Who is Shaun Maguire, the VC partner facing backlash over his remarks about Zohran Mamdani
In response to a New York Times story about Mamdani marking his ethnicity as both "Asian" and "Black or African American" on his 2009 application to Columbia University, Maguire wrote on X that the candidate "comes from a culture that lies about everything."
"It's literally a virtue to lie if it advances his Islamist agenda," he said.
The comments have ignited backlash from some in the tech world, including some founders backed by Sequoia. An online petition calling for the firm to take disciplinary action against Maguire and establish an avenue for Sequoia's founders to report discrimination and hate speech has more than 900 signatories who self-identified as founders, executives, or tech workers.
Meanwhile, others in the tech world, like Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, have expressed support for Maguire, and an open letter in his defense has begun circulating on X.
He previously pointed to posts he made on X in response to the backlash, including a video in which he defended his comments.
"To any Muslim that is not an Islamist, and to any Indian that took offense to this tweet, I am very, very sorry," he said in the video.
This is not Maguire's first time wading into political waters. The investor has become known for his outspoken conservative bent and is emblematic of a shift to the right in Silicon Valley.
From high school dropout to Silicon Valley big shot
Maguire followed a slightly unconventional path to venture capital.
After a lackluster high school performance — his GPA was 1.8 and he failed Algebra 2 — he dropped out of school in 10th grade and earned the equivalent of a GED, he said in a 2022 interview with the Caltech Heritage Project. He went on to enroll in community college and then graduate from the University of Southern California, where he was a member of the math team.
His interest in math took him to Stanford University, where he earned a Master's in statistics, and then to Caltech, where he earned a Ph.D. in physics.
While at the latter, he started working for DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, in Afghanistan. His work there led him to cofound Expanse (formerly Qadium), a network security company, which was acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2020 for about $800 million.
He became a partner at Google Ventures in 2016, according to his LinkedIn profile. His investments there included Dandelion Energy, a geothermal heating and cooling company, IonQ, a quantum computing company, and Lambda School, a coding boot camp.
In 2019, Maguire joined Sequoia. He's led or co-led more than two dozen investments for the firm, including in AI upstarts Decart and Foundry, and several of Elon Musk's companies, like tunneling venture The Boring Company, AI platform xAI, and rocket builder SpaceX.
He's also interested in investments that support President Donald Trump's ambitions to "reshore the supply chain" through drones and silicon photonics, he told CNBC last month.
An outspoken Trump supporter: 'I was willing to face any consequences'
As his profile has risen in Silicon Valley, so has his political one.
Maguire, who went from supporting Hillary Clinton to embracing the Make America Great Again movement, has become one of the most prominent GOP supporters in Silicon Valley.
Following Trump's felony conviction last year, Maguire announced he'd back Trump in the 2024 election and would write his campaign a $300,000 check. In total, he donated about $800,000 to Republican causes last year, according to data from Open Secrets. Once Trump was elected, Maguire aided in the transition by interviewing candidates for positions in the defense department, The New York Times reported.
In a lengthy screed on X, Maguire, a staunch supporter of Israel, outlined the reasoning behind his political change of heart.
Part of his disillusionment with the Democrats hinged on foreign policy, including the fact that Joe Biden pulled US troops out of Afghanistan, he said. In contrast, he praised Trump as a "master of foreign policy" and described the myriad lawsuits against him as "double standards and lawfare."
His ideological shift extends beyond diplomatics. Over the past year, he's been posting near-daily diatribes on his politics.
He's criticized diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, claiming he wasn't promoted because he was a white man, and dabbled in conspiracy theories, including posting about how "antifa" is responsible for voter fraud.
"I had made enough money to where, if I got fired, I wasn't going to starve to death," he said earlier this year of his decision to be more outspoken on the "Uncapped" podcast. "I was at a point in my life where I was willing to face any consequences, as crazy as it sounds, even death."
His points of view have made him some enemies. He told Fortune that he "lost lots of friends and disappointed family."
The blowback following his comments on Mamdani, though, marks a new level.
