Sequoia Capital has internal crash courses for its founders — here’s how they

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Recently, to create more room between itself and its ever-growing number of competitors, the firm has also begun fine-tuning a curriculum for the founders of both the pre-seed and seed-stage startups it has funded, as well as its Series A and B-stage founders.
According to Roelof Botha — the U.S. head of the venture firm since 2017 — and Jess Lee, a partner at Sequoia for nearly four years, the idea is to arm the individuals it backs with Sequoia’s vast “tribal knowledge” so they can not only compete with their rivals but, hopefully, outperform them.

Think three weeks of between three to six hours of programming a day, versus up to 10 weeks of more occasional programming for founders whose companies are more mature and who maybe can’t drop in for quite as much hands-on education.
Both programs are entirely opt-in, and so far, over the last three years, 80 founders have participated, with another 20 engaged in a seed-stage program that kicked off virtually this week.
Both are highly interactive and involve enough workshopping that founders are “walking out with deliverables,” says Lee.
Lee happens to lead programming around storytelling with Sequoia’s in-house design partner, James Buckhouse.
(They presented one small part of that module at our recent Extra Crunch event, which you can watch below.)

But many of the firm’s partners are involved in the program.
As a result, founders are exposed to many of the firm’s partners beyond the one who may have a seat on their board.
In fact, “Community is really the core element” of the programs, she says, adding that each “cohort really bonds with each other.”
Now and for the foreseeable future, it will be happening online, suggests Botha, who says he “emcees the entire Series A-stage program,” while Lee plays master of ceremonies to its earlier-stage founders.

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