Nicole Shanahan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nicole Shanahan
Shanahan in 2024
Born
Nicole Ann Shanahan

(1985-09-26) September 26, 1985 (age 38)
Placer County, California, U.S.
EducationUniversity of Puget Sound (BA)
Santa Clara University (JD)
Political partyIndependent (since 2024)
Other political
affiliations		Democratic (until 2024)
Spouses
Jeremy Kranz
​
​
(m. 2013; div. 2015)​
​
​
(m. 2018; div. 2023)​
Children1

Nicole Ann Shanahan (born September 26, 1985)[1] is an American attorney who is involved in the technology industry. She is the running mate of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his 2024 independent presidential campaign.

Born in California, Shanahan graduated from the University of Puget Sound and the Santa Clara University School of Law.[2] Before law school, Shanahan worked as a paralegal and then as a patent specialist at the defensive patent aggregator RPX Corp.[2][3] She was a fellow at Stanford Law School's CodeX, Stanford Center for Legal Informatics.[4][5][6]

Shanahan married Google co-founder Sergey Brin in 2018; they separated in 2021 and divorced in 2023.[7][8][9] She established a private foundation, Bia-Echo,[10] in 2019.[11]

In March 2024, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named Shanahan as his vice presidential running mate.[12] Shanahan has questioned the scientific consensus on vaccine safety and efficacy.[12][13][14]

Early life[edit]

Shanahan was born in Placer County, California, on September 26, 1985.[1] She grew up in Oakland, California.[2] In a 2023 interview with People magazine, Shanahan said she had a "very hard" childhood marked by traumatic experiences and poverty.[2][13] Shanahan described her father, an American of German and Irish descent[13] who died in 2014,[2] as sufferer of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia who struggled with substance abuse.[13][2][15] Shanahan's mother was born in China and emigrated to the United States from Guangzhou City in the 1980s.[16] She worked as a maid before becoming an accountant.[4][2][17]

Shanahan attended Saint Mary's College High School before moving to Washington state,[4][18] where she earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Puget Sound, studying Asian studies, economics, and Mandarin Chinese.[2] Shanahan worked as a paralegal and patent specialist (the latter role at defensive patent aggregator RPX Corp.) before attending Santa Clara University School of Law where she graduated with a J.D. in 2014.[2][3][5]

Career[edit]

While in law school, Shanahan was an exchange student at National University of Singapore.[11] She became interested in patent law as a law student; after becoming a lawyer, she founded a Palo Alto-based legal tech company, ClearAccessIP, and was its CEO.[5][3] She sold the company to a competitor, IPwe, in 2020.[11][3]

Shanahan has spoken about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on law and the legal profession.[19] She was a fellow at Stanford Law School's CodeX, Stanford Center for Legal Informatics.[4][5][6]

In 2022, Shanahan served as executive producer for the films Kiss The Ground in 2020, and Evolver.[20][21]

She is a member of the board of Carbon Royalty Corp.[22] Shanahan invested in Linus Biotechnology, Inc. (LinusBio), a biotech firm, during a venture funding round in January 2023.[23] In 2023, she joined the board of Extreme Tech Challenge.[24] She is the "Global Joy Officer" and a member of the board at the Sloomoo Institute.[25]

Bia-Echo and advocacy[edit]

In 2018, Shanahan helped fund and launch the Center for Female Reproductive Longevity and Equality within the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.[26][27]

In 2019,[11] she established her private foundation, Bia-Echo.[10] The foundation is named after Bia, the ancient Greek goddess associated with energy.[4] According to financial disclosure documents over a three-year period, Bia-Echo's sole donor was Shanahan's then-husband, Sergey Brin.[15] In 2020,[15] Brin donated at least $23 million in shares of Alphabet (Google's parent company) to Bia-Echo.[15][28] He made another contribution to the foundation in 2021, but did not make a contribution in 2022.[15] In 2022, the Bia-Echo Foundation reported owning $13.7 million in government securities and $12.2 million in stocks and bonds, and reported making $0 in grants or contributions to outside groups.[15]

