Latest news with #Sequoia
Business Insider
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Business Insider
The metamorphosis of Shaun Maguire
Shaun Maguire wanted New York City voters to know about the dangers ahead. On July 4, the general partner at the industry-leading Sequoia Capital posted on X that Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani was a secret "Islamist" who "comes from a culture of lying." Mamdani, he added, "has basically advocated for the destruction of America." The comments were not unusual for Maguire, a self-described moderate former Hillary Clinton voter who has become a full-throated MAGA convert, defender of Israel, and one of the most provocative right-wing political commentators among an increasingly right-leaning group of venture capitalists and founders. This time, though, the social-media dam broke, bringing a flood of critical comments from startup founders and tech workers. Hundreds of Muslim founders signed an open letter asking that Sequoia apologize and discipline Maguire. At the Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference, the annual " summer camp for billionaires" in Idaho, Sequoia's managing partner Roelof Botha was hounded with questions about Maguire, The New York Times reported. Several other people I spoke to — including Maguire's friends, colleagues, and executives from a Sequoia limited partner and a Sequoia portfolio company — wondered what might happen to tech's new leading controversialist. More broadly, the ongoing fury over Maguire's posts reflects a tech industry riven by subterranean faultlines over Israel and whether venture capitalists should be funding companies involved in what a UN Special Committee and several other international organizations have deemed a genocide in Gaza. Those disagreements, which have been tamped down by some Muslim tech workers' fear of losing their jobs or funding, are now exploding into the open. Osman "Ozzie" Osman, the founder of financial planning app Monarch Money, wrote on X that Sequoia Capital was "OK with racism and Islamophobia." "It just feels asymmetric," Osman wrote to me in a message. "People who feel unhappy about the devastation in Gaza are scared to speak up," he said. "Meanwhile, someone like Shaun can repeatedly make bigoted statements like this one with no ramifications." He added, "I'm just surprised Sequoia tolerates these sorts of statements." Powerful industry figures like Elon Musk, Joe Lonsdale, and Keith Rabois, meanwhile, came to Maguire's defense. "Shaun Maguire is brave," wrote Josh Wolfe, a cofounder of Luxe Capital. Hundreds of technologists signed an open letter of support that called Maguire a "principled thinker and a partner to countless founders who span geographies, faiths, and political beliefs." Maguire, who has taunted his critics and journalists on X, forwarded a request for an interview to Sequoia's communications team, which did not respond to requests for comment. "I don't think it's harmed his deal flow," a venture capitalist who's worked with Maguire told me. "In many cases it's probably been helpful, especially in this whole category of American resilience tech." And Maguire keeps posting. Two days after he called Mamdani an Islamist, he shared a 28-minute video to X in which he apologized to any Muslims who were offended, and then proceeded to lay out a case for why he was right. "I think Zohran Mamdani is a wolf in sheep's clothing," he said. He explained that he had done a huge amount of research on Islamism and the Iranian revolution, visited mosques in 30 countries, and fasted for Ramadan. He said that he was kidnapped by a Muslim man in Hyderabad, India. "I have gone to extreme lengths to understand this conflict," Maguire said. "I don't think it's harmed his deal flow. In many cases it's probably been helpful, especially in this whole category of American resilience tech." For Maguire, who worked on a DARPA (Defense Advance Research Projects Agency) program as a civilian contractor in Afghanistan, the conflict is between radical Islam and the West — a rhetorical throwback to the Bush-era war on terror, this time with tech startups churning out drones and surveillance systems. "I am personally very worried about what's happening in the West," he said in the video. "I really do believe that we have pretty major sleeper cell infiltration." Taking the viewer through a series of tabs in his web browser, Maguire dove into the background of Mahmood Mamdani, Zohran's father, a professor of anthropology at Columbia University. Maguire unspooled a string of epithets — not all of them negative — to describe the relatively obscure academic: He was a member of an "ideological sleeper cell," "a mastermind," "a genius," and "one of the architects of the anti-Israel movement in America." Maguire seemed to think that his son, the Democratic mayoral nominee, was at best an unwitting accomplice to the sort of political Islam that swept through Iran in the 1979 revolution. Maguire's wife's family, who is Jewish, fled revolutionary Iran. He closed by asking for advice. "If someone has a suggestion about how to