One Life. No. 004
Don Valentine
Founder of Sequoia Capital
19322019
A Truck Driver’s Son Bet on Apple and Nvidia
8 sourcesTranscriptRead while listening
The story in brief
Don Valentine was born in New York in 1932. His father drove a milk truck, and neither parent had finished primary school. The military sent him to California; by 1960 he lived there, selling silicon chips and learning to spot giant markets. In 1972 a big investment company backed him to start what became Sequoia Capital, named for the tallest redwoods.
He bet on huge markets, not on how founders looked, and asked every founder: “Who cares?” Steve Jobs met him in sandals, yet in 1978 Valentine wrote Apple a $150,000 cheque (about $770,000 in 2026). His team sold the shares in 1979, before Apple went public. Dozens of investors had turned down Cisco; he backed it in 1987. In 1990, after its founders clashed with the boss he hired, the board he chaired fired Sandy Lerner, and Len Bosack quit. In 1993 his team backed Nvidia, Jensen Huang’s new graphics-chip company.
In the mid-1990s he stepped back; younger partners he hired took over and backed Google. Cisco, Apple and Google each became the world’s most valuable company before Valentine died in 2019, at 87. Nvidia followed in 2024. In October 2026 the three most valuable companies on Earth, Nvidia, Apple and Alphabet (Google), were all his team’s early bets, worth about a tenth of the world’s stock market.
In his own words
…very rich deal, management questionable for this evaluation.
If you lose my money, I’ll kill you.
We don’t choose people, we choose markets.
Sources (8)
- Donald T. Valentine, “Early Bay Area Venture Capitalists”, oral history by Sally Smith Hughes, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley (2010)
- Team Sequoia, “Remembering Don Valentine”, 25 October 2019, and Sequoia’s company pages
- Erin Griffith, “Don Valentine, Founder of Sequoia Capital, Is Dead at 87”, The New York Times, 25 October 2019
- TIME, “The Seeds of Success”, 15 February 1982; Business Insider on Sequoia’s release of his 1977 Apple memo, 2 April 2026
- Cisco’s heritage timeline (1987–2000); James Pelkey, A History of Computer Communications, §14.21
- Jensen Huang at Stanford Graduate School of Business, View From The Top (2024); NVIDIA, Form S-1/A, 13 January 1999 (SEC)
- Don Valentine at Stanford Graduate School of Business, “Target Big Markets” (2010)
- CNET, Bloomberg and CNBC on each new No. 1 (2000, 2011, 2016, 2024); companiesmarketcap.com, close of 5 October 2026; US CPI-U (BLS), August 2026
Updated October 7, 2026.
Transcript
His team bet on four tiny companies. Each became the world's most valuable company.
Cisco: the internet's plumbing. Apple: our phones. Google: our searches. Nvidia: the chips behind AI. His name was Don Valentine.
He was a milk-truck driver's son, and neither of his parents had finished primary school.
The military sent him to California, and he made it his home, selling a new invention: silicon chips. The valley would be named after them.
Selling chips, he learned how to spot giant markets, and put his own savings into young companies. It worked. In 1972, a big investment company backed him to start what became Sequoia.
He bet on huge markets, not on how founders looked. Every founder faced the same blunt question: "Who cares?" How many people would want this?
Steve Jobs showed up in sandals, and Don called him "a renegade from the human race". But Jobs wanted a computer for everyone, so Don backed Apple.
Dozens of investors had turned down Cisco, whose machines would carry the internet. Don backed it. When the founders later clashed with the boss he'd hired, the board he chaired fired one, and the other quit.
The head of a chip company Don had backed sent him Jensen Huang, 30, with a plan for graphics chips. His team invested, and Don joked: "If you lose my money, I'll kill you."
Then he stepped back, and younger partners he'd hired took over. They backed Google, YouTube and WhatsApp.
Cisco, Apple and Google each became the most valuable company on Earth. Don died in 2019, at 87. Within five years, Nvidia took the top spot too. Jensen hadn't lost the money.
In 2026, the three most valuable companies on Earth, Nvidia, Apple and Google, were all his team's early bets, worth about a tenth of the world's entire stock market.
Not bad for a milk-truck driver's son.