Maguire isn't backing down, though.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Sequoia bets on silence
There is a time-honored crisis management strategy, wherein one says nothing and waits for the outrage to pass. For Sequoia Capital, the strategy worked pretty well this week. While partner Shaun Maguire initially weathered criticism over an inflammatory social media post, that initial indignation cooled quickly. Now, some seem to think that Maguire's defiant stance may even be strengthening his position. Business Insider actually called it 'good for deal flow' — controversy as competitive advantage. Sequoia's calculated gamble carries real risk, though. Another provocative post from Maguire that hits the wrong nerve, a shift in political winds, or escalating consequences could quickly transform their unflappable partner from an asset into a liability the firm can no longer afford to ignore. A crisis communications professional who has managed reputation disasters for dozens of major brands tells this editor, 'Firms like Sequoia are bulletproof until they aren't.' What happened Sequoia's hands-off approach was put to the test earlier this week when the storied venture firm found itself in the eye of a storm over Maguire's inflammatory comments about New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Maguire called him an 'Islamist' who 'comes from a culture that lies about everything' in a July 4th tweet on X that has since been viewed more than five million times. More than one thousand signatures have poured in since on a petition demanding that Sequoia condemn the remarks, investigate Maguire's conduct, and apologize. There's been a lot of talk about why Sequoia hasn't done this, with many outlets noting that Maguire isn't just any partner. This status owes partly to his friendship with Stripe's co-founder. According to reports, at a 2015 Founders Fund event, Maguire—then a Founders Fund-backed entrepreneur—defended Collison during an argument with Anduril's Palmer Luckey about quantum computing, earning Collison's friendship. The connection proved valuable when Maguire joined Google Ventures in 2016; he helped secure a $20 million Stripe investment during his first week. When Maguire left Google Ventures in 2019, Collison personally recommended him to Sequoia's partners. (Stripe has been in Sequoia's portfolio since 2010, with the firm investing more than $500 million over 15 years.) Maguire also led Sequoia's investment in Bridge, a stablecoin platform that Stripe acquired for $1.1 billion, and is reportedly Sequoia's link to Elon Musk, though this is probably somewhat overstated. Musk and Sequoia's global managing director, Roelof Botha, are both native South Africans and have known each other for more than 25 years, dating back to their time together at the then-nascent PayPal, where Botha was recruited personally by Musk. Despite that long relationship, the two haven't always seen eye to eye. Botha was highly critical of Musk's management style when Musk was CEO of the merged company, where Botha was CFO. Botha once told veteran journalist Ebbe Dommisse, 'I think it would have killed the company if Elon had stayed on as CEO for six more months. The mistakes Elon was making at the time were amplifying the risk of the business.' But Musk was at odds with pretty much that entire crew at the time, and those tensions have long since been resolved. The bigger point here: when you're managing tens of billions of dollars in assets and your firm's reputation rests on backing winners like Google, Stripe, and Nvidia, you don't easily cast aside a rainmaker. Meanwhile, Maguire's behavior suggests he's not backing down. After issuing a 30-minute video on X last weekend in which he apologized for offending so many — saying he was making a point about a political ideology and not one about a religion — he has doubled down with increasingly aggressive posts this week. He has claimed he has 'reverse engineered' his critics' 'command structure' and threatened to 'embarrass' anyone who escalates against him. He added that this is him at '1% throttle' and warned people not to 'fuck w children of the internet.' The silent treatment Sequoia has precedent for its approach to this situation. The firm has historically given its partners space to express themselves publicly, with figures like Doug Leone and Michael Moritz (who left the firm in 2023) representing different political perspectives. But there's a crucial difference between political diversity and inflammatory rhetoric and clearly to some, Maguire's comments extend beyond partisan politics into territory that alienates both political opponents and potential business partners. It's also worth remembering that even for Sequoia, there is a bright line. Michael Goguen, another, earlier rainmaker with the firm, was promptly shown the door when Sequoia learned of a sexual abuse lawsuit filed against him. The situations are hardly comparable; Goguen's issues were legal and personal, not ideological. At the same