Trying to win a competitive Series A against a firm like Sequoia is nearly impossible for a smaller fund. Top firms leverage an overwhelming arsenal of social proof, including board seats at the world's most valuable companies and references from iconic founders, creating an insurmountable competitive moat.

Treat hiring as a compounding flywheel. A new employee should not only be a great contributor but also make the company more attractive to future A-players, whether through their network, reputation, or interview presence. This focus on recruiting potential ensures talent density increases over time.

To avoid stifling talent, Sequoia uses 'freedom within frameworks.' It provides guiding principles—shared values and a common value chain (sourcing, picking, winning)—but allows partners total autonomy in their methods. This enables diverse, authentic styles, from deep thematic work to high-volume networking, to coexist effectively.

Over a long career, great leaders accumulate a "snowball of talent"—A-players who follow them from one venture to the next. This becomes a powerful litmus test when hiring executives: if they have no network of past colleagues eager to join them, it's a major red flag about their leadership ability or the quality of their past teams.

VCs at the highest level don't just write checks; they fundamentally reset a founder's aspirations. By placing a startup in the lineage of giants like Google and Oracle, they shift the goal from building a big business to creating a generational company.

Venture capital returns materialize over a decade, making short-term outputs like markups unreliable 'mirages.' Sequoia instead measures partners on tangible inputs. They are reviewed semi-annually on the quality of their decision-making process (e.g., investment memos) and their adherence to core team values, not on premature financial metrics.

Quora's initial engineering team was a legendary concentration of talent that later dispersed to found or lead major AI players, including Perplexity and Scale AI. This highlights how talent clusters from one generation of startups can become the founding diaspora for the next.

When direct access to top talent is blocked by competitors, savvy leaders identify other successful companies with strong sales cultures (a "lineage") and strategically recruit from that pool. This allows them to tap into a new vein of proven, high-potential talent.

Instead of recruiting for a job spec, Cursor identifies exceptional individuals and "swarms" them with team attention. If there's mutual interest, a role is created to fit their talents. This talent-first approach, common in pro sports, prioritizes acquiring top-tier people over filling predefined needs.