criticize Islamists and call out the risk and danger of Islamism in the West without lumping in Muslims more broadly, I would really like the feedback." On X, the video was received with more condemnation from a growing chorus of critics and cheers from pro-MAGA tech accounts. "Never back down," he wrote to one booster. Maguire, who is 39, has described himself as growing up fascinated by computers but indifferent to schoos. He found his academic stride at the University of Southern California and Stanford, before enrolling in a Ph.D. program at Caltech, where he studied quantum physics, participated in student government, and explored startup ideas with peers. Friends from the time recall him as "pragmatic," with a sense of quantitative rigor, interested in where the facts would take him. He did not come across as very political — a centrist, perhaps. He was a good communicator, able to explain scientific and technical concepts to a lay audience, and he was driven. Maguire lived about 30 miles from the Caltech campus, and once in a while he would commute on foot, running the distance, a former colleague recalled. Maguire finished 22nd in the 2011 Marine Corps marathon, and he ran another marathon in the sweltering heat at Burning Man. In 2011, Maguire put his Ph.D. on hold to become a civilian employee for DARPA in Afghanistan. He was recruited, he told an interviewer for a Caltech history project, by DARPA's director Regina Dugan, a Caltech alumnus. As part of DARPA's Memex program, an initiative to collect and make search tools for data beyond the surface web, Maguire's group mapped internet-connected devices to form a picture of what was connected to a military network and what was but shouldn't be. Maguire has spoken proudly about his work in Afghanistan, posting pictures of himself riding in a military helicopter and telling Blackwater founder Erik Prince on X that he trained at one of his facilities. In a 45-minute video he released in response to a New York Times article last week, Maguire said that he was once woken up by the pressure wave from a deadly suicide bombing. He said that he was "one of about 50 people" who was getting "real-time translations" from the library of intelligence Seal Team 6 gathered from raiding Bin Laden's compound. "At no point did I ever hear anything like this back then," said someone who knew him in Afghanistan when told about Maguire's comments on Mamdani. This person asked not to be named, citing their ongoing relationship. "He seemed like a very reasonable, empathetic, competent scientist who embraced travel and being in foreign cultures." The former colleague described Maguire as having a sense of mission and being concerned about national security issues without seeming ideological. Afghanistan was another stop on the backpacker's adventure. Eventually, Maguire and some of his DARPA colleagues, including Tim Junio, a CIA analyst-turned-CEO, spun out a startup called Qadium, which worked with government and industry clients like Goldman Sachs to secure their systems. Peter Thiel's Founders Fund was an early backer. Qadium later rebranded itself as Expanse and was sold to cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks for about $1 billion in 2020. A VC who worked with Maguire and Qadium described him in admiring terms. "Shaun is somebody who just knows things," the VC said, saying that Maguire had an impressive depth of technical knowledge, with a sense for where business opportunities might lie. "Shaun's a smart person who thinks several steps ahead." Maguire, now rich, returned to Caltech to finish his Ph.D. and got a job with Google Ventures, or GV. He did well there, investing in Stripe, IonQ, and OpenDoor, but he wasn't promoted to general partner. Years later, Maguire claimed that he was denied a promotion because he was a white man. He attributed the decision to Google's leadership — a product of the supposed woke excesses that have triggered a reactionary tilt in some tech elites, from Musk on down. (A Google spokesperson told the New York Post at the time that Maguire's account was "completely untrue.") Maguire was prompted to share the story on X in 2024 after Google's Gemini AI generated images of America's founding fathers as black men. In 2019, Maguire jumped ship for tech's most storied VC firm, Sequoia Capital, with a recommendation from Stripe cofounder Patrick Collison. (After I posted on X that I was writing about Maguire, Collison sent me a direct message asking for a galley of my forthcoming book. He did not respond when I requested an interview and asked whether he helped Maguire get the Sequoia job.) "Back in 2016 I had drunk the media Kool-Aid and was scared out of my mind about Trump," Maguire wrote in a May 2024 post endorsing Trump. At Sequoia, where he has the general partner position denied to him at GV, Maguire has become known for investing in Musk's companies, including the Twitter acquisition, The Boring Company, xAI, and SpaceX. On X, Maguire and Musk are chummy, sharing each other's posts and offering supportive emojis, especially when Western civilization is at stake. In