time, Sequoia has shown it isn't willing to circle the wagons at any cost, not if its reputation is at stake. Presumably, several factors inform Sequoia's do-nothing PR strategy, including how quickly people, faced with a constant flurry of news, move on from a scandal. The firm is also operating in a different political landscape right now in the U.S. Along with Donald Trump's victory and the rollback of DEI initiatives has come new tolerance for controversial speech. What might have been career-ending at an earlier point in time is now weathered more easily. The firm is also likely banking on the fact that while founders want partners who fit the traditional, more genteel VC mold, they want successful ones even more. Startups being courted by multiple top-tier firms might not like or agree with Maguire, but when Sequoia comes calling with its track record and almost bottomless pockets, most founders are going to welcome the firm with open arms. There's also the very real possibility that Sequoia is working on a contingency plan. (Sequoia declined to comment on Maguire's posts when reached by TechCrunch earlier this week.) Still, Sequoia's silence carries risks. Not all the signers have been confirmed, but the petition against Maguire includes the names of some prominent Middle Eastern executives and founders who have attested to signing it, and they represent the kind of diverse, global talent pool that drives innovation. By not addressing the controversy, Sequoia risks being seen as tacitly endorsing Maguire's views. Put another way, though the venture capital world has historically been remarkably forgiving of controversial figures with exceptional deal flow, the firm is gambling with its reputation in an increasingly connected global market where alienating entire regions and communities carries real business consequences. Whether that bet pays off will depend on how long the controversy lingers, how much business it actually costs Sequoia, and whether Maguire can resist the urge to push things past Sequoia's own tolerance threshold. (He has said he doesn't post anything that hasn't been 'excrutiatingly thought out.') History suggests that established financial firms with strong track records tend to outlive their scandals, even serious ones. When Apollo Global Management's Leon Black resigned in 2021 over his $158 million payments to Jeffrey Epstein, the firm's stock barely moved and shareholders seemed largely unfazed. Apollo just continued its aggressive deal-making under new leadership. Similarly, Kleiner Perkins survived Ellen Pao's high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit in 2015. But it took years and essentially an entirely new team for the storied venture firm to regain its footing in Silicon Valley's hierarchy. The lesson here may be that while controversial partners can be endured, the recovery timelines can vary significantly depending on how firms handle the crisis. For now, the crisis communications professional, who asked not to be named, has some advice for Maguire and, by extension, Sequoia. Regarding the video Maguire published in the aftermath of his initial comments, the expert said, 'I did think that apology addressed the ambiguities in [Maguire's] post. But it's a 30-minute video — you have to be really interested to watch this.' If there's a next time, the professional said, Maguire should 'do two videos — one for three minutes' and another, longer video, for anyone who wants to keep watching. Sometimes, the expert added, 'less is more.'
TechCrunch
an hour ago
- TechCrunch
Sequoia bets on silence
There is a time-honored crisis management strategy, wherein one says nothing and waits for the outrage to pass. For Sequoia Capital, the strategy worked pretty well this week. While partner Shaun Maguire initially weathered criticism over an inflammatory social media post, that initial indignation cooled quickly. Now, some seem to think that Maguire's defiant stance may even be strengthening his position. Business Insider actually called it 'good for deal flow' — controversy as competitive advantage. Sequoia's calculated gamble carries real risk, though. Another provocative post from Maguire that hits the wrong nerve, a shift in political winds, or escalating consequences could quickly transform their unflappable partner from an asset into a liability the firm can no longer afford to ignore. A crisis communications professional who has managed reputation disasters for dozens of major brands tells this editor, 'Firms like Sequoia are bulletproof until they aren't.' What happened Sequoia's hands-off approach was put to the test earlier this week when the storied venture firm found itself in the eye of a storm over Maguire's inflammatory comments about New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Maguire called him an 'Islamist' who 'comes from a culture that lies about everything' in a July 4th tweet on X that has since been viewed more than five million times. More than one thousand signatures have poured in since on a petition