Crucible Moments

Sequoia Capital
  • 5,0 (2)
  • ONDERNEMERSCHAP
  • TWEEWEKELIJKS
Crucible Moments

A podcast about the inflection points that shaped some of the most significant companies of our time. Crucible moments are pivotal decisions that determine your trajectory. In Season 2, hear from founders and leaders like Steve Chen of YouTube, Drew Houston of Dropbox, Frank Slootman of ServiceNow and Tony Xu of DoorDash, Steve Huffman of Reddit and more about how they navigated the challenges and opportunities that defined their stories. Hosted by Roelof Botha of Sequoia Capital. The content of this podcast does not constitute investment advice, an offer to provide investment advisory services or an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund.

  1. 11 UUR GELEDEN

    Natera ft. Matthew Rabinowitz - A Personal Mission That Led to a Biotech Revolution

    Founder Matthew Rabinowitz opens up about the intensely personal journey that set him on a course to revolutionizing healthcare. A PhD in electrical engineering, he had no background in genetics or biology, but after his sister had a baby with Down syndrome that hadn’t been detected and tragically died after 6 days, Matthew dedicated himself to solving this problem. After overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles, today Natera leverages molecular biology and novel bioinformatics technology to provide prenatal screening in nearly half of U.S. pregnancies, as well as transforming oncology and organ transplants. Hear about Matthew’s vision for the future of computational biology and its profound impact on human health. Host: Roelof Botha, Sequoia Capital Featuring: Matthew Rabinowitz, Jonathan Sheena, Steve Chapman, Chitra Kotwaliwale, Sarah Elliot

    53 min
  2. LIVE: DoorDash’s Tony Xu and Miki Kuusi Talk Scaling Operational Excellence

    14 NOV.

    LIVE: DoorDash’s Tony Xu and Miki Kuusi Talk Scaling Operational Excellence

    Tony Xu and Miki Kuusi share insights from building two of the world's most successful delivery platforms—DoorDash and Wolt—which merged in 2022 to create an $80B GOV business operating in 32 countries. In this candid conversation with Sequoia's Alfred Lin live at a Sequoia event in Europe, they discuss the challenges of scaling operational excellence, maintaining culture through hypergrowth and the future of commerce in cities. Host: Alfred Lin, Sequoia Capital Featuring: Tony Xu, Miki Kuusi

    29 min
  3. DoorDash ft. Tony Xu – The “Wrong” Moves That Built a Giant

    24 OKT.

    DoorDash ft. Tony Xu – The “Wrong” Moves That Built a Giant

    DoorDash faced skeptics from the start. Grubhub, Delivery.com, and others were already addressing the restaurant delivery market when CEO Tony Xu and his co-founders started in 2013. But after talking to hundreds of local small businesses, they realized there was still an unmet need: None of the competitors solved the problem of delivery with an on-demand workforce, the way Uber had done with drivers. After struggling to raise initial funding, DoorDash found traction. But the next few years would prove tumultuous, with cash scarcity and investor skepticism putting the company perilously close to the brink. The founders’ contrarian decisions, clarity on their commitment to serve small local businesses, and ability to out-operate competitors has turned DoorDash into one the decade’s startup success stories. In this episode, Tony brings us inside their decision-making, and what DoorDash saw that others missed. Host: Roelof Botha, Sequoia Capital Featuring: Tony Xu, Keith Yandell, Miki Kuusi, Alfred Lin

    53 min
  4. UiPath ft. Daniel Dines - From Bootstrapping in Bucharest to One of Software’s Biggest IPOs

    10 OKT.

    UiPath ft. Daniel Dines - From Bootstrapping in Bucharest to One of Software’s Biggest IPOs

    The biggest enterprise software company to come out of Europe in the last decade didn’t come from London, Paris, Berlin or Stockholm—but Bucharest, Romania.  UiPath, founded in 2005 and originally called DeskOver, was a scrappy handful of engineers bootstrapping out of an apartment in Bucharest for about a decade, seeking in vain for product-market fit. When they stumbled upon an opportunity in the nascent enterprise software category of Robotic Process Automation, the company did a hard pivot, changed their name to UiPath, and rocketed from obscurity to the fastest-growing SaaS company ever at the time. After a successful IPO, today they are the global category leader in RPA. The unlikely rise of UiPath is an inspiration and a reminder that you can build something great from anywhere.  Host: Roelof Botha, Sequoia Capital Featuring: Daniel Dines, Andra Ciorici-Chelmus, Brandon Deer, Luciana Lixandru

    42 min
  5. Reddit ft. Steve Huffman - The Making (and Remaking) of the Front Page of the Internet

    26 SEP.

    Reddit ft. Steve Huffman - The Making (and Remaking) of the Front Page of the Internet

    Reddit is one of the largest and most culturally influential sites on the internet—and its journey is one of the most unusual company stories in internet history. College roommates Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian founded Reddit in 2005 and scaled it on a shoestring until Condé Nast acquired it the following year. Struggling for direction under its parent company, the founders left, and Condé Nast ultimately spun it out as an independent company once again. With Reddit buckling under user discontent in 2015, founder Steve Huffman returned as CEO to save the company and navigate the way forward. Over the following nine years, Reddit stabilized and the company’s revenue grew more than 50-fold to a successful IPO 19 years in the making. Host: Roelof Botha, Sequoia Capital Featuring: Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian, Chris Slowe, Jen Wong, Alfred Lin

