So, I went up to the statistics department at Stanford, which is one of the top places in that, and at Stanford is where I fell back in love with physics. With quantum computing, I would say there's already a lot of applications that are pretty clear, and then there's also a whole bunch of things that maybe you can't say the precise algorithm, but on the other hand it's pretty obvious quantum computers will be important. BCS national champion ( 2013) Sean Maguire (born March 11, 1994) is an American football quarterback. A saddle is what we call negatively curved. Shaun Maguire, partner at Sequoia Capital, chats with DeSo Founder Nader Al-Naji on a number of topics across crypto, startups, and venture capital.Shaun was. The founder of Figma is an amazing 30 year old kid who also really loves physics and computers. Are you not looking at faculty appointments? Monad's platform unites security data silos and builds effective security and compliance workflows. It took a long time to get to that point. I don't even know some of the things that I know are there, but I'll tell you some of the things that I'm aware of. On the AdS side, that has a very deep relationship to hyperbolic geometry, which is something mathematicians have studied very deeply. r2C is a defensive cybersecurity automation company with an open-source static analysis tool. So, now, your default is sitting next to experimentalists as a theorist at events and on committees and all that. Physics is something I use all the time, because I've invested in a lot of companies that touch atoms. I was fascinated by what made these numbers go up and down. These things go in waves. Shaun Maguire (Sequoia) + Samir Vasavada (Vise) - Yahoo Finance ZIERLER: Shaun, I'm curious in graduate school if you interfaced at all with string theorists who of course are convinced that string theory is the likeliest path to developing a theory of quantum gravity. What could quantum gravity actually achieve? It really is easy to say that, but doing three to six months of repeatedly showing up repeatedly and having something to say every week because you learned something new, that's what actually matters and that's actually hard to do. I didn't even know about math competitions. It was a tiny department. Shaun Maguire - Biography I didn't really have much of a formal background in it or anything. Do you mean my job title? AdS, anti-de Sitter space stuff is basically just doing hyperbolic geometry, and there's a bunch of really concrete ways to make that precise. There's two things. In our conversation, Maguire emphasized his belief that plenty of other funds dipping their toes into crypto are going to pull back when the market grows less frothy, but he believes that Sequoia has already committed to a lengthy relationship with the sector we have permanent intentions., Sequoia is very deliberate with everything we do and we spend huge amounts of time debating every strategy change, everything, we debate every seed investment to sometimes excruciating detail, but it helps us make really good decisions and make decisions as a team rather than as individuals, Maguire tells us. One of the most famous ones was the photoelectric effect that Einstein won the Nobel Prize for his explanation of. In the late 90s, Juan Maldacena had a big breakthrough there. ZIERLER: Coming in in 2012, did you recognize the transition from IQI to IQIM? In other words, if all of these companies are pouring billions of dollars into quantum computing without anyone really having a truly well-developed sense of what this technology will be used for, is that common? When the Figma acquisition happened, it caused a lot of our other portfolio companies to raise their ambition. MAGUIRE: My academic background is pretty unusual. I've also been absolutely fascinated by science. To answer the question: bachelor's degree from USC, University of Southern California, but there's a lot more to the story. I got to know a lot of funds. For months, when I was 13, I couldn't sleep at night because there was a thought experiment I couldn't understand. When I was nine years old, I became really passionate about the solar system. because some crypto projects have characteristics and show performance that can't really be measured . I think Bell Labs, one of the key things, they basically had a regulated monopoly. There are certain shapes that have differentthey have the same eigenvalues, same to the Laplacian, with different geometries. Before, there was too much incompatibility in the languages these fields would use, so it was just hard to even communicate. It was unbelievably lonely. Shaun Maguire, Partner, Sequoia Capital - Topio Networks I think that as an investor, it's actually incredibly important. There are probably a thousand solar companies started in that ten year window and at most two or three of them that are meaningful today. Will you be my advisor? I don't know what shape or form