Former Sequoia Partner: I'm More of a Dilettante Than an Obsessive
Michael Moritz says he isn't an obsessive but a dilettante, because he has too many interests; but he also admits that people who take one thing to its extreme — like Frank Auerbach, who painted every day and took off only Christmas — are the true obsessives.
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Children don't ask their parents about the past because they're too self-centered
Moritz says children don't ask about the history of their parents and grandparents for a straightforward reason: they're too self-centered, not curious, and don't realize that every person has a story, or know how to ask questions and how to listen. He wrote this family memoir because he realized the questions he should have asked numbered in the hundreds, not one. He gives his grandfather Max as an example: a 10-year-old boy growing up in a small village by a river in Germany — who woke him in the morning, whether anyone shared his bed, what he ate for breakfast, what clothes he wore to school — you can never run out of these questions. And his grandfather had also fought in World War I and survived Verdun, which is another whole string of questions.
— Michael MoritzAnti-Semitism wasn't a 19th-century German problem; it was a 20th-century one
Tyler asks why anti-Semitism revived in Germany at the end of the 19th century, and Moritz corrects him directly: he doesn't think it was a 19th-century matter, but a 20th-century one, after World War I ended. He says that at the end of the 19th century anti-Semitism in Western Europe was more widespread in France (the Dreyfus affair) than in Germany. Germany's problem came more from the influx of Eastern European refugees, and from the historically strict restrictions on Jews — they could live only in specific places, could take only occupations like peddler, cattle trader, merchant, and a few became court Jews raising money for monarchs. It was Bismarck who markedly improved the situation of Jews, but even so, they were still not part of the mainstream.
— Michael MoritzIn Munich he couldn't get into a synagogue; at Dachau he stood in a gas chamber
Last summer Moritz went to Munich for the first time — where his father grew up, and where his grandparents were deported and ultimately murdered. He says Munich on the surface is a charming city, but every corner has a specific history. He went to the newly built Munich synagogue and couldn't get in, because he hadn't filled out an application form, had no authorization documents, and security was too tight. Then he went to Dachau and walked around like a tourist. What really hit him was standing in the gas chamber: multiple crematoria, spotless, very clean. Nearby were high school students wearing AirPods and playing with iPhones, visibly bored to death. He stood for a while with his eyes closed, thinking about the temperature, the smell, the screaming, what the work was like. He says it felt like a million years ago.
— Michael MoritzYou can never have enough passports
Moritz has obtained German citizenship. He explains why he applied: not because he expects to be driven out of America, not because he expects to be threatened in San Francisco, and he doesn't plan to live in Munich. One lesson he learned from writing the book is ‘you can never have enough passports’. He applied because Germany is the only place that truly drums the history of the 1920s, the 1930s and the Holocaust into its citizens over and over — France doesn't, England and Wales don't, and America doesn't either.
— Michael MoritzIn 1981 San Francisco had no tech companies, except Charles Schwab
Moritz describes his move from journalist to venture capitalist: no plan, pure good luck. He worked at Time magazine's San Francisco bureau, whose coverage ran from Alaska all the way to Santa Barbara, but he was drawn to Silicon Valley. He says that in 1981 and 1982 San Francisco had no tech companies, unless you count Charles Schwab — who opened a discount brokerage there. At the time, when Apple went public it had sold only about 100,000 to 150,000 computers, very small. Through reporting on companies like Atari, Apple, Microsoft and Oracle he got to know investors, then wrote to five venture firms, was rejected by four, and finally Don Valentine brought him into Sequoia. Don's peers thought he was crazy when they heard he'd hired a history major and former journalist with no technical background.
— Michael MoritzFrank Auerbach painted every day and took off only Christmas
Moritz says most great entrepreneurs — Bill Gates, Elon Musk — are obsessives. The painter Frank Auerbach pushed obsession to a new level: he painted every day of the year, taking off only Christmas Day, when he rewarded himself with a trip to Brighton pier. Later in life he felt that taking that day off was stealing time from painting, so he gave up even the Brighton trip. Asked what his own greatest obsession is, Moritz says he isn't an obsessive but more of a dilettante, because he has too many interests. He says this isn't false modesty — every one of the things he dabbles in could be done better.
— Michael MoritzIn the early 21st century the hottest place for capitalism was China, not America
Moritz says investing in China was a collective decision at Sequoia, not his achievement alone. Before going to the mainland he had been only to Hong Kong, and once he arrived many preconceptions were washed away. He quickly understood: if you wanted to find a place where capitalism was truly white-hot in the early 21st century, it wasn't in America, it was in China. Even though everyone talked about the Communist Party and state control, it was a place where the social safety net was extremely thin or nonexistent, and people had to survive on education or their wits. He says Sequoia flourished in China for nearly twenty years, and during that time you could invest in almost any industry and anything anyone wanted to invest in. But in recent years it has tightened markedly, and the atmosphere and the situation are both different.
— Michael MoritzBritain never recovered from losing its status as the world's dominant power
Tyler asks why Britain is stuck economically and politically. Moritz says it's fundamentally the residue of imperial arrogance. The pound was the world's reserve currency about a hundred years ago, Britain had the world's largest navy, its reach spanned the globe, and it was a world power. Then that status was taken by an entrepreneurial nation. He doesn't think Britain has recovered from losing its dominant position, and that everything since has been a weak, repressed reaction to it. He describes the cycle: government is the answer to everything, then under Thatcher, and later Blair and Gordon Brown and David Cameron, government isn't the answer. He says it's sad to watch, and that Britain on the whole has suffered from too much government.
— Michael MoritzIn their own words · checked verbatim
They're too self-absorbed. They aren't curious. They don't understand that every individual has a story. And on the whole, with every individual, the more that you dig, the more interesting it becomes. They don't know how to ask questions. And they don't know how to listen.
Michael Moritz13:00
But the one lesson that I took from working on my book was you can never have enough passports.
Michael Moritz22:34
He painted every day of the year, save for one, which was Christmas Day, when he treated himself to a day off and went to Brighton to go to the Brighton Pier on Christmas Day. And then later in life, he decided that actually the one day he was taking off was stealing time from painting. So he abandoned his trips to Brighton. There's an obsessive for you.
Michael Moritz29:45
if you wanted a country where capitalism was ablaze in the early 21st century, really ablaze. It wasn't in the US. It was in China.
Michael Moritz31:47
It made me want to control my own calendar rather than have others control my calendar.
Michael Moritz37:26
I don't think Britain has ever recovered from the loss, the position of primacy. And everything since then has been a somewhat feeble, muted reaction to it.
Michael Moritz38:43
Figures
| Age of Moritz's parents when they arrived in Britain | About 14 | 2:05 |
| Number of Jewish families in Wales during Moritz's upbringing | About 600 families | 4:08 |
| Total population of Wales at the time | About 2.5 million | 4:08 |
| Number of venture firms Moritz wrote to | 5, rejected by 4 | 27:43 |
| Year Crankstar began supporting the Booker Prize | 2019 | 0:00 |
Glossary
- dilettante
- A person with broad but shallow interests; Moritz uses the word to describe himself.
- obsessive
- A person extremely focused on something, almost compulsively so; Moritz uses it to describe Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Frank Auerbach.
- Auslander
- The title of Moritz's new book, a German word meaning outsider or stranger.
How to listen
Founders and investors interested in Sequoia's history, Michael Moritz himself, or Jewish family history and the topic of British decline.
If you're not interested in art collecting and family history, you can skip the segment from 4:57 to 15:54.