uh, a, a gentleman called Lee Iacocca. He was the, uh, son of Italian immigrants. Um, and in writing this book, we spent a fair amount of time interviewing Iacocca, and what came through loud and clear was how much as the son of Italian immigrants who'd grown up in Pennsylvania, uh, Lee grew up in Pennsylvania, he felt like an outsider. And he worked in the automobile industry, and obviously in the upper echelons of the automobile industry, where I think, uh, he was always viewed with suspicion by, um, most notably when he wo- worked at the Ford Motor Company by Henry Ford II and the other, uh, uh, people who obviously everybody had immi- immigrated, but who were, uh, at some point in their family's history, but who were, uh, much more members of the establishment. And Iacocca never felt like a member of the establishment and became very clear that all of that stemmed from his childhood. And, um, then, um, I think, uh, uh, as the years went by, he began to interpret many of the slights that then fell upon him, including not getting the top job at Ford, uh, to the fact that he was seen as, um, as an Italian immigrant.

    11. PO

      Hmm. If you think about the people who have harnessed that outsider energy, a lot of whom you've backed with great success, have you seen people graduate out of it? And, and when they do, is their drive and motiv- does their drive and motivation go away or suffer?

    12. MM

      Well, n- n- I want to answer the previous question a little bit as well about, you know, you asked why I... when I've met various people and various founders over the years, spent so much time on their, on their backgrounds. Um, many of these people are only, you know, 20 years old or 21 years old.

    13. PO

      Covering a big percentage. Yeah [laughs] .

    14. MM

      You're not exactly gonna be able to ask them about their life in their 50s. [laughs] Uh, so, uh, so it's just natural, it's, uh, uh, uh, um, to try to understand that. I don't think people grow out of it. I think what happens is that people work with a certain intensity in their late teens and their 20s and maybe their early 30s. And that intensity, for a whole variety of reasons, diminishes over time. I think that's what changes. The inner being doesn't change. The outward intensity changes.

    15. PO

      Hmm. When you were asking these questions, was there any one thing or set of things that you tended to be looking for? Was it, was it you coming away feeling as though someone had extreme drive and you were s-

    16. MM

      No. I, I think it's... I try to, uh, paint when I have some time, and I [laughs] am not a good painter, but I, I, I really enjoy it. And when you c- when, at least the way that I paint, you make marks in different parts of the canvas, and the marks seem unrelated and, you know, maybe it's a color blue here and a color brown there. And, uh, and uh, you're putting these marks and dots on the canvas. And there doesn't seem to be any composition there whatsoever. And then [laughs] eventually, in my case, the picture comes out and it's bad, but there's a picture at the end of it.

    17. PO

      Mm.

    18. MM

      And it's the, uh, the, uh, um, accumulation of all these different marks, and I think that's what happens when you're talking to people about their backgrounds. You're looking for these little dots here, and then eventually you put together this, uh, portrait for yourself of the individual.

    19. PO

      In searching for those dots, did you come to favorite questions that you always found yourself asking?

    20. MM

      There's one- That comes to mind, which, um, I've always found quite, well, invariably found quite revealing is to ask somebody if they think back and had a chance to do one thing differently, one action differently, what is it that they would do? And [laughs] I remember one person we interviewed for Sequoia, um, who burst into tears when I asked that question. And, um, it turned out that he'd grown up as the, as the son of an immigrant here in America. Um, he was, um, Hispanic. And his father was, uh, you know, very proud to have made it here and that his child was bright, his son was bright, and he was getting good marks at school. And this fella, probably when he was 12 or so, had gone down to a corner grocery store with a pal of his and stolen some candy. And the shopkeeper, who knew his father, complained to his father, and his father took him by the ear and took him back down to the candy store, made him apologize, made him empty, uh, uh, uh, empty his pockets. And, uh, the man I interviewed was so chastened, so embarrassed, um, by, um, bringing shame upon his family and his father. He just burst into tears.

    21. PO

      Hm. What's your answer to the question? What would you have done differently?

    22. MM

      You're a good interviewer. People don't listen to answers very often when they, uh, when they, uh, uh, interview people. I think I would've... And, you know, I think every, every child with parents feels this in one way or another, and I, I felt it as I was writing the book, that I was embarrassed, and if I could erase one thing, it would be some of my, uh, interactions and dealings with my parents, which, uh, I feel ashamed about today. Uh, but there's, uh, but there's no going back, you know. I was, um, you know... A- and I spent the first 16, 17 years of my life with them. Um, but there were many things probably that I wish... And, and also when I was a younger man, uh, just, uh, encounters with them that I wish had, uh, gone differently because I didn't really understand who they were and so be it.

    23. PO

      Do you think that was mostly a, a, a natural drive to create your own independence like every child goes through with their parents?

    24. MM

      Yeah. I'm sure that was, I'm sure that that was some of it. Um, arrogance was probably another part, a fail of comprehension of what they themselves had experienced and what had made them who they were, which I didn't understand.