a recent video, Maguire said that his paper returns for Sequoia were approaching $10 billion. "His status at the firm is predicated on his relationship with Elon. He's an Elon guy," said a vice president at one of Sequoia's limited partners. "He's made incredible returns on SpaceX and some of the other Elon-backed companies." Paul Biggar, a tech entrepreneur and the founder of Tech for Palestine, an incubator for activist groups involved with the open letter, has sparred with Maguire. "You may not know this... but I've been watching you 👀," Maguire recently wrote on X. Biggar called the message a threat and demanded that Sequoia investigate. Biggar thinks that Maguire's connection with Musk is overrated. "Sequoia doesn't need a racist partner to talk to Elon Musk," Biggar told me. Headed by Botha, PayPal's former CFO, Sequoia has no official political alignment; prominent partners like Doug Leone and Michael Moritz have been major donors to the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively. "We're proud of the fact that we've enabled many of our partners to express their respective individual views along the way, and given them that freedom," Botha said at a conference last year. Sequoia seems to have kept a hands-off approach regarding Maguire's rising notoriety, and there may be little risk in doing so. "Given the way this progressed, and because Sequoia didn't shut this down super early, I don't think they could do anything about it at this point, even if they wanted to," said the VC who knows Maguire. "He's delivered good returns for Sequoia. Just because he has strong political views doesn't mean he's not meriting of a role as a partner there." Maguire is not alone in his views. Very much in line with a rising ethos in the VC and founder class, he holds himself out as a warrior on behalf of the American ideal, a patriot investing in the country and helping defend it from its enemies. The VC firm Andreessen Horowitz calls it American Dynamism. It's the same proudly jingoistic attitude seen in industry eminences like Palantir CEO Alex Karp and Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey. It's why Founders Fund is getting into the action-movie business. "Western Civilization is approaching the Event Horizon," Maguire recently wrote on X. "If we don't max thrust our boosters in the other direction we're not gonna make it." He wasn't always like this. People who knew him pointed to his GV experience and Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7 as milestones on his journey toward the inner circle of tech's new right-wing elite. Maguire has also written at length about his own political transformation. "Back in 2016 I had drunk the media Kool-Aid and was scared out of my mind about Trump," Maguire wrote in a May 2024 post endorsing Trump. "As such I donated to Hilary Clinton's campaign and voted for her." Maguire said that he didn't vote in 2020 and that he turned against the Biden administration after its withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan was accompanied by deadly bombings and the collapse of the US-installed government. After October 7, Maguire thought that the Biden administration was responding with weakness, especially toward Iran. "If you start looking, it's hard to see anything other than Iranian foreign influence in the Biden administration," Maguire wrote. By now Maguire's posts often came laden with MAGA shibboleths about the corrupt legacy media, anti-Trump lawfare, and woke politics. He touted a $300,000 donation he made to a pro-Donald Trump PAC last year. After Trump's election in November, he advised the president-elect on intelligence appointments. Maguire also began talking more publicly about his Judaism — he added the last name Cohn after getting married in 2018 — and his support for Zionism. (One colleague said that he had no idea Maguire was Jewish until he arrived at his wedding in Israel.) He became a leading tech voice agitating on behalf of Israeli war aims. After October 7, Sequoia opened an office in Israel, and Maguire traveled there regularly, leading investments in cybersecurity and military firms. Maguire helped lead a $10 million seed round in Kela, a defense tech company founded by what he and his colleagues called "technowarriors" from elite Israeli military units. Kela produces sensors and AI systems that have been deployed in Gaza — its website touts that its technology is "battle tested" — and reflects the increased interest from American VCs in Israeli startups closely tied to the country's ongoing war with Hamas and its occupation of the West Bank. "We at Sequoia had independently formed a thesis around Israeli defense tech," Maguire and two colleagues wrote in an article on Sequoia's website. "In the long term, the ambition is to convert Israel into a defense tech hub for Western militaries — a source of strategic advantage for NATO and the US as they seek to deter their adversaries." This thesis sits uncomfortably for some who don't share Maguire's politics. The last two years have been "extremely painful and just demoralizing," said Hosam Arab, the Palestinian