demanding that Sequoia condemn the remarks, investigate Maguire's conduct, and apologize. There's been a lot of talk about why Sequoia hasn't done this, with many outlets noting that Maguire isn't just any partner. This status owes partly to his friendship with Stripe's co-founder. According to reports, at a 2015 Founders Fund event, Maguire—then a Founders Fund-backed entrepreneur—defended Collison during an argument with Anduril's Palmer Luckey about quantum computing, earning Collison's friendship. The connection proved valuable when Maguire joined Google Ventures in 2016; he helped secure a $20 million Stripe investment during his first week. When Maguire left Google Ventures in 2019, Collison personally recommended him to Sequoia's partners. (Stripe has been in Sequoia's portfolio since 2010, with the firm investing more than $500 million over 15 years.) Maguire also led Sequoia's investment in Bridge, a stablecoin platform that Stripe acquired for $1.1 billion, and is reportedly Sequoia's link to Elon Musk, though this is probably somewhat overstated. Musk and Sequoia's global managing director, Roelof Botha, are both native South Africans and have known each other for more than 25 years, dating back to their time together at the then-nascent PayPal, where Botha was recruited personally by Musk. Despite that long relationship, the two haven't always seen eye to eye. Botha was highly critical of Musk's management style when Musk was CEO of the merged company, where Botha was CFO. Botha once told veteran journalist Ebbe Dommisse, 'I think it would have killed the company if Elon had stayed on as CEO for six more months. The mistakes Elon was making at the time were amplifying the risk of the business.' But Musk was at odds with pretty much that entire crew at the time, and those tensions have long since been resolved. Techcrunch event Save up to $475 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $450 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW The bigger point here: when you're managing tens of billions of dollars in assets and your firm's reputation rests on backing winners like Google, Stripe, and Nvidia, you don't easily cast aside a rainmaker. Meanwhile, Maguire's behavior suggests he's not backing down. After issuing a 30-minute video on X last weekend in which he apologized for offending so many — saying he was making a point about a political ideology and not one about a religion — he has doubled down with increasingly aggressive posts this week. He has claimed he has 'reverse engineered' his critics' 'command structure' and threatened to 'embarrass' anyone who escalates against him. He added that this is him at '1% throttle' and warned people not to 'fuck w children of the internet.' The silent treatment Sequoia has precedent for its approach to this situation. The firm has historically given its partners space to express themselves publicly, with figures like Doug Leone and Michael Moritz (who left the firm in 2023) representing different political perspectives. But there's a crucial difference between political diversity and inflammatory rhetoric and clearly to some, Maguire's comments extend beyond partisan politics into territory that alienates both political opponents and potential business partners. It's also worth remembering that even for Sequoia, there is a bright line. Michael Goguen, another, earlier rainmaker with the firm, was promptly shown the door when Sequoia learned of a sexual abuse lawsuit filed against him. The situations are hardly comparable; Goguen's issues were legal and personal, not ideological. At the same time, Sequoia has shown it isn't willing to circle the wagons at any cost, not if its reputation is at stake. Presumably, several factors inform Sequoia's do-nothing PR strategy, including how quickly people, faced with a constant flurry of news, move on from a scandal. The firm is also operating in a different political landscape right now in the U.S. Along with Donald Trump's victory and the rollback of DEI initiatives has come new tolerance for controversial speech. What might have been career-ending at an earlier point in time is now weathered more easily. The firm is also likely banking on the fact that while founders want partners who fit the traditional, more genteel VC mold, they want successful ones even more. Startups being courted by multiple top-tier firms might not like or agree with Maguire, but when Sequoia comes calling with its track record and almost bottomless pockets, most founders are going to welcome the firm with open arms. There's also the very real possibility that Sequoia is working on a contingency plan. (Sequoia declined to comment on Maguire's posts when reached by TechCrunch earlier this week.) Still, Sequoia's silence carries risks. Not all the signers have been confirmed, but the petition against Maguire includes the names of some prominent Middle Eastern executives and founders who have attested to signing it, and they represent the kind of diverse, global talent pool that