How a Sequoia Capital Partner’s Mamdani Posts Dragged the Firm Into Politics

Roelof Botha arrived last week at the annual Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, to meet and mingle with tech and media moguls. A controversy brewing back home followed him to the exclusive retreat.

Mr. Botha, 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. Mr. Maguire — perhaps Sequoia’s most outspoken partner — had posted on 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.”

Mr. 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 Mr. 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 Mr. Maguire has the right to free speech.

In Sun Valley, Mr. Botha listened, but remained neutral, the people with knowledge of the matter said.

For 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 Mr. 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 wars.