Michael Moritz

Michael Moritz worked as a technology journalist at Time magazine before joining Sequoia Capital in 1986. His investment track record includes early investments in Yahoo!, Google, PayPal, Zappos, LinkedIn, and Stripe — each generating billion-dollar returns. Moritz became one of the most recognized and respected venture capitalists globally, known for his ability to identify transformative companies at early stages. He wrote biographies of Steve Jobs and Nike's Phil Knight before his VC career. He eventually became chairman of Sequoia, stepping back from active investing due to health reasons. Moritz's journalistic background gave him a distinctive perspective on storytelling and narrative that he brought to evaluating startups — his ability to quickly grasp the broader social and cultural implications of a technology product, not just its technical or financial characteristics, was central to his exceptional deal selection across four decades of investing.