    43 min
  6. MongoDB ft Dev Ittycheria - How an Early Pivot Catalyzed an Open Source Movement

    12 SEP.

    MongoDB ft Dev Ittycheria - How an Early Pivot Catalyzed an Open Source Movement

    MongoDB, founded in 2007, originally aimed to create a platform-as-a-service system with a new database layer. Facing competition from Google, the founders pivoted to focus solely on their database product, MongoDB—a new kind of database built for the scale of the internet era. Founder Dwight Merriman built a product that developers loved, but scaling the company proved challenging until Dev Ittycheria took the reins as CEO in 2014. As cloud computing grew, MongoDB transitioned from on-premise software to Atlas, a fully-managed cloud service. Despite initial skepticism, Atlas now represents 70% of MongoDB's revenue. As Atlas scaled, MongoDB faced another controversial decision: whether to change its open source license model to maintain its commercial moat. These pivotal decisions transformed MongoDB from a niche database to nearly $2 billion in annual revenue. Host: Roelof Botha, Sequoia Capital Featuring: Dwight Merriman, Dev Ittycheria and Tom Killalea Transcript: https://www.sequoiacap.com/podcast/crucible-moments-mongodb/ 00:00 - Cold Open 00:19 - Introduction 05:30 - The NoSQL movement 09:52 - Scrapping the platform for the database 14:57 - Launching as MongoDB 19:52 - Moving to the cloud with Atlas 24:52 - Assigning a directly responsible individual 30:15 - How Atlas changed MongoDB 35:03 - Updating the licensing model to avoid “strip mining” 39:50 - Evolving back into a platform 41:26 - Executing on points of leverage

    44 min
  7. ServiceNow ft. Frank Slootman and Fred Luddy - From Starting Over at 50 to Dodging a $150B Mistake

    29 AUG.

    ServiceNow ft. Frank Slootman and Fred Luddy - From Starting Over at 50 to Dodging a $150B Mistake

    In 2004, bankrupt after the company where he’d previously worked had imploded, Fred Luddy decided to start over as a first-time founder at age 50. His vision was to reinvent the nascent IT software field for the cloud era. What started as simple help desk replacement software would eventually become a ~$150B market cap company powering digital workflows across the enterprise—but success didn’t come easy. Initially bootstrapped and ultra-lean, the company’s infrastructure began buckling under its own success as customer demand spiked. When the legendary Frank Slootman joined as CEO to help scale the company, he describes being terrified to check his email every morning. Hear how Frank, Fred and the team stabilized the business, expanded their product offerings, and nearly made a $150B+ mistake by selling too early.   Host: Roelof Botha, Sequoia Capital Featuring: Fred Luddy, Frank Slootman, Doug Leone, Pat Grady, Carl Eschenbach Transcript: https://www.sequoiacap.com/podcast/crucible-moments-servicenow/ 00:00 - Cold open 00:22 - Introduction 02:09 - Fred Luddy’s journey to coding 03:33 - Founding ServiceNow after financial ruin 07:11 - Finding product-market fit 15:16 - Finding a new CEO in Frank Slootman  22:19 - Overcoming scaling challenges  29:54 - Contemplating an acquisition offer 32:07 - Blocking the sale 38:17 - Lessons learned

    42 min
  8. Crucible Moments Season 2: Coming August 29

    22 AUG.

    Crucible Moments Season 2: Coming August 29

    In Season 1 of Crucible Moments, we heard from founders like PayPal’s Max Levchin, Block’s Jack Dorsey, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and more about the turning points and key decisions that shaped their journeys. Now Crucible Moments is back for another exciting season. We’ll get the unvarnished history and inside story from Tony Xu of DoorDash, Drew Houston of Dropbox, Frank Slootman of ServiceNow, Vlad Tenev of Robinhood and more. Hosted by Roelof Botha of Sequoia Capital.

    2 min
Bekijk alles (18)

Trailer

Beoordelingen en recensies

5
van 5
2 beoordelingen

Info

A podcast about the inflection points that shaped some of the most significant companies of our time. Crucible moments are pivotal decisions that determine your trajectory. In Season 2, hear from founders and leaders like Steve Chen of YouTube, Drew Houston of Dropbox, Frank Slootman of ServiceNow and Tony Xu of DoorDash, Steve Huffman of Reddit and more about how they navigated the challenges and opportunities that defined their stories. Hosted by Roelof Botha of Sequoia Capital. The content of this podcast does not constitute investment advice, an offer to provide investment advisory services or an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund.

Informatie

  • Kanaal
    Sequoia Capital
  • Maker
    Sequoia Capital
  • Jaren actief
    2023 - 2024
  • Afleveringen
    18
  • Beoordeling
    Veilig

Meer van Sequoia Capital

Suggesties voor jou

Om naar expliciete afleveringen te luisteren, moet je inloggen

Blijf op de hoogte van dit programma

Log in of meld je aan om programma’s te volgen, afleveringen te bewaren en de laatste updates te ontvangen.
Kies een land of regio

Afrika, Midden-Oosten en India

Azië, Stille Oceaan

Europa

Latijns-Amerika en het Caribisch gebied

Verenigde Staten en Canada