A large global growth fund could allow Sequoia to do larger deals as it expands its international presence. In May Dan Primack reported that the firm was looking to raise at least $1 billion in aggregate over several funds, and the firm reportedly raised $975 million for three early-stage venture funds this summer, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time. The firm has been expanding through those funds to areas like China and Israel for new investments, as well as expressing interest in Brazil.

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We have co-opted seed funds. You know, Y Combinator, that was completely our money. We have secret handshakes with a whole bunch of people. Very dangerous, because word gets out that so-and-so’s money is Sequoia’s money, that would not be a good thing.

This is complete warfare. You have to have the Green Berets in the back line, you have to take the frontal approach, you have to do seeds, you have to do investments. You have to be willing to risk things, otherwise somebody else will put you out of business.

[Instagram] sold completely prematurely. A billion dollars sounded great to the founders. Imagine what Instagram could be. It could be the next Facebook on the mobile phone.”

Doug Leone of Sequoia Capital shares his thoughts on the VC business.

The fund organized a meeting yesterday where it invited entreprenuers/CEOs from its portfolio companies. The attendees were greeted by a cute image of a Grave Stone, with a message: R.I.P.: Good Times, my sources tell me.

I was able to confirm this with at least two sources. I am currently trying to nail down more details. Sequoia Capital declined to comment on the news. 

The gathering was addressed by at least four speakers, including a brief introduction by Mike Moritiz. Doug Leone was another speaker. I am still trying to nail down more details of the two other speakers. A person who handles Sequoia’s public market investments is said to have talked to the startups. The message delivered to those in attendance was that things could get a lot worse than people think, and it will be a more protracted downturn. To give a historical perspective, Sequoia had a similar meeting back before the last bubble unraveled burst. We know how that turned out.

They want the companies to cut costs, to figure out way to survive and emerge at the other end of this downturn, which could last years. The speakers went through each functional area of the business and told the companies how to cut costs. By holding this special meeting, Sequoia is telling its companies to put survival strategies in place and figure out ways to outlast the broader market troubles. 

Uber-investor Mike Moritiz told The Financial Times earlier this week: “It’s pretty clear that demand is going to soften across the board for every company – it doesn’t matter if you’re selling to consumers or companies.” Moritiz isn’t one to mince words, and is one of those few people who likes to get ahead of the fire and not fight it from behind. 

Sequoia isn’t the only one advising its startups to tighten their fiscal belts and prepare for a gut-wrenching ride. Ron Conway, a well-known angel investor in the Valley who has invested in companies like Google, offered very sobering advice to his companies via an email earlier today.

Raising capital will be much more difficult now. You should lower your “burn rate” to raise at least 3-6 months or more of funding via cost reductions, even if it means staff reductions and reduced marketing and G&A expenses. This is the equivalent to “raising an internal round” through cost reductions to buy you more time until you need to raise money again; hopefully when fund raising is more feasible.

Letting go of staff is hard and often gut-wrenching.  A re-evaluation of timelines and re-focus on milestones with an eye to doing more with less will allow you to live many more days, and the name of the game in this environment in some respects is survival — survival until conditions change. If you are in a funding cycle, you should raise your funding as soon as possible and raise as much as possible but face the fact that if you can’t raise money now you must cut costs.

Folks this is bad news for Silicon Valley, which has been living in a bubble, assuming that it is going to weather the global economic storm without being impacted. We have been following this story since last year, pointing out that the tech is not an island.

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