Chamath Palihapitiya was born September 3, 1976, in Galle, Sri Lanka, and moved to Canada at age 5 when his father joined Sri Lanka's High Commission in Ottawa; the family sough…
Chamath Palihapitiya was born September 3, 1976, in Galle, Sri Lanka, and moved to Canada at age 5 when his father joined Sri Lanka's High Commission in Ottawa; the family sought asylum in 1986 after his father criticized violence against Tamils. ◦ He grew up in financial hardship as his father struggled with alcoholism and his mother worked housekeeping jobs; he started working at Burger King at age 14 and later graduated from the University of Waterloo in 1999 with a degree in electrical engineering. ◦ He served as a senior executive at Facebook from 2007 to 2011, where he led the company's growth initiatives as the platform reached one billion users, and founded Social Capital in 2011 with then-wife Brigette Lau. ◦ Beginning in 2019 he sponsored a series of SPACs that took Virgin Galactic, Opendoor, Clover Health, and SoFi public; all four experienced major stock declines in 2021-2022, triggering investor lawsuits. ◦
He wants to empower entrepreneurs to solve the world's hardest problems while generating compounding returns, both economically and socially, for the long term. ◦ He believes companies solving the world's hardest problems are often those with the fewest competitors. ◦ He values investors who care most about making a positive contribution to society, noting that they were the most valuable rather than those who cared most about returns. ◦ He decided that a technology holding company was a structure much more amenable to making the contrarian, long-term investments that he wanted to make. ◦ He views the industry as one of Darwinism, stating that either you'll continually rise to meet the moment or you'll disappear. ◦ He advises founders to remain laser-focused on building products and services that customers love. ◦ He believes great opportunities are less about where a company is in its lifecycle, and more about a team's ability to overcome a confluence of technological and regulatory circumstances. ◦ He ended up not coveting money, finding it to be something that he could use to really empower himself to do the things that he wanted to do. ◦ He believes being happy personally is the pathway to help everything else make sense, and that is around mental health. ◦ He emphasizes that the difference between labor and capital is the biggest edge the moneyed class has. ◦
He decided that a technology holding company was a structure much more amenable to making the contrarian, long-term investments that he wanted to make. ◦ He thinks that spending time understanding yourself and then translating that into actionable targets that you write down and you stick to is really important. ◦ He defines certain behavioral principles that protect him from the worst parts of his psychology, viewing that as a winning strategy. ◦ He allows himself to be seduced by certain people so that he can learn from them, but always comes back home, back to the center, back to no opinion. ◦ He believes it's not timing the market, but time in market, and that owners own pieces of things forever. ◦
He views the industry through a lens of Darwinism, stating that either you'll continually rise to meet the moment or you'll disappear. ◦ He believes it's not timing the market, but time in market, and that owners own pieces of things forever. ◦ He thinks that spending time understanding yourself and then translating that into actionable targets that you write down and you stick to is really important. ◦ He defines certain behavioral principles that protect him from the worst parts of his psychology, viewing that as a winning strategy. ◦ He allows himself to be seduced by certain people so that he can learn from them, but always comes back home, back to the center, back to no opinion. ◦ He believes great opportunities are less about where a company is in its lifecycle, and more about a team's ability to overcome a confluence of technological and regulatory circumstances. ◦ He ended up not coveting money, having found it to be something that he could use to really empower himself to do the things that he wanted to do. ◦ He emphasizes that the difference between labor and capital is the biggest edge the moneyed class has. ◦
He graduated from the University of Waterloo in 1999 with a degree in electrical engineering. ◦ He served as a senior executive at Facebook from 2007 to 2011, where he led the company's growth initiatives as the platform reached one billion users. ◦ He founded Social Capital in 2011. ◦ Beginning in 2019 he sponsored a series of SPACs that took Virgin Galactic, Opendoor, Clover Health, and SoFi public. ◦ He wants to show people, everyday, normal people how they can earn and save and invest and be a part of capital, not just labor. ◦
He has stated, "If you're going to say it, really own it, but I really think it's a very powerful thing to be able to say, I don't know." ◦ He has also said, "Get the money, get the money, and then let's get around a table and let's create new rules." ◦ He frames the industry in stark terms: "Our industry is one of Darwinism. Either you'll continually rise to meet the moment or you'll disappear." ◦
He decided that a technology holding company was a structure much more amenable to making the contrarian, long-term investments that he wanted to make, yet beginning in 2019 he sponsored a series of SPACs that took Virgin Galactic, Opendoor, Clover Health, and SoFi public, and all four experienced major stock declines in 2021-2022, triggering investor lawsuits. ◦ ◦ He wants to empower entrepreneurs to solve the world's hardest problems while generating compounding returns, both economically and socially, for the long term, and values investors who care most about making a positive contribution to society, yet he has also said, "Get the money, get the money, and then let's get around a table and let's create new rules." ◦ ◦ He frames the industry as one of Darwinism where either you'll continually rise to meet the moment or you'll disappear, while also believing that being happy personally is the pathway to help everything else make sense, and that is around mental health. ◦ ◦
He advises founders to remain laser-focused on building products and services that customers love. ◦ He wants to show people, everyday, normal people how they can earn and save and invest and be a part of capital, not just labor. ◦ He has stated, "If you're going to say it, really own it, but I really think it's a very powerful thing to be able to say, I don't know." ◦ He allows himself to be seduced by those folks so that he can learn from them, but always comes back home, back to the center, back to no opinion. ◦