YouSaid · the spoken record

Sir Michael Moritz

lines on the record: 62
first: 2015-11-04
most recent: 2015-11-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You can have lower prices. You know, if you don't need gas, you don't need a car anymore, for example. You don't need to pay for the gas station. You don't need to pay for maintenance. You got money for other things. You're wasting money on all kinds of things. It doesn't work in every place, but it does work in a lot of places.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A waste of time and money and marketing and putting on the shelves, it doesn't make any sense. It's like displaying it. Right. Like there's so many other good ways of getting it, and one of the things we had of Walmart to code two years ago maybe, and he was talking about that Walmart's not going to have big stores someday. Like you're going to have a 10,000 square foot store maybe to look at certain things, some things you do want to look at, and you want to see televisions bring to mind, something you do want to physically see, but most things, you know, serial, you don't need to see the serial.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, not just here, but I mean bigger. No, no. I think it's just no stores. I think Amazon, yes. I think what Amazon's doing around delivering goods and services and then others that are following are super important. I don't think we'll have the grocery.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think a lot of them will just go away. They'll just go away. Yeah. And then the ones with the preparing meals, I don't think it's very scalable. I'm sorry. I don't. I think it's that because it just isn't. Not many people want to do that. I think you either get your groceries delivered, which I think is important, or you have your meal delivered, but the in-between is a little odd.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They are dying for business. I'm suddenly getting inundated by all the delivery services, use me, use me, use me. And, you know, I use one now, I guess. I think I use Montreal more than others. I happen to like the food. But I don't use it a lot. And I think that's the question is how long can VCs fund these things? That said, the ones like Instacart or Caviar words from restaurants makes total sense to me. It's like Open Table or Yelp. You know what I mean? These companies can't do these individual businesses can't do delivery as well as they should, and it's a great way to do delivery.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, they did. So it was interesting. I had Mike Moritz and he was Mr. Webb van. He had the big investment in Web Van, and we laughed about it. But, you know, the conceptual idea was correct, the idea of getting not having to go to stores and everything. It's ridiculous to go to a store and hunt and grab things. It just doesn't make any sense. It's so inefficient from an energy point of view, from a time point of view. And the delivery stuff is smart. So I think WebVAM was much too early, and people didn't have smartphones. Again, it's all based around a smartphone, I think. And so I think conceptually the idea was correct. It wasn't executed correctly back then because the thing timing is everything. I really am intrigued by a lot of these services. At the same time, there's too many of them. They're too low price.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's very invigorating to do two things one, to test yourself to see if you can still perform at a high level. And the second is to be around young people brimming with ideas and vigour and energy about doing something that really matters.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or stripe an Instacart right here in San Francisco, young, private companies, all three of them run by fantastic founding teams just fantastic. And this is an exciting time to be investing in technology, and I think we all think life, the investments are coming fast and furious, but I think the next 10, 15 years, the developments are going to be even faster than they've been in the last 10 years.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“With a whole bunch of companies, including some very young companies like, you mentioned Klaner in Sweden. Which is very exciting.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Last question. You step back a little bit from Sequoia due to an illness. You seem very passionate right now, speaking of passionate as being a leadership quality. How do you feel about your career right now?”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I'm not worried about it because I think any company and board of directors that assumes that those sorts of punitive financing terms deserve whatever God bless them if they sail through it and succeed. That's terrific. That's wonderful for them. But if they eventually found her and have to pay the piper, they only have to look in the mirror to see who was to blame.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, the money might have come easily, but they'll eventually discover it's not easy money. It's extremely painful because what they have done is the private equivalent of taking on a huge amount of subprime obligations. And these companies have raised capital. At very sporty valuations, but the capital is not equity capital, it's debt in everything but legal name and will be very painful when those if those companies don't deliver on their promises.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All of which is really healthy. However, I think there are a number, not a number of companies who operate in the private market that are just deluding themselves and are using the shadows and privacy that being private offers to not disclose very much about what they're doing, particularly to investors, to camouflage reality, to camouflage the truth, and to deceive themselves of reality. And that's compounded by the way in which some of them have raised capital.