In 2019, Shanahan pledged to contribute $100 million through Bia-Echo over five years,[29] mostly for "reproductive longevity" research, which aims to help women become pregnant later in life).[11][29][30][a] Shanahan has repeatedly criticized in vitro fertilization (calling IVF "one of the biggest lies that's being told about women's health today") and championed unconventional research that she believes might allow women to have children into their 50s (suggesting, for example, that exposure to sunlight might aid fertility).[30]

In a 2023 interview, Shanahan said that finding a "cure to autism" was an additional focus of Bia-Echo, and estimated that she spent 60% of her time researching autism.[15]

In 2022, Shanahan gave $70 million to Blue Meridian Partners, which makes grants to nonprofits that aim to help the impoverished.[33]

Political contributions and involvement before 2024[edit]

In the 2010s and 2020s, Shanahan made various contributions to left-leaning organizations and Democratic political candidates,[11] including Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the congressional campaigns of Ro Khanna.[15] In 2020, Shanahan was a "major donor" for Measure J, a criminal justice reform referendum in Los Angeles County.[34] In the same year, she contributed $150,000 to support George Gascón in his challenge to incumbent Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey.[35]

During the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Shanahan contributed $2,800 each to the campaigns of Marianne Williamson and Pete Buttigieg.[10] She co-hosted a fundraiser for Buttigieg in December 2019, along with other wealthy Silicon Valley figures.[10][36] After Joe Biden became the presumptive nominee, she supported the Biden presidential campaign, contributing $25,000 to the Biden Victory Fund,[10][7] and a five-figure sum to the Democratic National Committee.[15]

Role in Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presidential campaign[edit]

Early role in campaign[edit]

In May 2023, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was challenging Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination, Shanahan donated the maximum of $6,600 to Kennedy's campaign. After Kennedy dropped out of the Democratic primaries in October 2023, instead announcing that he would run in the general election as an independent candidate, Shanahan said she was "incredibly disappointed" and would not support his run. In early 2024, however, Shanahan reversed course, and resumed backing Kennedy's candidacy.[7][8] Through Planeta Management LLC,[15] Shanahan donated $4 million to a super PAC to pay for a 30-second television Super Bowl ad, aired during Super Bowl LVIII, supporting the campaign.[7] In addition to funding the ad's broadcast, Shanahan was also a "creative force" behind the ad, the total cost of which was variously said to be $5 million[8] or (according to the super PAC's co-founder) $7 million.[7][37] Numerous Kennedy family members have denounced his campaign, and criticized the Super Bowl ad for reusing footage from a 1960 presidential campaign ad supporting John F. Kennedy.[8][37] Kennedy later apologized to members of his family who were offended by the super PAC's ad (saying "I'm so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain") while also saying that his campaign was not directly involved with the ad, as coordination between independent expenditure groups and campaigns is prohibited by law.[10][37]

Shanahan separately donated (also through Planeta Management LLC), a half-million dollars to a different super PAC supporting the Kennedy campaign.[15]

Vice presidential running mate[edit]

In March 2024, Kennedy's campaign manager and daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, confirmed reports that Shanahan was on the candidate's "short list" of potential running mates.[38] The campaign considered other candidates as well, such as Aaron Rodgers and Jesse Ventura.[8][39] On March 26, 2024, Kennedy formally announced Shanahan was his selection for vice president during a campaign event in Oakland, California.[40] The ticket is running against incumbent President Joe Biden (a Democrat) and former President Donald Trump (a Republican), who had both became the presumptive nominees of their parties before Kennedy announced Shanahan as his running mate. Shanahan left the Democratic Party when she joined the ticket.[15] Shanahan's prospective ability to bankroll the RFK Jr. campaign were seen as an advantage for the campaign.[15][41] She is the richest candidate for vice president in at least 50 years, with a net worth possibly in the hundreds of millions of dollars.[42] One day after her selection as vice president was announced, Shanahan donated $2 million to the RFK Jr. campaign, boosting its campaign's efforts to get on the ballot in various states.[43]

