S2E18 - George Robson, Partner @ Sequoia Capital

George Robson is a Partner at the renowned Venture Capital firm, Sequoia. Preceding his time at Sequoia George worked first with Morgan Stanley and then with Revolut as the Senior Product Owner. 

During the time we had with George we were able to cover the lessons he learnt from his time at the financial technology company, what it was like working alongside its renowned founder, Nikolay Storonsky and his personal thesis when looking to invest in start-ups. George also addresses the topic of age and whether it may in fact provide him a competitive advantage. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] James: Hello, and welcome to riding unicorns. The podcast about growth startups. I'm James Pringle and my co-host is Hector Mason from episode one ventures.

[00:00:22] Today we are delighted to have George Robson partner at Sequioa on the podcast. Sequioa is one of the most renowned VC firms in the world. They've invested in over 10% of the world's tech unicorns. I think it's about 12 or 13%, which is an astonishing statistic.

[00:00:42] And George is leading the beachhead in Europe. As they look to expand beyond the us.

[00:00:49] Prior to Sequoia George was at Revolut where he led the premium plus product. So it'd be interesting to have a chat with him about that as well. And how that gives him . Context and perspective when [00:01:00] looking at new startups.

[00:01:05] Hi, George. Welcome to riding unicorns. Thanks for joining us

[00:01:09] George Robson: for sure. To be here.

[00:01:11] James: So please, can we start by getting background on your career and how you ended up at Sequoia?

[00:01:18] George Robson: Absolutely. I'm George Robertson. I'm a partner at Sequoia. I'm based here in London, here in the U a truancy court. When we open an office here on the ground a year ago, she went from revenue. I was at revenue for many years, building a mix of consumer products as the business expanded from the early days across the EU into north America and the Asia Pacific. as the business grew, I was building something called revenue premium, that, which is the premium subscription business managing fits their revenue plans. The insurance. gifting business and the like, and before that I was at Morgan Stanley, I co-founded an accelerator called kickstart global. actually worked on the hearing Clinton campaign, for a year when I was at university. So I'd done a mix of jobs.

[00:01:58] James: awesome. And what was it like [00:02:00] moving from, being part of a scale upside to actually now making investment decisions and meeting lots of farms.

[00:02:07] George Robson: So when I met Nikolai and, the founding team at revolution, it was clear to me that they have this incredible view of the world that they want to create in financial services. And that was a big piece of the excitement for me, or jumping on the opportunity to build it with them. I mean, you think about what we do is Sequoia. It's actually not all too different from that. What I mean is we in with a handful of new companies each year that are going out to solve some of the world's most important challenges, and it's actually a privilege to work with founders, particularly the earliest stages as they go on without never the bank. I think the thing that really impressed me when I made the New Jersey Correa was just how thoughtful and deeply curious, actually, a lot of the partners that I work with are about this. And actually, when you think about what we do, we're really in the company building process, partnering with these founders as they go on that journey. And we've been able to do that repeatedly as a partnership, working with amazing people, not just across geographies, but across platforms, across sectors, and of course, across time.[00:03:00] And for me, actually, what that means is the transition has mainly been about learning some of the skills. Entering this new ecosystem, working with partners across the EU, as we set up the new office and we move forward

[00:03:11] Hector: it's quite different being a VC versus being an operator. and also versus being a founder. do you miss any of the building revenue or building or accelerator or are you building it cigar.

[00:03:22] George Robson: I think one thing I'd say about the way that revenue runs as a product organization, as a company more generally is there's this concept of product ownership inside the building, which is really this idea of treating, product as a sort of horizontal there, right? Where anybody's building product that is either user facing or facing third parties that revenue uses for infrastruct. somebody owns that process end to end, right. And is ultimately accountable for it. And you go out and you get resources from Nicola and from the team to go out and realize whatever that mission is. And you're held accountable obviously to the form. I think when we went, we found it in the earliest stages. A lot of those questions are [00:04:00] still being worked out right? When you went with an early stage company, particularly at seed, and pre-seed the questions of who are our customers, what are they going to pay us for? What we do? What are the right segments to go after? What are the right priorities that we set for the first 6, 12, 18 months in terms of product, in terms of hiring and ultimately in terms of expansion, that's still to be teased out. Actually, those are the sort of questions that I was answering when I was in productivity. And I'm delighted to say we still get to work with our founders to solve some of those important problems today. There are similarities in that. I think the piece, which is interesting is obviously doing it outside of FinTech. having been, reasonable or at least at relative the main specialist inside of financial services now working with companies or just across geographies and sectors, but stages as well.

