29 Quotes by Douglas Leone

During dark times, real entrepreneurs come out. They are not competing with 10 look-alike companies for engineering talent, so it's a great time to invest and help build companies.

Raise as little as you can to get you to something that you can show - plus maybe a quarter or two so you have a little bit of cushion - and then raise some more money. Raise as little - not as much - as you can because that's the most expensive equity you're going to sell.

You meet with a CEO or founder. You talk about sales, engineering, product management and give some ideas or suggestions. And the founder quickly understands that you really can help them both operationally and from a strategic standpoint.

There's a number of companies clearly that we wish we had invested in either at the early or at the moderate stage.

If you choose a market that already exists, say, networking equipment, you have to compete with an established company like Cisco. Even if your product is marginally better, Cisco can fudge it and outsell you.

I'll say this: I can't think of one instance in my 20 years in venture capital in which I have wanted to sell a company before the entrepreneur.

If you start a successful company in China at 11 A.M., by 2 P.M. there's three more companies like it.

In a globalized world, one application can spread like wildfire and there's only one winning company, which means you have to invest more than you've ever had.

If I could press a button and have all of Sequoia Capital on the Midas List, I would choose to do that over a honoring a single individual.