    25. PO

      Hm. There's this notion of very small deeds in the book. I think the character's name was Anna. Um-

    26. MM

      Yes

    27. PO

      ... c- can you talk about what you learned about the impact of small deeds?

    28. MM

      Well, it was more than small deeds. So, um, this lady that you refer to, whom I knew as a child, uh, her name wa- her first name was Anna. And, uh, when my father and, uh, uncle were growing up in Munich in the 1920s and the early 1930s, every sort of l- you know, middle class, lower middle class household had a, um, a family servant. Um, you know, these were the days before washing machines and vacuum cleaners and all the rest of it. Those individuals, um, i- in these households, when children were born, invariably became nannies as well. And, uh, for my father and my uncle, this lady Anna, who was that person in my grandfather's house, she became a surrogate. Uh, oh, she was a n- a nanny. And, um, she was Roman Catholic and eventually, um, left the employment of my, uh, grandparents, and she married a railway worker, uh, in Bavaria, uh, who was also a Roman Catholic. They built their own house with their own hands, and she and her husband offered, uh... They never forgot the Moritz family. They, in the 1930s, opened their house to my grandparents and my uncle and, and father at a time when, um, it became very unpopular to, um, have Jews come stay in, in, in rural Ba- Bavaria for their holidays. But they did it for as long as possible. They were horrified by the, the... They didn't have children, these two. They were horrified by the, the Nazis. They did everything possible to help, uh, my grandparents and, uh, and my, my father and, and uncle. And then after the war, my... Because the feelings were so intense between my father and my uncle and this lady Anna, they went back to Bavaria very soon after the end of the war and, um, developed this very strong connection with her until she eventually died. And I remember going and staying in her house, and the house and the, the story of this house features in the book as well, as a young boy. And surrounded by the specters of the, uh, of the Nazi past. But this lady, um, was, I think, you know, what they, they say at Yad Vashem, um, when they, um, uh, bestow acknowledgments on, on all the people who helped, um, Jews and others during World War II. She was one of the righteous. And, uh, had this ethical compass, um, that she wouldn't allow anyone else to alter.

    29. PO

      What did you learn with, from these categories of people? I think you called them the resisters, the silent, and the collabos.

    30. MM

      Yes. Well, I watched this, this is a spectacular, um, series that came out maybe 12 years ago, shot in France. Maybe it's, uh, a six-series tale about life in a French village, um, during, uh, World War II, and how some people resisted the occupation for as long as possible. Most people remained silent, and some became active collaborators, uh, with the Nazis. And during COVID, when we were all on these, um, long Zoom calls with lots of little pictures of, you know, 10 other participants that were in the Zoom room, um, I always used to look at each individual whom I knew on the whole, and I kept asking myself, "Well, if these people had been living in the French village in the 1940s, who would've stayed silent? Who would've resisted? And who would've been collabos?" So I was judging people whom I know and whom I work with. And [laughs] uh, it was an interesting exercise. I didn't tell anybody else about it at the time-

  5. 33:50 – 41:17

    Self-Doubt & Success

    1. MM

      Oh, I've never felt I'm really good at something. That's not false modesty on my part.

    2. PO

      Really?

    3. MM

      To this day. No.

    4. PO

      How can that be in face of the evidence?

    5. MM

      Well, I think everybody is plagued by doubt and, um, maybe competitiveness. And, uh, no, I've... And everything that I may have done, I, I, uh... And it's a failing on my part. I have a very difficult time ce- celebrating good things and, uh, and celebrating success. But anyway, back to the question. [laughs]

    6. PO

      Well, hang on. But I wanna, I wanna know why that is. Like, why do you th- Given that you're self-aware about it, have you ever tried to reverse that?

    7. MM

      I, I think it's heritage. I think it's, uh, it's the fact that my mother always felt that disaster was always around the corner, and doom was always around the corner. I mean, she died a few weeks before COVID. And this, uh, you know [laughs] my, my, my mother was the predictor of doom.

    8. PO

      Mm.

    9. MM

      And, uh, I remember as a kid growing up, she would listen to the radio and, uh, and, uh, inevitably the talk, uh, when we were having breakfast would be about some natural disaster that had, had occurred or, um, a plane crash or something dreadful around the world. So, um, in a way, she died a few weeks before COVID, and that was the gr- one of the great disaster... I, I f- I felt sorry for her in a way that she missed COVID because-

    10. PO

      [laughs]

    11. MM

      ... this was the disaster that, uh, she'd been predicting, or one of the natural disasters that she'd been predicting all her life.

    12. PO

      [laughs]

    13. MM

      So she was, uh, she was cheated out of, uh, out of COVID. But I think it's the, that sort of sense of, uh, being one step away from the precipice.

    14. PO

      Have you ever, though, been proud of a piece of work that you've done or created or felt, felt that pride, like the emotion of it?

