Welcome to Goldman Sachs exchanges, great investors.

I'm Ken Hersch, co-chairman of the Global Technology, Media, and Telecom Group,

and head of venture capital coverage within Goldman Sachs's global banking and markets business.

Today, I have the great pleasure of speaking to Roloff Bota, the managing partner of

Sequoia Capital.

Born in South Africa, Roloff has become one of Silicon Valley's most highly respected investors, while Sequoia is perhaps

the most storied venture capital firm on Earth. Founded in 1972, Sequoia-backed companies now make

up more than a quarter of the NASDAQ's market

capitalization and roll-off is determined to take Sequoia to new heights even if it

means rewriting the VC playbook. We're going to talk about his career, his

investments, and his vision for the future.

So let's dive in.

Rolloff, thanks for being here.

It's great to see you.

Thank you very much for hosting me and for inviting me to have this conversation.

So you grew up in South Africa where you excelled as a student and trained as an actuary.

You became the CFO of PayPal at the age of 29, where you helped lead the company through an IPO and then an acquisition.

But then you left for Sequoia. What can you share about your journey from South Africa to PayPal,

and what led you to transition from pursuing a career as an operator

to venture capital investing.

So let me take a step back.

I finished high school in 1990, which is the year that the ANC was unband and Nelson Mandela was released and at that time it was unclear that South Africa would have a peaceful transition of power and the future of the country just seemed very uncertain.

...