that will take. One thing: I think a lot of the things they were investing in were not related to their core business. I just kind of knew this thing, the information paradox, and all of that. He didn't take me as a student, but he told me to come to his group meetings, so I did. I think what were seeing is a lot of the crypto community is actually coming back in 90% of the situations and realizing that, Oh, actually, the way things were done in the past was actually pretty good and got there for an optimal reason, But 10% is like radically different and you can kind of meaningfully improve the whole system by getting some of those things right.. People would know who he is and know the companies he started. ZIERLER: Relatedly, I wonder where you see all of this investment in quantum information within the broader context of venture capital. So, we raised a bunch of venture capital. Physicists say all the time, "Simulating physical systems: quantum computers are clearly going to be important for that." ZIERLER: And when does Sequoia enter into the mix? He never tells you you're stupid. It became a program. When I was 7 years old, he helped me build my first computer. Do you stay on top of the literature? Shaun Maguire | Sequoia Capital US/Europe ZIERLER: In your work on wormholes, just to clarify, are these toy models? I have been really interested in machine learning, and in cryptocurrencies, and in robots, and in space, and in physics, and other things. You don't know where you're going. I was probably taking eight classes a quarter. It was a really small major for a school that big. We're so nascent in those fields that if you're just really smart, IQ will get you far, and in three months you can do some original work. Physics is very powerful. I came back in 2012. Social crypto network Bitclout is now listed on Blockchain.com. For whatever reason, its their life mission to try to revolutionize the industry theyre going after. That's another example of something where it didn't make sense with the classical treatment. Shaun Maguire's Investing Profile - Sequoia Capital Partner | Signal I felt like I just had to get to the cutting edge. I sold it for a billion dollars, all of that. Or is it something entirely. Because I had come from a math background, I found that yes, I could talk to Alexei. In some ways there's a parallel to the past. It's my Hogwarts. Gather hosts virtual spaces for work and play. So, we became friends. I don't even really remember. We say they're massless, because if they were at rest, they'd be massless. One of the ways to measure this is, what do people do on their weekends? It was a tiny department. That was the next huge jump in this area. Working with Professor Makarov, I was his only student. He had a couple PhD students that were about my age or a little older who became good friends. When did that start for you? shaun maguire sequoia wifepapa smurf tattoo. Over the course of three years, maybe once every two to three weeks he'll ask you a question that is almost like the series of questions is taking you on a journey that he wants you to go on, but he doesn't tell you explicitly what journey you're going on ahead of time. I think that on the grad student level, the evolution from IQI to IQIM wasn't that big of a deal. Could you find him? ZIERLER: Does the comparison hold up insofar as with solar startups, we knew what solar would be good for, right? It's incredibly common in the history of technology. It doesn't matter. Alexei is not going to just go hang out in the hallway at the blackboard doing his work in a public space, inviting people to come up and start talking to him. Trying to understand these discrepancies led to quantum mechanics. Another is this idea that people have called ER = EPREinstein-Rosen equals Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen. And theres a lot of wisdom in there, Maguire says. John asks incredible questions. I had this strong background in probability, so I went into the math department and started working with someoneNikolai Makarov, who's a legend in mathto do some theoretical probability work. Another example is fiber-optic communication, where in the late 90s, early 2000s, there was an incredible amount of venture capital money and government subsidies that went into building fiber infrastructure. There are some videos of this online; it's pretty hilarious. It's too far outside of our tools right now, and we really don't know what direction to go. I was walking through the halls, and there was a professor who had a math competition sheet on his doorthis guy, Richard Arratiathe competition was the Putnam competition, which is the North American college math competition. I do know Rob. At that moment, he becomes your advisor. I can be a little more concreted if it's helpful, but I'd just say in this field, in quantum gravity, it's really hard to do an original contribution without three to five years