Carl Eschenbach

Growing up in northeast Pennsylvania, my life was all about family. My father, who I consider my mentor, worked at a dynamite factory, then started multiple businesses—we sold ice cream in the summers and Christmas trees in the winters. He was a hard-working man who taught me integrity, humility and, most importantly, placing family first. I got a wrestling scholarship to a four-year college. But I saw my brother-in-law go to a technical school and start building a successful career, and I decided to switch to DeVry. That was a crucible moment for me. Without it I never would have gotten into tech.

When Diane Green hired me, there were 200 people at VMWare, and when I left there were 20,000. We scaled the business from $30M in my first year to $7B 14 years later. I can tell you there’s no playbook for that kind of growth. Many days I woke up in the morning and wasn’t sure what to do—we just figured it out. I took on nearly every role at the company, including CFO, COO and President.

After more than 25 years on airplanes, I wanted to be home for my kids’ high school years. When Jim Goetz first suggested Sequoia, I thought, “No way. I’m an operator, not a VC.” But it’s been an amazing journey. I’ve learned a lot from my partners—I feel blessed to be part of Sequoia and to help our portfolio companies scale and grow.