I think maybe on the postdoc level it had an impact because we started to have a lot more seminars and all of that, that would have people from both experimental and theory world. The field has moved so fast. Alexei is really introverted. He is also an angel investor. You don't know where you're going. 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. ZIERLER: Shaun, in your day to day role at Sequoia, are you bringing your quantum information expertise? My PhD was basically making a bunch of connections between these ideas. The Wire Digital is helping global businesses make smarter decisions. Just knowing where that edge is, is enough. That sort of developed over time? I had this unbelievably lucky thing: one of my friends' dad was a local community college professor. MAGUIRE: It's super common. MAGUIRE: We don't know. MAGUIRE: Yes, I do. 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. Physna codifies 3D models into detailed data for software applications. MAGUIRE: I'm actually not so sure about that. I don't even really remember. The model was evolving, basically from the time thatShockley was the first semiconductor company in the Valley, and there wasn't a venture capital model yet, so Shockley was basically a division of Beckman Instruments, a wholly owned division with a bunch of incentives. This other founder was saying some things I don't think are correct and saying it in a really arrogant way to Patrick, and Patrick was pushing back and was correct in his understanding of quantum computation. Because I had come from a math background, I found that yes, I could talk to Alexei. As crypto continues its wild rise, storied venture firm Sequoia is not just competing with the a16zs of the world but with a rising crop of crypto native venture funds that are seeing their assets balloon and their influence upend the traditional venture hierarchies. Another example would be: in quantum there's a guy, Yakir Aharonov, as in the Aharonov-Bohm effect. We had to have a basket of renewables to fight this thing that was starting to happen with global warming. ZIERLER: Shaun, coming in in so many ways as an autodidact between the math and the physics, what areas did you have to play catch-up for quantum information, and where did you jump right in alongside your cohort? As an investor, you want to have intuition, but you also need to check your intuition with lots of diligence on things. Do you mean my job title? Physicists say all the time, "Simulating physical systems: quantum computers are clearly going to be important for that." Where did you see an opportunity to work on your own project, do original research? Jerry had just done incredible work in understanding our solar system, orbits, trajectories for space crafts, and things like that. We would have gotten there later with the different technology. 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. ZIERLER: Does the comparison hold up insofar as with solar startups, we knew what solar would be good for, right? I had been interested in this field called hyperbolic geometry. There was this incredible energy and camaraderie there, and it was addicting, especially for me coming fromI had only been exposed to solitary research before that. ZIERLER: The point of connection to Sequoia, how did that happen? MAGUIRE: I think something that's hard for people to understand about me is that I've always been doing multiple things in parallel my whole life. Just in terms of the way you approach business, the way you understand science, the way you think about the world? Oskar Painter. Those are things that Google should be investing like crazy into, because those are existential risks to their core business on a 20 year time frame. MAGUIRE: The day after I defended, I flew to Israel to get married, literally. There's not one moment in my life where I wasn't doing three or four things, all at a relatively high level completely in parallel. There's been a bunch of these big ideas that the whole field is unpacking with the goal being to understand nature in a much deeper way. Join Facebook to connect with Shaun Maguire and others you may know. It was a really small major for a school that big. I sold it for a billion dollars, all of that. You have to claw your way from hell to get to the edge. I would say it just doesn't matter. I started the second company with two friends and I got to know a lot of VCs raising money for it. Michael Moritz. But going back a long ways, going back to when I first started at Caltech, I thought I would probably be a professor, but when I went to DARPA, that was the moment when I had to choose between the two. While decentralization allows for a certain type of consumer protections, Maguire still contends that the rulebook of traditional investor protections shouldnt be thrown out. Shaun Maguire is Partner at Sequoia Capital. He is a Director of AMP Robotics, Gather, Physna, and Vise. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . In some ways there's a parallel to the past. I've also been fascinated by computers, which I would say is slightly different than science. Biography. I went to public school in Orange County, California. That was the next huge jump in this area. I was probably taking eight classes a quarter. Will you be my advisor? I think it might be a similar thing with quantum computing. ZIERLER: Did you officially unenroll from Stanford at that point? Did you know Rob? I think another thing that's very powerful about Caltech is thatit's actually something that we have in common at Sequoiais that Caltech forces you to raise your ambition. We live in a space where photons have a mass. When the Figma acquisition happened, it caused a lot of our other portfolio companies to raise their ambition. So, I don't stay up perfectly, but I do try to stay up with the really big results. Quantum computing and AI are existential, and I think a lot of internet research efforts of Google, those are both Bell Lab equivalents. I'm probably making this up, but it felt like 20 kids. I always had that passion, but I've had the science passion which really started with astronomy. As a teenager, he played in the world's top league for the video game Counter-Strikeand got an F in Algebra II. 