All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg Sequoia’s Roelof Botha: Why Venture Capital is Broken & How Great Companies Are Built
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Oct 9, 2025 
Roelof Botha, a Partner at Sequoia Capital and early investor in YouTube and Stripe, discusses the broken state of venture capital, citing too much capital chasing too few great companies. He shares insights on Sequoia's successful Scout program, emphasizes the importance of empathy in investing, and explains why they focus on core funds and strategic LP alignment. Roelof also highlights the traits of great founders, the necessity of ongoing relationships post-IPO, and Sequoia's cautious approach to biotech investments.
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Origin And Success Of The Scout Program
- Sequoia launched the Scout program in 2010 to let early founders invest using Sequoia capital.
- That Scout fund later returned ~26x driven by early bets like Uber and Stripe.
Too Much Capital, Too Few Winners
- The venture industry has far more capital than it can profitably deploy.
- More money does not create proportionally more great companies, so returns dilute industry-wide.
Automate VC Workflows With Product Teams
- Build internal tools to scale partner productivity rather than bloating operating teams.
- Use engineers to make investor workflows and data easily accessible on mobile and desktop.