Doug Leone of Sequoia Capital.gettyWhen Doug Leone announced his retirement in 2022 from his role as “senior steward” of storied venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, it was the end of an era. The billionaire venture capitalist had run the fund with Mike Moritz since its founder Don Valentine stepped down in 1996. Now he’s actively making investments again at Sequoia, just four years later, in a newly created “chairman” role, the firm announced Tuesday. Leone’s new position comes after a turbulent time for Sequoia Capital. He handed the baton to his successor Roelof Botha just a year ahead of the fund’s mandatory retirement age of 65. But Botha faced flak from Washington over the firm’s China arm. In 2023, he spun off both that office as well as Sequoia India, which invested in Southeast Asia. Botha resigned suddenly as senior steward, the firm’s leadership position, in November. Investors Alfred Lin and Pat Grady jointly stepped into the role. “Doug passed the baton a few years back, but he never left: he’s been in the office, working on boards, and serving as consigliere to the next generation,” Grady wrote in an announcement post on X. “When we realized how much gas Doug has left in the tank, we invited him to ramp back up as an investor at Sequoia.”Before stepping down, Italian-born Leone had backed companies like ServiceNow, NuBank and Wiz and had overseen Sequoia’s global expansion. But he remained involved, continuing to manage his boards. Recently he celebrated one of his biggest ever wins, when Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz was acquired by Google for $32 billion.