Douglas M. Leone (born July 4, 1957) is an American billionaire
venture capitalist
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
and former managing partner of
Sequoia Capital, from which role he stepped aside in 2022 while remaining a general partner. As of August 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$6.1 billion.
Early life
Leone was born July 4, 1957, in
Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...
, Italy. His family moved to the United States when Leone was 11 and settled in
Mount Vernon, New York.
Leone earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
in 1979, a master's in industrial engineering from
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
's
School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1986,
["Executive Profile: Douglas M. Leone"](_blank)
"Bloomberg". Retrieved June 28, 2016. and a master's degree in management from the
MIT Sloan School of Management
The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...
in 1988.
Career
Leone began his career in sales and management positions at
Sun Microsystems,
Hewlett-Packard, and
Prime Computer
Prime Computer, Inc. was a Natick, Massachusetts-based producer of minicomputers from 1972 until 1992. With the advent of PCs and the decline of the minicomputer industry, Prime was forced out of the market in the early 1990s, and by the end of ...
.
He joined
Sequoia Capital in 1988, became a managing partner in 1996,
and then the global managing partner in 2012.
In 2017, Forbes named him a top-10 investor in the technology industry in the United States. Leone has been involved in Sequoia investments in numerous companies, including
Aruba Networks
Aruba Networks, formerly known as Aruba Wireless Networks, is a Santa Clara, California-based wireless networking subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.
The company was founded in Sunnyvale, California in 2002 by Keerti Melkote and ...
,
Hyperion/Arbor Software,
International Network Services,
Medallia
Medallia is an American customer and employee experience management company based in San Francisco, California, with offices in Buenos Aires, London, Tel Aviv, Munich, Paris, New York City, Washington DC, Austin and Sydney.
Medallia provides so ...
,
Netezza
IBM Netezza (pronounced ne-teez-a) is a subsidiary of American technology company IBM that designs and markets high-performance data warehouse appliances and advanced analytics applications for uses including enterprise data warehousing, busin ...
,
PlanGrid
PlanGrid is a construction productivity software designed for onsite construction workers. PlanGrid digitises blueprints. It has features such as version control and collaboration tools such as field markups, progress photos and issues tracking.
P ...
,
Rackspace
Rackspace Technology, Inc. is an American cloud computing company based in Windcrest, Texas, an inner suburb of San Antonio, Texas. The company also has offices in Blacksburg, Virginia, and Austin, Texas, as well as in Australia, Canada, United ...
,
RingCentral
RingCentral, Inc. is an American publicly traded provider of cloud-based communication and collaboration products and services for businesses.
CEO Vlad Shmunis and CTO Vlad Vendrow founded the company in 1999. Investors included Doug Leone, Se ...
,
and
ServiceNow
ServiceNow is an American software company based in Santa Clara, California that develops a cloud computing platform to help companies manage digital workflows for enterprise operations. Founded in 2003 by Fred Luddy, ServiceNow is listed on the ...
.
He also led Sequoia's international expansion into China and India.
In 2017, he was ranked #693 on ''Forbes'' list of the
World's Billionaires
''The World's Billionaires'' is an annual ranking by documented net worth of the wealthiest billionaires in the world, compiled and published in March annually by the American business magazine ''Forbes''. The list was first published in March ...
, with a net worth of US$2.9 billion.
In 2020, he was named on the Forbes Billionaires list with wealth of US$3.5 billion and ranked #538. His ranking on the list in 2022 was #350, with a net worth of US$6.9 billion.
Leone and his wife donated $100,000 to support President
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
's
2020 re-election campaign, and Leone was appointed to Trump's task force on re-opening the economy in the wake of the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
. The ''Washington Post'' reported that Leone proposed using his connections in the Trump Administration to help smooth the sale of
TikTok
TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
TikTok is an international version o ...
(in which Sequoia had invested heavily) to a US corporation.
Leone renounced his support for Trump following the
2021 storming of the United States Capitol
On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-United States President, U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election, 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol, U ...
.
In April 2022, Sequoia announced that Roelof Botha would replace Leone as its senior steward of global brand and operations, effective from July 5, following Leone's 65th birthday. Since then, Leone continues to be a general partner in Sequoia's existing funds.
Boards
Leone is a board member for several companies,
including
ActionIQ,
Cyera,
Island,
Nubank
Nubank is a Brazilian neobank and the largest fintech bank in Latin America. Its headquarters are located in São Paulo, Brazil. The company also has engineering offices in Berlin, Germany, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and an office in Mexico City, Me ...
,
strongDM,
Trade Republic,
[ and ]Wiz
Wiz may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
*Wizard (MUD), or wiz, a developer or administrator of Multi-User Dungeon game
*"Wiz" Zumwalt, the hero of a series of novels by Rick Cook
* Wiz (''KonoSuba''), a character in the light novel series ''Kon ...
.
Personal life
Leone is married to Patricia Perkins-Leone. The couple has four children, and lives in Atherton, California. They have been seeking to build an oceanfront home in Makena, Maui, Hawaii, but as of November 2017, the Hawaii Supreme Court has ruled against the development.
In May 2021, Leone was conferred with the Order of the Star of Italy
The Order of the Star of Italy ( it, Ordine della Stella d'Italia ) is an Italian order of chivalry that was founded in 2011. The order was reformed from the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity by the 11th President of Italy, Giorgio Napoli ...
, in the class of Officer (''Ufficiale dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia'').
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leone, Douglas
Living people
1957 births
20th-century American businesspeople
American billionaires
American investors
American venture capitalists
Businesspeople from New York City
Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni
Cornell University College of Engineering alumni
Italian emigrants to the United States
MIT Sloan School of Management alumni
People from Atherton, California
Midas List