founder of fintech startup Tabby, who signed the open letter to Sequoia management. He said that the tech industry has essentially proscribed pro-Palestinian activism while broadly supporting Israel. "You see what's happening on the ground and you just don't get the support," he said, speaking about the predicament for startup founders working in the US. "And you're worried about speaking out." (Tabby, which is based in the Middle East, has received investment capital from Sequoia India, which has since become independent of Sequoia Capital.) People aren't defending just Maguire, said an executive at a Sequoia portfolio company. "They're defending the privatization of western defense." Several Muslim and South Asian tech executives I talked to worried that they could be fired for posting pro-Palestinian messages on social media. They described a culture of fear in which they believe only the most successful — founders — could speak out without experiencing major blowback. One of them was Amjad Masad, CEO of billion-dollar AI coding startup Replit, who recently talked about Gaza during an appearance on Joe Rogan's show. On X, Maguire wrote that Masad, whose father is Palestinian, had lied to Rogan's vast audience about a massacre of Palestinians at an aid site. Masad shot back that Maguire's comment was "a slanderous lie," based on a misleading screenshot. Khosla Ventures partner Keith Rabois, who has compared Masad to a Nazi, later joined the digital melee, calling Masad a Hamas supporter. Khosla Ventures is an investor in Masad's company. "If you think I'm Hamas supporter why don't you do something about it. Or are you a coward?" wrote Masad. (Masad did not respond to a request for comment.) Among its investments, Sequoia has participated in two funding rounds for nsave, which provides digital banking services to people from "distressed economies," especially in the Middle East. The company was started by two Rhodes scholars from Syria and Gaza. Nsave's Palestinian cofounder Abdullah AbuHashem didn't respond to a request for comment. While Sequoia can likely weather the media storm, Muslim tech workers, including at Sequoia portfolio companies, are beginning to organize alongside like-minded allies. "We're producing groups that advocate for Palestine in some part of the ecosystem," said Biggar, likening Tech for Palestine to a Y Combinator for activist groups. Maguire's volubility has struck some observers as out of character with a VC class that once was expected to be quantitative, measured, profit-seeking — and politically agnostic. "I genuinely thought he was a shit poster," said an executive at a Sequoia portfolio company, who learned about Maguire through his X posts. "I had no idea he was an investor until very recently. I could not believe it. I thought this had to be a podcaster of some sort." The executive, who is an Indian Hindu, said that there was a certain broad acceptance that firms like Sequoia would do business in Israel. The issue, he argued, is that a general partner at Sequoia "visibly entering the end-of-days culture wars as a pundit" indicates that Sequoia might not just be following the money. "He actually is saying out loud what is coalescing into a real capital structure." The sectors Maguire invested in — cyber, space, crypto, defense tech — are part of "this new military-industrial complex which Sequoia is very much in the middle of." People aren't defending just Maguire, the executive said. "They're defending the privatization of western defense. They are defending the privatization of global citizens data in the form of Palantir and the massive ICE budget. That's what this debate is obscuring." With more than $85 billion in assets under management, Sequoia's decisions carry great industry weight, but the firm can afford to take its time. The VP from one of Sequoia's LPs told me that while some of Sequoia's backers might disagree with the company's policies, it's hard to exert influence. As the tech industry's leading VC, Sequoia had its pick of relationships, and potential LPs were eager to give the firm its money. "The Sequoia relationship is one where they have all the power." Maguire continues to post daily about the supposed dangerous, secret Islamism of Zohran Mamdani — and his father. "I have been fighting Islamist radicals for well more than a decade," Maguire said in his recent 45-minute response to the Times' article. "I have seen true evil up close and personal. I have been trained in identifying evil and terrorists. With Zohran Mamdani's father, Mahmood Mamdani, the evidence is extremely clear." If anything, Maguire seems unbowed, emboldened by the attention afforded to him. "Btw this me at 1% throttle," he wrote after the 4th of July furor. "i wish i could show u the unconstrained version." Jacob Silverman is the author of "Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection" and co-author of "Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud," which was a New York Times Bestseller. His next book, "Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley," will be published by Bloomsbury in October.