    15. MM

      I think I've always felt everything is unfinished and, uh, could be improved, and none of it's ever been perfect.

    16. PO

      So never a satisfied moment.

    17. MM

      Sometimes when I paint and compare a painting to what I might've been able to paint 10 years ago or 15 years ago-

    18. PO

      Mm

    19. MM

      ... so I see a road to improvement.

    20. PO

      [laughs]

    21. MM

      But then you go to MoMA or the Met and you, uh- [laughs]

    22. PO

      You're diminished. [laughs]

    23. MM

      A- a- a- and you're reduced to being an insignificant speck.

    24. PO

      What about feeling a pride for someone else, not so much for yourself? I mean, you've backed some of the most extraordinary people in business history, for sure. You've written about some of the most extraordinary leaders, Alex Ferguson and others. Have you felt proud of them?

    25. MM

      No, not necessarily. I think I've... Because I, the relationship is different. Um, and so those have been, uh, voyages of, of curiosity where, um, they're the people who should feel proud of their accomplishments, uh, not me as a bystander.

    26. PO

      Hmm. I'm so curious about how for someone that's been involved in so many fascinating things, unlikely things, what jumps out as, like, the highest energy moments for you? Like, what, what, what was, what were the things along the whole journey that gave you the most energy? I know you're a deeply curious person, so maybe it's something there.

    27. MM

      I think it's family and children and all the moments associated with... You know, and I have, Harriet, my wife and I, we have two sons, and they're now in their 30s, and one of them's got a couple of grandki- I think it's deeply personal stuff.

    28. PO

      Hmm. Back to Bill Deedes. I lost my train of thought there-

    29. MM

      You did

    30. PO

      ... for a minute. [laughs] I'm curious the impact that he had on you, and I'm always interested in early impact on- that people have on others.

  6. 41:17 – 52:50

    Steve Jobs & Obsession

    1. MM

      break.

    2. PO

      The episode with Jobs and Time was so fascinating in your history, and I'm sure frustrating for you. What did you learn? What happened, and what did you learn through that episode?

    3. MM

      Uh, uh, it's a painful part of the past. Um, I had... This is, uh, maybe two, three years after I joined Time. I'd taken a leave of absence. By then I was working in San Francisco in the, in the bureau there, and had taken a leave of absence to write a book about Apple and for a variety of reasons. Because, um, the, the magazine didn't have room enough to tell the tale of the private days of Apple, which is what I was really interested in doing. And then I was on this leave, and I got a call from Time asking me to contribute to a profile of Steve, um, that they wanted to run in what became a very famous edition of Time, which was the Computer of the Year. And, uh, uh, uh, and I think it was the only time in Time's history where they'd picked an inanimate object-

    4. PO

      Hmm

    5. MM

      ... to celebrate, uh, for that big annual issue. So I worked on this profile of Steve. Steve was convinced that he was going to be named Man of the Year, um, even though nobody had told him that, uh, confirmed it yes or no. But worst of all, the profile, which he hated, for very good reason I might say in his defense, and I was appalled by, uh, for different reasons, um- severed my relationship with, with Steve. Back then at Time, [sighs] these things went through an editorial combine harvester. So what came out in the bale at the end probably didn't resemble very much of the straw that got fed in. And so the whole tone of the piece was, uh, uh, was malicious and, and, and nasty and underhanded. And as I said, uh, Steve disliked it, and it was one of the reasons I left Time. And, uh, I felt very, very disenchanted by, by the treatment of it all. And, um, you know, sadly, as a result of that, really never repaired the relationship with Steve.

    6. PO

      Were you in awe of him?

    7. MM

      No.

    8. PO

      Have you ever been in awe of anyone?

    9. MM

      [sighs] That's a difficult question, and I, I think it's tilted to, uh... Hmm. I'd really have to think about that, Patrick, to get, uh, to give you a really considered answer. You know, the people that I've known who have done incredible, remarkable things are also flawed individuals.

    10. PO

      Mm.

    11. MM

      And if you get to know them well, you also see that aspect of it. So seeing that up close makes it difficult to hold anybody in awe because you see the flaws as well as all of their accomplishments and virtues.

    12. PO

      Why were you not in awe of Steve? It seems like he's the person that the most people in our world were in awe of in living memory.

    13. MM

      I think I was... I, I want to be careful here because I respected him. I admired him tremendously. Uh, I was well aware of the fact that he had achieved things, uh, later obviously as well, that I couldn't ever possibly have accomplishment. But I think I, I knew some of the, um, darker shades of him, which made it difficult to hold him up as a, as an object of unalloyed admiration. But, but I, you know, I... He's a heroic figure, obviously.

    14. PO

      What's the role of monomania in all of these character studies? And I'm curious to tie it back to th- this idea of the outsider, you know, the-

    15. MM

      Well-

    16. PO

      ... survivor.

