Throughout an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 on Monday, Sequoia Capital managing companion Roelof Botha answered questions on his colleague, Sequoia companion Shaun Maguire, and controversial feedback Maguire made earlier this yr, calling Sequoia a believer in its companions’ proper to “free speech.”
In a July 4 put up on X, Maguire attacked New York Metropolis mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, calling the politician an “Islamist” who “comes from a tradition that lies about every little thing.” His remarks led to a sizable on-line backlash and debate in regards to the reputational threat to the VC agency that has backed firms like Airbnb, Google, Nvidia, and Stripe.
Shortly after the occasion, over a thousand founders and tech trade professionals signed an open letter urging Sequoia to take motion and make it clear that “silence within the face of hate has penalties.” An open letter later surfaced supporting Maguire.
Final week, the Monetary Instances reported that Sequoia’s chief working officer Sumaiya Balbale, a practising Muslim, give up over the agency’s determination to not self-discipline Maguire following his remarks.
On stage, Botha declined to touch upon the COO’s departure, saying as a matter of routine, Sequoia doesn’t touch upon personnel issues and that he appreciated every little thing Balbale had contributed to the agency.
Nonetheless, when it got here to a query about whether or not Sequoia has beforehand seen its companions categorical their political positions as publicly as their views on enterprise, Botha argued that Sequoia has at all times supported a variety of views. Botha famous that, for instance, Sequoia VC Michael Moritz had been outspoken in his opposition to President Trump, whereas former managing companion Doug Leone was a vocal Trump supporter.
“Internally, we have a good time variety of opinions, and we’d like ‘spiky’ individuals inside Sequoia,” Botha, referring to Maguire, instructed TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loizos onstage.
The response was surprisingly candid, given the high-profile nature of the remarks and the potential to dissuade some founders from working with Sequoia.
“We even have an amazing breadth of opinion inside our partnership, and we have a good time that some individuals simply select to precise it in another way,” Botha continued.
“Now we have a few of our companions which might be very lively in philanthropy or a number of the personal dealings, and so they’re simply not as vocal as Shaun may be on social media. And we’ve at all times honored the proper to free speech of every of our particular person companions,” stated Botha.
Botha argued, too, that Maguire had a “particular profile” that appeals to a sure set of founders. Maguire, for example, has deep connections with Elon Musk’s firms, managing Sequoia’s investments in Neuralink, SpaceX, The Boring Firm, X, and xAI. Botha stated he’s additionally attracting founders in one of many different presently scorching industries in addition to AI today: protection tech. As an example, he’s backed autonomous weapons rising star Mach Industries.
“He’s a physics PhD who dropped out of highschool,” Botha stated, noting that Maguire was “very technical.”
Botha did, nonetheless, admit that Maguire’s model of outspokenness isn’t utterly free from penalties. “So, does it include trade-offs? Sure, it does,” he stated.
