????問：紅杉是最有耐力的風投公司之一，而且已經成功地進行了多次轉型，而大多數公司連一次成功轉型都做不到，你能談談其中的原因嗎？

????我們一直擔心生存問題。我們也總是作為一個團隊而非常努力地工作著，在這個團隊里，沒有哪個或哪些人是不可或缺的。我想這就是我們的經營方式，而且我們總是設法保持朝氣和活力，設法想出一些新點子，設法讓年輕人加入我們的團隊。我想，是團隊合作讓我們受益良多。我們也不想讓團隊感到失望。

????問：人們都說紅杉對創業者的態度非常直接，對此你怎么看？要發布壞消息時，紅杉并不避諱，這和其他公司的做法相反。后者可能會說：“嗯，我們是創業者的朋友。我們和你們同進退。”這些對紅杉投資態度的描述公正嗎？

????這些說法都很夸張。正如我們所了解到的，其中很大一部分都是競爭對手編造的。他們需要顯得和我們不同，但他們意識到自己不能說，噢，和紅杉的優勢進行抗衡很困難。所以他們為自己營造了一個虛假的市場地位，還想辦法讓別人認為紅杉達不到這樣的水平。但看看我們最成功的那些投資就會發現，在這些案例中，建立公司的是創始人，推動公司發展的是創始人，掌握公司前途的同樣還是創始人。

????十分了解我們的人非常喜歡和我們做生意。我們和同一批人有過多次商業往來。如果哪位公司創始人對上面的說法有所耳聞，我們就會請他和所有跟我們打過交道的人談一談，然后做出自己的決定。據我所知，過去大約15年時間里，還從來沒有誰調查過我們之后決定不和我們做生意的。

????問：你提到有些創始人在自己的公司待了很長時間，在這方面谷歌、雅虎、LinkedIn、YouTube和貝寶是否比較有代表性呢？

????當然是這樣。還有現在的可充值預付卡發行商Green Dot、云技術自動化服務公司ServiceNow、網絡安全公司Palo Alto Networks和存儲解決方案供應商Nimble Storage。一系列的私營公司。它們和創始人的聯系能保持10年之久。

????問：我想問一些簡短的個人問題。我知道有些關于你受封的報道把重點放在了你的慈善活動上，包括資助牛津大學。請你略微談一下這方面的情況。

????去年，我妻子和我為牛津大學提供了一筆資金，相當大的一筆，專門用于幫助那些來自低收入家庭、而又很有天分的學生。按照目前英國學校的學費水平，他們可能上不起牛津大學，而這筆資金讓他們有機會到牛津就讀。首批得到資助的學生去年秋天已經入學。我們希望這種做法有助于在英國建立一種獎學金模式。不僅是因為它在美國很流行，還因為英國政府在大學教育資金方面的參與程度要高得多。而且在私立高等教育領域，沒有哪所英國學校真的能和斯坦福等美國主要私立高校相提并論。

????Q: Can you put your finger on why Sequoia has been one of the most durable venture firms that also has had more than one transitional change successfully while most firms have zero successful transitional changes?

????Well, we've always been worried about surviving, and we've also always tried very hard to work as a team where no one or two individuals are indispensable. And I think that's the way that we've approached the business, and we've also always tried to stay fresh and vital and have new ideas and young blood as part of the team. It's working on a team that I think has held us in good stead or stood us in good stead. And not wanting to let down the team.

????Q: What's your opinion of the reputation of Sequoia as being very direct with entrepreneurs. When there's bad news to be delivered, Sequoia doesn't flinch from delivering it as opposed to other firms who may say "well, we're the friends of the entrepreneurs. We're in it with you." Are those fair descriptions of Sequoia's attitude?

????They're caricatures in large part devised, as we've learned, by competitors who needed to differentiate themselves and realized that they couldn't say, oh, it was tough to compete against our strengths and therefore they had to carve out a fictional market position for themselves that they could try to delude people into thinking it wasn't Sequoia's. But if you look at our more successful investments, those are ones where the founders started the company, the founders built the company, and the founders are at the helm of the company.

????The people who know us well really like being in business with us. We've been in business multiple times with the same people and we always invite founders who've heard, perhaps, of some of these things, just to talk to all the people we've been in business with and make up their own minds. And to the best of my knowledge in the last 15 or so years we've never had people do checks on us who have then elected not to do business with us.

????Q: And when you refer to the companies where the founders stuck around a long time, Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), LinkedIn (LNKD), YouTube, and PayPal (EBAY) would be some good examples?

????Yeah, for sure. Or, today, Green Dot or ServiceNow or Palo Alto Networks or Nimble Storage. A raft of private companies. These are decade-long relationships.

????Q: A few quick personal things. I know some of the coverage around your knighthood has focused on some of the philanthropy you're doing, including with Oxford University. Talk to me a little bit about that.

????My wife and I gave a gift to Oxford last year, a sizeable gift, designed specifically to help talented students from low-income families who would be priced out of Oxford by the tuitions now being levied at British universities to afford them the opportunity to have an Oxford education. The first of those students entered Oxford last fall. We hope this will help establish a pattern of giving in Britain for these sorts of scholarships because it's just not as widely accepted as it is in the United States because there's been far greater government involvement in funding university education throughout the U.K. And at the private schools, there aren't really counterparts to the big private U.S. schools like Stanford and others.