Palihapitiya has, of course, profited handsomely from the VC business model he so openly disdains. People wanted to listen to him, Kapoor says of Palihapitiya. Chamath Palihapitiya, who serves as the chairman of Virgin Galactic's board, still holds 6.2% ownership in the company in partnership with investor Ian Osborne, but his solo holdings are now at . Chamath Palihapitiya was born on the 3rd of September, 1976. 12. Chamath Palihapitiya is an exceptional pitchman. Palihapitiya previously worked as the senior executive at Facebook from 2007 until 2011. In 2021, he helped publicize Clover Health, a Medicare insurance company, by the SPAC. In 2019, he sponsored a SPAC that merged with Virgin Galactic, later selling a large part of his stake for $200 million in March 2021 to invest in climate-friendly ventures. Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. Speaking up about the role of government, and extolling his views on things like universal health care which he considers a no-brainer is something relatively new for Palihapitiya. [4], Palihapitiya's father was frequently unemployed, and his mother did low-paying housekeeping jobs. Chamath Palihapitiya Family - Parents and Education He is the son of Gamage Palihapitiya. Chamath Palihapitiya is a highly-successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist in the San Francisco Bay area. ", Social Capital. [citation needed], Since then, Social Capital has made investments in three areas: climate science, life sciences, and biotechnology, and the decentralization of the digital economy through platforms such as blockchain, crypto, and digital assets. He shared a campaign website that was created by a supporter. Im Canadian, so I can rule that out, he says. 2022 Annual Letter. 13 Surprising Facts About Top VC Investor Chamath Palihapitiya In 2017, many of us have grappled with the unintended consequences of the products we've built. Chamath Palihapitiya was born on September 3, 1975 in Sri Lanka. No. (He sold a large chunk of his Virgin Galactic stake for $200 . On Main Street today, people are getting wiped out, an utterly calm Palihapitiya reminded CNBCs well-heeled viewers. In 1999, he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. [52] Palihapitiya made more than $290 million from the deal based on a $25k investment. Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive, has joined the Golden State Warriors' ownership group. Palihapitiya traces that fear to growing up the child of an alcoholic. [98] In 2022, Palihapitiyas 10% stake in the team was worth $520 million - a 2000% return on his $25 million initial investment. Chamath Palihapitiya: Money, Success, Startups, Energy, Poker - YouTube He has two younger sisters. I wanted to be a real allocator of capital, because I wanted to change the parts of society I disagreed with., Social Capital was on the verge of raising a credit fund when Palihapitiya found he could not pull the trigger. This led many people to criticize him and question the purpose of private business ventures altogether. Companies take longer and longer to get any kind of material breakout, and theyre less and less likely to do so, which then means that these companies are private for 12, 13 years. When the colleague asked Palihapitiya about his sartorial choices at the time, the young analyst talked about low ROI, meaning he didnt want to spend his time and money worrying about clothes. Venture investor Chamath Palihapitiya, who once thought that Bitcoin had "effectively replaced gold," now thinks that "crypto is dead in America" owing to U.S. regulatory pressure on the sector. Chamath adheres to the principle that ones core beliefs should always be strong to the point of extremes. [11], Palihapitiya's work at Facebook in the first year was messy from his account. He and his family were already in Canada, because his father, Gamage Palihapitiya, was a civil servant serving in Ottawa's Sri Lankan high commission. In 2015, Chamaths firm, Social Capital, raised an amount of 500 million dollars in their capital fund venture. Apr 4. Vikki Velasquez is a researcher and writer who has managed, coordinated, and directed various community and nonprofit organizations. Who Is Chamath Palihapitiya? What Is He Known For? - Investopedia [104][105], Palihapitiya now lives in California with Nathalie Dompe, an Italian pharmaceutical heiress, model, and CEO of Dompe Holdings, whom he started dating in 2018,[106][107] and with whom he has one child. According to him, this makes it easier to weather hard times and value the good ones as well! "[102], Palihapitiya has three World Series of Poker (WSOP) and two World Poker Tour (WPT) cashes for a total of $175,801. Nathalie Dompe Net Worth [87][88], In February 2021, however, Palihapitiya declared he would not run for governor.[87][89]. In 2015, the name of the company was changed to Social Capital. This led to a heated debate between Palihapitiya and super angel Ron Conway. He's not", "Silicon Valley billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya: would-be governor just for a moment", "Silicon Valley Leaders' Plea to Democrats: Anyone but Sanders", "Billionaire VC says he'll shut down his firm to help Mike Bloomberg win US presidency", "Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg: Immigration and the knowledge economy", "Mark Zuckerberg's Cynical, Necessary Washington Strategy", "Ron Conway Flips Out Over Call for SF Mayor Ed Lee to Resign", "Ron Conway And Chamath Palihapitiya Debate SF Housing And Google At Next Big Thing Conference", "Tech Conference Turns Into Shouting Match About Inequality in Silicon Valley", "Ron Conway mocks fellow venture capitalist, uses phrase 'Palo Alto resident' as insult", "Former Facebook exec feels 'tremendous guilt' for what he helped make", "Former Facebook executive: social media is ripping society