[00:04:42] James: Yeah. And how important do you think it is being part of it? Company, which has such a interesting and fast pace product strategy, how that helps you look at startups now and view them and consider what they're doing from a product perspective.

[00:04:58] George Robson: So I think this [00:05:00] idea of product ownership that I mentioned, this is very central to that regulated experience. You see it in how Nikolai communicates, internally and externally in the business in terms of the scale of ambition, right? The revenue. I think the main way you see that reflected is actually in the performance culture that is set our revenue. I mean, Nikolai carries that he's a bar raiser for those who are around him. And it's a little bit, the way that's reflected is firstly, this product ownership concept. So owning a process end to end. Secondly, making sure that you're very clear and very structured around what you want to achieve in terms of which the key metrics you're going after, which metrics you want to move from a to B. But actually making sure that you give to people that are in your team that are across the organization, quite a lot of autonomy and freedom in terms of the roadmap, or if you'd like the content right. For how they go out and actually achieve that change and that key metric. And I think that when you work with founders as a partner, as a quarry, you work as an investor. The relationship is one where you are there to support them in company building to be their business partner. [00:06:00] You're obviously not in the business day to day. You're really there to support and carry the bags as my partner, Doug says it right for them as a team. Well, that means that is actually agreeing on these high level goals matters. Making sure we can support with hiring and company building and recruitment is important and distribution and thinking and strategy around product is a pretty important piece of the puzzle. So there are a lot of similarities.

[00:06:22] Hector: I've heard rumors and without wanting to necessarily draw gossip out of you, that it Revolut, that often hire two people for one role. and it's a battle to see who remains. Did you ever witness that?

[00:06:33] George Robson: So that's not something that I actually experienced, um, at the business. I think what I would say, there's this incredible cultural principle inside the building of radical transparency in terms of how we work together. What that means is that across the organization, you know, who's responsible for what metrics, which teams, you have a pretty heavy level of alignment as a result of visibility into what the roadmaps are of each of the people inside of the county. Uh, Nicola and the management team are very willing to give you pretty significant [00:07:00] resources to go out and take risks. as a team to go out and hopefully drive the company forward. I think that's why you see inside the business. And there continue to be a stream of new features that are added to the product. Does this move from something that was a travel card travel proposition back in 20 16, 20 17, when the business launched through kind of a current account into investments and savings and crypto and the like, and you may see in the last six, to 12 months, big doubling down on insurance, they launched a hotel booking product called state. Right. And you might've been seen in the news a couple of days ago in announcement around buy now pay later ambitions for revenue. These are all new teams that are being created by people inside the company, primarily who have gone out to sort of build something new. so actually that kind of internal promotion is a really important piece of the culture

[00:07:45] James: Yeah. It was fascinating to see it develop into that kind of FinTech super app, which we've all been hearing about for a while. Continue to knock down verticals with relative ease from your perspective, was the dream to become a [00:08:00] VC or was it just that Sequoia was too good to turn that?

[00:08:05] George Robson: it was something that like the one, a little bit about when I was at university, I was working with friends. Running kickstart. I really enjoying being quite hands-on with some of these really early stage companies. Those businesses in particular, a lot of them were pre incorporation. So it was actually founding teams and seeding ideas inside of the accelerator. And I was experienced, I really enjoyed it. And it readily, I was fortunate enough that we launched in multiple products from zero to one, given the nature of how that product is evolved. As you said, And it was something I've thought a lot about. And I think I was, very fortunate in 2021 as a COVID is thinking about opening the office. We highly Jonah he's my wonderful partner. We hired her across the room from Excel to really lead that effort here on the ground in Europe. I was incredibly grateful. You had to go through the process and get to know my colleagues right over, that time, and just really understand how deeply curious they are about what we're trying to achieve with our founders and the scale of the ambition and the kind of companies that we want. I think the final thing I would say [00:09:00] is if you look at the team that we have at Sequoia, it's a really nice mix of people that have, a lot of operating experience from across their careers. People like bill coffin, he ran engineering at Google for a decade upon a call. He ran a look at a market for a company called VMware, grew that business from, you know, 200 people to 20,000 people live at the time he was. And actually both for our founders who work with, our partners at Sequoia, but also for me as somebody who's also looking, we're all looking to learn about how to be a better, better contributor, a better operator and a better partner. it's been a really great environment to do that.