of having learned the foundations. I'm probably making this up, but it felt like 20 kids. String theory is one. I can't remember the exact other things in the very beginning when I joined the group, but I can tell you the themes over the whole ten years or whatever. Shaun is a Partner at Sequoia Capital. Honestly, at the end of my PhD I had three full-time jobs. I use physics a lot. I have a fellowship, so I don't need any funding. Once you get to the cutting edge, it's not that hard to keep up. Our Founders; Our Companies; He was a physics major. Can the same be said at this point for what quantum information, what quantum computing will be good for? MAGUIRE: I never say this, but I guess I'm a doctor. MAGUIRE: I was doing the same thing. Basically, starting in eighth grade, I got really disillusioned with school. One of my deep firsthand experiences that the media often time wants to build people up to tear them down, and I've just seen it. They're not that" They're really, really smart, but having that exposure really raises your own personal ambition. I am, not quite as much as you, but I'm also a student of history, and I've been a student of Valley history. Basically, venture capital has become this huge industry, but back in the day when Don started the firm in 1972, it didn't really exist. Skip to main content. Ive got to believe that they work incredibly hard in part to make their families proud. I've used people from Caltech as expert diligence when I've looked at companies. MAGUIRE: I would say, a long time ago, I had to make the decision that I would go in another direction. DAVID ZIERLER: This is David Zierler, director of the Caltech Heritage Project. It was just announced last week that Figma is going to be acquired by Adobe for $20 billion. [few minutes pause] When you got to the group meetings with John, what were some of the big debates that were happening? ZIERLER: To foreshadow to what happened next, were you on a trajectory of pursuing an academic career and then some opportunity came up? Alexei is a mathematician. He would always offer that. That's a personal, philosophicalit's like a religious conversation. I tried to do the John Preskill Socratic method: ask some questions that would reveal the other person didn't know what he was talking about. Maguire said that more important than decentralization for its own sake, is the ability of users to be able to leave with their identity and data, an effort which should protect consumers from platform overreach. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . He's a professor I believe now at Chapman University, spent the early part of his career in Israel. It's just how I am wired. Will you sign this thing for me?" MAGUIRE: That's a great question. It's easy to understand the calculations, but it gave me this really deepthe answer here is that space is not flat, and your intuition for flat geometry is completely wrong. The vast majority of the individual solar companies failed, but the whole category has been incredibly successful. ZIERLER: As you got comfortable in the field, where did you see an opportunity to contribute? Do we live in a many worlds thing? Shaun Maguire is Partner at Sequoia Capital Ltd. See Shaun Maguire's compensation, career history, education, & memberships. Another thing too, to be very candid for me, I have very broad interests. Now, power cost per watt generated by solar is roughly one-tenth of fossil fuels at this point, depending on where you are. That sort of developed over time? Stanford does amazing research, but Stanford has a lot of faculty and a lot of money, and I actually think Caltech has higher quality research per capita. My passion, especially coming from that background, was in probability and combinatorics, but really theoretical probability I just found absolutely fascinating. Join Facebook to connect with Shaun Maguire and others you may know. Honestly, I kind of blacked out. I literally emailed John Preskill from Afghanistan. MAGUIRE: My job title is I'm a general partner at Sequoia Capital. So, I felt like if I'm ever going to do something in business, I'm never going to get a shot this good, so I kind of had to do that in my mind. Shaun Maguire Ph.D General Information. That was one thing, Alexei. ZIERLER: What were you doing at Google? I think a lot of people were always too afraid to even ask him. Patrick was talking to an extremely famous founder. My goal with the PhD was just to get to the cutting edge of knowledge in that field, because these things had kept me up in the middle of the night as a little kid, literally, for a long time. Growing up, I had a cousin who studied computer science at UCLA, who made a huge impact on me. It was a small event, call it 50 people. The way John works, is it's really a Socratic style. MAGUIRE: I'm actually not so sure about that. I think Bell Labs won nine Nobel Prizes, and there was a lot of stuff that was pretty adjacent