Divot5 Mars 2025

#1: Sequoia’s Doug Leone: Trauma, Hardship, Purpose, and Silicon Valley’s Top Firm

Doug Leone believes that the toughest challenges create the strongest people. From immigrating to the U.S. at age 11 and struggling through his teenage years to becoming the global leader of Sequoia Capital, Doug’s journey is filled with hard-earned lessons on resilience, success, and leadership.

Who is Doug Leone?

Doug Leone is a billionaire venture capitalist and former Global Managing Partner at Sequoia Capital. He joined Sequoia in 1988 and became a managing partner in 1996, later taking on the global managing role in 2012. Throughout his career, Doug has played a pivotal role in backing companies like ServiceNow, Nubank, Wiz, Airbnb, RingCentral, and Palo Alto Networks, while also leading Sequoia’s expansion into China and India. Before joining Sequoia, he worked in sales and management roles at Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and Prime Computer.

In this episode of Divot, we explore:

Why early struggles shape the most successful people
The hardest moments of Doug’s career—and how he turned them into wins
How Sequoia built one of the strongest VC cultures in Silicon Valley
What great founders have in common
The mindset needed to win in business and life

Doug helped shape companies like ServiceNow, Nubank, Wiz, and Aruba Networks. Now, he’s sharing what he’s learned so you can apply it, too.

Episode Partners:

Notion Startups get up to 6 months free of Notion with unlimited AI. Apply now, and enter code SGXNotion to build and scale your company with just one tool.

Google Cloud Accelerate your AI startup with the Google for Startups Cloud Program. Apply today.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Divotdotorg

X (Twitter): https://x.com/divotdotorg

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/divotdotorg

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@divot.org

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/divotdotorg/

Follow Derek Andersen:

X (Twitter): https://x.com/derekjandersen

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(67)

How Google X Makes Radical Innovation Repeatable by Rewarding Intelligent Failure

Astro Teller is the entrepreneur, AI scientist, and Captain of Moonshots who has led X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory, for more than 15 years. Under his leadership, X helped incubate Google Brain, Waymo...

16 Sep 56min

From His Darkest Moment to 50M Followers: How MDMotivator Turned Pain Into Purpose

Zachery Dereniowski, better known as MDMotivator, left medical school after the pandemic, a devastating breakup, a torn ACL, and crushing isolation pushed him to the lowest point of his life. Today, h...

9 Sep 1h 12min

The Lean Startup's Creator on Why Good Companies Go Bad & How to Make Yours Incorruptible

Eric Ries created the Lean Startup methodology and wrote "The Lean Startup," a New York Times bestseller that has sold more than a million copies in over 30 languages, teaching a generation of founder...

2 Sep 44min

The Modern Dating Problem No One Is Actually Talking About Honestly - Shark Tank Dating Coach

Blaine Anderson is the Shark Tank dating coach for men who built Dating by Blaine from a COVID-forced career pivot into a company with 7,000 clients and over 1 million followers. She accepted Mark Cub...

26 Aug 1h 27min

#61: He Built Apple's First Computers for $3 an Hour. Steve Jobs Never Gave Him Stock

Daniel Kottke met Steve Jobs at Reed College in 1972, traveled with him to India, and spent the summer of 1976 hand-assembling the very first Apple computers in the Jobs family garage in Cupertino, fo...

19 Aug 59min

#60: Grant Cardone: The Mindset That Built $4 Billion From Zero & Why Ambition Is a Moral Obligation

Grant Cardone grew up in the bayous of Louisiana with no money, no connections, and no plan, and spent a decade battling drug addiction before rebuilding from scratch. Today, his privately held compan...

5 Aug 1h 13min

#59: Mark Manson: 20 Million Books, an AI Startup, and Why Most Therapists Don't Actually Help

Mark Manson is a three-time NYT number one bestselling author whose book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" has sold more than 20 million copies across 65 languages, hitting number one in 14 countr...

29 Juli 1h 27min

#58: Greg Isenberg on AI Co-Founders, the Multi-Preneur, and Why Anyone Can Build a Startup Now

Greg Isenberg is the entrepreneur and AI strategist behind Late Checkout, a portfolio of AI-native businesses powered by agents and online communities. He founded FiveBuy, acquired by StumbleUpon, and...

22 Juli 1h 1min