Alfred Lin
Alfred Lin is a venture investor whose work at Sequoia Capital has helped direct capital toward AI companies and research. He enters a statistics PhD program, joins LinkExchange, starts Venture Frogs, and becomes a finance and business-development executive at Tellme Networks. At Zappos, he serves as COO and CFO and grows gross sales from $300 million to $1.6 billion before joining Sequoia as a partner in 2010. Since 2017, he has led early-stage investing and worked with Pat Grady on Sequoia's OpenAI investments; the two became Sequoia co-stewards in late 2025. In April 2026, Lin coauthored the firm's announcement of its partnership with David Silver's London reinforcement-learning lab Ineffable Intelligence.
- Now at
- Sequoia Capital
Timeline
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By 2001
A statistics path to LinkExchange
He enters a PhD program in statistics, then joins his college friend Tony Hsieh at LinkExchange after Sequoia invests.
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By 2001
A seed fund and Tellme
After Microsoft buys LinkExchange, Lin starts Venture Frogs as an incubator and seed fund. At Tellme Networks, he joins as vice president of finance and business development in 2001, helping grow annual recurring revenue from zero to more than $120 million.
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2005–2010
Scaling Zappos
At Zappos, Lin joins in 2005 and serves as COO and CFO, growing gross sales from $300 million to $1.6 billion. He moves to Sequoia as a partner in 2010, after Amazon acquires Zappos in 2009.
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Since 2017
Backing AI at Sequoia
Since 2017, he leads Sequoia's early-stage investing. With Pat Grady, he has led the firm's investments in OpenAI.
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Since 2025
Leading Sequoia through AI
Since late 2025, he and Pat Grady have served as Sequoia co-stewards and plan to deepen its AI investment focus. In April 2026, he coauthored Sequoia's announcement of its partnership with David Silver's London AI research lab Ineffable Intelligence.
Sources and credits
Photo: sequoiacap.com; Alfred Lin | Sequoia Capital; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: sequoiacap.com. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.
- Alfred Lin | Sequoia Capital
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