Who has funded companies including Apple, Google, LinkedIn, YouTube, PayPal, Cisco Systems, Oracle, Electronic Arts, Yahoo!, NVIDIA and many other?

Sequoia Capital is a Californian venture capital firm located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. The Wall Street Journal has called Sequoia Capital “one of the highest-caliber venture firms”, and noted that it is “one of Silicon Valley’s most influential venture-capital firms”. The New York Times has called Sequoia “one of the top venture firms in the Valley” and has said that it is “among the most successful venture firms in Silicon Valley.” The Washington Post has called Sequoia Capital “one of the pre-eminent venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.”  The firm is known for the companies it has funded, and it estimates that 19% of the NASDAQ’s value is made up of firms Sequoia has funded.

Sequoia has funded companies including Apple, Aruba Networks, Google, YouTube, PayPal, Cisco Systems, Oracle, Electronic Arts, Yahoo!, NVIDIA, Navigenics, Cotendo, Atari, Ameritox, Kayak, Meebo, Admob, Zappos, Green Dot and LinkedIn. The firm has offices in the U.S., China, India and Israel. Sequoia invests in companies all over the world.

Sequoia was founded by Don Valentine in 1972. The firm’s partners include Don Valentine, Jake Anderson, Mickey Arabelovic, Roelof Botha, Scott Carter, Randy Ditzler, Michael Dixon, Jim Goetz, Michael Goguen, Gaurav Garg, Patrick Grady, Warren Hogarth, Mark Kvamme, Timothy Lee, Doug Leone, Alfred Lin, Greg McAdoo, Andrew Dryga, Michael Moritz, Chris Olsen, Luis Robles, Bryan Schreier, David Spector, Mark Stevens and David Velez.

Portfolio contains already 200 large-scale (largest in fact) businesses. Just to name few we all arvery well familiar with: Tumblr, Yahoo!, YouTube, Zappos.com, Square, Paypal, LinkedIn, ImageShack, Google, Electronic Arts, Cisco, Barracuda Networks, Atom Entertainment.

 

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_Capital

http://www.sequoiacap.com/

The best business advice {from 13 most successful executives in the world}

 

There’s a finite amount of time you’re going to be doing this. Do this really, really well – Terry J. Lundgren, CEO, Macy’s

..never to look back in regret but to move on to the next thing. – Richard Branson, founder and chairman, Virgin Group

I see a bunch of good choices, and there’s the one that you pick and make great. – Marissa Mayer, VP, Google

people will be very influenced by how you carry yourself under stress. – Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs

you’ve gotta learn to listen! – Maureen Chiquet, Global CEO, Chanel

follow my instincts and take the risk. I wanted to create a new way of looking at retail. – Tory Burch, co-founder and creative director, Tory Burch

Find a way to say yes to things – Eric Schmidt, executive chairman, Google

Eric Schmidt told her, “Stop being an idiot; all that matters is growth – Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook
just keep your mouth shut today, and see if you feel the same way tomorrow. – Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway

My advisor, Terry Winograd, picked that one out and said, ‘Well, that one seems like a really good idea – Larry Page, co-founder, Google

Warren Buffett has taught me a lot of things, but he got me thinking very early on that at some point I’d have the opportunity and responsibility to give the wealth back. – Bill Gates, chairman, Microsoft

Jim Sinegal: You know, I don’t want to be rude but this is exactly the wrong thing to do.’ This was my idea, and he was right – Howard Schultz, CEO, Starbucks

You have to have alligator skin. You can’t believe the good stuff, and you certainly can’t believe the bad stuff’ – Maria Bartiromo, anchor, CNBC

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/executives-share-the-best-advice-they-ever-got-2012-3#maria-bartiromo-anchor-cnbc-13#ixzz1pf0298c6

Evolution of a recruiter in social media

While a lot of noise is about the importance of the social media in recruitment the hard fact is that there is about the same number of recruiters using the social media and the ones that simply ignore it. There is very little written on the web about how social media is useless for a recruiter. People who do not use the social media do not publish online. In fact the most of them simply do not publish at all. Recruiters who do use social media in most cases just listen to what others are publishing. More courageous ‘like’ or ‘Share’, and the very small percentage of less than 5% actually create the original content. So here is a path of a recruiter in the adoption of the social media.

1. No social media presence

A lot of recruiters simply do not have a LinkedIn profile. Or they have a 100% empty profile, with just their name, a handful of connections, no picture, not bio. No twitter, or the one with no tweets. Facebook – closed for the friends and family / or none. They are doing their job as they did it 5 or 10 or more years ago. They do it good. They do not need the social media, have no time or interest for it. Most work in narrow industry niches, and are specialised in a location where there is not much competition between recruiters.

