Shaun Maguire, partner at Sequoia Capital, received significant backlash for his inflammatory comments regarding New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. After Mamdani identified as both Asian and Black on a university application, Maguire tweeted that he comes from a culture that lies. His remarks sparked a petition for Sequoia to discipline him and improve reporting mechanisms for discrimination. While some in tech condemned his comments, others rallied in Maguire's defense. He expressed remorse to those offended by his statement in a follow-up video addressing the reaction.
In response to a New York Times story about Mamdani marking his ethnicity as both "Asian" and "Black or African American" on his 2009 application to Columbia University, Maguire wrote on X that the candidate "comes from a culture that lies about everything." "It's literally a virtue to lie if it advances his Islamist agenda," he said.
An online petition calling for the firm to take disciplinary action against Maguire and establish an avenue for Sequoia's founders to report discrimination and hate speech has more than 900 signatories who self-identified as founders, executives, or tech workers.
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