Sequoia Doesn’t Want a ‘King’ to Run Its $9 Billion Hedge Fund
After tension around profit-sharing and culture, the fund tries a new leadership model
- Sequoia’s $9 billion hedge fund adopted a “no kings” leadership approach, installing four leaders after its former head departed.
- The change is an attempt to make the hedge fund’s operation look similar to that of its more famous relative, Sequoia Capital, the giant venture-capital firm.
- The fund experienced a 29% loss in 2022, while the Nasdaq composite lost 32.5%, but gained 13.4% in 2023 and 19.3% in 2024.
Following a streak of disappointing performance, tension over profit-sharing and complaints about a negative culture, Sequoia’s $9 billion hedge fund is trying a new approach to leadership: “No kings.”
The firm has installed a group of four leaders in an attempt to make the hedge fund’s operation look similar to that of its more famous relative, Sequoia Capital, the giant venture-capital firm, according to people familiar with the fund. It is an unusual move for the hedge fund world, where co-portfolio manager relationships have been known to blow up and clients tend to like a single boss.
Sequoia Capital Global Equities is a large hedge-fund investor in tech and has long been seen as a way for clients to get some access to Sequoia’s private investments. It is a growth investor with bets on both public and private tech companies. Its private portfolio has included Stripe, TikTok parent ByteDance, SpaceX, Chinese food-delivery giant Meituan, Chime Financial CHYM -0.83%decrease; red down pointing triangle and failed crypto firm FTX.
The hedge fund reports to a board that includes partners of Sequoia Capital, which recently shook up its own leadership. Alfred Lin and Pat Grady, who Sequoia named as stewards in November, are reviewing the hedge fund’s operations, said a person familiar with the firm.
The changes at the top of the hedge fund started in February when its longtime head, Jeff Wang, stepped down. Some of his team had complained to Sequoia leaders that he wasn’t sharing enough of the fund’s profits and that he had created a negative culture, some people familiar with Sequoia said. Wang, who had run the fund for about a decade, had shouted and cursed at members of his team and made at least one analyst cry, the people said.