[00:09:33] Hector: you're a pretty young guy, George, and our listeners won't be able necessarily to, tell that, given it, say voice, audio only, format, how have you managed this, you know, going from product manager, not a million years ago since you left the university, to suddenly, being part of the have you found that a difficult journey to tread, have you found there's any, prejudice against your [00:10:00] age? or has it been a very seamless, journey

[00:10:02] George Robson: so firstly, that's very kind. Thank you. I think what I would say is I have incredible people around me at Sequoia. If I look at, my opponent is not just here on the ground in Europe, but in the U S as well, right? Given that we work as one team, one dream between London and San Francisco, it's one fund family. One partnership is one portfolio. There's an incredible infrastructure in place, right. To make sure that not only our founders succeed as they try and build companies at global scale, but ultimately everybody insights equate does it.

[00:10:31] the age thing has not yet come up, which is, great. for me, but also, I mean, what I would say is, you know, we put as a team and in reality, what that means is, when we work with our founders, when we work to diligence, a new company that we're thinking of partnering with, we will do that and make sure we leverage the full kind of expertise and resources that we have inside us.

[00:10:49] Hector: Right. So they're not, making you go off and, make coffees and buy them diet cokes.

[00:10:54] George Robson: That is not . Yeah, exactly. [00:11:00] I mean, even if I think about my experience at revenue, I think when I joined. Revenue. And I think it's still true to an extent today. FinTech was sort of as a vertical and in of itself, I think what has changed particularly over the last five years in FinTech more generally, is it stopped being a vertical per se and evolve into something that is more of a business. File companies think about when it's realization, even if the primary business, the service the end consumer sees is maybe something else. It could be a marketplace, it could be something else. And what it means is actually we're able to really work together. When we think about supporting our companies to make full use of that, given that we have a pretty positive experiences inside the group.

[00:11:36] Hector: And do you think Sequoia works differently to other funds? And the reason I ask. It has a track record of being in an extraordinary number of unicorns. and so, you guys have to be doing something right. do you think there are reasons that you can identify for being able to pick companies they're going to be, category defining leaders?

[00:11:58] George Robson: so I think there's a few [00:12:00] pieces that I think, firstly, we've been doing this for 49 years of working with early stage founders. And over that time, you're right. We've been fortunate enough to have a number of successes, but we've also seen right. A number of mistakes across more or less every sector and stage and geography actually. Where are we now? There's a lot of learnings and tribal knowledge that comes from that, that actually we treat very seriously. So we make sure that inside of the group, we share those learnings, not just with each other, but with the founders that we work with. So I think that's the first thing. second thing is the core is a business has expanded into geographies before. so we previously went to China. we have a wonderful partners in India and Southeast Asia. We went to Israel previously. we'd been pondering with founders in Europe for 10, 11 years already, you know, back to decliner and unity in the 2000. And what that means is that we have perspectives that we share across offices, as well as we see different geographies may be emerging in different categories at different rates. And good examples of that is, financial services FinTech more generally, there's huge amounts of innovation in terms of how things like a super [00:13:00] app, for example, have evolved in China that are still yet to take on in a, traditional west. We see it in live commerce and social commerce and the like, and we can speak and work with our China based colleagues to make sure we share those learnings as a second thing. I think finally, the fact that we have this multi-stage approach, where we partner more with founders at CNM pre-seed, but we're able to be patient enough and sit back and hope to work with these companies for 10, 20 years, if that's what it takes as part of that journey. And actually allowing people that patients in a partner to support them, knowing that we'll support them as they go through venture growth and went into the public markets and beyond is actually something that we really value in terms of how we work. And hopefully it's something that really resonates with the founders.