    17. MM

      You s- you see it now. I, I... And this, this goes in generations. Um, the monomania, when it c- I think when it comes to creating anything of value, it could be a piece of music, it could be a book, it could be a painting, it could be a company, complete obsession with the topic at hand and locking out the rest of the world and eliminating every unnecessary distraction, I think is, uh, what, uh, and, uh, I think those are... A- and again, there are downsides to this. People get hurt along the way. Uh, there isn't enough time for families or others or friends, uh, because of the monomania that you refer to. And, uh, but then great things sometimes come out of it.

    18. PO

      Is the primary cost of monomania relationships typically?

    19. MM

      I suspect the [sighs] the answer is yes or maybe for some of these people feeling that, um, they may have like lived life differently s- if they had to live it over again because there were consequences to this, to this monomania. But yes, clearly, uh, relationships. Evelyn Waugh, this, uh, you know, people don't really know him today, but a very famous, um, author, British author, um, who was capable of writing 10,000 words a week with ease, um, which, uh, 10,000 good words, not rubbish. Uh, he said the, um, the greatest enemy to, to good art is the sight of the pram, the stroller in today's parlance-

    20. PO

      Ah [laughs]

    21. MM

      ... is the sight of the stroller, uh, in the hallway.

    22. PO

      Hmm. What about Frank Au- is it Auerbach, the painter?

    23. MM

      Mm-hmm.

    24. PO

      Was he a monomaniacal person?

    25. MM

      Frank, Frank Auerbach has never got the recognition in this country that he deserves, although there's a retrospective of him coming here in the next two years to, uh, and, uh, to very significant museums around the country here. So he was a, um, a, uh, refugee, uh, from, uh, Nazi Germany. Um, he died maybe five years or so ago, and I didn't know him well, uh, but I got to know him a little bit. And he was a complete, um, obsessive, completely, uh, uh, completely obsessed with his art. Painted every day. Except he treated himself to a day, uh, one holiday. For many, many years, he treated himself to one day off a year, and every year he'd go to Brighton, where there's a famous pier. It's on the south coast of England, and take the day off on Christmas Day. Every other day of the year, he, he worked. And I remember once talking to him. His wife had a, a house out on the English coast, and I, I sa- asked him once at a dinner, I said, "So, uh, do you ever go out and visit Julia, your wife?" He said, "I've never been to the house." And then, now this is probably 10 years ago, [laughs] we, we were chatting and I, you know, he was asking me where, and we were talking about New, New York came up. And he said, "I love New York City. I just love it. It's so bustling with energy and going to Times Square and all the rest of it." And so this conversation was maybe in 2012, 2013. And so I said, "Oh, so, uh, uh, Frank, when was the last time you were in- Were you just in New York?" When, because this was only... "Oh, yeah, I went there in 1967."

    26. PO

      [laughs]

    27. MM

      And he had this routine where he had... And I knew some of these people who posed for him or know some of them, uh, these people. Uh, actually, I think that all his subjects are still alive. They pose for him once a week. He had this regular coterie of sitters, and he painted these same individuals, uh, for his figurative work over the course of 30, 40 years. And there's one of the subjects who lived in Venice of all places who once a week flew to London for his session with Frank because I think the sitters found it like therapy-

    28. PO

      Hmm

    29. MM

      ... uh, sitting for Frank. Uh, but he'd go into an utter meltdown if the, if the sitter was late. And then similarly with his landscape paintings, he painted the same landscape over and over and over again, interpreting it. But he, he lived for art and really there was no time for... He had a son, Jake, um, but there was no time for anything else.

    30. PO

      Do you get more energy from monomaniacs? You spend a lot of time around them. Do you prefer being with them over dilettantes like yourself? [laughs]

  7. 52:50 – 1:03:22

    Joining Sequoia

    1. PO

      What did Don Valentine see in you, and what did you see in him?

    2. MM

      So Don was the, uh, founder of Sequoia, and, um, he took a risk on me, uh, in the m- in around 1985 and, um, hired me to join Sequoia when Sequoia was a very small firm. I mean, uh, we're sitting around this, uh, this table here in, in, in your studio and, uh, it's probably large enough to accommodate, uh, all of the people who worked for Sequoia at that point. And I was a journalist. I'd been a journalist and, but wanted to get into the venture business because I'd become interested by it and had met some of the people who were running these firms, all of which were very small at the time, and, uh, had written to five of them. This was in the days when you didn't send emails, you actually wrote letters. And, uh, had gone to see each of them. They were kind enough to give me some time. All, save Don, said, uh, "We don't really know what to do with you because you don't have a technical background. You, you know, you didn't-- You don't have an engineering degree of any sort. Um, you don't really have any technical knowledge. Uh, you don't have any work experience in a, in a Silicon Valley kind of company. And, you know, you've been a, a journalist. Um, so maybe you should go and find a role in public relations or marketing or something like that," which was [laughs] not exactly what I wanted to do. And, um, and Don was more willing to take a risk, and the reason was, uh, fairly straightforward because he had seen, uh, people that he expected because they had big, um, um, operating backgrounds in technology companies, a few of them come into the venture business and not be very successful. And then he was aware of some who had carved out very successful lives as investors. There was a fellow called Tommy Davis, I think, who started a, a fund called the Mayfield Fund. There was, um, another guy who'd been an insurance accurate- act- actuary. But the, the one that, um- Don pointed to more than, uh, anybody else was a gentleman called Arthur Rock, who just celebrated his 100th birthday. And Arthur had organized... He was, um, a banker, commercial banker. G- oh, investment banker at a small boutique here in New York called Hayden Stone. This is back in the 1950s. He had had the moxie to organize the original breakout and financing of Fairchild Semiconductor. And then in the 1960s, people won't know the names anymore, but, um, he had helped finance Teledyne, um, Scientific Data-

