Sequoia’s Michael Moritz Q&A: Venture Capital Is ‘High-Risk Poker’ - Bloomberg Business

Sequoia's Moritz: Venture Capital Is 'High-Risk Poker'

During the 2008 financial crisis, Sequoia Capital coined a phrase that neatly encapsulated the pain felt by its fellow venture capitalists and technology companies: "RIP Good Times." Michael Moritz, the firm's chairman and a British honorary knight, has been mulling over new ways to describe what's happening now.

The former journalist, who authored one of the first books about Apple and Steve Jobs called The Little Kingdom, has coming out a book co-written with Alex Ferguson, the former manager of storied English soccer club Manchester United and a fellow knight. Leading discusses the traits and management styles of strong leaders. Having spent time close to generations of Silicon Valley's brightest stars, Moritz has a thought or two on the topic.

You boiled down the traits of a distinctive leader to just two. One is obsession and two, a capacity for dealing with people. Is that it? Is that all it takes?

There's a fair amount more, but if you think about (at least in Silicon Valley terms) the people who have been very successful at building technology companies—today you might look at Jeff Bezos or Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg—these people are obsessed with, at the beginning, the products they want to build and then their companies. I think the very successful people are great at building teams around them and dealing with people.

You are so well known for your time chronicling the early days of Apple, and you spent time with Jobs. You were in favor with him; you were out of favor with him. I wonder what you learned, by watching Steve so closely, about what makes a good leader and what makes a bad leader.

The thing that Steve has in common with Sir Alex is the pursuit of perfection—obviously, in many ways. But for Steve, the product was never good enough, whether it was a computer or a phone or a tablet. So he was always thinking about the next thing.

Where did you leave it with him?

via www.bloomberg.com