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 mean for all intents and purposes, even if it's deterministic, it's such a complex system no one can predict, and I don't think it's yet set onthe fact that humans used rockets instead of some alternative technology to get to space is in part a function on when World War II happened and when the Cold War happened. I was kind of doing both: doing the company and grad school. In other words, the experimentalists joining matter to the theory, did that register with you at all? John was a huge part in this holographic principle idea. That's a global statement about the object for any surface or three dimensional manifold, etc. So, at that point, I wasn't just a beggar anymore. Not completely explicitly, but a little bit subconsciously and implicitly. He's a professor I believe now at Chapman University, spent the early part of his career in Israel. [laughs] Math is math, and there's a pretty good history of the math becoming reality. ZIERLER: As you got comfortable in the field, where did you see an opportunity to contribute? So, I've been absolutely fascinated by business since I was a little kid. MAGUIRE: It's what Stephen Hawking is famous for, but I didn't understand at all the stuff Hawking had done. It's my Hogwarts. He serves as Board Member at Physna and Monad. That's another example of something where it didn't make sense with the classical treatment. I received my PhD. Deep Mind is now owned by Google, so I think that is a good one. In some very crude sense, one says that information is conserved, the other says that information is destroyed. Dr. Shaun Maguire serves as a Partner at Sequoia Capital. You're not supposed to say that these days, but it was important, because when you have that incredible amount of predictable free cash flow, it makes it really easy to go pump tons of money into the R&D. I did know Rob, but it was not a connecting point for me. A few things: one, I think there are many finish lines; two, I think the future is non-deterministic. Once you get to the cutting edge, it's not that hard to keep up. Fast forward a few years, and Google Ventures offered me a job that gave me the flexibility to stay in LA and finish my Ph.D. in quantum gravity. AMP Robotics is changing the face of recycling with high-speed guided robotics. Apr 26, 2023. 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. It was entertaining. Everyone was telling mepeople on both sides didn't understand why I was doing both. As someone who loves quantum information, I'll be thrilled with that. I'm so glad we connected. Patrick called Sequoia and told them they should hire me instead. Sequoia is a 50 year old venture capital firm based in Menlo Parkone of the preeminent venture capital firms in the world that backed, in their early days, Apple, Atari, Cisco, Oracle, companies like that. Imagine having a relationship between the masses of photons and the shape of space. Then that person got mad and left the conversation and left Patrick and me talking. The Boring Company creates safe, fast-to-dig, and low-cost transportation, utility, and freight tunnels. I think Bell Labs, one of the key things, they basically had a regulated monopoly. It's too far outside of our tools right now, and we really don't know what direction to go. You can interpret that as a lower bound of the masses of particles allowed in the space. Thank you so much. I've brought some people from Caltech into companies I've worked with. Will you sign this thing for me?" I've already noticed in the last week, I've had many founders in our portfolio come to me, and it's raised their ambition. He dropped out of MIT. I became really interested in the solar system. But as a grad student, especially a social one, you already knew a lot of those people. I would almost say in a lot of ways it was similar to Maxwell's demon paradox, which was in the late 1800s. What advice should first-time founders heed? 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 had a really horrible experience, to be honest. I've backed some people I knew from Caltech's companies. Shaun Maguire, partner at Sequoia Capital, chats with DeSo Founder Nader Al-Naji on a number of topics across crypto, startups, and venture capital. Or my Caltech title? A saddle is what we call negatively curved. Or are you thinking about actual wormholes? Regina was a Caltech alum who was the Director of DARPA. It took a long time. I like high-IQ founders. You know for the vast majority of compute, you want it to be centralized. It raises your ego in some ways, but it has to lower our ego in others. 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. Seed/Early. MAGUIRE: That was another thing, is that I am athere's this joke at Caltech (MIT does this too): How do you tell the difference between introverts and extroverts at Caltech? I know that's a long answer. It's close enough to the core business that it's a very smart strategic thing to invest in. I'll say something that can get me in trouble. He knows where you're going. That happened, and then in 2015 there was this thing called the firewall paradox. I was so nervous. Then the next version of that is to tear them down and make them seem like they were too arrogant, like, "Oh, it's not working." There are a lot of candidate theories that fit under that umbrella. I think maybe on the faculty level it was a bigger deal, because it changed who was on the committees. I don't know what shape or form that will take. On the other hand, since I was a little kid, my passion was black holes and space. It's funny because John has a veryit's maybe not the style you would think. View the profiles of people named Shaun Maguire. Alexei is a mathematician. So, that was one example of something. (It turns out space is curved.) It's a little unusual in that on the company side I was doing it becausethe reason why I was doing the company, in a lot of ways, is I got lucky. 