After nearly a decade at the helm of Sequoia Capital, Roelof Botha will step aside as steward of the legendary Silicon Valley VC firm.
Botha—PayPal’s defining early CFO, who’s now known for backing companies like YouTube, Instagram, and Block—said Tuesday that he will pass the baton to Pat Grady and Alfred Lin.
“They have a fearlessness and resilience that’s necessary to win in this business,” Botha wrote in a letter that the firm posted on X. “They do not shy away from difficult conversations, and they roll up their sleeves to company-build—both with founders and within Sequoia.”
Botha, whom Fortune profiled last year, has presided over a tumultuous period in the history of Sequoia, which burst into the public eye most recently when the Financial Times reported that Sequoia COO Sumaiya Balbale had resigned owing to posts by Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire that she considered Islamophobic.
The firm—started in 1972 by Don Valentine, and a backer in the early days of companies like Atari and Apple—has experienced a number of big changes over recent years: In 2021, Sequoia restructured its U.S. and European funds into one evergreen fund, and two years later split off its China operations.