[00:13:43] James: And George for you personally, what do you look for in founders and how does having the context of Nicola help or hinder that process? Because the bar must be set at a level, which is quite difficult for someone to, meet that.

[00:13:59] George Robson: I think that's a [00:14:00] fantastic question. And I suppose it's, sort of the holy grail a little bit as well. and it's definitely something that I think we're all learning. I want to say, there's no one size fits all for that. But what we'd love to see is founders that are armed with a unique insight into some problem that will matter. That is of some scale, right? To consumers and businesses. I think part of our job is to really understand why these smart, motivated people are attacking this particular problem over a millions of other things they could be doing with their time. And I think what we find is that the really best founders can clearly articulate. The mechanics, right? The new ones of this pain and how this solution is radically better than what exists. And I think part of that process of, being a founder, particularly founding an early stage company and going through that iterative process is you need very high levels of self-awareness. As part of that journey, there are so many unknowns when you work with companies, particularly at the C stage in terms of, their target customers are, what to build first, who to hire next, the nuance of thinking about pricing and expansion and the. And the [00:15:00] founder's role is to really put the best team on the field to empower them, to answer these questions. We want to be part of that team to help them to navigate it. And I think that some of my experiences at Revolut, not just the content of actually the job, but also just the experience of working with amazing colleagues and working with people like Nicola, as you say, and thinking about the kind of strengths and weaknesses of those approaches is something that definitely helps. and I think that it helps us make some, good.

[00:15:26] Hector: That's interesting. And I think it touches vaguely on Saturday that I wanted to ask, which is whether you guys would consider yourselves more kind of thesis driven or opportunistic. and how do you think about that? You know, if you're, building theses for areas that you want to invest in companies you wanna invest. It can be, really limiting and, annoying having to say no to companies that don't necessarily fit one of those theses. So how do you guys view that?

[00:15:52] George Robson: So what I would say is the main thing for us is we're looking for companies which are solving generational problems, right? [00:16:00] So that have the potential to really change some part of the social fabric of how consumers and businesses live their lives. in the long term And at the early stage, which is where we prefer to partner with, teams. It's also very much about the founder at that stage. We make it a point to really seek out people who are independent thinkers that have a deep rooted need to win. And we're finding these qualities in founders, across Europe's and across stages, and obviously across sectors as well. And what I would say is we prefer to come and work with a company where we have a prepared mind where we feel, we understand the nuance of their market. We work very hard to do that in the background. What we find is that actually by really listening to the nuance of what these founders are saying, and doing our homework and leaning on the expertise we have inside of the partnership and within the broader Sequoia ecosystem, we can really a get up to speed, but crucially, B support these founders career

[00:16:52] Hector: with gauging people, which of course, it's a large part of what we do. have you guys found a way to productize that or build a framework around [00:17:00] how to do it, or is it still very much a feeling that you guys rely on?

[00:17:04] George Robson: I think that there are so many different ways to build the company and I think it matters very much that the founders lean into that personality and who they are and what their style of leadership. And I don't think that any one of those is necessarily better or not. I think it's important to be authentic and how you do that because it's reflected in more than just how you treat, you know, your direct reports it's reflected in ultimately the company culture and how people think about your business internally, but also externally as well. I think what I would say is, broadly, we are all, some mix of, domain expertise, right? So some expertise we've built in some particular area or industry. Functional expertise, which is, you know, some, it might be product, it might be design, it might be good to market or engineering. We have some level of experience that we've built that has helped us build grit and determination across the time. And also we have luck right in the market timing, all of a sudden opportunities or a market [00:18:00] setting we find ourselves in. And I think it's very important to think about that in terms of, found a market fit is a function of all of those things in that you hopefully have some insight into the industry or the domain that will matter. You hopefully have a skillset that will allow you to attack that problem and have an unfair advantage as a team to go out and build it. It doesn't mean you need to have all the skillsets. Clearly you will hopefully hire a great founding team. We will hopefully help you build that team out to help you be successful, but you also need the grit and the determination. And of course, a little bit of luck to help you make sure you.