TechCrunch
a day ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Figma's Dylan Field will cash out about $60M in IPO, with Index, Kleiner, Greylock, Sequoia all selling, too
When Figma announced its initial hoped-for price range on Monday ($25-$28), it also revealed an unusual decision for its highly anticipated IPO. It will allow existing shareholders to sell more shares than the company plans to sell, by a high ratio. The company plans to offer about 12.5 million shares. Yet existing shareholders will be allowed to cash out of nearly 24.7 million shares, it said. In addition, should this IPO be as hot as everyone thinks it will be, existing shareholders will get the option to sell, collectively, up to 5.5 million more shares. Figma founder CEO Dylan Field has disclosed that he plans to sell 2.35 million shares. At the midrange he'll be cashing out of over $62 million. (That might be a much higher number if the IPO prices above $28, too.) Even with that sale, he will still own an enormous number of shares and control the company. He will hold 74% of the voting rights after the IPO. This is thanks to supervoting rights of 15 votes per share for the Class B stock he controls, plus the right to vote the Class B shares of his co-founder, Evan Wallace, the company says in its S-1. Figma's biggest venture investors are all cashing out some shares, as well, including Index, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, and Sequoia. Should the demand be there for the over-allotment, they will cash out 1.7 million to 3.3 million shares apiece. That should allow them to return some cash to their investors in this liquidity-starved venture market. It should be noted, though, that each of these investors is keeping the lion's share of their Figma holdings. One way to interpret this largely secondary sale is that if the company hadn't opened up share sales to existing investors, it might not have had enough shares to meet the demand. Techcrunch event Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. San Francisco | REGISTER NOW As you might expect, the company will not make money from the shares its stockholders sell. But should it price above its announced range (as often happens with hot IPOs), Figma will raise more, as will its shareholders. Prior to pricing, IPO experts expected Figma to sell around $1.5 billion worth of stock. Should it price above range and exceed that, Figma would be the biggest IPO of 2025 to date. The IPO could happen next week, so we shall soon see. Figma declined further comment.
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Business Standard
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Sequoia partner's social media post on Mamdani sets off chain reaction
Roelof Botha, managing partner at Sequoia Capital, attended the Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley last week amid a storm back home. Attendees repeatedly questioned him about colleague Shaun Maguire's July 4 post on X accusing Zohran Mamdani, a progressive Democrat and NYC mayoral candidate, of pushing an 'Islamist agenda' and being part of a 'culture that lies about everything.' Maguire's remarks were quickly condemned as Islamophobic. Over 1,000 technologists signed an open letter urging Sequoia to take action, while others defended his right to free speech. Botha remained neutral at Sun Valley, but the controversy has thrust Sequoia into a political firestorm it long tried to avoid. For years, Sequoia maintained institutional neutrality while rivals like Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund leaned into politics. But as Maguire's inflammatory views — including saying diversity, equity and inclusion 'kills people' — gained attention, that position has become harder to hold. Sequoia, which backed giants like Apple, Google, and Nvidia, has historically let its founders shine while partners stayed low-profile. But with Silicon Valley's evolution, political commentary by investors has become more common. Though Maguire's outspokenness is unusual at Sequoia, it reflects a broader trend seen in figures like Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel. Sequoia has remained silent on the issue. Internally, senior partner Doug Leone appeared to defend Maguire, distinguishing between 'Islamists' and 'Muslims' in emails. 'Sequoia is backed into a corner and only has bad options,' said Paul Biggar, founder of Tech for Palestine. In a recent video, Maguire reiterated his comments, calling Mamdani 'an Islamist' and 'a wolf in sheep's clothing,' while offering a limited apology to Muslims not aligned with Islamism. Mamdani's campaign didn't comment. Founded in 1972, Sequoia built its reputation on early bets in firms like Cisco, YouTube, and Zoom. But as new investors flooded Silicon Valley, standing out meant being more vocal — including on politics. In recent years, Sequoia partners have broken from tradition: Michael Moritz criticised Trump in 2016, while Leone donated to and later denounced him. Maguire helped secure Sequoia's investment in SpaceX and other Elon Musk ventures. He has over 275,000 followers on X. After Hamas' October 7 attack, Maguire, a self-described 'Jew and a Zionist,' defended Israel and warned of rising antisemitism. Maguire's post on Mamdani came after The New York Times reported that the mayoral hopeful had described himself as 'Asian and African American' on a college application. The backlash included an open letter accusing Maguire of promoting anti-Muslim stereotypes. A counterletter supporting him, signed by Bill Ackman and others, called him a 'principled thinker.' Sequoia partners have tread cautiously. On July 10, partner Pat Grady posted on X, expressing support for both the Muslim community and Maguire, calling Sequoia's culture of 'healthy conflict of ideas.' Now, activists are pressuring Sequoia's financial backers — including major universities — to hold the firm accountable. 'If we're serious about building an inclusive future, it starts with holding power accountable,' the letter said.