    3. PO

      Hen- Henry Singleton, right?

    4. MM

      Huh?

    5. PO

      Henry Singleton.

    6. MM

      Henry Singleton as Scientific... Uh, Henry Singleton, who later became one of the early board members of the- first board members at Apple.

    7. PO

      Hmm.

    8. MM

      Um, uh, Scientific Data Systems, and then became the chairman and, and original investor in Intel, day one. And then a few years later, backed Apple. And Don said, "Look, there's nothing in his background that would've suggested he'd be successful." And, uh, so that was the, uh, that was the main reason.

    9. PO

      And what did you see in him in the early days? Like, what-

    10. MM

      A job.

    11. PO

      [laughs] What did he teach you?

    12. MM

      Um, John, uh, Don didn't believe in teaching. Uh, he, he, he believed in throwing people into... He had a survivalist instinct. Uh, so he just, uh, believed in, uh, tossing people into the deep end and, uh, and, and see if they drowned. But, um, I learned a lot by observation and listening and, um, good things and bad things. And, uh, uh, there was another gentleman at Sequoia, uh, named Pierre Lamonde, who was a very formative... Who was a, uh, mm, played a huge role in the rise of the semiconductor industry. Um, and he too was, uh, was something of an influence. But it was being in the middle of that milieu and watching good things happen and bad things happen, and gradually trying to form my own opinions about things.

    13. PO

      Hmm. What do you think it teaches us about early-stage investing that a journalist with no technical ability and no work experience can be one of the best investors of that type ever?

    14. MM

      Well, the venture business that I got into way back when is very different from the venture business today. There aren't many parallels.

    15. PO

      Hmm.

    16. MM

      I don't know that I would flourish in today's venture business. It's, for a whole variety of reasons.

    17. PO

      Why not?

    18. MM

      I think it's become much more, much more difficult. Um, we had a lot of... Or we had a variety of, um, benefits, um, back in the '80s and '90s, I think that began to dissipate maybe 15, 16 years ago, that don't exist today. Uh, one of them being, uh, imperfect information.

    19. PO

      Hmm.

    20. MM

      So the pre-internet, unless you were very close to things, you didn't know what was happening. Today, because of the internet and some of the stuff that we were talking about earlier, everybody around the world knows exactly what's happening. Everybody's got access to the same informa- or, you know, more or less-

    21. PO

      Yeah

    22. MM

      ... the same information. So that's number one. Number two, um, there are just so many more entities of all stripes, individuals, two or three people banding together in a small firm, at the other end of it, huge mutual funds pouring money into it, that the very early stage private market is, is very, very different. And so 40 years ago, 30 years ago, it was possible if you were an individual to form a relationship, a real relationship, close relationship with the people that you were getting into business with. That doesn't exist today. Um, uh, particularly for, uh, for a venture firm. There are just too many intermediaries in between.

    23. PO

      Hmm.

    24. MM

      And so I, I'm not sure that, um, uh, the luck that I had back then... And I was also catapulted right into the middle of the one place in the world where all of this stuff was happening. And so that's a huge competitive, uh, advantage too. So I'm not sure that any of that, uh, translates today. I think, uh [sighs] a moderately intelligent 14, 16-year-old, uh, who had his or her wits about him would've been able to succeed in the venture business in the mid-'80s.

    25. PO

      Do you think the ecosystem is healthy today?

    26. MM

      I think it is if you're a founder.

    27. PO

      [laughs] Pretty good. I like the quote that you've said often that your favorite investment was Sequoia. What was going through your head as you took it over?

    28. MM

      Not to screw it up. And, you know, the Sequoia that was around in 1995 was very different from the one that was around when I sort of stepped down in 2012, 2013. Uh, uh, number one was not to screw it up. Number two was, um, to ensure that everybody who worked there felt that our... We're only as good as our next investment, and that we couldn't rest on the laurels of the past. Uh, and then number three, um, you know, take advantage of the new market opportunities that, uh, that began to occur. And so whether it was, um, eventually, you know, going overseas- As, um, as Silicon Valley's share of startup activity, though still obviously the best place to be, uh, became smaller. So first of all, we went to Israel, then we went to, most notably, to China. And then, uh, started another business called Sequoia Heritage, which is, um, a very different business. And, uh-

    29. PO

      I know Kevin well. He's an incredible talent.

