Sequoia Capital
Check: $500K-$50M+ (stage dependent)
The defining voice of Sequoia's AI thesis and arguably the most influential AI investor-thinker in Silicon Valley. Co-authors a series of landmark essays with Pat Grady that have become the canonical frameworks for understanding generative AI's evolution. Core conviction: the application layer — not foundation models — is where enduring value accrues. Foundation models are commoditizing rapidly (only five scaled players remain: Microsoft/OpenAI, Amazon/Anthropic, Google, Meta, xAI), so the real opportunity is in vertical AI applications that solve end-to-end human problems. Believes we have entered the 'Age of Abundance' where AI makes once-scarce labor available everywhere at near-zero cost, transforming the addressable market from software ($1T) to services ($10T+). In this world, 'taste' — the human judgment to decide what to build and how — becomes the scarcest resource. Her January 2026 essay declares AGI is functionally here in the form of long-horizon agents that can sustain multi-step work, correct errors, and persist toward goals autonomously. Sequoia has deployed roughly $150M into foundation models but over $1.5B into application-layer companies, reflecting a 10:1 bet on applications over infrastructure.
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