The Most Precious Resource
Sequoia by Pat Grady
Sequoia says Blockit can use AI to fix scheduling and get people back time. It’s betting on the founder and the market at the same time.
Based on reporting by Sequoia, by Pat Grady — read the original for the full story.
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Sequoia’s latest note is really two bets dressed up as one: the person and the market. On the person side, the firm says it backed Kais Khimji in 2019 as a partner, not a founder, after seeing a long list of traits it liked: hard work, curiosity, feedback tolerance, and a knack for relationships. On the market side, it says the same person later walked in with an idea for an app that could make time use less painful and more efficient.
That idea became Blockit. Sequoia frames the product as an AI scheduling tool built with LLMs, aimed at replacing the usual mess of high-touch, high-friction scheduling with something closer to automatic coordination. The firm also casts the business in classic startup terms: a freemium model, virality because scheduling involves multiple people, network effects from more calendar inventory, and monetization because the software is replacing work rather than just selling software.
The pitch is big. Sequoia says Blockit has a shot at a $1bn-plus revenue business, and it ties that claim to the team around Khimji and cofounder John Han, which it describes as small but elite. It also says the company’s progress so far has been impressive, though it doesn’t spell out numbers, products shipped, or customers.
What stands out is how openly Sequoia leans on a classic venture belief: the best companies come from the meeting point of an exceptional person and a large market. Here, that market is time itself, which is a neat way to make scheduling sound almost philosophical. Still, the bet is basically simple — if the product really does remove friction from a daily chore, people will notice fast.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is Silicon Valley at full self-regard: turn calendar pain into a grand theory of life improvement and call it a market. Maybe it works, but the real test is whether Blockit can do the boring part better than everyone else, because LLMs do not get to skip the ugly details. The nicest thing about “optimizing time” is that it sounds noble right up until someone has to ship the software.
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