[imagesource: Russell Yip for Protocol]

Roelof Botha is on the up and up.

Born in Pretoria and raised in Hout Bay, Botha attended Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck. He later graduated from UCT and then worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Co in Johannesburg from August 1996 through to June 1998.

The 48-year-old then became chief financial officer at PayPal at the same time he earned his MBA at Stanford University and negotiated PayPal’s sale to eBay for $1,5 billion before switching to world-renowned venture firm Sequoia Capital in 2003.

Botha first started popping up regularly in local news stories when Forbes named him on its ‘Top 100 Venture Capitalists In The World’ list back in 2017. Each mention of his name also details that he’s the grandson of Pik Botha, who served as South Africa’s foreign minister in the last years of the Apartheid era.

Earlier this week, Sequoia Capital, which has provided financial backing to the likes of Apple and Airbnb, announced that Botha will take over as Senior Steward at the firm.

This was done via a tweeted statement from current chief Doug Leone with the subject line, ‘Our next chapter’:

The next chapter in our leadership pic.twitter.com/dsLKUWwrIB

— Sequoia Capital (@sequoia) April 4, 2022

In the venture capital game, promotions don’t come much bigger. Fin24 reports:

Founded by one-time semiconductor executive Don Valentine, it is one of the few venture firms to consistently out-perform the broader stock market decade after decade…

Botha’s “keen instinct for innovation has made its mark on our partnership and on our industry,” Leone [said].

He also said that Botha will “set the overall tone and oversee the global centralised functions” of the firm, including its finance and culture, and that Botha will continue to lead Sequoia’s US and Europe business as managing partner.

Leone will remain on as a general partner and keep his board seat, but on the day he turns 65 (July 5) Botha will formally take over the global leadership role.

I’d like to remind you of the time he once dressed up as Buzz Lightyear for a meeting.

A profile piece on Protocol from February of this year details his hunger for success:

10 to the power of nine. One billion dollars.

Roelof Botha used to write ‘109’ on the corner of his notepad every week when he started at Sequoia 19 years ago. It was a shorthand to keep himself focused on picking exceptional startups to deliver his private goal of $1 billion in total gains…

He hit the ’10^9′ goal thanks to investments in companies like YouTube, Instagram and Square. In 2020, he even reached 10¹⁰, or $10 billion in total gains, putting him in the top tier of tech investors.

That article notes that he once worked as a Tupperware salesman. Maybe your auntie remembers him.

After becoming the youngest licensed actuary in South Africa’s history at 22, he decided to work for McKinsey and eventually came onto the radar of Elon Musk:

Few people say no to Musk these days, but Botha said no to joining PayPal twice before a dip in South African rand depleted his savings. Needing to make April’s rent, he finagled his class schedule and joined PayPal in March 2000…

Image: Biznews

At 28, he took the company public, then soon after, helped negotiate its sale to eBay in 2002. Its CEO, Meg Whitman, wanted him to stay with the company, offering a big title and a pretty large option package — which was notable, given how fiercely eBay and PayPal had competed.

Sequoia’s Michael Moritz, who’d backed PayPal and served on its board, came in with a different offer: Join the firm as a partner.

He took up that offer, and the rest is history.

It’s worth reading that profile in full here if you really want to chart his rise.

Not bad for a guy born in Pretoria and raised in Hout Bay, hey?

[sources:fin24&protocol]