Sequoia Capital publishes unique 1977 Apple investment memo
Apple historians will want to file this, Sequoia Capital, one of the first ever investors in the company, has published an internal 1977 memo concerning that investment for the very first time.
The memo came as The Sex Pistols stormed the UK charts and punk rock filled the airwaves. Apple had been launched and Steve Jobs was searching for help to take the next step forward with the company.
Steve on personal computers
Apple was just starting up. Steve Jobs was on a mission to “domesticate” the computer, to turn it into an appliance, and “remove the barrier of having to learn technology.”
Around the time the investment was being reached, he said, “Now, for the first time, people can actually buy a computer for the price of a good stereo, interact with it, and find out all about it. It’s analogous to taking apart 1955 Chevys. Or consider the camera. There are thousands of people across the country taking photography courses. They’ll never be professional photographers. They just want to understand what the photographic process is all about. Same with computers.”
Don Valentine and Mike Markkula
Enter Sequoia Capital founder, Don Valentine, who invested $150,000 in the company shortly after writing the following note. This was part of a $600,000 funding round that secured 10% of the company, giving it a $6 million value at the time.
Valentine, incidentally, was the son of a truck driver of vast intelligence with a great track record for investment.
The investment company sold its share in 1979 for around $6 million, which equates to a substantial 40-fold increase. If the company had held it would have achieved even more, and what that would be worth today doesn’t bear thinking about.
“In honor of 50 years of Apple, we’re sharing — for the first time ever — Don Valentine’s original 1977 memo for Sequoia’s investment into Apple Computer,” the VC firm wrote on X.
There’s a little historical background. Steve Jobs worked for this investment, legendarily calling Valentine 150 time in his pursuit. Apple’s first CEO, Mike Markkula also got involved. The latter provided the network and skills Apple’s co-founders lacked, helping them take a few more steps up the mountain.
What Valentine said
“A lot of people wouldn’t invest in Apple, wouldn’t even talk to Apple, because Steve was so odd,” says Valentine in an interview on the Sequoia website
“We backed Apple on the basis of getting a product to market that was a consumer-aimed product, and that cost very little in comparison to what computers were thought to cost, and in 1977 that’s what they did.
“I have only met and known two visionaries in my life. Lots of people in Silicon Valley think they’re visionaries. Bob Noyce was one, at Fairchild Semiconductor. Steve was the other.”
The rest, as they say, is history. And I still believe the most important Apple history book ever written is Infinite Loop but Michael Malone, which you can intermittently find second hand on Amazon (Affiliate link).
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