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was this was a piece that appeared in the Financial Times recently, and the only point I was trying to make was that operating in a private as a private company offers a whole bunch of benefits for the operator that can be put to good use and Google and Facebook famously operated, I think, make great success of being private to grow their businesses quickly, recruit lots of people with favorably priced stock options, be able to hide from, which a lot of unicorns are doing now, the scrutiny of competitors in particular, who didn't realize how good their business was, and to operate in a fairly stealthy fashion. And to sort of learn, stutter in the private market before speaking fluently in the public market. However...”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And what works in Germany? Doesn't work like that. So, I want to finish up talking about an essay you did very quickly about private companies and the downfalls of them and the pluses. You contrasted Dell with Theranos, obviously Theranos is in the news due to the issues around their blood testing equipment. Dell just bought EMC. How do you look, talk a little bit about what you were trying to get to there?”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Chinese. Yeah, there are a few, but I think he's the example that proves the rule. Right. And most assume that China is a slightly larger version of Germany. And what works in Germany can therefore work in China. It doesn't work quite right. But the Chinese have a set of rules and they're quite clear about those. But they're also very clear as well in our opinion that they welcome things that will make life better for their citizens.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Openness and willingness to learn about how they need to modify their company's products for success here. I think the American companies still have less of the leaders of these companies unfortunately have less of an inclination to go to China and say, we know nothing about your country. We're here to learn. We can't say,”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it I don't think it's easy to cross boundaries for any company, whether it's Chinese company coming to America or vice versa. The Chinese companies are probably better equipped to do it than the American companies, and it's not for the reason that most people point to, which is regulation. There's a lot of regulation in America that doesn't help a Chinese company coming here. But the language barrier isn't as tricky for a Chinese company coming here as it is in the other direction. Many of the management team of these Chinese companies have spent time at American universities and have lived in America and have a better sense and sense of feeling for America, understanding of America than their counterparts do for China. They also have a”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there seven of the twenty most valuable internet companies in the world are Chinese. That isn't in twenty thirty, that's in october twentieth or november twenty fifteen.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For a different reasons, I think they will go and particularly Xiaomi emulate the Huawei strategy and probably go to most other countries around the world before they would think about coming to the US or the US or Canada or Europe, and Tencent has been busy making investments in US companies as their foothold. It's an extremely well managed, very, very impressive company. But they have great global ambitions.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it is the leading drone company in the world. It gets the majority of its sales from the US market. I think most people, if they just opened the box of DJI and took out one of these drones, would say, oh, this was built in Cupertino or Mountain View. It's built in Shenz”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Companies coming here At Chinese consumers who live here, but there are some really good examples that I think are harbingers of things to come. DJI. Is a drone”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's been difficult, but it is something that if you approach it correctly, is eminently achievable, and I think we're going to see a lot more of that over the next 10. That's the big second chapter.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where operated thanks to Neil Shen and others now for thirteen or fourteen years, but because the interrelationships that are growing up between these companies and the importance of the US market increasingly for Chinese companies and for US companies to have a springboard in which to go and prosecute their business in China has been difficult.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've always been very bad, and I'm certainly no soothsayer about, and everybody can talk about all these buzz phrases about virtual reality or AI or the Internet of Things. And all the buzz phrases, all the importance of mobile, none of that means all that much to me. We just try and find a business that sounds very interesting, that does something meaningful. And one of the reasons I'm so skittish about trying to predict anything is that some of the very best businesses are ones pursuing the most unlikely sorts of things that when you first hear about them, you think are utterly implausible. And one bright shining example of that in our portfolio today is... And not just as a domestic market. Market, right?”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When both of us started our various journeys in Silicon Valley, you would wake up in the morning and maybe see your alarm clock, but you wouldn't see a device that allowed you to go on adventure along perhaps two million different journeys that you could take before you left your bed. Yeah.