to Bell Labs. In an upcoming episode on Wednesday, May 19, we'll sit down with Sequoia's Shaun Maguire and Vise CEO and co-founder Samir Vasavada. MAGUIRE: We don't know. From the time I was 9, I've been obsessed with space. There are a lot of people in that camp. Harry Maguire: What happened? - The Athletic But I think he's testing people's commitment, which I think is a really smart strategy that not enough people do. That is basically hyperbolic geometry. He played college football for the Florida State Seminoles. I originally joined in the Control and Dynamical Systems Department. MAGUIRE: By Caltech's standards, I'm an extreme extrovert. That's another area where Google has done an incredible job, is machine learning research. MAGUIRE: First of all, I could not love John more, could not be more grateful to John, could not think more highly of John. Then the third major area was quantum information in the 90s, and has now been the glue that has tied many things together. What was seen as the holy grail? I transferred to USC, and I was only there for two years. He dropped out of MIT. If we wouldn't have had a world war until 200 years later, we would have gone down a very different technical pathway, and then maybe would have been using something other than rockets to get to space. ZIERLER: So, it was in some ways really a purely intellectual pursuit for you, then? DeSo is a layer-1 blockchain custom-built to scale decentralized social applications. I think Stanford is the other extreme, where Stanford in a lot of ways is just like, you go to Stanford because you want to start a company, and it's going to be the stepping stone to starting a company or joining a hot startup. With my cybersecurity companyI really helped start many companies, but the cybersecurity company onewhich was called Qadium, but then we renamed it to Expansethat's the only one where I was really full-time with my company for many years. A prerequisite to that is special relativity. When I came back to Caltech, I had started a company in 2012, and it ended up being a relatively successful company. It evolved over the next ten years with people like Arthur Rock with Intel and others, and it, around the mid-70s, stabilized in the model that we have today. But, just by having this incredible profit engine that you can pump into these other ideas, I think there are a lot of similarities. He is a Director of AMP Robotics, Gather, Physna, and Vise. So, I think John has a smart system. He knows where you're going. By navigating this website you agree to our cookie policy. You need physics to understand that. So, I think that's something that's really powerful about Caltech. Earlier this year, Sequoia announced a $500 to $600 million sub-fund dedicated exclusively to buying up cryptocurrencies. I had three jobs. It was basically learning, reading papers, talking to lots of people, going to group meetings for a long time. Dr. Maguire is also on the board of 5 other companies. You want to live up to his name and reputation. It may seem like a really small thing, but it's the only clue we have that there needs to be something new. Not completely explicitly, but a little bit subconsciously and implicitly. (Sequoia will have two board seats at the company, held by Gupta, who focuses on later-stage investments, and Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire, whose concentration is on investing in early-stage . I've also been fascinated by computers, which I would say is slightly different than science. One of the things is Caltech is a very humbling place. Founders Fund, which is another venture capital fund, invested in both of our companies. At Caltech, everyone talks about the science all the time. Where did you see an opportunity to work on your own project, do original research? Iron Fish is a Layer 1 blockchain that provides privacy guarantees on every single transaction. Please dont YOLO your 401(k) into shitcoins. Alexei is really introverted. Identified as v4.0.2Now with Pre-Seed Investor Lists FAQ Sequoia partners and specialists help outlier founders at every stage bend the arc of the possible. ZIERLER: Did you think about quantum information at all at Stanford? But the crypto theme is so unique that we decided to create a dedicated fund (a first for Sequoia, ed.) I have incredible energy, so I've always been doing athletics of some kind, because otherwise I just can't think unless I burn my energy. I didn't even know the prerequisites to be in that world, so it took an extra few years. Imagine having a relationship between the masses of photons and the shape of space. He said that maybe nature has this weird property that sometimes you know the physics of what's happening in some region of space, maybe all you need to know is what's happening on the boundary of that space. In some ways, one way to view whats happening in crypto right now is its almost like throwing all the old rules out and