    30. MM

      Yes. Yeah. Very much so. And Keith, and our small and mighty heroic investment team there. Um, but number one was, uh... And, and I think the other thing that I... I, I don't want to sound like Joan of Arc here. I felt doing right by our investors was really important, and most of our investments and investors were not-for-profits. And I think making sure that we perform well for them, and if we didn't perform, we d- uh, I didn't want to be in a, in a business where if we didn't perform well, we still got paid very handsomely. I just... I think that's part of the problem with a lot of the aspects of the financial service providers of all sorts of different forms, and it has been for a long time, which is the, the firm, the provider does well, but their clients may not, you know, may as, may have done as well just investing in an index fund.

  8. 1:03:22 – 1:08:25

    Leadership & Alex Ferguson

    1. MM

      you know, I, I certainly wasn't wired like that. It was a matter of pride.

    2. PO

      What did you learn about working with someone like Doug that was so different than you but you had such a s- fruitful partnership?

    3. MM

      Tolerance.

    4. PO

      Say more. [laughs]

    5. MM

      I think you have to adjust to other p- you know, when you're trying to work in a team, you have to try to understand what the other people around you need, what's important to them, and feed that need, um, with people who are wired, as, as you said, very, very differently. And, uh... Mm, I think, I think, uh, I think that's the most important thing I've learned about, you know, building a team or leading a team, uh, is to... And, and I think today I'd be much better at it than I was 25 years ago, 30 years ago. Uh, but... And I learned a lot of that actually from the way that, um... I did this book maybe 10, 11 years ago with a famous soccer manager-

    6. PO

      Hmm. I was just gonna ask about Alex Ferguson

    7. MM

      ... called Alex Ferguson, and I think one of his great skills was the ability to understand what motivated each of his individual players.

    8. PO

      Hmm. How did you see him do that? I know he was famous for preferring players with tough upbringings.

    9. MM

      I think, I think he, he kn- I think he... And he's got this reputation, which is an unfair reputation, of being very hard and harsh. That was certainly an aspect of the way that he, he managed, but he was a man who didn't want to be loved. He didn't want to be feared. He wanted to be respected by the individuals who, who played for him. So he was there for them, which people don't understand, in their bleak, dark times when they needed support, when they were feeling lower than a snake's belly. He was there for them. None of that really gets written about.

    10. PO

      Hmm.

    11. MM

      Um, and, uh, there was an incident I remember. I forget which year it was, but David Beckham had been playing for England, uh, in a World Cup competition where he got sent off and, and the British press was merciless about, uh, Beckham's perceived stupidity. And Alex went to meet him at the airport, uh, because he knew he needed an arm around his shoulder. Uh, those sorts of things, little things that happen out of sight. People aren't aware of them. There are no cameras around.

    12. PO

      Do you think you were so interested in him for almost, like, autobiographical reasons?

    13. MM

      Oh, no, the-

    14. PO

      That description kind of sounds like you

    15. MM

      ... the, the reason... No, I think he's much b- he was much more skillful at it than I was. Um, the reason the book came together was this. The p- uh, you know, um, people, for whatever reason, had been badgering me to write a book about Silicon Valley, and I was always very interested, through the Sequoia lens, of what it took to build two things. One of which was an endur- a business that endured for ourselves, for Sequoia, because there are all these tales of venture firms that had a, a period in the limelight and then blew up for whatever reason. The founders killed each other or the, you know, the partners killed each other, and they all split up, and it all became ugly. And then, um, also the byproduct of it, uh, being what it took to have an enduring standalone company that- A firm like Sequoia could invest in. And I didn't wanna do that through a Silicon Valley lens. I mean, there are enough books about Silicon Valley. And but so I was casting around for a company that had... Or for a organization that had flourished over the course of multiple decades. And, um, I'd been a bit of a fan of Manchester United Football Club, um, since I was a kid. And here was this manager who took them over, I think, in 1986, and retired in 2013. And he took them over when they were in bad shape, and then established a record over multiple seasons, 26 seasons, of astonishing success that'll be almost impossible for anybody to duplicate. And so, uh, we had a PR guy who wo- or a communications guy who worked for Sequoia, and I'd shown him at that point when I finished the book, and I showed him a draft of the book. And he said, "Well, I can't tell..." Because I ghosted the book.

    16. PO

      Mm.

    17. MM

      And, uh, ghostwrote the book. And this fella said to me, "You know, I can't tell what's you and what's Sir Alex."

  9. 1:08:25 – 1:17:12

    Elon Musk & AI

    1. MM

      And I said, "Precisely."