[00:18:31] James: Yeah. you mentioned SoCore has been around for 49 years now. And I think one thing that we're seeing a lot in the market is impact mentioned across the board, whether it be new VC firms starting or people trying to tackle those issues, how does Sequoia see impact? And does it have weight or any way, or what level of weight do you guys put on something that is going to do more than that? become a unicorn.

[00:18:57] George Robson: So we think about that a couple of [00:19:00] ways. I think firstly, we're very fortunate that actually, if you look at our LP base, it's equate the vast majority. I think it's 80, 85% of that is from charities. Non-for-profits foundations research clinics in the us. So we view what we do as an important vehicle, hopefully for positive change in a lot of the returns that we generate are going to many of these great causes, if you will make a difference as the first thing. I think the second thing is that we are also seeing a huge amount of innovation, particularly in I'm at impact in sustainability. I see it a lot across Europe. I think it is very positive that a lot of those founders that I see actually come from FinTech because I think a lot of them will focus either on this as solving. Yeah. A sort of technology problem, which might mean something like a manufacturing, the zero carbon concrete, that is something which you need quite a specialist skillset to go out and research and develop and commercialize, or they might think about it as a data problem. I, there needs to be data that is made available either at the supply chain level or maybe at the, e-commerce level at checkout where consumers need to make informed [00:20:00] decisions. If this product is cheaper, but it's two times higher emissions. That data problem actually has some similarities to many of the financial technology problems that people have solved in other industries. And I therefore think it's not surprising that we see so many high quality teams coming out of Europe, given the amount of domain expertise that exists here. so I'm very, very excited about that. And I think there are clearly incredible opportunities to create hopefully valuable companies, but also do a lot of good.

[00:20:26] Hector: changing the topic completely, how different VSE is spend their time differently. And, there are some who are pretty desk-based and. Researching and that forming theses and that going pretty deep on certain areas. And there are others who are pretty network driven and that is sort of two, polar opposites in a way. And there's lots in between, what, what does a day in your life?

[00:20:49] George Robson: firstly to say, so we work as one team across, Europe and the U S it's one fun family. The reason I mentioned that is it means that we spend time looking at companies across that region, because we want to find founders that are [00:21:00] building those generational businesses in practice. What that means is we do a lot of landscape work, a lot of thought work as a partnership, not just focusing on the you, but thinking about these emerging trends across a region of that, full stretch. So we'll often have to collaborate with US-based colleagues in hopefully finding the right company to partner. so that's the first thing we do. A lot of that work. We obviously meet with a number of companies, which we love. We have in a new office here in London, on the ground. So we'll be able to finally invite people in to see us in person. but yeah, I would say there's a good mix of, of that. A good, big set of us continuing to support existing to corporate Friday companies, either that we work with directly, or because we have some experience from revenue or past lives that can contribute. And I think that point is important to call out. They're working more or less inquiries. You probably have somebody you work with the most their day. we may or may not be, you know, your board member depending on the setup, but you probably also interact with a number of our partners on a monthly or bi-weekly basis to help you solve some of these functional needs you have as your company scales. [00:22:00] And that really matters because if you look at some of the most successful companies, like, a door dash or an Airbnb, where we partnered with those businesses for 10 plus years, You will find that the point in time when that company goes public, that they probably touched, over half of the partnership at some point in that journey. So we work with a lot of each other's portfolio companies to hopefully help reach the right decisions.

[00:22:20] James: this is quite as general question for VCs, but for Sequoia, how many meetings do you guys generally have before committing to?

[00:22:29] George Robson: we like to do a lot of work in preparation for those meetings and, a large number of the new investments we make as a partnership or thesis driven or off the bat. Prepared minds or landscapes that we've done. That's an incredibly important piece of our business. So hopefully we've done our job, right. It should be relatively light lift for the founders. I think we generally like to build a relationship with teams well, in advance of a fundraise, part of that is to make sure that we can obviously get to know each other, especially the founders, get to know us in terms of the working style and, vice [00:23:00] versa, because we really think about a fundraiser's really primarily a recruiting decision rather than a financing decision given the amount of time. That will hopefully partner together and work together over. So in practice, what that means is we try and keep prejudices quite light. We're fortunate to have a pretty light team actually across both regions. So it's a couple of meetings followed by a partner presentation and obviously some kind of broader market work that we might do.