apart", "Former Facebook exec: I take back what I said about Facebook 'destroying how society works' kinda", "Investor Palihapitiya says he wants to be governor of California", "Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya eyes run for California governor", "Tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya says he's not running for California governor", "Palihapitiya Angles for Newsom's Job as Tech Group Backs Recall", "E63: Insurrection indictments, human rights in the US and abroad, groundbreaking MS study and more", "Warriors part-owner backtracks after saying he doesn't care about Uyghur abuse", "Investor's Uyghur Comments Are Even Worse Than You've Heard", "Canadian billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya said 'nobody' cares about Uyghurs but advocates say he might have helped the cause", "Outcry after Dubs part-owner says 'nobody cares' about genocide", "The Warriors weren't even his first choice: Chamath Palihapitiya explains one of the most successful NBA investments of all time", "The Government Shutdown Has Revealed Silicon Valley's Dysfunction Fetish", "Backlash as US billionaire dismisses Uyghur abuse", "Waterloo Alumnus Donates $25 Million to Help Transform Education", "Chamath Palihapitiya pledges $7 million to California hydropanels that pull water out of air", "My kids get 'no screen time whatsoever,' says Silicon Valley investor Chamath Palihapitiya", "Chamath Palihapitiya Still Lives Four Minutes From His Ex-Wife", "The Unusual Ambitions of Chamath Palihapitiya", "42nd World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2011 United States", "The SPAC King Is Doing Just Fine Even as the Bubble Starts to Burst", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chamath_Palihapitiya&oldid=1151860176, This page was last edited on 26 April 2023, at 18:09. He also invested in two companies going public via blank-check vehicles in January 2020: innovative lock maker Latch and solar lender Sunlight Financial. He is a naturalized American citizen. Learn about the challenges facing entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. Who Was Joseph Schumpeter, and What Was He Known For? By 2015 the investment firm had $1.1 billion in assets from investors. Palihapitiya accounted for $100 million of the PIPE. And LPs are the fuel to all of this. Chamath Palihapitiya's age is 46. "Former Facebook executive: social media is ripping society apart. It wont last forever, of course. Remember the days when AOL Instant Messenger was still relevant? Previously he was married to Brigette Lau, who helped Chamath start his venture. Its gotten out of control, he said, telling attendees they were in the middle of an enormous, multivaried kind of Ponzi scheme.. The SPAC King Is Doing Just Fine Even as the Bubble Starts to Burst. While working at Facebook, Chamath started investing in small companies including Palantir, Pure Storage, Playdom, which was bought by the Walt Disney Company and Bumtop which was later bought by Google. Chamath Palihapitiya, a billionaire venture capitalist who owns a small stake in the Warriors, made the comments on an episode of his podcast "All-In" that was released on Saturday. He knows how to get you excited in four-minute bursts on CNBC about a tech company that flips houses or about a data-savvy Medicare insurance company. His attitude was Im not like all you guys. "At Social Capital, We Make Big Bets On Transformational Ideas, Technology, And People. "He's willing to saddle up on CNBC and tell the story," says venture capitalist Bill Gurley. Kapoor, then a Mayfield principal who had hired Palihapitiya away from AOL, where the young man had a reputation as something of a wunderkind after heading its instant-messaging division, recalls him as particularly articulate. [90][91][92][93], Palihapitiya said he and most Americans care more about domestic economic issues than the human rights abuses of China's Uyghur minority. In 2005, he quit AOL and joined the Mayfield Fund; a couple of months later, he left the job and joined Facebook, which was only a little over a year old. Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist who owns 2 percent of the NBA franchise, expressed cold indifference to the plight of the Uyghurs, an ethnic Muslim minority that has been persecuted in . At that time, seemingly everyone who was anyone in the world of finance was short Tesla. "Crypto is dead in America," the so-called SPAC King said recently on the All-In podcast. Sri Lankan businessman who rose through the ranks to become the founder and CEO of Social Capital. Davida Herzl, the founder and CEO of Aclima, a Social Capital portfolio company, refers to Palihapitiyas path as the long distance traveled., She notes, That journey creates a lot of grit. Chamath Palihapitiya Invests in Two Deals in One Day During SPAC Boom, 2022 Annual Letter | Chamath Palihapitiya, At Social Capital, We Make Big Bets On Transformational Ideas, Technology, And People, In Flip-Flops and Jeans, An Unconventional Venture Capitalist. Having lived in Sri Lanka, Canada, and the U.S. he attributes his outlook equally to his upbringing in all the three countries. What went wrong at Social Capital - Axios Although wildly rich today, Palihapitiya was actually a refugee in childhood. [46], In 2020, Social Capital Hedosophia took Opendoor, an online real estate marketplace, public through a SPAC. He has an answer for that: I actually think I care even more now what other people think, but I care more about the people that dont have a voice as much instead of some random capital allocator who at some very basic level I dont fundamentally respect because of the politics, or because of the game that the capital allocation process transforms it into., The coronavirus pandemic has had a way of altering reality by forcing even the richest people back to basics.