    2. PO

      [laughs] Do you believe in the great man theory of history? And I, I'm asking you this question because I'm very interested by institutions that endure, and what you've learned about how the ones that have endured have pulled that off, like Sequoia. And I'm also pulled to people, of course, like Elon, who you were an early backer and, and, and partner to in X.com, how they shape history. And it seems like we might have a few world historic figures alive and operating today. What do you think is the balance of shaping history between the indi- these world historic people, great, great men and women, and enduring institutions?

    3. MM

      The, the short answer to the question is I'm a great believer in the great, the great person theory. All these people that we've talked about, whether you just referred to Elon, or we were talking about Lee Iacocca or Steve Jobs, or you go into the political realm or the field of battle, it is about great leaders. Great leaders. And obviously there are some terrible authoritarian figures that have cast black shadows over, over tens of millions of people, and over multiple decades in different countries around the world for hundreds of years. And so for good and bad, I think the individual has an enormous impact on, uh, uh, on what is around, uh, him or her. And, uh, capable of, uh, on the good side of it, not the dark side of it, uh, persuading others to achieve what's perceived as impossible. Um, yeah, I'm a huge acolyte of that theory.

    4. PO

      Do you think Elon is the great exemplar of that today?

    5. MM

      Yes. He may well be the greatest industrialist in the history of America.

    6. PO

      What would you say about him?

    7. MM

      I don't know that I have anything to add, uh, other than it's impossible... But anyway, uh, it's impossible for me to understand how one individual has been able to achieve what... And I know he's a controversial figure, but I, I'm just looking at him through the lens of, um, through the lens of history and through an investor's lens, and I'm just, uh... They have this phrase in, in Britain called gobsmacked.

    8. PO

      Mm.

    9. MM

      And, uh, I, I, I'm completely gobsmacked, uh, by the scale of his achievements in, uh, a variety of different industries, which is the thing that sets him apart from others.

    10. PO

      What do you make of today's prevailing technology environment and how this changes all the things we've talked about? Like, it seems as though, uh, one of the other PayPal founders told me recently that he thinks people like Elon and other great entrepreneurs will probably do more things, more than one company, expand out of monomania, because all these tools give them so much leverage. Do you think that this is like a, a true tear in history-

    11. MM

      I-

    12. PO

      ... that we now have intelligence?

    13. MM

      I, I don't know. The, um... If you go to China-

    14. PO

      Mm-hmm

    15. MM

      ... you will find the founders of companies, or if you go to, I think, probably South Korea, which I know le- far less about, you will find that the creators of one company have really imperial ambitions.

    16. PO

      Mm.

    17. MM

      And the creator of a company is along the way. Or they take their one company and convert it into... Look at Xiaomi, um, that manufactures these cars today that exceed the quality and performance and other attributes of Porsches, but began in 2010 as a phone maker, as an Android licensee, I think. So yeah, I think creative people, or these rare, rare people armed with this extraordinary selection of, uh, of power and the tools that are at their fingertips, or at the fingertips of the people who work for them, they're gonna be able to do a lot more in the future than somebody might have been able to do in the past.

    18. PO

      What is your model of this technology? Like, as a observer of it, and I'm sure interested observer, how do you tell your family about it and what it will mean?

    19. MM

      Oh, we don't talk about it. Well, not very much.

    20. PO

      Ki- kind of nice. [laughs]

    21. MM

      I mean, pe- but people, people will always ask me, but I'm not a technologist. I'm not a AI soothsayer.

    22. PO

      But you were so good at seeing what was going to play out. Like, if I think about so many of your investments, the thing seemed small- But it was then something that became like infrastructure that the wor- you know, Instacart or something, that the world was built on.

    23. MM

      Yeah, uh, you-

    24. PO

      Like-

    25. MM

      You're being too generous. Um-

    26. PO

      A lot of data points

    27. MM

      ... I, I, I didn't, I didn't think. Now, I think a lot of other people didn't think it as, as well. But I had, uh, very little sense that a company, um, y- y- it could grow at the rate that some of these artificial intelligence companies have grown at today. I mean, it's beyond, beyond comprehension. Uh, I remember, um, many years ago, you know, this was at the dawn of the internet or pro- probably after the dawn of the internet, and Tom Siebel, who started a g- a well-known entrepreneur and, um, had been seen as a very successful entrepreneur. I remember him, um, uh, uh, wistfully saying one day, um, well, and you know, his company had sold for whatever it was, $10 billion. And he said very wistfully, "That was back when $10 billion was worth a lot of money."

    28. PO

      Yeah.

    29. MM

      And today you look back and you say, whether it was Facebook's IPO or, or Google, that was back when $100 billion was worth a lot of money. I think the idea that you can have a six-year-old company worth trillions of dollars, nobody would've imagined that.

    30. PO

      Hmm. Are you mostly excited about this technology, or scared, or both?

