Sequoia’s Top VC Doug Leone Wants to Invest in Tech’s ‘Spiky Founders’

• Doug Leone, Sequoia Capital’s global managing partner, says the firm looks for “spiky founders.”
• He says that to find these types of founders, the firm hires investors who “are a little edgy.”
• This year the firm has invested in 54 companies, including Bolt, Getir, and Citadel Securities.

Doug Leone, the famed investor and Sequoia Capital global managing partner, on Tuesday shared the secret quality he looks for in entrepreneurs, telling a theater packed with founders at the Startup Grind conference that the firm looks for “what we call a spiky founder.”

“And one of the things we look for is a little secret in what we call a spiky founder. It means you have something in your background — whether it’s intellect, whether it’s personal need to win, whatever — that makes you two standard deviations away from the normal type of person,” he said.

Leone said he meets with at least three founders a day, totaling about 15 a week. Already this year Sequoia’s team has invested in 54 companies — its highest checks included the e-commerce company Bolt, the Turkish delivery service Getir, and Citadel Securities.

The key to sourcing these “spiky founders,” Leone said, is hiring investors who “are a little edgy.”

“We hire people that had a shock in their system when they were growing up,” he said. “Maybe they were shunned. Maybe they were too smart for their own good. Maybe they were left by their parents. Maybe they were in vicious competition with a twin brother.” He said all these circumstances applied to investors at Sequoia today.

Leone said he was bullied in high school. “I was pissed off,” he said, adding that he put this energy into wanting to make a change in the world.

He said he believes Sequoia can better serve its spiky founders by hiring investors who are “doing it for a reason far greater than yourself.”

While interviewing investors to join Sequoia’s team, he looks for their motivations, he said. He asks “Why do you get up early in the morning?” or “Why are you so driven?” He said he acknowledges that while people are imperfect, “there has to be a good human being on the inside.”

“We put those people in an environment of trust,” he said of Sequoia’s team. “And we teach them that ‘we’ is better than ‘I.'” 

Leone will be stepping down from his role as Sequoia’s global managing partner in July, with Sequoia investor Roelof Botha taking over for Leone as new global leader.