2. Listen

After reading in newspapers about LinkedIn, and listening about the success of Facebook on TV recruiters open their LinkedIn, Facebook and twitter accounts. Some fill their data guided by the wizards, and complete their profiles. Then they just listen. They invite a few colleagues in their networks, and when have time, they read groups discussions, and watch pictures on Facebook. They are never really tagged in pictures, and they watch closely their (minimalistic) social media footprint. They are the ones you will hear talking next to the water cooler about what someone wrote on Facebook. They take the social media content – offline.

3. Share

At some stage when you read a discussion that is about the topic you are passionate about, you will get an urge to get involved. The first steps usually are the little buttons that enable you to ‘Like’ a page, or ‘Thumb Up / Down’ the point someone made in a discussion online. You can ‘Score’ and answer, and do similar one click actions – that lure you in the world of the social media. You feel like you are a part of it. I have had my say! By clicking the Like button on some comment on Facebook. Great.

4. Create

The last stage of evolution of a recruiter in the social media adoption is the creation of your own content. Your first tweets, your first Facebook simple sentences, your LinkedIn answers and latter questions. Your LinkedIn Group contributions and later starting your own discussions. The next creating your own blog, and later on syndication parts of your content on the related industry blog networks. The number of people who actually create the continent is really small. It is really hard to justify the time, and hard to measure the ROI.

source: http://www.jobsboard.ie/Blog/posts/JobsBoard/

 

Qualities of Good Boss

1. Develop every employee.

Sure, you can put your primary focus on reaching targets, achieving results, and accomplishing concrete goals—but do that and you put your leadership cart before your achievement horse.

2. Deal with problems immediately.

Nothing kills team morale more quickly than problems that don’t get addressed. Interpersonal squabbles, performance issues, feuds between departments… all negatively impact employee motivation and enthusiasm.

3. Rescue your worst employee.

Almost every business has at least one employee who has fallen out of grace: Publicly failed to complete a task, lost his cool in a meeting, or just can’t seem to keep up. Over time that employee comes to be seen by his peers—and by you—as a weak link.

4. Serve others, not yourself.

You can get away with being selfish or self-serving once or twice… but that’s it.

5. Always remember where you came from.

See an autograph seeker blown off by a famous athlete and you might think, “If I was in a similar position I would never do that.”

read more on http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-5-qualities-of-remarkable-bosses.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inc%2Fheadlines+%28Inc.com+Headlines%29

Happiness Makes Your Brain Work Better

A Harvard psychology researcher explains that rather than thinking of success as the source of happiness, we should think of happiness as a source of success–and one that’s more under our control than we imagine.

Entrepreneurs, in general, are strivers. We set targets, battle to meet them, and believe that getting to that point, whatever it is, will bring us increased satisfaction. But according to one positive psychology researcher out of Harvard, as commonsensical as this tendency to chase achievement in order to attain greater happiness may sound, it’s actually got the equation reversed.

In a fascinating (and funny) TEDxBloomington talk, Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, argues that while we may think success will bring us happiness, the lab-validated truth is that happiness brings us more success. And understanding this is particularly valuable for entrepreneurs, Achor said in an interview. Business owners, he said, need to,

Reverse the happiness and success formula. We think if we work harder and achieve some entrepreneurial goal, then we’ll be happier. But the research is clear that every time you have a success, your brain changes what success means. So for you and for your team, if happiness is on the opposite side of success, you’ll never get there. But if you increase your levels of happiness in the midst of a challenge—in the midst of searching for investment, in the midst of a down economy—what we find is that all of your success rates rise dramatically – every business outcomes improves.

The brain, it turns out, works significantly better when you’re feeling positive, so developing a sunny outlook allows you to be smarter and more creative. “We found that optimism is the greatest predictor of entrepreneurial success because it allows your brain to perceive more possibilities,” said Achor. “Only 25 percent of job success is based upon IQ. Seventy-five percent is about how your brain believes your behavior matters, connects to other people, and manages stress.”

If you’re all set to argue that your level of optimism or ability to handle stress is out of your control and determined by either your genes or your childhood, requiring a Woody Allen-level commitment to psychiatric intervention to reverse, Achor would like to correct you. “It’s a cultural myth that we cannot change our happiness,” he said, explaining that:

Genes are really important to happiness, but that’s based upon the cult of the average. What that means is that the average person doesn’t fight their genes. So if you’re born with genes for obesity or for pessimism, and you don’t change your behavior than your genes win. Happiness comes easier to some people, but happiness is a possibility for all if we change our behavior or our mindset.

And changing your mindset is probably less difficult than you imagine. “No one would think that something small could change patterns of pessimism from decades or from genes,” conceded Achor, but he said research proves the doubters wrong. “What we found was something as simple as writing down three things you’re grateful for every day for 21 days in a row significantly increases your level of optimism and it holds for the next six months. The research is amazing. It proves we actually can change.”

