Sequoia Capital offers to buy Stripe shares from investors

It's not 2000. This is (imho, random internet goober) engineering around an unfavorable valuation and IPO environment. Sequoia does Stripe a favor providing liquidity, which is founder friendly (allowing Stripe to stay private aligned with founder desires), and they'll be rewarded with more business during the next favorable startup/VC cycle. It's a marketing and PR expense assuming Stripe's valuation isn't sustainable (and Sequoia takes a loss or breaks even when they sell these shares in the future). If by some chance Sequoia profits off this transaction, all the better for them.

When the economy spins back up (and it will, based on bond market and Fed signaling), Sequoia wants to be who people think of when the VC spigot opens back up. I'm not a founder, but they would be on the first page of folks I'd call for investment or a tender offer based on actions to date and how they operate, and that might be a similar perspective of Stripe millionaires who go off to build their own startups. Take that for what you will.