Time of India
2 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Tech's top venture firm tried to stay above politics, then a partner created a furor
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Roelof Botha arrived this month at the annual Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, to meet and mingle with tech and media moguls. A controversy brewing back home followed him to the exclusive the managing partner of Sequoia Capital, a storied Silicon Valley venture capital firm, was repeatedly asked at the event about a colleague, Shaun Maguire , two people with knowledge of the matter said. Maguire -- perhaps Sequoia's most outspoken partner -- had posted on the social platform X on July 4 that Zohran Mamdani, the progressive Democrat running for New York City mayor, came from a "culture that lies about everything" and was lying to advance "his Islamist agenda."Maguire's post was immediately condemned across social media as Islamophobic. More than 1,000 technologists signed an open letter calling for him to be disciplined. Investors, founders and technologists have sent messages to the firm's partners about Maguire's behavior. His critics have continued pressuring Sequoia to deal with what they see as hate speech and other invective, while his supporters have said Maguire has the right to free Sun Valley, Botha listened, but remained neutral, the people with knowledge of the matter half a century, Sequoia has tried to maintain that neutrality, even as rival venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund started taking political stances. But as Maguire has increasingly made inflammatory comments, including saying that diversity, equity and inclusion "kills people," Sequoia is now in a place that its leaders never wanted to be: smack in the middle of the culture a tricky moment for the vaunted venture firm, which backed Apple, Nvidia and Google when they were startups. For decades, Sequoia kept its partners in the background while shining the spotlight on the founders of the startups it invests in. Yet those values have become harder to adhere to as the venture industry has ballooned, and many investors have cast off Maguire is unusual at Sequoia for his outspokenness on X, he is not an industry outlier. Venture capitalists such as Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel have openly talked about their thinking, sometimes with the intent of influencing national Sequoia has said nothing about Maguire. Behind the scenes, one senior partner at Sequoia, Doug Leone, appeared to defend Maguire, according to email correspondence reviewed by The New York Times."Sequoia is backed into a corner and only has bad options," said Paul Biggar, CEO of the advocacy group Tech for Palestine, who also founded CircleCI, a software development startup. "People are speaking up because everyone sees what they've supported, and directionally that's only going to get worse for them."Sequoia declined to comment. In an interview with Fortune in March, Botha described the firm as having a "spirit of institutional neutrality" while allowing individuals to hold their political a nearly 30-minute video posted on X last week, Maguire again called Mamdani "an Islamist," and a "wolf in sheep's clothing." Maguire also tried drawing a distinction, saying "Islamists are not all Muslims" and apologized "to any Muslim that is not an Islamist and to any Indian that took offense with this tweet."Mamdani's campaign did not respond to a request for in 1972, Sequoia was known for years for its stellar track record with investing in startups. The firm reaped billions of dollars when young companies that it bet on burgeoned into large businesses and went public or were acquired for enormous the 1990s, Sequoia had established itself as a top venture firm on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California, with investments in companies including Cisco, the telecommunications hardware provider. It also invested in PayPal, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp and Zoom , among others. For startups, Sequoia's stamp of approval meant they were a Sequoia's partners tried to stay out of the limelight. But over time, more investors arrived in Silicon Valley seeking startups that would blossom into the next Google or Airbnb. To stand out, some venture capitalists at firms such as Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund started blogging and posting on social media, aiming to be thought leaders. Talking about third-rail political issues