The tweeting turmoil inside Sequoia Capital
Tumult at a Silicon Valley institution
Sequoia Capital has become Silicon Valley’s most sought after venture firm by letting its investments do the talking.
The 53-year-old group has backed Google, Apple and OpenAI, all while adopting a position its current chief Roelof Botha describes as “institutional neutrality”.
That position appears to be under strain following the departure of Sequoia’s chief operating officer over another partner’s comments which she regarded as Islamophobic.
Sumaiya Balbale left Sequoia after five years in August. The FT revealed on Tuesday that her resignation was precipitated by social media posts by Shaun Maguire, one of Sequoia’s most successful investors and a close ally of Elon Musk.
The pugilistic partner wrote on X in July that New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani “comes from a culture that lies about everything. It’s literally a virtue to lie if it advances his Islamist agenda. The West will learn this lesson the hard way.”
Balbale, a practising Muslim, complained to other senior figures at the firm about the post, according to sources the FT spoke to.
Some shared concerns about Maguire’s language, the people said, but no action was taken to sanction Maguire, a physicist whose investments including SpaceX, xAI and Neuralink have netted billions of dollars of paper gains for the firm.
Past Sequoia partners have not been afraid to take political positions, even where those clash. Doug Leone and Michael Moritz, its prior generation of leaders, were vocal from opposite sides of the political spectrum.
But Maguire’s outspoken online persona — spanning a passionate defence of Israel’s actions in Gaza, to endorsements of UK anti-immigration activist and convicted criminal Tommy Robinson — is something new, while Sequoia also lacks a counterbalancing public voice this time round.
(Maguire didn’t respond to requests for comment for the story.)
That is turning off some of the group’s portfolio companies and investors, particularly those in the Middle East. One financier from the region who has worked closely with Sequoia in the past described Maguire’s comments as “a humiliation”.
“A lot of sovereign wealth funds from this part of the world are not going to work with this guy, that’s for sure . . . he is not welcome here.”