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. One thing that I think is close to Bell Labs from a different direction right now is Deep Mind. It turns out the answer is no. What has stayed with you from IQIM and Caltech in general? The platform lets people buy crypto coins attached. ZIERLER: What's the connecting point from Stanford to Caltech? He was an incredibly brilliant man and had really good technical instincts, but he was really from the sales and marketing side. The goal of quantum gravity is to reconcile these discrepancies. In a conversation on TechCrunchs new web3 podcast Chain Reaction, Sequoia crypto partner Shaun Maguire talked about the firms commitment to the sector, regulatory challenges and what plenty of crypto investors still dont understand. Where do you see some of the parallels? 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. Then the third major area was quantum information in the 90s, and has now been the glue that has tied many things together. One thing: I think a lot of the things they were investing in were not related to their core business. He would say, "Be here at this time and place." I think it's because it's just in some ways it's unknowable. He emailed Mike Moritz, who's a legend in venture capital, and, Michael Abramson, and they ended up giving me a job. Basically, starting in eighth grade, I got really disillusioned with school. Many would disagree with me, but I actually think it takes away from the quality of research at Stanford. When you go and you're around such incredible, brilliant people that go on to do such amazing thingsbeing around so many Nobel Prize winners for example, or knowing that a couple people in your class are going to go win Nobel Prizes, it forces you to say, "Well, if they can do it, what's holding me back? Growing up, I had a cousin who studied computer science at UCLA, who made a huge impact on me. ZIERLER: Anything memorable from the defense? It's just how I am wired. Basically, I was investing in companies and taking board seats. I wasn't really going to school, so I wasn't doing math competitions or anything. Or is it something entirely. Right now, machine learning is probably the field that's moving the fastest, so right now I'm actually probably spending more time reading the machine learning literature than, say, the quantum information literature. I think there's a second thing. I just kind of knew this thing, the information paradox, and all of that. I did horribly in high school. The actual edge doesn't move that quickly. Privy makes Simple APIs to manage user data off-chain. I think it depends on a lot of things that play out. ZIERLER: [laughs] Shaun, let's establish now some context. I would do these thought experiments. Shaun is an entrepreneur, investor, and scientist with a broad and eclectic background. Jerry was one of these rare people that decided, I'm going to go back to the fundamentals, go back to classical mechanics, and try to understand that really, really well and figure out important things there. SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches rockets and spacecraft. I think the key lesson here is that there can be certain industries where almost all of the VCs lose almost all their money on the investments because there's too much competition and the science is moving too fast, but that actually is an important part of getting the future to arrive faster. Subscribe to Chain Reaction onApple,Spotifyor your alternative podcast platform of choice to keep up with us every week. That's another area where Google has done an incredible job, is machine learning research. MAGUIRE: I will do my best to explain the arc here. The only firm that we never pitched was Sequoia, because they had a competing portfolio company, so we didn't want to give them the data on our company or something about us. We call that quantum gravity. MAGUIRE: I think someone doing theoretical work in what I call "hard" fieldsa PhD student doing theoretical work in pure math, or in quantum gravity, or high energy physics, or whatever, those are really hard areas to do original work. What were people excited about? So, John never tells you you're wrong. Let me tell you, that's one of the lessons of studying either quantum mechanics or general relativity: your instincts are oftentimes wrong, so you have to actually go do the calculations. It's kind of the same thing. It gave me intuition for the distances and the speeds. I'll pause. A prerequisite to that is special relativity. I have a degree from Stanford. ZIERLER: That's pretty cool. So, I basically made that decision a long time ago that I wouldn't do it. She recruited me onto a pretty crazy project related to the war in Afghanistan. The other groups I had been in, they weren't groups. I was really doing a lot. I don't want to sell for a billion dollars now, I want to sell for $20 billion. In some of these other fields, it takes years. Whereas there's some areas, like in combinatorics, where you can door like today in machine learningyou can do original work in three months. Was that a connecting point to Sequoia? It was a good investment for governments. MAGUIRE: My job title is I'm a general partner at Sequoia Capital. It took a long time to get to that point. They've always been more of an R&D firm and government contractor. Before black holes, a prerequisite to understand them is you have to know some general relativity. This firewall paradox really sharply showed that quantum information will play a fundamental role in resolving, in terms of understanding the nuance between general relativity and quantum mechanics, just in a really sharp way. MAGUIRE: I wouldn't say that Caltech is the most entrepreneurial place. I made a lot of my closest friends from Caltech. 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 were people excited about at that point? They said, "Man, I love Dylan, but like, I can do it, too. ZIERLER: When did you first appreciate the connections between black holes and quantum information? It was still pretty easy for me. To answer the question: bachelor's degree from USC, University of Southern California, but there's a lot more to the story. The first one was a failure, three of them have been successful, and one is too early to call.
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