Footnotes on Sequoia’s startup memo

Sequoia takes things seriously. The storied venture firm is known to react to macro-economic events with grand memos aimed at portfolio companies, and sometimes the entrepreneurship scene at large. Most recently, Sequoia created a 52-slide deck, first reported by The Information, titled Adapting to Endure; the document reads like a follow-up course to its infamously ill-timed “Coronavirus: The Black Swan of 2020” memo of March 2020.

The firm is not always right in its prognostications — which is maybe why it stuck to internal musings instead of a Medium post this time — but it does do a service in providing a snapshot of how one of the most weathered, and successful, firms of all time thinks about a looming downturn.

“Our intention in gathering today is not to be a beacon of gloom,” the deck reads. “But we also believe that winning in the years ahead is going to depend on making hard, decisive choices confronting uncomfortable challenges that may have been masked during the exuberance and distortions of free capital over the past two years.”