Jess Lee

She built a $200M fashion platform and broke Sequoia’s 44-year streak of all-male investing partners.

Jess Lee didn’t want to be in tech.

She wanted to draw manga.

But after Stanford and a stint as a PM at Google Maps, she stumbled on a startup that blended code with creativity: Polyvore.

She was obsessed.

So she did what few would: sent a cold email full of complaints and product suggestions.

The founders hired her immediately.

Jess became employee #1. Then cofounder. Then CEO.

She wrote code. Designed UX. Built the community. Closed ad deals. Raised money.

Whatever the company needed, she figured it out.

In 2015, Yahoo acquired Polyvore.

One year later, Jess broke into a new boys’ club, becoming Sequoia Capital’s first female investing partner in the U.S. after 44 years of all-male leadership.

Jess had met Sequoia’s Roelof Botha for what she thought was a coffee chat.

Instead, he showed up in full Toy Story cosplay (with partner Jim Goetz dressed as Woody) and handed her an offer letter to join Sequoia.

Today, Jess helps run Sequoia’s early-stage platform, from Arc to Scouts to the Ecosystem Fund.

She backs consumer companies like Mos, Maven Clinic, and Otter.

And she co-founded All Raise to tip the balance of power for women in tech.

She doesn’t look for perfect founders, she looks for different ones.