VC Spotlight: Greylock Partners
Greylock didn’t just show up early to the startup party, they helped build the damn house. Founded in 1965 by Bill Elfers and Dan Gregory, with Charlie Waite joining soon after, Greylock Partners wasn't born in Silicon Valley. It was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by operators trained under Georges Doriot, the godfather of venture capital. The original $10 million fund came not from institutions, but six families who saw something most didn’t: that venture wasn’t just finance, it was futures.
Bill Elfers named the firm after his street. But don’t let that suburban image fool you. The culture he built, collegial, long-haul, zero turnover, was more Navy SEALs than neighborly. For 30 years, not one general partner left to launch their own fund. In an industry addicted to reinvention, Greylock scaled with silence and conviction.
That conviction? It shows up in check size and stage. Over 80% of Greylock’s investments happen pre-seed, seed, or Series A. Many deals don’t just start in the office, they start on the whiteboard. No traction. No product. Just belief. It’s what David Sze calls “pre-product conviction.” The pattern? The biggest returns weren’t obvious. They were debated. Messy. Half-baked. Exactly where consensus goes to die and empires are built.
Their empire? It’s generational. Facebook, LinkedIn, Airbnb, Discord, Figma, Roblox, Coinbase, Okta, Palo Alto Networks. Not a highlight reel, a pattern recognition clinic. Backed before buzzwords, scaled before the market cared. That’s not timing. That’s time-tested instinct.
And yet, Greylock doesn’t coast. Greylock 17, a $1 billion fund, is writing checks into the AI-first future. Founders like Mustafa Suleyman (DeepMind, Inflection.AI) aren’t outliers, they’re orbit. From Abnormal Security to Adept to Magic Eden and Dazz, the firm is placing sharp, early bets where machine meets mission.
With Greylock Edge, they’re building the next wave before the surf even forms. It’s not an accelerator. It’s a forge. Few founders at a time. Whiteboards open. Options flexible. Support relentless. Access to CXOs, design partners, cloud credits, and the kind of recruiting engine that gets founding teams built fast and right.
And they don’t just build companies, they build ecosystems. Greymatter, CXO circles, quarterly deep-dives in infrastructure, data, and design. When the market zigs into hype, Greylock zags into thesis. Ask their partners: Jerry Chen, Mike Duboe, Saam Motamedi, Jacob Andreou, Sophia Luo, Mor Chen. They’re not following noise, they’re playing signal.
Greylock-backed startups are hiring across AI, cybersecurity, product, go-to-market, and leadership. Want in?
Meta (formerly Facebook) – https://www.metacareers.com
Discord – https://discord.com/careers
Roblox – https://careers.roblox.com/jobs
Coinbase – https://www.coinbase.com/careers/positions
Palo Alto Networks – https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/company/careers
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