David Eckstein

But back then, he was very busy running OpenDNS.

That year, OpenDNS ended up selling to Cisco.

So he had a lot on his plate.

But he was one of the original Sequoia Scouts.

Back when Sequoia Scouts was a secret program that there was an article written about it in the New York Times.

And I was fascinated by this program.

I thought it was amazing that Sequoia was arming their top CEOs with this war chest that they could write 25, $50,000 checks into promising startups.

And because David was so busy, I would bring David different ideas for companies that he could invest in.

I was a 25, 26-year-old person in Silicon Valley.

And so some of my friends were starting companies.

Plus, my wife at the time was going to HBS, and a number of her classmates were starting companies.

And so I'd bring them different ideas.

Actually, a company yesterday, Shield AI, announced their $12 billion valuation, their newest $2 billion fundraise.

That's a company that I invested in for David Yulevich when he was a Sequoia scout.

And so it's funny to mark up on that a lot.

A lot.

I'm happy for everyone involved.

And so he put me forward for the program.

He actually wrote a very funny letter to Sequoia and said,

David has been helping me with Sequoia Scouts.