[00:23:25] But our job is to frankly, do our homework and make that process as smooth as possible. and we do our best.

[00:23:31] Hector: do you think the C has it, won your heart over and are you here for the long term? or do you think there is, a scratch you may want to edge going in the future?

[00:23:40] George Robson: I think this role, and I'm sure you both feel, this is a privilege, right? Effectively all day, you speak to people. That are trying to save change some important piece of the social fabric of our lives. And an important piece of that is you see the future before it happens, right? You work with a lot of these emerging trends across a wide range of sectors. Sometimes a decade [00:24:00] in advance before it might actually reach the mainstream. And I do believe that's a unique privilege. I think I'm surrounded by incredible colleagues who all focused. investing, not just in the region and in the ecosystem and making, Sequoia in Europe, a success, but also in the team. Right. And making sure we continue to grow and level up and it creates a fantastic environment to work. so I'm loving it. It's been an education, but it's been a fantastic one.

[00:24:23] Hector: Yeah, similar position over here from me.

[00:24:25] James: so loving the VC stuff. What really motivates you? Right. It's a question. We asked quite a few guests and we get really poor range of answers, but it'd be great to hear what kind of gets you fired up in the morning.

[00:24:37] George Robson: I believe that entrepreneurship is an incredible vehicle for change. I think there are many different routes to that change, but I think entrepreneurship is one that I probably most closely aligned with this idea of creating something from nothing and supporting founders on that journey from, as equators from idea to IPO and beyond. I think the fascinating piece of this is when we work with these early stage founders and [00:25:00] we see the future before it happens, just being part of that journey, and really helping create these solutions that will fundamentally change the way millions of people live their lives. I just think that's an amazing movement to be. So for me, it's, it's definitely that and hoping to leave my mark with the founders that I partner with.

[00:25:16] Hector: that'd be an awesome, to chat, George. and actually we spoke earlier this week, so for our listeners, that was a funny coincidence. we didn't even realize the podcast was today, but there we go, but it'd be brilliant to chat. before we go, we always like to play the dinner party game. so if you could have three guests to a business lunch or a business dinner, who would those people?

[00:25:38] George Robson: So I'm somebody who's relatively new to podcasts. I've leaned into it pretty heavily, I think, over the last six, nine months. And one thing that's been pretty important for me. I think over that time, it hasn't always been easy. Right. Is it something that's funny and light hearted and interesting. So there's a podcast I listened to called smart. The only poker system to, second to obviously you guys, there were three [00:26:00] hosts on that same Jason Bateman will on that. And Sean Hayes who were just three actors and it's this podcast where every week they invite a guest where one person invites them. The other tier know who they are. And it's often someone from the arts, someone from sports, someone from politics, or from science, something like. And the reason I like it is I it's funny B it's a good reminder. I think lots of people have these pretty nonlinear trajectories in their career and they do something which I think in hindsight looks a little bit crazy and a little bit strange, but with some break of luck, create something hopefully magical. And I love it. I just think it's great. Fun. I think they are hilarious. So definitely.

[00:26:38] Hector: was that called spotless or spotless? Oh, smart. Let's okay. I like the soundbite.

[00:26:45] James: So as you all, didn't a policy just to all of them then.

[00:26:48] George Robson: Yeah. If you listen to

[00:26:52] Hector: be an observer or are you going to be like,

[00:26:55] George Robson: I'm an active partner?

[00:26:59] Hector: And [00:27:00] what's cooking.

[00:27:01] George Robson: What's cooking chicken visas. It's in my wheelhouse

[00:27:06] James: spot on you. Can't go wrong with chicken feet. I mean, we'll on that and Jason vapor, very, very funny guys. So I'm definitely gonna check that. awesome. Well, thank you so much, George, for coming on and telling us your riding unicorn story.

[00:27:20] it's been great to have you on and get some insight into how Revolut is kind of shaped your view on, product and culture and founder ability and things like that. And, now what you're doing at score and getting some insight into how that world operates. So thank you so much for coming on.

[00:27:37] George Robson: Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

[00:27:38] Thanks for listening to if you haven't already please like, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to receive episodes direct to your inbox, go to riding unicorns dot sub stack.com and subscribe on there as well.

[00:27:53] See you next time