Shanahan has said that she is "not an anti-vaxxer" but has expressed support for Kennedy's anti-vaccine advocacy and questions the scientific consensus on their safety and efficacy.[13][12] After being selected as Kennedy's running mate, Shanahan referenced discredited, anti-vaccine claims,[41][44] and implied that childhood vaccines contribute to autism, a debunked notion that Kennedy has promoted for years.[44][45] Shanahan also said she believed that "electromagnetic pollution" from mobile phones and other devices were contributing to an "epidemic of chronic disease"[41] and that Kennedy was the only presidential candidate who "takes the chronic disease epidemic seriously."[15] On X (formerly Twitter), Shanahan promoted COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, asserting that the vaccines are unsafe.[43][46]

Personal life[edit]

In 2013, Shanahan married Jeremy Asher Kranz, a San Francisco Bay Area investor[3] and finance executive;[47] they divorced in 2015.[48]

Shanahan met Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, in the summer of 2014, at a yoga festival in Lake Tahoe;[7] they married in 2018.[7][8] They have a daughter together,[2] born in 2018.[29] Brin and Shanahan maintained an estate at Point Dume in Malibu, California, purchased in 2020.[49]

Shanahan and Brin separated in December 2021,[2][50] and Brin filed for divorce in January 2022.[50] In 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that a reason for the breakup was a "brief affair" in 2021 between Shanahan and Elon Musk.[50][47] Shanahan[2] and Musk have denied the report.[51] The Wall Street Journal said: "We are confident in our sourcing, and we stand by our reporting."[2] Shanahan and Brin had signed a prenuptial agreement. During the divorce proceedings, Shanahan's attorneys argued that she had signed the prenuptial agreement under duress, and in mediation sought more than $1 billion of Brin's $95 billion fortune.[47] The divorce was finalized in 2023 in a confidential arbitration.[7][8][52] Forbes reported that Shanahan likely received around 2.6 million Alphabet Class B shares from Brin, worth $390 million in March 2024, and possibly received an additional, equal amount of Class C shares.[42]

