Sequoia eventually bought the pitch. Yahoo already had an audience of millions, and if the web kept growing at its present rate, who knew how many hundreds of millions could be reached in the near future? By that logic, even the wacky company name could be seen as a plus. After all, as Don Valentine, the legendary founder of Sequoia, put it, “A long time ago, we helped finance a company called Apple.”13 Sometimes investments in companies with silly names could turn out handsomely. In April 1995, Sequoia invested $1 million in exchange for one-fourth of the newly incorporated Yahoo. By early
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