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The ubiquitousness of technology Absolutely. I mean, one of the things I think about is it's a little like electricity. It was very much thought of when it was invented and then it becomes invisible. And now it's invisibly in every single thing.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Klana and Stripe and Square and Prosper and several others in China India, we would never in the early nineteen eighties have dreamed in a million years that we'd be investing in all of these different segments, so that without doubt is the largest change. So the ubiquitous of technology. Yeah, and it's the fact that computing is no great insight here. It's just that computing has just got so much cheaper, particularly obviously with the proliferation of smartphones.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The biggest change is the way in which technology infuses so many more parts of the economy than it did when at least I got started and got my feet wet in the business, when our investment diet was largely at that time semiconductor companies and computer systems companies and maybe some disk drive companies. Right, and then software. And a little bit of software, but then the personal computer business came along and began to change everything. But now you look at where technology is and where investors, the technology investors the world over are investing, and they now have a way to invest in retailers, in entertainment companies, information companies, the advertising business, the software business, healthcare business, so many different logistics businesses, so many different businesses that we, financial services,”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, a venture capitalist. Yes. I was a journalist. I worked at Time magazine for a few years and then left and started a company, a little company that many years later, not thanks to me, but others, became part of Dad Jones and then in 1986 joined Sequoia Capital.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Global entity and a business. It's a global business now Public company Florida family, right? Thanks largely to the growth of video coverage. rather than just television coverage and the number of devices on I often watch United Games on my cell phone.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“others. The other thing that he was also keen to do was to take advantage of changes as they developed and where they made sense for his club. So diets changed the technology underneath the soccer pitches themselves changed training routines changed massively over the course of the forty or fifty years that he himself was coaching. So where it made sense, he was a video analysis at Manchester United. And then externally it wasn't really under his umbrella as much, clubs like United took great advantage of the spread of technology as well, whether at first it was cable television, then satellite, and now obviously mobile and social networks.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“didn't have, didn't share enough compassion or empathy, I think early on as he was finding his own way. I think probably that's common and true of anybody in their twenties and thirties. It's just as you grow through and go through life and see more examples of human behavior. You become more nuanced in your understanding of”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They hide it. Amazon should be a company that the New York Times and others celebrate, the accomplishments of that company, that management team are just staggering”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I read the story in the New York Times, and if you had the choice between being a shareholder in the New York Times Company and in Amazon, I know which one I would pick. And I thought it was a harsh, uncharitable story of one of America's great companies. And if you go into all of the great companies, it can be Google, Facebook, right? Intel, Argo, Cisco, Microsoft, Amazon. At the peak of their glory they're all hard tough, uncompromising places to work.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why it depends, I think every business is different, but if the high performing companies, you won't see them tolerate a lack of performance for very long. I know certainly for us we don't. You want to give everybody a shot, you want to do everything you can to make somebody succeed, but then if they stray off the reservation or underperform, there's not going to be a place for them in a high performing organization.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, one of the famous examples at Manchester United is that there was an extremely good, if not great player called Roy Keane. Who was the captain of the club for many years, who questioned Sir Alex's authority? one or two occasions, and after he did that the morning afterwards he was gone, and David Beckham, when he began to get distracted by the siren call of celebrity, was immediately traded to Rail Madrid. or other examples of players who did something silly or perhaps there were a few who out drinking for New Year's who were or for Christmas who were suspended for three games even though a couple of them were the star players of the era and United's performance would suffer from the fact that they weren't in their”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What we talked about delegating and trusting people, giving people a sense of purpose, having perpetuating a sense of discipline within any organization.