drives innovation. By not addressing the controversy, Sequoia risks being seen as tacitly endorsing Maguire's views. Put another way, though the venture capital world has historically been remarkably forgiving of controversial figures with exceptional deal flow, the firm is gambling with its reputation in an increasingly connected global market where alienating entire regions and communities carries real business consequences. Whether that bet pays off will depend on how long the controversy lingers, how much business it actually costs Sequoia, and whether Maguire can resist the urge to push things past Sequoia's own tolerance threshold. (He has said he doesn't post anything that hasn't been 'excrutiatingly thought out.') History suggests that established financial firms with strong track records tend to outlive their scandals, even serious ones. When Apollo Global Management's Leon Black resigned in 2021 over his $158 million payments to Jeffrey Epstein, the firm's stock barely moved and shareholders seemed largely unfazed. Apollo just continued its aggressive deal-making under new leadership. Similarly, Kleiner Perkins survived Ellen Pao's high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit in 2015. But it took years and essentially an entirely new team for the storied venture firm to regain its footing in Silicon Valley's hierarchy. The lesson here may be that while controversial partners can be endured, the recovery timelines can vary significantly depending on how firms handle the crisis. For now, the crisis communications professional, who asked not to be named, has some advice for Maguire and, by extension, Sequoia. Regarding the video Maguire published in the aftermath of his initial comments, the expert said, 'I did think that apology addressed the ambiguities in [Maguire's] post. But it's a 30-minute video — you have to be really interested to watch this.' If there's a next time, the professional said, Maguire should 'do two videos — one for three minutes' and another, longer video, for anyone who wants to keep watching. Sometimes, the expert added, 'less is more.'
3 hours ago
Muslim inmate who won US Supreme Court beard case claims retaliatory transfer by Arkansas officials
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- A Muslim inmate who won a U.S. Supreme Court case upholding his right to grow a beard for religious reasons said in a lawsuit that Arkansas officials transferred him to a federal prison in West Virginia in retaliation for several other lawsuits he has filed. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas filed the lawsuit in federal court on behalf of Gregory Holt, also known as Abdul Maalik Muhammad, claiming the transfer violated his constitutional rights. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Holt could maintain a half-inch beard because Arkansas prison officials could not substantiate claims that the beard posed a security risk. The lawsuit filed Thursday argues his transfer was an effort to disrupt his advocacy on behalf of himself and other inmates. 'Mr. Muhammad's history of meritorious litigation showcases the ability of the legal system to provide justice to all, including prisoners,' the lawsuit said. 'The Court should not tolerate the (state's) retaliatory transfer aimed at suppressing Mr. Muhammad's meritorious litigation and legal work.' A spokesperson for the Department of Corrections declined to comment on the lawsuit. Jeff LeMaster, a spokesperson for Attorney General Tim Griffin, said Griffin's office was reviewing the lawsuit and would 'vigorously' defend the state. Holt has six active lawsuits against the Arkansas Department of Corrections, according to the complaint. The lawsuit accuses the head of the division of correction of unilaterally pursuing Holt's transfer to a federal facility after the idea was raised in a mediation session in one of his lawsuits. Since being moved to the West Virginia facility, the ACLU said, Holt has been denied access to basic hygiene, religious services and contact with his lawyers. The lawsuit said he also has lost access to ongoing casework and legal documents that support his cases. The lawsuit said that since Holt is still a state inmate, Arkansas has the power to order his return to a state facility. 'This ordeal has made Mr. Muhammad loathe to ever trust the mediation process or participate in a mediation with the ADC ( or any other government actor) again,' the lawsuit said. In his U.S. Supreme Court case, Holt claimed that he has a right to grow a beard under a federal law aimed at protecting prisoners' religious rights. He had the support of then-President Barack Obama's administration, religious groups and atheists alike. Holt is serving a life sentence for a brutal assault on his girlfriend and was being held at a maximum-security prison 26 miles (43 kilometers) southeast of Little Rock. His case first came to the Supreme Court's attention when he filed a handwritten plea to the court asking it to block enforcement of Arkansas' no-beard rule.
