Most people would rather do anything than sit through a root canal. Doug Leone welcomed it with open arms — and without an anesthetic. When the Sequoia Capital chairman learned he might have to miss a meeting if he took novocaine during a root canal, he told his dentist to skip the pain killer.
“My whole life I wanted to see if I was a badass or not,” Leone, 69, said in a recent interview with podcaster David Senra, according to the New York Post. “Drill without any Novocaine,” he told his dentist. The response: “You’re out of your mind.”
Leone said the drilling made him jump once, then he willed himself still, imagining the pain of a soldier losing a limb in combat. “That’s pain with consequences,” he said. “Mine was pain with no consequences.” He finished the procedure, made his meeting, then went home and changed his sweat-soaked shirt.
Leone, whose fortune Forbes puts at $11.7 billion, has built a career on chasing discomfort. He immigrated from Genoa to Mount Vernon, New York, at age 11, later earning degrees from Cornell, Columbia and MIT before joining Sequoia in 1988. He became a partner in 1993 and eventually rose to managing partner, helping expand the firm into China and India before stepping back from senior leadership in 2022.
“I love fear,” Leone said. “It does wonders for me.”
Most people would rather do anything than sit through a root canal. Doug Leone welcomed it with open arms — and without an anesthetic. When the Sequoia Capital chairman learned he might have to miss a meeting if he took novocaine during a root canal, he told his dentist to skip the pain killer.
“My whole life I wanted to see if I was a badass or not,” Leone, 69, said in a recent interview with podcaster David Senra, according to the New York Post. “Drill without any Novocaine,” he told his dentist. The response: “You’re out of your mind.”
Leone said the drilling made him jump once, then he willed himself still, imagining the pain of a soldier losing a limb in combat. “That’s pain with consequences,” he said. “Mine was pain with no consequences.” He finished the procedure, made his meeting, then went home and changed his sweat-soaked shirt.
Leone, whose fortune Forbes puts at $11.7 billion, has built a career on chasing discomfort. He immigrated from Genoa to Mount Vernon, New York, at age 11, later earning degrees from Cornell, Columbia and MIT before joining Sequoia in 1988. He became a partner in 1993 and eventually rose to managing partner, helping expand the firm into China and India before stepping back from senior leadership in 2022.
“I love fear,” Leone said. “It does wonders for me.”