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Ihar Mahaniok
Investor and Engineering Leader based in New York
Ihar Mahaniok is the Founder and Managing Partner of Geek Ventures, a venture capital firm based in New York that focuses on supporting immigrant entrepreneurs. Originally from Belarus, Ihar has a background in Computer Science and over 20 years of experience in engineering and investment. His career includes significant roles at major tech companies such as Google and Meta, where he contributed to various projects, including machine learning models and software engineering teams.123
Since founding Geek Ventures in 2021, Ihar has made over 150 angel investments, backing notable startups like Instacart, PandaDoc, and People.ai at early stages. His firm recently closed its first fund, raising $23 million to further its mission of providing capital and connections to visionary immigrant founders.145 Ihar is also known for his passion for technology and community engagement, often participating in events aimed at fostering connections between founders and investors.23
Highlights
The story of Delve (fraudsters and thieves) is just one of many examples of the rapid decline of ethics in Silicon Valley over the last two years. There are many more with recent scandals with Higgsfield, Cluely and so on. This is a logical extreme outcome of the "war on political correctness" and "anti-woke". The behavior that was not acceptable before 2024 suddenly became acceptable, and even venerated (example: a huge round by a16z in Cluely, an extremely unethical company led by a founder with zero morals).
As a VC, I see it clearly in the dealflow. We always saw some founders with no integrity before. Before 2024, they flamed out quickly. But now they are not ashamed of it, but rather boasting that their lack of integrity is a competitive advantage. Now they get funded by YC, a16z and other funds, getting veneer of respectability.
This needs to change, for the sake of the startup ecosystem and humanity.
And "tech right" in Silicon Valley in 2024, like Joe Lonsdale and others, were boosting Trump because allegedly they didn't like regulation. We got way worse regulation in the wrong places (no regulation protecting people from bad financial organizations, stupid regulation preventing medical companies from developing medicines)