became more 2016, Michael Moritz, a senior partner at Sequoia and the firm's most prominent Democrat, penned an editorial in The Financial Times criticizing Donald Trump . In 2020, Leone, a Republican, donated to the reelection campaign of Trump, but denounced the president in a statement to the press after the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising at the moments, along with similar ones over the years, paved the way for others at Sequoia to speak more openly about their politics, two people with knowledge of the firm hired Maguire, 39, who co-founded a cybersecurity company, in 2019 on the recommendation of Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe, a payments startup that is one of the venture firm's largest investments. Maguire had chafed at hot-button issues before; he once claimed he was not promoted at another venture firm for "being a white man."At Sequoia, Maguire tied himself to Elon Musk. Maguire helped land the firm its investment in SpaceX, Musk's rocket company, which has soared in value. Maguire also led Sequoia's deals with other companies run by Musk, including the tunneling firm the Boring Co., X and artificial intelligence startup who know Maguire described him as warm and friendly in person and said his relative youth -- Botha, by contrast, is 51 -- made him relatable to younger Maguire also developed a reputation -- or perhaps notoriety -- as a prolific user of X, where he has more than 275,000 followers. In dozens of posts daily, he has commented on political issues and progressive causes. After Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Maguire, who is a self-described "Jew and a Zionist," defended the Israeli government's response while raising alarms on what he saw as a rise in antisemitism."With every single person I meet, the first thing through my brain is: 'Would they want to kill me if they knew I was Jewish?'" he posted on X three days after the Valley noticed. Founders, investors and other tech workers messaged Sequoia's partners and other employees about Maguire's behavior, two people familiar with the matter month, Maguire posted about Mamdani after the Times published an article about how the mayoral candidate, a Muslim of South Asian descent who was born in Uganda, wrote that he was Asian and African American in an application to Columbia University. (He was not admitted to the school.) Mamdani had just won New York City's Democratic mayoral primary on a progressive platform, emphasizing affordability and other cost-of-living issues, and had defended the rights of response to Maguire's post, technologists and startup founders circulated the open letter calling for Sequoia to commission an independent investigation into his behavior. The letter claimed to represent roughly 1,000 startups, with signatures from more than 1,100 people, though not all the names on the list could be verified. At least one company that signed the letter was funded by Sequoia."This was not a misstep," the letter said of Maguire. "It was a deliberate, inflammatory attack that promotes dangerous anti-Muslim stereotypes and stokes division."In a post on X, Maguire referred to his "enemies" and said, "I'm going to play nice for now, but am ready to embarrass any of you should you escalate."A counterletter supporting Maguire garnered more than 1,000 signatories, including Bill Ackman, a billionaire financier who supports Israel, as well as startup founders whose companies are backed by Sequoia. The letter described Maguire as a "principled thinker" who has "helped build careers, fund companies and elevate voices across divides."Others have sent private messages to Sequoia employees urging them to stand by Maguire, two people with knowledge of the matter insiders have trod carefully. On July 10, Pat Grady, a partner at the firm, posted a statement on X sympathizing with both the Muslim community and Maguire. It was reposted by Alfred Lin, another partner."I do not agree with everything my partners say," Grady wrote. "Aggressive truth-seeking and a healthy conflict of ideas is a hallmark of Sequoia. These are key ingredients in making the partnership great."In emails with a concerned founder this month, which were reviewed by the Times, Leone wrote that Maguire's posts did not condemn Muslims. Leone also echoed a point Maguire has made publicly, distinguishing between "Islamists" and "Muslims."On Monday, the signatories who called for Maguire to be disciplined asked that tech workers reach out to Sequoia's financial backers and clients -- including the University of Michigan, Duke University and the University of Texas system -- to speak with the firm."If we, the global technology industry, are serious about building a more inclusive future, it starts with holding power accountable," the letter the managing partner of Sequoia Capital, a storied Silicon Valley venture capital firm, was repeatedly asked at the event about a colleague, Shaun Maguire, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Maguire -- perhaps Sequoia's most outspoken partner -- had posted on the social platform X on July 4 that Zohran Mamdani, the progressive Democrat running for New York City mayor, came from a "culture that lies about everything" and was lying to advance "his Islamist agenda."