In 2023, Shanahan held a "love ceremony" of commitment with Jacob Strumwasser, who is an advisor at Lightning Labs, a Bitcoin software company. She described the event as a handfasting ceremony influenced by Druidic tradition.[53] The pair met at the Burning Man festival in summer 2022.[53][54]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Other stated aims of Bia-Echo include programs seeking to overhaul the criminal justice system and climate change,[29] as well as programs on nutrition and its link to fertility.The Bia-Echo Foundation was one of several groups that provided funding for the White House Task Force on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, in advance of a 2022 report by the task force.[31] The foundation also supported a daylong conference of experts in November 2022, in Boston, sponsored by Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and the school's Food and Nutrition Innovation Institute, "to explore the state of the evidence and evidence gaps regarding the relationships between food, nutrition, and fertility."[32]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Jacobson, Louis (March 26, 2024). "No, Nicole Shanahan wouldn't be the youngest vice president in history". PolitiFact. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Maslow, Nick (July 6, 2023). "Nicole Shanahan 'Moving On' 1 Year After Alleged Elon Musk Affair, Sergey Brin Split (Exclusive)". People.
  3. ^ a b c d e Berman, Bruce (April 30, 2020). "IPwe could be a harbinger of change in the patent space". IP Closeup.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Lawyer, mother and billionaire's ex: Meet Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr's rumoured VP pick". The Independent. March 20, 2024. Retrieved March 21, 2024.
  5. ^ a b c d "Class Notes: 2014". Santa Clara Magazine. October 30, 2018.
  6. ^ a b "AI & Hamlet". CodeX Blog. Stanford Law School. June 21, 2016.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Davis O'Brien, Rebecca (February 2, 2024). "Meet the Woman Who Helped Pay for That R.F.K. Super Bowl Ad". The New York Times.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Rebecca Davis O'Brien (March 17, 2024). "Nicole Shanahan Emerges as a Top Candidate to Be R.F.K. Jr.'s Running Mate". The New York Times.
  9. ^ Price, Rob; Langley, Hugh (June 17, 2022). "Court filings reveal details of Google cofounder Sergey Brin's divorce from his wife, attorney Nicole Shanahan". Business Insider.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Folk, Zachary (March 17, 2024). "Who Is Nicole Shanahan? RFK Jr.'s Possible Running Mate Is A Tech Lawyer Once Married To Google Founder Brin". Forbes.
  11. ^ a b c d e f "Who Is Nicole Shanahan, woman at centre of Musk-Brin drama?". Bloomberg via Straits Times. July 25, 2022.
  12. ^ a b c Astor, Margaret (March 26, 2024). "3 Things to Know About Nicole Shanahan, R.F.K. Jr.'s Running Mate". The New York Times.
  13. ^ a b c d e Li, Han (March 26, 2024). "Wealthy Silicon Valley attorney is VP pick for RFK Jr. Who is she?". The San Francisco Standard. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
  14. ^ Robins-Early, Nick (March 26, 2024). "Nicole Shanahan: from philanthropist lawyer to RFK Jr's running mate". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved April 3, 2024.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Gibson, Brittany (March 26, 2024). "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. picks tech entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan as his vice president". Politico. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
  16. ^ Schaefer, Peder (March 26, 2024). "55 Things You Need to Know About Nicole Shanahan: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named the Bay Area lawyer, entrepreneur and philanthropist as his running mate. She brings some welcome cash to what will be a costly effort to gain ballot access". Politico.
  17. ^ "Nicole Shanahan, the Woman at the Center of the Musk-Brin Rift". Bloomberg via Time. July 25, 2022.
  18. ^ "Nicole Shanahan". Kennedy24. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
  19. ^ "Nicole Shanahan - Transactional Costs and Legal AI: From Coase's Theorm to IBM Watson, and Everything in Between". The Law Lab Channel.
  20. ^ "Evolver Tribecca Film Festival". Evolver.
  21. ^ "Kiss The Ground". Kiss the Ground Movie.
  22. ^ "Carbon Royalty Corp". Carbonroyalty.com.
  23. ^ "LinusBio Raises $16 Million to Scale Growth and Deliver Tangible Outcomes" (Press release). Linus Biotechnology, Inc. January 13, 2023.
  24. ^ "Extreme Tech Challenge Welcomes Nicole Shanahan To The Board" (Press release). Extreme Tech Challenge. March 7, 2023.
  25. ^ "The Org - SlooMoo". Theorg.com.
  26. ^ "World's first Center for Female Reproductive Longevity and Equality established at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging" (Press release). Buck Institute. July 25, 2018. Retrieved March 8, 2024.