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I try and shut out the rest of the world when I'm really concentrating on something. Absolutely, yes. I just don't think you can work very effectively on the wedge. So when I was writing the book, for example, I tend to start working at, you know, five in the morning and work until 7.30 without looking at television, without checking email, without doing at my phone because... At least in that pursuit it was it just took your mind away from the matter at hand.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They didn't want it to be. Or Bill Gates early on took the TV tuner out of his television because he didn't want to get distracted by watching television channels and all he did wanted to do was watch educational videotapes. So he took the radio out of his car dashboard because he didn't want to be distracted by radio chatter, including fine programs like this, I suspect.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When he was working at Majesty United, he'd make a couple of charity appearances a year, but he always felt going to have lunch with somebody was a big distraction. It took him away from the training ground it meant to drive to and from the lunch, and before you knew it there was two hours out of the day. Or showing up at work 20 minutes late because you want to read the, you know, in the earlier days you'd read a printed newspaper. He wouldn't do stuff like that. Or closing off lots of invitations that just take away from the hours that you can devote to your job. And you look at Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg or any other really successful technology leaders, they are very good about shutting out the things that don't matter for the thing that they can.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When somebody's successful Sir Alex or if you're running a company like Google or another hike of Facebook or any of these high profile companies there are all sorts of demands on your time. By entities and people who will not benefit the business in any way. And one thing Sir Alex did, for example, was refuse to go to lunch.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right, but eventually he obviously was hollowed out by the terrible illness. And then there are other people who get distracted, and they no longer can summon that inner drive that propel them perhaps during the first 10 or 20 years of their working life and they enjoy great success. Everybody's constituted differently. Right.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It can be sustained. Sir Alex is an example of it, and he even though he wasn't a founder of Manchester United, he acted like a founder. He acted with the ownership sensibility of one of the great founders that you'd find in one of the great Silicon Valley or one of the technology companies. But whether or not it can be sustained depends on the individual. and there are examples of individuals who are able to mend Steve Jobs. Is an example like that.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“outside they're able to display great confidence. They're confident enough to choose their own path rather than react to what others are doing and reacting to competitors because then you're not leading, you're really just following. Right.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The personalities, the accents. The sex. Me differ, obviously. But there are underlying attributes that I think span different organizations, soccer club, venture firm, technology company hospital. The really successful leader will be is obsessed with something. It's the center of their life. It demands all of their attention. They have In a strength and conviction and confidence they may privately be afraid of failing from time to time, but”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's always somebody in different generations who leads a soccer club or a business like ours, and it's been Sir Alex at United. I wouldn't say that any of the three names that I'm about to mention, whether it was Don Valentine who started Sequoil, who is the leader today or myself while I was doing it, none of us had either the left or the right foot of Alex Ferguson.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Extremely controversial. But the right long term decision for United because the team and the organization is indeed bigger than any individual and that's what we've always felt and that it's very difficult with a team of soccer players to have 11 people consistently performing in every game at a high level and it's the same is true inside of an investment partnership and on a soccer field a striker or a defender is different from a goalkeeper and so too inside of a venture firm people like Douglone, Jim Getz, Roloff, Bota, some of the Alfred Lynn, some of the other people that Neil Shannon China, Shilandrin sing in India, everybody has different strengths. And persuading people whether it's in a soccer team or inside of an investment partnership to recognize the others.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've always thought of ourselves as a team in these days as a collection of different teams because we also work in China and India and have a couple of other businesses, but it's a team approach and that no individual is bigger than the team. And that was true for Sir Alex. And for example, when David Beckham and others began to feel for whatever reason that they were perhaps a bit larger than the club. Right.”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think it starts at home and for us home is Sequoia Capital. And those are the same sorts of things that we've tried to build inside of our own partnership, thinking that before we can go and invest and espouse these sorts of principles, we've got to practice it ourselves. But it is true of some of the companies in which we've been fortunate enough to be invested. So getting”
2015-11-04 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Sequoia Capital Chairman Sir Michael Moritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT