Sequoia Capital companion Shaun Maguire is as soon as once more drawing undesirable consideration to the outstanding enterprise agency after falsely accusing a Palestinian scholar of being behind the December 13 Brown College mass capturing and the following homicide of an MIT professor.
In since-deleted posts on X, Maguire speculated that “it appears very seemingly” the scholar was the perpetrator, pointing to Brown “actively scrubbing his on-line presence.” In actuality, authorities recognized the shooter as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese nationwide who was later discovered useless in a New Hampshire storage facility. Brown officers mentioned they eliminated the scholar’s digital footprint as a protecting measure in opposition to harmful hypothesis.
Quick Firm republished two of Maguire’s deleted posts on Friday (he has beforehand left inflammatory content material on-line and didn’t delete feedback he made proposing that the MIT professor was focused for being Jewish). The incident follows months of controversial posts focusing on Muslims and pro-Palestine activists, together with calling New York Metropolis Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani an “Islamist” in July. That publish led to a swift on-line backlash, with practically 1,200 founders and tech business professionals signing an open letter urging Sequoia to take motion. An open letter was later printed supporting Maguire.
The most recent episode raises questions on whether or not Sequoia’s new management — managing companions Alfred Lin and Pat Grady, who took over final month — can or will rein in Maguire’s social media exercise. Chief Working Officer Sumaiya Balbale left the agency in August over Sequoia’s inaction on Maguire’s anti-Muslim feedback, in keeping with earlier reporting by the Monetary Instances. Former managing companion Roelof Botha, who stepped down in November, defended Maguire’s conduct throughout an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt in October, calling Sequoia a believer in its companions’ proper to “free speech.”
“Internally, we have fun range of opinions, and we’d like ‘spiky’ folks inside Sequoia,” Botha mentioned, referring to Maguire. He supplied that Maguire had a “particular profile” that appeals to sure founders. Maguire has led investments in quite a few protection tech and AI startups, and reportedly has deep connections with Elon Musk’s firms, managing Sequoia’s investments in Neuralink, SpaceX, The Boring Firm, X, and xAI.
Nonetheless, Botha acknowledged trade-offs to Maguire’s outspokenness. “Does it include trade-offs? Sure, it does,” he mentioned.
Lin and Grady haven’t publicly addressed Maguire’s conduct since taking on management.
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations has known as for Maguire’s firing, telling Quick Firm that his accusations are “deeply irresponsible and extremely harmful.”
TechCrunch has reached out to Sequoia for remark.