starting with a blank canvas.. LayerZero is an omnichain interoperability protocol that enables trustless cross-chain dApp development. I think there are probably actually wormholes, but it doesn't matter for the sake of the work. Championships. I did horribly in high school. Mark Wise. I didn't know anything about quantum information. Partner @sequoia // @caltech physics PhD // quantum space crypto security (it's a niche but high impact field) [laughs] Math is math, and there's a pretty good history of the math becoming reality. It's obvious that for things like material science, when quantum computers are powerful enough, they will play an important role in material discovery. Shaun Maguire is a partner at Sequoia, has founded two companies (one in space technologies and another in global internet security) and holds a PhD in physics from Caltech. ZIERLER: Shaun, a question I've been excited to ask you since I first reached out: with your area of expertise, as a student of history, I wonder if you've ever thought about some of the parallels between, for example, a Bell Labs in the 60s, 50s, 70s, the middle part of the 20th centurythe industrial support for fundamental research and how you might compare that with what Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Honeywell are doing with regard to quantum information today. The only area where I actually knew something was probability, which was an area that I had spent five years or whatever, so that was an area where I knew something. The extroverts are the ones who look at your shoes when you're talking. View the profiles of people named Shaun Maguire. The crypto category has dealt with plenty of skeptics, some in the venture capital community, who believe that the sectors benefits are being oversold and that the web3 promise of decentralization is just smoke and mirrors. These guys all became my good friends. MAGUIRE: Correct. ZIERLER: [laughs] Shaun, let's establish now some context. I could explain the technical definition, but that's neither here nor there. Was it related to what he was doing at the time? Honeywell I don't think is a great comp; they don't have the same profit engine that Bell Labs has. I don't think it's an accident that John's group has been the central node in quantum information over the last 20 years or so. ZIERLER: Yeah, your job title, where you work, and what your title is there. First of all, I don't think it's racing toward the same goal, but even if it was, I don't think anyone knows what that goal is, and I don't even think it's set. MAGUIRE: 26 actually. I was born in 1985, so I was always trying to mess around with computers. One of the most high-profile ones was Global Crossing, which was this company that was the fastest company ever at the time to get a billion dollar valuation. I've been reading your notes from Afghanistan." Apr 26, 2023. Knowde is the marketplace for chemicals, polymers and ingredients. Jerry had just done incredible work in understanding our solar system, orbits, trajectories for space crafts, and things like that. In some of these other fields, it takes years. In my opinion, no question. I don't really remember any of it. It's a very interesting style. Shaun Maguire Profiles | Facebook For what it's worth, I think it's really important for the world to have places like Caltech that are so focused on science. MAGUIRE: I was at Stanford for a year and a half. NFL hero JJ Watt and his wife, former United States international Kealia, have invested in English football team Burnley as they bid to usher in a new era of success at the club.. Burnley, coached . So, I didn't really know anyone at Sequoia, but I was getting recruited by other firms. SHAUN MAGUIRE: I'm beyond thrilled to be here. It led to this overbuilding phase with fiber, which was actually a prerequisite to have all the internet businesses of the next decade built on top of it. As a teenager, he played in the world's top league for the video game Counter-Strikeand got an F in Algebra II. I pitched everyoneexcept Sequoia, because they had a conflict. Honestly, after getting to the cutting edge of knowledge there, it's weird. My job as a VC is much more about business strategy, hiring people, managing people, understanding human psychology, understanding market psychology, understanding where the puck is going in terms of technological trends, things like that. It's going to be fun. We don't need to know the exact algorithms that are going to run. Could you talk to him? ZIERLER: Shaun, to zoom out from your specific research, what were people talking about with regard to quantum gravity during this time? When I had thought about itI'm going to tell you, this is the 100% truthful version. A lot of people, their intuition for space or geometry is that we live in flat space, but if you live on a sphere, that sphere is what we would call positively curved.

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