  27. ^ Witt, Emily (April 17, 2023). "The Future of Fertility". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 25, 2024.
  28. ^ Sandler, Rachel (August 10, 2022). "Google Cofounder Sergey Brin Just Gave Away Nearly $130 Million Worth Of Shares". Forbes.
  29. ^ a b c d Maria Di Mento (September 27, 2019). "Nicole Shanahan Gives $100 Million for Reproductive Research and Other Causes". The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
  30. ^ a b Gibson, Brittany (March 28, 2024). "RFK Jr.'s vice presidential pick calls IVF 'one of the biggest lies being told about women's health". Politico.
  31. ^ Ambitious, Actionable Recommendations to End Hunger, Advance Nutrition, and Improve Health in the United States (PDF) (Report). Task Force on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. p. 83. 1. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
  32. ^ Maitin-Shepard, Melissa; Werner, Erika F.; Feig, Larry A.; Chavarro, Jorge E.; Mumford, Sunni L.; Wylie, Blair; Rando, Oliver J.; Gaskins, Audrey J.; Sakkas, Denny; Arora, Manish; Kudesia, Rashmi; Lujan, Marla E.; Braun, Joseph; Mozaffarian, Dariush (February 2024). "Food, nutrition, and fertility: from soil to fork". The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 119 (2): 578–589. doi:10.1016/j.ajcnut.2023.12.005. PMID 38101699. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
  33. ^ "Our Annual Philanthropy 50: Top Donors Returned to Pre-Pandemic Causes in 2021". The Chronicle of Philanthropy. February 8, 2022.
  34. ^ "Major Donor and Independent Expenditure Committee Campaign Statement" (PDF). Lavote.gov. February 1, 2021. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
  35. ^ Moore, Maloy; Menezes, Ryan; Queally, James (November 3, 2020). "Here are the mega-donors and police unions pouring millions into the L.A. County district attorney race". Los Angeles Times.
  36. ^ Schleifer, Theodore (December 13, 2019). "Pete Buttigieg is raising money from Silicon Valley's billionaires — even as Elizabeth Warren attacks him for it". Vox. Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  37. ^ a b c Davis O'Brien, Rebecca (February 11, 2024). "R.F.K. Jr. Apologizes to His Family for an Allied Group's Super Bowl Ad". The New York Times.
  38. ^ Pellish, Aaron (March 17, 2024). "RFK Jr.'s campaign manager says Nicole Shanahan is on VP shortlist". CNN. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
  39. ^ Alafriz, Olivia (March 13, 2024). "RFK Jr. to announce vice presidential pick at the end of March". Politico. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
  40. ^ Trudo, Hanna (March 26, 2024). "RFK Jr. announces Nicole Shanahan as VP pick". The Hill. Retrieved March 26, 2024.
  41. ^ a b c Kinnard, Meg (March 26, 2024). "Who is Nicole Shanahan, the philanthropist picked by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his running mate?". Associated Press.
  42. ^ a b Mullins, Kyle; Liu, Phoebe. "How Nicole Shanahan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s VP Pick, Got So Rich". Forbes. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
  43. ^ a b Kelly, Stephanie (April 19, 2024). "RFK Jr running mate injects needed cash in independent's campaign". Reuters.
  44. ^ a b Kessler, Glenn (April 4, 2024). "The Fact Checker: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s running mate and the vaccine wars". Washington Post. Retrieved April 24, 2024..
  45. ^ Gore, D' Angelo; Kiely, Eugene; Robertson, Lori (March 27, 2024). "FactChecking RFK Jr.'s V.P. Announcement". Annenberg Public Policy Center.
  46. ^ Kirsch, Noah (April 17, 2024). "RFK Jr.'s Running Mate Sets New Low for Anti-Vax Misinformation". The Daily Beast.
  47. ^ a b c Grind, Kirsten; Glazer, Emily (July 25, 2022). "Elon Musk's Friendship With Sergey Brin Ruptured by Alleged Affair". Wall Street Journal.
  48. ^ "Who is Nicole Shanahan, Google co-founder Sergey Brin's ex-wife?". The Statesman. September 16, 2023. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
  49. ^ Joshua Bote (June 13, 2023). "Google co-founder keeps Malibu's techie takeover alive with $35M estate". SFGate.
  50. ^ a b c Mishra, Stuti (July 26, 2022). "Who Is Nicole Shanahan? Meet the woman at the centre of the Elon Musk-Sergey Brin saga". The Independent.
  51. ^ Rice, Nicholas (July 24, 2022). "Elon Musk Denies Allegation He Had Affair with Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin's Wife Nicole Shanahan". Retrieved March 7, 2024.
  52. ^ Robins-Early, Nick (March 26, 2024). "Nicole Shanahan: from philanthropist lawyer to RFK Jr's running mate". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
  53. ^ a b Maslow, Nicholas (July 5, 2023). "Nicole Shanahan Commits to Partner Jacob Strumwasser in 'Beautiful' Love Ceremony (Exclusive)". People.
  54. ^ Martha Ross. "With Elon Musk, there was no 'moment of passion' and no affair, Sergey Brin's ex-wife says". East Bay Times.
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