So if you’re looking for more ways to boost your personal happiness quotient, than check out Achor’s TED talk below for some simple interventions that have been proven to help (they’re towards the end). Or if you’re more focused on helping your team perform better by being happier, check out Achor’s recent Harvard Business Review Magazine cover story, explaining, as Achor put it, that “happiness leads to greater levels of profits. In the article I described some things you can do at a team organizational level” to promote it.

source: http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/happiness-makes-your-brain-work-better.html

Qualities of remarkable employees

1. They ignore job descriptions.

2. They’re eccentric…

3. But they know when to dial it back.

4. They publicly praise…

5. And they privately complain.

6. They speak when others won’t.

7. They like to prove others wrong.

8. They’re always fiddling.

source: http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-8-qualities-of-remarkable-employees.html?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=button

Surfing Internet at work – is Cyberloafing good or bad?

As it turns out that in balanced propotions it is actualy reviving break.

“Browsing the Internet serves an important restorative function,” say the researchers.

Students who spent 10 minutes surfing the web after completing a tedious task were then 16% more productive than those who had devoted their break to nonweb activities such as talking on the phone, texting, and e-mailing.

In addition, the web surfers subsequently reported higher levels of engagement and lower levels of boredom and mental exhaustion than the other students.

Maybe it would be not as effective as physical activity such as refreshing walk, but on the other hand “Surf Break” are much shorter so we could argue about efficiency of both. Long physical activity which last for longer, or quick snap in short intervals?

Whatever the policy is in your work place, authors of above research (Don J.Q. Chen and Vivien K.G. Lim, of the National University of Singapore) advise managers against blanket prohibitions on personal web use.

As old true is saying, it always brings more benefits to motivate people than try to control and micromanage them..

souce: http://hbr.org/2011/12/theres-no-shame-in-cyberloafing/ar/1

Interview in 3 questions that matter the most

The only three true job interview questions are:

1.  Can you do the job?
2.  Will you love the job?
3.  Can we tolerate working with you?

 

Can You Do the Job? – Strengths

Executive Search firm Heidrick & Struggles CEO, Kevin Kelly explained to me that it’s not just about the technical skills, but also about leadership and interpersonal strengths.  Technical skills help you climb the ladder.  As you get there, managing up, down and across become more important.

You can’t tell by looking at a piece of paper what some of the strengths and weaknesses really are…We ask for specific examples of not only what’s been successful but what they’ve done that hasn’t gone well or a task they they’ve, quite frankly, failed at and how they learned from that experience and what they’d do different in a new scenario.

Not only is it important to look at the technical skill set they have…but also the strengths on what I call the EQ side of the equation in terms of getting along and dealing or interacting with people.

 

Will You Love the Job? -Motivation

Cornerstone International Group CEO, Bill Guy emphasizes the changing nature of motivation,

…younger employees do not wish to get paid merely for working hard—just the reverse: they will work hard because they enjoy their environment and the challenges associated with their work…. Executiveswho embrace this new management style are attracting and retaining better employees

.

Can We Tolerate Working With You? – Fit

Continuing on with our conversation, Heidrick’s Kelly went on to explain the importance of cultural fit:

A lot of it is cultural fit and whether they are going to fit well into the organization…  The perception is that when (senior leaders) come into the firm, a totally new environment, they know everything.  And they could do little things such as send emails in a voicemail culture that tend to negatively snowball over time.  Feedback or onboarding is critical.  If you don’t get that feedback, you will get turnover later on.

 

source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2011/04/27/top-executive-recruiters-agree-there-are-only-three-key-job-interview-questions/

The Biggest Mistake A Leader Can Make

1.    Putting self interest first – Bill George, Professor, Harvard Business School and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic

2.    Everything focused on the leader – Scott Snook, , Associate Professor, Harvard Business School and retired Colonel, US Army Corps of Engineer

3.    Becoming too enamored of their own vision – Gianpiero Petriglieri, Affiliate Professor of Organizational Behavior, INSEAD

4.    Acting too fast – Jonathan Doochin, Leadership Institute at Harvard College

5.    Failing to embrace uncertainty – Dr. Ellen Langer, Professor, Harvard University

6.    Arrogance – Carl Sloane, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School

7.    Lacking self-reflection – Daisy Wademan Dowling, Executive Director, Leadership Development at Morgan Stanley

8.    Failing to live up to their espoused values – Andrew Pettigrew, Professor, Said Business School, University of Oxford

9.    Being Inauthentic – Scott Snook, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School and retired Colonel, US Army Corps of Engineers

10.    Betraying trust – Evan Wittenberg, Head of Global Leadership Development, Google, Inc.

 

source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/trustedadvisor/2012/01/31/the-biggest-mistake-a-leader-can-make/

Two sides of the same business coin: Blue Ocean Strategy & Six Sigma Strategy

The basic idea behind the Blue Ocean Strategy is that an organization may experience higher growth and increased profits by creating new demand in an uncontested market space instead of trying to compete in a market space that is already overcrowded with competitors.

6 Sigma actually creates an infrastructure within an organization of people who are experts in various 6 Sigma principles. These people are recognized by colored belts, similar to karate.

Different businesses will find each strategy unique Due to its very basic and comprehensible approach.