>“There is so much money now (in the tech sector). You need to have a bigger war chest,” said a Hong Kong-based investment banker familiar with Sequoia’s strategy.
In certain respects, it doesn't matter if it's a bubble. Sequoia's job is to allocate funds across the tech industry. Simply by giving them money to invest, their LPs accept the risk of systemic issues that could result in the entire tech industry crashing.
In part this is allowed by the fact that most LPs diversify their funds, so they're not completely vulnerable to problems in a single sector. It's also because funds are rarely judged against absolute return; they're judged against benchmarks. If the entire market falls by 10%, and a fund only falls by 8%, then they're still doing well relative to their benchmarks.
But what's more important to Sequoia is not missing out on returns. LPs aren't investing so that Sequoia will keep them from losing money. If that were their primary goal they would just invest in CDs or government bonds. They're investing with Sequoia so they don't miss out on the upside. And if that's the priority, and Sequoia's competitors have far more money to allocate (see SoftBank with their $100 billion fund), then Sequoia also needs more money to allocate to stay competitive.
Can we please forget about this word called bubble? Do you like recession? There are certain set of people who are constantly posting about it from last 3-4 years. It has not happened and it ain't going to happen so let's move on.
> It has not happened and it ain't going to happen so let's move on
Bubble versus Not Bubble is a measure on expected returns. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Projecting a half-decade sample of opinions across infinity is absurd.
We are definitely due for a recession, that it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't happen, well, it almost certainly will, just no one has any idea when! Just like we aren't quite sure how much value being created ATM is bubbly vs. real (we will know when the bubbly stuff pops) .
But what if it’s a bubble?