Michael Moritz: He has authoritarian instincts (On with Kara Swisher)
Key points
Key takeaways from the On with Kara Swisher interview with former Sequoia chairman Michael Moritz (published 28 September 2026):
- Family history: 'Oslander' means outsider.: His book grew out of boxes of letters, identity cards, passports and photographs his mother left when she died. His maternal grandparents escaped Germany three days before the war, while his paternal grandfather Max stayed and was murdered - his faith in institutions betrayed him;his father was interned in Britain as an enemy alien in 1940.
- From Time to Sequoia.: After four years as a Time correspondent, Moritz wrote unsolicited letters to the venture firms that stood out, including Kleiner Perkins,and was brushed off as a history major with no technology background. Don Valentine hired him anyway, pointing to Arthur Rock, the first investor in Intel and Apple,as proof unconventional backgrounds could make great investors. Sequoia's 1995 financing of Yahoo led Jerry Yang to call Moritz about a Stanford search project: 'the search results were just better'.
- 'He has authoritarian instincts.': He never calls Trump a fascist or a Nazi,but says he sees the same authoritarian instincts;institutions get hollowed out by termites or dry rot before people notice.
- Tech accommodation: sympathy,not absolution.: He has some sympathy for tech CEOs who are effectively politicians juggling China,the US and the EU - a couple,he says, did not want to be at the inauguration. He recounts telling Elon Musk in 2015: 'He's an old racist';an industry that hands him crypto money or dodges AI regulation ignores character at its peril.
- Israel and Gaza: a visceral shift.: 7 October made him emotionally connected to Israel's fate for the first time;he cannot abide Netanyahu,saying Smotrichand Ben Gvir should be in prison,and condemns West Bank settlements,but argues Gaza is more complicated:45,000 deaths in a few hours is roughly 15 times the scale of 9/11,and he notes 800,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands in 1948 with no UN support. 'There is no way you're going to win a political debate when on one side you have hapless,hungry,wide-eyed babies,and on the other you have a tank.'
- San Francisco: giving back.: Home for nearly45 years,he backs it via his Crankstart foundation,with 60% of its giving in the Bay Area,the SF Standard newspaper,and a competition offering up to $50 million to organisations with ideas to improve the city. He argues the city was 'hijacked by a small group of political extremists' but says with AI-driven wealth it is reviving.
- Venture today: 'I'd find something else to do.': Asked how he'd start as a young investor today,with Anthropic reportedly eyeing a $2 trillion valuationand OpenAI considering doubling its roughly $800 billion one,Moritz says he'd do something else:venture has become part of the establishment,an auction business decidedin five minutes on six-slide decks,whereas Sequoia's third fund was only $45 millionand its holiday party fitted round a table for 12. Silicon Valley's real advantage,he argues,is evolutionary,capitalising on a century of built-up steps,paying tribute to evolution more than innovation.
- Lessons for his grandchildren.: He has applied for German citizenship - 'you can never have enough passports if you're a minority'. He ends unconvinced by legacies:help the less fortunate while you can,because 'we're all insignificant little specks'. The lasting lesson from his family's history:tenacity,the power of persistence,and of not giving up.