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Former Sequoia partner Matt Miller raises $355M for new fund — with Sequoia's backing
Former Sequoia partner Matt Miller has already locked in $355 million for his new VC firm, Evantic, which is also backed by Sequoia, TechCrunch learned. Last December, Miller announced his departure from Sequoia after twelve years to 'start [his] own fund focused on the great founders of Europe.' Despite the European focus, TechCrunch's understanding is that Evantic will actually invest on both sides of the Atlantic, with a focus on B2B companies at the Series B and growth stages. However, its activities will be conducted from London, where Miller moved from California in 2021. Before moving to the U.K., Miller had already spearheaded Sequoia's expansion into Europe and eventually joined Sequoia's European office in London, where he worked alongside its first local hire, Luciana Lixandru, who remains there. Sequoia on Monday declined to comment on Miller or the new fund. Miller's fundraising has exceeded expectations. Initial reports indicated that Miller was raising $300 million for this new venture. Sources close to the matter now corroborate the Financial Times' newer report that the target is $400 million and that Sequoia is participating as a limited partner. TechCrunch has reached out to Sequoia for confirmation. Specifically, Miller's new firm has secured $350 million from external sources, per a U.S. regulatory filing; Evantic has also received $5 million in internal commitments and is in the process of closing the remaining $45 million from founders and other members of the startup ecosystem, sources tell TechCrunch. Miller's departure appears to stem primarily from a failed power play at portfolio company Klarna. Not long before announcing his exit, Miller had reportedly tried and failed to oust former colleague Michael Moritz from the board of the buy-now-pay-later behemoth. Sequoia soon after apologized for supporting the attempt and gave Miller's board seat to another partner. At the same time, broader tensions were surfacing within Sequoia over partner Shaun Maguire, whose views have proven divisive both internally and among portfolio founders. Wunderlist founder Christian Reber, one of the first Sequoia-backed founders in Europe, expressed his disagreement back in January with Maguire over the German far-right party AfD earlier this year. Miller and Lixandru also distanced themselves from the views supported by Maguire, who has since then made more controversial comments. Despite the Klarna incident, Miller appears to maintain good relations that Sequoia, as evidenced by the firm's participation as an LP in his new venture. Miller also remains a venture partner at Sequoia and continues to represent the firm on several boards. During his time at Sequoia, Miller worked closely with companies including Confluent, dbt Labs, Docker, Grafana, Graphcore, Hex, and Tessian. He also overlapped with longtime Sequoia employee Spencer Hemphill, who left before Miller did and is now reportedly Evantic's CFO. While technically a U.S. fund, Evantic will now join the ranks of cross-Atlantic venture firms including Index Ventures and Northzone, the latter of which said it was 'doubling down on the transatlantic.' It will also be similar in size to the $348 million that the Norrsken Foundation, established by Klarna's founder, is investing in European startups that use 'AI for good.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
