Roelof Botha.
Image: Sequoia Capital
As Sequoia Capital bids farewell to one of its most influential leaders, the story of Roelof Botha reads like a Silicon Valley origin myth, except that its roots lie in South Africa.
Botha, born in Pretoria and raised in Cape Town, joined Sequoia in 2003 and rose to become its global steward, ultimately stepping down in late 2025.
While he will remain on boards and in an advisory role, his imprint on the technology landscape is already indelible.
Botha was born in Pretoria in 1973, but his story begins in a lineage marked by public service and intellectual rigour.
His grandfather was Roelof Frederik “Pik” Botha, a towering figure in South African politics who served as the country’s foreign minister during the last years of apartheid and later held a cabinet role under Nelson Mandela.
His father, also named Roelof, is a respected economist in South Africa. Dr Roelof Botha earned a doctorate and has held roles as a senior lecturer, economic policy advisor, and chief economist.
Botha’s journey began in South Africa, where he earned a degree in actuarial science, economics, and statistics from the University of Cape Town.
After a stint at McKinsey Johannesburg, he moved to the U.S. to pursue an MBA at Stanford.
There, a fateful introduction to fellow South African Elon Musk led him to X.com, which later became PayPal.
He served as PayPal’s CFO from 2001, helping steer the company through its IPO and later acquisition by eBay.
By 2003, he had joined Sequoia Capital, making the leap from operator to investor.
Botha has long described his investment philosophy as contrarian: backing the underdog, the unconventional visionary, the idea others might mock.
“If you’re going to be really successful … you have to be contrarian, and right,” he has said.
Over his decades at Sequoia, that instinct paid off in a big way. Some of his most notable bets:
YouTube: Sequoia invested early, and when Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion, the returns were massive.
Instagram: Another early bet, Instagram would later be bought by Meta.
MongoDB: Botha has served on the board of this database company.
Square (now Block): He has been closely associated with the payments company, serving on its board.
23andMe: The genetic-testing firm is another of his well-known investments.
mmhmm: A more recent backing is the video-meetings startup.
In addition to these, his portfolio has included companies like Evernote, Natera, Xoom, Tumblr, Whisper, GenEdit, Landis, Temporal Technologies, The Org, and Skiff.
In 2017, Botha assumed leadership of Sequoia’s US and European operations, eventually becoming the global steward in 2022.
Under his stewardship, Sequoia navigated a dramatically shifting VC landscape: increasing geopolitical tension, the rise of AI, and an evolving start-up ecosystem.
But not all has been smooth sailing.
The Financial Times noted that his leadership saw internal tensions, including high-profile boardroom friction (for instance, over fintech company Klarna) and the split of Sequoia’s Asian operations.
In November 2025, Botha announced that he would step down as managing partner; Alfred Lin and Pat Grady will succeed him, while Botha will take on an advisory role.
Botha’s impact stretches beyond financial returns. His bets weren’t just about quick exits; he looked for companies with real staying power.
Whether it was a video-sharing platform (YouTube), a social app (Instagram), a payments disruptor (Square), or biotech (23andMe), his investments reflect a deep belief in technology’s ability to reshape how humans live and work.
Even as he transitions out of day-to-day leadership, his fingerprints remain on the boards of many of Sequoia’s most important companies.
And by remaining as an adviser, he’s signalling that this is not a farewell, but a reshaping of his role.
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