Sequoia Capital passes the torch to two of its most public faces, naming Alfred Lin and Pat Grady Co‑Stewards as Roelof Botha transitions out of the Senior Steward role. The shift formalizes a shared leadership structure at one of the most powerful franchises in venture capital as it wrestles with a shifting market, recovers from high-profile stumbles and doubles down on early bets and seed investments.
Leadership Transition at a Critical Time
The timing is telling. Sequoia is trying to push through a more difficult venture cycle where exits have slowed, growth portfolios are marked down and there’s been a flight to quality in categories like AI and infrastructure software. Investment data firm PitchBook and CB Insights, which also track the industry, have noted a slowdown in late-stage deal flows and reset valuations — except when it comes to AI.
At the helm, Botha navigated Sequoia through a change of strategy. The firm took a one‑off write‑off share of collapsed crypto investment, re‑investigated risk practices and split off its China and India/SEA businesses as stand-alone entities that are now operating (and looking for co-investments) under the names HongShan and Peak XV Partners. Sequoia, internally too, is doubling down on its partnership-first kind of governance model — one that focuses squarely on backing ideas and not seniority.
Against that backdrop, the selection of two Stewards is a message of continuity with accountability. It capitalizes leadership to how Sequoia has long worked: a wide voting partnership, strong emphasis on apprenticeships and bias toward the game of building over that of investing in category leaders for the long haul.
Who Alfred Lin and Pat Grady Are at Sequoia Capital
A partner since 2010, Lin has been pivotal to Sequoia’s success in consumer marketplaces and fintech. He helped steer investments in Airbnb and DoorDash — now public-market fixtures — as well as, more recently, in Kalshi, a regulated events-exchange platform. Lin also led the firm’s post‑mortem of the crypto loss, publicly owning up to the miss and pushing for stronger underwriting around governance and counterparty risk. But that mix of high-conviction investing with the ability to recalibrate is why so many founders say he’s a “board-first” partner.
Grady, who came on board almost two decades ago, has been head of the growth-stage effort since 2015 and helped make standout investments in enterprise software and artificial intelligence. His previous investments include ServiceNow, as well as secondary transactions involving OpenAI for his firm and more recent bets like the legal AI startup Harvey. Grady’s mandate has been to turn those early wins for Sequoia into lasting, scaled results — a trickier and trickier job as late-stage financing rounds have consolidated behind fewer breakaway companies.
Between them, Lin and Grady hold the key to the two core engines of Sequoia; company formation and early traction on one side — disciplined scaling and capital efficiency on the other. It just so happens that this dual perspective is an ideal fit for a market in which the best start-ups efficiently raise seed and Series A rounds, only to confront a higher growth financing bar and eventual liquidity.
Why the Steward Model Matters for Sequoia’s Future
Sequoia’s “Steward” title isn’t cosmetic. While the firm has a consensus-driven culture — every single investor votes on new deals — the Steward role sets pace and standards. It influences how the firm prioritizes sectors, divides time between emerging founders versus later-stage C.E.O.s and translates lessons learned from wins and losses into firm-wide policy.
Botha habitually described the role as serving the partnership rather than commanding it. At that, the transition illustrates how leadership decisions at Sequoia ripple through the industry: They can determine which categories get early focus, how aggressively the firm backs secondary liquidity and what tone it adopts on governance after a cycle of exuberance followed by prudence.
Signals for Sequoia’s Strategy and the Broader Market
Recent moves point to a back‑to‑basics focus. Sequoia rolled out a $750 million vehicle focused on early-stage deals, specifically Series A investments, and a $200 million seed fund, effectively restocking some of its dry powder where the firm has historically made its outlier bets. Internally, partners have drilled into employees a simple mantra that they can see everywhere at the firm’s offices: the only thing that matters is the next great investment.
Look for the Co‑Stewards to continue leaning into durable software infrastructure, AI systems with clear unit economics and regulated fintech where Sequoia has pattern recognition. On the growth side, Grady’s team will likely remain picky, seeking companies with efficient revenue expansion and a credible path to the public markets. Renaissance Capital has observed a slow reopening of the IPO window, especially for profitable software and AI‑adjacent companies — which could bode well for Sequoia’s more mature investments.
The firm’s structural decisions over the past few years — testing out more flexible fund constructs to hold public positions for longer, and then simplifying its footprint across geographies — mirror a broader industry recalibration. “Exit timelines have elongated, crossover demand is turning more episodic and managers with strong governance record are winning a growing share of founder mindshare,” NVCA president and CEO, Bobby Franklin, said in a Medium post.
Seen under that lens, promoting Lin and Grady can be read as both a pragmatic handoff and a tactical gamble: the company‑builder’s eye joined by the scaler’s discipline, decision‑making pushed further into the partnership and attention shifted to creating the next wave of category leaders.
The message to founders, LPs and rival firms is clear: Sequoia plans on competing more than ever in the two places where it has always been most lethal — at the beginning, and at that point where everything feels like a race track with steeplechase walls, when discipline decides whether you survive or go down.
