#256 | Sequoia’s Top Theses, Re-Architecting White Collar Work, & more
Nov 2nd | The latest from Sequoia, QED, Joe Lonsdale, First Round, Theory Ventures, and others
SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.
This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.
Investment Themes & Theses
Building Tomorrow’s Transformational Companies (Sequoia Team)
Finance’s back office is entering its biggest upgrade cycle in decades ( Laura Bock & Shruti Batra, QED)
Compliance Is Construction’s Next Data Problem (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)
Rebuilding white-collar work for the age of AI (Jax Vullinghs, Partner @ Airtree)
Energy Independence: America’s Next Great Infrastructure Build (David Talpalar, ex-VC @ Conversion)
Industry Developments & Analyses
A Silver Tsunami? (Joe Lonsdale, GP @ 8VC)
Freight Fraud Blues (Chelsea Zhang & Shazeem Kudchiwala, Equal)
Can the AI Boom Pay for Itself? (Evan O’Donnell, GP @ Timespan)
10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)
The Browser Becomes an Agent (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)
Browser Agents, OpenAI & Wildfires (Pat McGovern, Principal @ Bowery)
5 (more) charts that explain crypto right now (A16Z Crypto Team)
Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating
What’s working in GTM right now (Kyle Poyar, Growth Unhinged)
Turning First Meetings Into Real Pipeline (Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2)
Mercury’s Path to Product-Market Fit (First Round Review)
Barry Diller’s Tracksuit (Jeff Morris Jr, GP @ Chapter One)
When Should You Stop Clinging to Product and Hire Your First PM? (First Round Review)
Additional Reads
The Growth Premium Persists in SaaS Valuations (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)
When ARR is not ARR (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)
The Human Condition (Alfred Lin, GP @ Sequoia)
Volatility is All You Need (Jordan Nel, VC @ Nomads)
A 1990s Playbook for 2025: What John Malone and the Telecom Era Can Teach Us about AI Infrastructure (Point72 Ventures)
How We Pick Winning Consumer Brands Before the Data Proves It (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)
The future of the web is the history of YouTube (Anish Acharya, GP @ A16Z)
Notes:
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