  10. 1:17:12 – 1:34:07

    Becoming Who You Are

    1. PO

      How would you define extraordinary writing, having done quite a bit of it yourself?

    2. MM

      Well, again, you're too flattering and kind about that, uh, on that, on that particular topic. It's hearing the unmistakable voice of the author.

    3. PO

      How do you do that as a writer?

    4. MM

      I think it's the same with the journey through life. The toughest thing I think for an individual is to be, whether it's guiding them through what it is they want to do in life or what they want to put on paper, it's li- it's being in touch enough with your inner feelings and inner voice to allow those to conquer the pressures of the expectations of others.

    5. PO

      Joseph Campbell said, "The privilege of a lifetime is becoming who you are," but also that that's the hardest thing to do.

    6. MM

      I wish I'd been clever enough to say that.

    7. PO

      [laughs]

    8. MM

      I completely agree. I think that's the struggle everybody has, and it's also the struggle when you, um, put things down on paper.

    9. PO

      Is there a moment in your own life that was the most important in becoming who you were? Like, the hardest part of doing it? If it's so valuable to do and it's so hard to do, it makes me wonder about what the hardest part was for you.

    10. MM

      I don't think I've done it.

    11. PO

      Why not? What's the barrier that's left between you and who you are?

    12. MM

      Oh, uh, I think I'm... I always have been. It's one of my weaknesses, one of my many weaknesses. I've always, uh, been too prone to, um, live up to the pressures or expectations from the outside or from others than to, um, let myself run free.

    13. PO

      Is it a goal of your, the remainder of your life to do so?

    14. MM

      I'll try.

    15. PO

      I'm so struck by how, like, unbelievably self-aware you seem, but then you sort of have like a, you're giving yourself poor grades. That seem like objectively wrong. [laughs] What, what is that? I'm just s- still struggling to understand

    16. MM

      I n- I don't know, maybe it's the, maybe it's the specter of my mother

    17. PO

      Can you say more about her? We didn't talk too much about her other than her doom prophecies [laughs]

    18. MM

      [laughs] She, uh, she was, uh, you know, uh, uh, I owe, like everybody does, I owe her many things and she aroused my interest in art and a variety of things but, um, she would always find fault and no matter how good things or what I had done, um, she would, uh, [laughs] invariably, uh... You know, she was convinced [laughs]

    19. PO

      [laughs]

    20. MM

      I remember there was some newspaper coverage years ago in Britain when Yahoo became public and somehow, you know, I got a st- I, uh, uh, uh, some, there were some stories about me in the British press. I mean, she was convinced I was a crook

    21. PO

      [laughs]

    22. MM

      She was absolutely convinced that the police should come for me because there was no possible way that I could have participated in anything like this, um, that could possibly be legal

    23. PO

      Does that hurt? Did that hurt?

    24. MM

      No, it, it was, uh, by that point I was more amused by it [laughs] than, than anything else, so.

    25. PO

      Early did it hurt that, that nothing you did was, you know, satisfactory or something?

    26. MM

      No, because it was, it was just a fact of life

    27. PO

      Hmm. And yet it seems to have, you know, echoed.

    28. MM

      Yeah. Yeah. Well, as [sighs] you never get the boy out of the man

    29. PO

      What is the experience of stepping back from Sequoia because you were sick been like? Like, what has that taught you?

    30. MM

      Well, it's allowed me to do... Well, first of all, I think, I don't think, uh, leaders should stick around. I think, uh, if they have decided for whatever reason not to lead, they've gotta get out of the way. So I went cold turkey even though people didn't think... You know, I tried to help Sequoia in what ways I could, uh, and was involved with a variety of companies, but it was as a individual contributor. Uh, but it was not as leadership. I got out of there as quickly as possible because I didn't think it was fair for, um, someone to linger in the, those sorts of meetings. I'd lived through that myself and, uh, and, and so it's allowed me to do things that, um, uh, I wouldn't have had m- I wouldn't have... I mean, when I was running Sequoia it was talk about monomania and obsessions. I mean, that was it. It was everything every single day of the week. And, uh, so it allowed me to do things. You know, I, I, I could write, I could, uh, uh... And my wife and I started a... Well, we started it about 25 years ago. We started a foundation, so we spent more time on that. In recent years I spent, uh, more time on, um, trying to help, um, San Francisco which is where I've lived, you know, pushing 50 years, but not quite. But, uh, to turn around and, and flourish and along with, uh, a wonderful co-founder, Griff Daphne, um, I started a media business there as well, uh, which is fun and, um, I hope contributes to the, the life of the city called the San Francisco Standard. And, and then I'm involved with what used to be called Sequoia Heritage in a sort of advisory capacity, so there's plenty of stuff to do. And, um, which is fulfilling and unfulfilling at the same time because while there are a whole variety of things, it's not the obsessive monomaniacal focus on one thing

Episode duration: 1:34:08

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