Sequoia's Doug Leone on Building Enduring Companies in the AI Era | ElevenLabs Summit London 2026

Sequoia Capital's Doug Leone shares 30 years of lessons on building enduring companies, from laws of physics for startups to why most board members add zero value. Watch more from the Summit: https://elevenlabs.io/events/elevenlabs-summit/ldn-26 Mati Staniszewski, co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, sits down with Doug Leone, who spent over 30 years building and leading Sequoia Capital, one of the most influential venture firms in the world. Doug, who was behind early investments in NVIDIA, Google, Apple, ServiceNow, and Nubank, shares the frameworks he's developed across multiple technology waves, from semiconductors to internet to mobile to AI. The conversation covers Doug's "laws of physics" for business, the principles you write in pen versus pencil, why aligned interests matter more than anything, and his biggest career regret: not dreaming big enough with founders. He breaks down what separates companies that endure from those that don't, why execution beats strategy in the early years, how to architect a cap table like a product, and why going public is a branding event, not a financing event. Doug is characteristically blunt on AI valuations, the real role of board members, and why the best startup ideas come from problems you've experienced firsthand, not conference rooms with CEOs. Join the Community • Discord – https://discord.gg/hPE7yT33Qc • Reddit – https://www.reddit.com/r/ElevenLabs/ Links & Resources • ElevenLabs – https://elevenlabs.io/ • Docs & API – https://elevenlabs.io/docs/ • Blog – https://elevenlabs.io/blog/ Connect with ElevenLabs • Subscribe – https://www.youtube.com/@elevenlabsio?sub_confirmation=1 • Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/elevenlabsio • TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@elevenlabs • X – https://x.com/elevenlabs About ElevenLabs ElevenLabs is the leading AI voice platform for ultra-realistic, context-aware speech generation. Creators, developers, and enterprises use our tools to design voices, dub content, and build expr