Sequoia is splitting into three VC firms
forbes.com
forbes.com
And then you're going to split your sole proprietorship into three units, good luck with that!
But that is actually a fantastic missed opportunity.
My guess south east Asia
It also doesn't help their situation any that LATAM is hot for crypto assets either.
Not really. It means functioning courts that are fair. It means you don't pay people off to get your way.
> so it's just not reasonable to say that these countries are inherently doing something wrong for prosperity.
Nowhere in Latin America has there ever been the kind of stability you would find in a place like the US, Canada, Britain etc.
>comparing two runners in a race where one of them shot the other with a gun
The old world settled in north america, and plundered in south america.
Ok, well then we definitely don't have rule of law in the US.
There's talent, sure, but you could just hire it out and keep your business based in a sane jurisdiction.
There's absolutely nothing mediocre about how Mexico has developed their economy in spite of the absolutely absurd geographical logistics problems that they're faced with.
LATAM is filled with ingenuity. The talent pool is strong, but opportunities are few. -- because see previously mentioned issues in my first post.
LOL, what? Do you speak from experience? Because I do. Watch this [1], that's the mentality of the average individual who has enough interest into science and tech to attend an astronomy congress. You're looking at the top of the distribution, it's downwards from there.
>in spite of the absolutely absurd geographical logistics problems that they're faced with
Ok, you may be just trolling right now. Mexico has amazing geographical and logistical advantages:
* 3,000+ kms of border with the largest economy in the world, plenty of goods that go from/to the US, go through Mexico
* Access to both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans
* 14th largest country by area, the vast majority of land is (or could be at least) productive
* Great weather the whole year, fresh water and rain
* Not hit by natural disasters as much as other places in the world
What are you talking about?
Historically Mexico's economy has been fairly isolated and government has been fairly unstable. This has an enormously negative economic impact.
You're looking at things with privileged glasses and ignoring all of the difficulties overcome for Mexico to get where it is today.
Like in ... many other places in the world? Also, you're factually incorrect, major highways cross the country through fairly straight and smooth paths.
>Historically Mexico's economy has been fairly isolated
From whom? Like from ... the world? #8 most visited country in the world and #14 global economy might suggest otherwise.
>and government has been fairly unstable
That's not geographical in nature, you're moving the goalpost.
Most places in the world aren’t prime investment destinations.
> That's not geographical in nature, you're moving the goalpost
Limited agricultural potential, no navigable rivers, expensive-to-traverse mountains and isolated coastal communities. This is a very difficult tract to govern.
Mexico has a singular, massive advantage: proximity to America. With her navigable rivers, littoral waters and massive plains-based agricultural sectors. That, and its oil and mineral production, keep the central government powerful enough to project influence sufficiently to maintain stability.
Mexico is in America, grab a map.
Which makes the intended meaning obvious. ("America" refers to either or both continents of the Americas, as well as to the United States; grab a dictionary.)
Except for the highly volatile sinking capital that has been hit by numerous serious earthquakes.
And of course, you're missing the biggest problem - taking a look at a topograhic map of Mexico will show that the terrain is horrible for internal communications. That's a significant handicap Mexico has had to struggle since being a Spanish colony, and it hasn't helped in the various independence and revolutionary movements.
Please let me LOL again at the arguments you people are making.
I grew up in Mexico and being a Spanish colony 400 years ago, plus the independence and revolutionary movements you mention have had absolutely zero impact on my everyday life in the 21st century.
Excuses have an expiration date.
How long does it take by train to move goods from the main Pacific to the main Atlantic port (oh, btw how many big natural harbours are there in Mexico?)? How long from agricultural lands or where industry is located?
To pretend like the geography of Mexico hasn't had any impact in it's political or economic development would be missing a decent part of the big picture.
I never argued this so I won't bite.
The geography of Mexico is, if anything, privileged compared to what you find in other parts of the world.
The country does not freeze completely every six months, for starters.
Logistically, it's pretty much in the center of a whole continent, hard to top that.
Neither does the Sahara desert. That doesn't seem like much of an argument for or against geography.
The point made was that Mexico is not subject to extreme weather, and you bring in an example of another case of extreme weather.
That makes no sense to say. Did I miss a year when Mexico hit the reset button and became a smooth blank slate? Or does in fact this country have history?
Besides that, you're one person giving a tiny slice of your own personal experience. Interesting to talk about, but useless in a discussion about the modern economy of Mexico and its historical roots.
Maybe one option is for a regional system where there is more incentive to not renege on deals and agreements when things don't go their way. Also if it's regional there is less likelihood of claiming imperialism --but who knows, they have their own rivalries.
But I think right now one of their options is to create a regional market like an EU zone and invest in themselves and hopefully realize some of their potential. They can set tehir own rules and expectations as well as benefits and penalties.
Just as there is naive art, there is naive economics where people believe in maligning capitalism and expropriation as solutions to their economic malaise.
Not so. Naive art is merely a subset of all art.
In the context of this article indeed it does not matter because entrepreneurs incorporates companies in a different jurisdiction, so the investment ends up in companies founder by Latin americans.
Look at Auth0 [1], Mercadolibre, etc.
I witnessed people trying to build consumer app in one East European country which was their home one. Eventually they quit saying that "it can't work, people here are not stupid enough". Same app worked fine in the U.S. market even as they have never been in the U.S., had no idea of the culture things, and even their English was so-so.
They're definitely Westeners.
Sounds like a consumer base who've learnt to reciprocate corporate loyalty.
VKontakte still has 80 million users a month.
The first is demographics (and "demographics is destiny"). There is not an expected population boom the way you have in West Africa.
There will be tons of growth (look at Mercado Libre, a 63 billion dollar company), but that growth will come from people coming online and spending online, without the tailwinds of a growing young population.
The second issue with LatAm is that—for "startup" purposes—just two markets. Brazil and Mexico. Everything else doesn't really add up and requires lots of localization for very small markets. This is exacerbated in places like the Caribbean. So you end up having quite concentrated political/macro risk in two countries.
There are VERY good reasons to invest in LatAm, but the best case scenario for LatAm is something like 2-3x South Korea, not China.
Naively, I'd expect Argentina + Chile to be essentially one giant local market, as they are united by language, geographic proximity and relative wealth. Why isn't that the case?
b) Even together they are tiny. Chile is 25% the GDP of Mexico, with a much higher GDP per capita. ie, Mexico is both much larger now and has much more headroom to grow.
Imagine if something like, say, Cloudflare, started in LATAM or SEA instead of San Francisco.
Hope it is real sustainable performance in SEA. My fear is that it will be easier to run the "venture backed grow at all costs" model in Asia.
This sucks the oxygen out of the ecosystem, very anti-competitive, short-sighted and not great overall.
The operators involved do not learn to be real, thoughtful and long-term oriented. I have friends who were out-spent by newer venture-backed plays, which aren't doing that well either.
In short, the highs will be high, but the lows could be very bad too.
The 3 units were operating independently already, but there was cross-over in partners from 1 division investing in funds from a different division.
After the split, the article explicitly said the partners will no longer invest their own money in the other entity funds.
Feels like it's a move motivated by regulation/compliance.
Sequoia Beijing
Sequoia Hong Kong
;)