Roelof Botha explains why Sequoia supports Shaun Maguire after COO quit

During an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 on Monday, Sequoia Capital managing partner Rowelf Botha Sequoia has defended partner Sean Maguire over controversial comments Maguire made earlier this year, calling the firm a firm believer in his partner’s right to “free speech.”

In A post from July 4th In X, Maguire attacked New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, calling the politician an “Islamist” who “comes from a culture that lies about everything.” His comments led to a Huge online response and debate About the reputational risk of VC firms backing companies like Airbnb, Google, Nvidia and Stripe.

Shortly after the event, more than a thousand founders and tech industry professionals signed one open letter Urging Sequoia to take action and make it clear that “silence in the face of hate has consequences.”

Last week, the Financial Times reported That Sequoia Chief Operating Officer Sumaiya Balbele, a practicing Muslim, resigned over the firm’s decision not to discipline Maguire after her comments.

On stage, Botha declined to comment on the COO’s departure, saying only that he appreciated everything Balbel had contributed to the firm.

However, when it comes to Maguire, Botha argues that Sequoia always supports different opinions. Botha noted that, for example, Sequoia Vc Michael Moritz The former managing partner was outspoken in his opposition to President Trump Doug Leon One was a vocal Trump supporter.

“Internally, we celebrate diversity of opinion, and we need ‘speaky’ people at Sequoia,” Botha, referring to Maguire, told TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loizos on stage.

The backlash was surprisingly clear, given the high-profile nature of the comments and the potential to deter some founders from working with Sequoia.

“There is actually a great breadth of opinion within our partnership, and we celebrate that some people choose to express it differently,” Botha continued.

“We have some partners who are very active in philanthropy or private dealings, and they’re not as vocal on social media as Sean. And we’ve always respected each of our partners’ right to free speech,” Botha said.

Maguire, he argued, had a “certain profile” that appealed to a certain set of founders. For example, Maguire has deep connections to Elon Musk’s companies, managing Sequoia’s investments in Neuralink, SpaceX, The Boring Company, X and XAI. Botha says he’s attracting founders in one of the other current hot industries besides AI these days: defense technology. For example he has supported autonomous weapons Rising Star Mac Industries.

“He’s a physics PhD who dropped out of high school,” Botha said, adding that Maguire was “very technical.”

Botha, however, acknowledges that Maguire’s brand of outspokenness is not entirely immune to consequences. “So, does it come with trade-offs? Yes, it does,” he said.