Uncapped with Jack Altman

Pat Grady & Alfred Lin on the Tactics of Great Venture Investing | Ep. 36

Alfred Lin and Pat Grady are partners at Sequoia and were recently named as the storied firm’s new co-stewards. Alfred joined the firm in 2010, where he has led major investments into category-defining companies like Airbnb, DoorDash, and Kalshi. Pat has been a partner at the firm for nearly 19 years and has led Sequoia’s growth-stage investing since 2015, backing companies like Snowflake, OpenAI, and Harvey. In this episode, we unpack how Sequoia actually works: their partnership model, how they pick outliers, and what stewardship means inside one of the most respected firms in venture capital. Some highlights: - Consensus doesn’t matter, conviction does - Freedom within frameworks: see, pick, win, help, harvest - Mid-funnel decisions are the most important - The two fears that lead to bad decisions - To do this business well, you need courage Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (1:01) Initial mindset as stewards (4:30) The business of outliers (6:27) Managing the inputs in venture (12:11) Sourcing coverage goals (17:57) Seeing the right companies (22:36) Proprietary map of talent (24:39) The impact of great engineers (29:06) Picking winners with conviction (36:26) Coaching asymmetry into picking (43:16) Mentoring younger investors (46:45) Frameworks on picking (53:20) What it takes to win (58:32) How to onboard with a founder (1:02:59) Proudest board seats (1:06:12) 2026 in the new roles More on Alfred & Pat: https://sequoiacap.com/ https://x.com/Alfred_Lin https://x.com/gradypb More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com

Pat GradyguestAlfred Linguest

Dec 8, 20251h 9mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Sequoia’s new stewards on conviction, craft, and outlier investing tactics

Grady and Lin frame Sequoia’s leadership transition as “stewardship,” emphasizing enabling a team of “outliers” rather than running a hierarchical, CEO-style organization.
They argue venture is an “outlier business,” so consistency is less important than creating room for volatility, strong individual judgment, and high-conviction bets with sufficient ownership.
The discussion breaks down the venture value chain—sourcing, picking, winning, building, harvesting—and how Sequoia measures inputs (values, capabilities, coverage quality, decision hygiene) given that outputs can be a decade delayed and markups can be mirages.
They share tactical methods: coverage targets without incentivized gaming, debrief rituals, CRM/data advantages (including a long-running talent “PageRank” map), and coaching investors toward courage by normalizing failure and managing psychological biases.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Venture leadership is about enabling outliers, not directing them.

They contrast operating-company CEOs (optimize consistency) with venture (optimize outliers). To partner with outliers, the firm must let partners operate with autonomy inside shared frameworks.

Consensus doesn’t predict returns; conviction does.

Sequoia’s internal voting data shows consensus vs non-consensus is not a factor. “All sixes” is a warning sign; polarized “nines and ones” can be attractive because it signals real conviction and risk-taking.

Measure investors on inputs because outputs arrive too late (and can be misleading).

Markups can be mirages and outcomes take ~10 years, so they focus on behaviors and capability development (quality of memos, diligence, networks, time allocation) and later inspect the chain if results lag.

Avoid individual activity metrics to prevent gaming; focus on time-investment judgment.

Grady describes how granular funnel quotas can create padding behavior (calling founders you’ll never invest in). Sequoia avoids individualized metrics to keep attention on “net multiple money returns,” not checkboxes.

Sourcing quality beats raw ‘seeing everything’ coverage—watch for “false coverage.”

Demo days and broad meetings can create superficial exposure. The key is deciding which few companies merit deep pursuit, tracking misses, and updating priors through a rolling review of true/false positives/negatives.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Our internal data shows that consensus versus non-consensus does not matter at all. Presence of conviction is what matters.

— Pat Grady

If everybody’s a six, probably shouldn’t make the investment… If three people are nines and three people are one, we should probably make the investment.

— Pat Grady

We’re in the outlier business.

— Pat Grady

The two fears—fear of missing out and fear of looking stupid—are the two fears that prevent people from making the right decisions.

— Alfred Lin

The stability at the partnership level is what allows for volatility at the partner level.

— Pat Grady

Stewardship vs CEO-style leadership in ventureOutliers and volatility as a feature, not a bugInput-based measurement: values and capabilitiesSourcing: coverage vs “false coverage”Picking: conviction, ownership, and asymmetryTalent mapping and engineering-quality signalsWinning and board onboarding built on trust

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