You have to be willing to risk things; otherwise, somebody else will put you out of business.

Crystal-clear thinking is one of the things we look for - not a fancy slide pitch, but crystal-clear thinking.

Our business is all about helping someone - a founder, a CEO - building a great business. It's not about seeing our names in the press.

The trick is, a market has to be nonexistent when you start. If the market is large early on, you will have too many competitors. You have to make it large.

Give me an entrepreneur with a lot of courage, gusto and who iterates rapidly, and I will back that person day in and day out.

We have co-opted seed funds. You know, Y Combinator, that was completely our money. We have secret handshakes with a whole bunch of people. Very dangerous, because word gets out that so-and-so's money is Sequoia's money, that would not be a good thing.