Chamath Palihapitiya facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Chamath Palihapitiya
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Palihapitiya in 2016
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| Born | 3 September 1976 |
| Citizenship |
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| Education | University of Waterloo (BASc) |
| Occupation |
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| Years active | 2007–present |
| Spouse(s) |
Brigette Lau
(div. 2018)Nathalie Dompé
(m. 2023) |
| Children | 5 |
Chamath Palihapitiya (born 3 September 1976) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian and American venture capitalist, engineer, SPAC sponsor, founder and CEO of Social Capital. Palihapitiya was an early senior executive at Facebook, working at the company from 2007 to 2011. Following his departure from Facebook, Palihapitiya started The Social+Capital Partnership, through which he invested in several companies, including Yammer and Slack. He is a co-host of a technology podcast, All-In, along with David Sacks, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg.
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Early life and education
Palihapitiya was born on 3 September 1976 in Sri Lanka. His family has origins in Galle. His father was posted to the High Commission of Sri Lanka, Ottawa and moved his family to Canada when Chamath was five years old. Five years later, in 1986, when the posting came to an end, the family sought asylum in Canada, as Palihapitiya's father had been criticized for his views about violence towards Tamils during the Sri Lankan Civil War.
..... At age 14, Palihapitiya worked at a Burger King to support his family. His father died of diabetes in October 2014.
Palihapitiya attended Lisgar Collegiate Institute. After graduating from the University of Waterloo in 1999 with a degree in electrical engineering, Palihapitiya worked for a year as a derivatives trader at the investment bank BMO Nesbitt Burns. He then accepted a job offer at Winamp and moved to California.
Career
2004–2011: Winamp, AOL, Mayfield, and Facebook
Palihapitiya joined Winamp, which was subsequently acquired by AOL, where he became the company's youngest vice president, heading its instant messaging division in 2004. In 2005, he left AOL and joined Mayfield Fund; in 2007 he left Mayfield and joined Facebook, which was then a little more than three years old.
Palihapitiya's work at Facebook in his first year was messy by his account. Palihapitiya led the release of Facebook Beacon, an advertising system which failed and became the subject of lawsuits. Palihapitiya next focused on new user growth; after four years, Facebook had 1 billion users. Before leaving Facebook, Palihapitiya led the Facebook Phone and Facebook Home projects.
Steven Levy wrote in Facebook: The Inside Story that Palihapitiya was regarded as a "bully" at Facebook, and that his subordinates often cried as a result of his bullying.
2011–present: Social Capital
Multi-LP venture capital fund
In 2011, he left Facebook and started his own fund, The Social+Capital Partnership, with his then-wife. The firm changed its name to Social Capital in 2015. Through the fund, Palihapitiya invested in a number of companies, including Glooko, Inc, Yammer, SecondMarket, Slack, and Box. As of 2015, the fund had more than $1.1 billion in total assets most of which came from external investors.
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In 2018, there was a massive decrease in Social Capital fund's operations and a significant exodus of top management and co-founders.
Axios reported that Palihapitiya was spending a significant amount of time with his new girlfriend in Europe and rarely showed up to the office or answered emails from employees. The firm returned investor capital and converted into a family office although continued to manage some external capital on a no-fee basis.
In December 2019, Palihapitiya stepped down as a member of the board of directors of Slack.
Transition to single-GP technology holding company
After transitioning to a single GP firm, essentially Palihapitiya family office, in 2018, Palihapitiya said he wanted to return to first principles and restructure the firm to better align with the long-term interests of entrepreneurs, not just limited partners (LPs).
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. Palihapitiya manages from a balance sheet of permanent capital.
SPAC platform
Palihapitiya previously said that he reserved symbols from IPOA through IPOZ.
In 2019, Palihapitiya helped take Virgin Galactic public through a Special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), previously known as IPOA. In March 2021, Palihapitiya sold his stake in Virgin Galactic for around US$213 million. In February 2022, Palihapitiya stepped down as chairman of Virgin Galactic.
In 2020, Social Capital Hedosophia took Opendoor, an online real estate marketplace, public through a SPAC. OpenDoor raised $1 billion through the merger, $400 million of which came from the SPAC and an additional $600 million through PIPE investors. Palihapitiya accounted for $100 million of the PIPE.
In 2021, Palihapitiya announced he planned to help take SoFi, a financial services platform, and Clover Health, a Medicare insurance company, public through SPACs. This gained Palihapitiya criticism from the Financial Times, which said that he is "shilling risky reverse-mergers to retail investors on a almost bimonthly basis".
Following the Clover Health SPAC merger, Hindenburg Research, a financial analyst and short-selling specialist firm, issued a report about this transaction accusing Palihapitiya of luring investors into a "broken business", arguing that he failed to inform them about an active Department of Justice investigation into Clover's allegedly deceptive business practices. Palihapitiya made more than $290 million from the deal based on a $25k investment. In addition the Clover Health co-founder/CEO's previous company, CarePoint Health, a hospital conglomerate in New Jersey, was accused of price gouging customers and according to a NJ state commission siphoning off $150 million to himself and his friends bankrupting the company and causing a hospital crisis in NJ. Regulators in NJ called for an investigation of Clover Health because of the CEO's previous actions. The Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into the allegations set forth in the Hindenburg Research report on 4 February.
During the GameStop short squeeze, Palihapitiya repeatedly attacked Robinhood and its founders for being unethical by selling payment for order flow to HFT firms like Citadel Securities and pushed his fans to switch over to SoFi, which was merging with his SPAC yet failed to mention that SoFi employs the same practice of selling payment for order flow to HFT firms (including to Citadel Securities) and owns a 16% stake in Apex Clearing Corp, a clearing house involved in the controversy.
Coates clarified that a judge could rule a SPAC is similar enough to an IPO that the lesser securities law liability would be void.
In June 2021, Social Capital Survetta filed for four new SPACs, focusing on biotechnology companies, under the stock tickers DNAA through DNAD.
The company acquired Hustle, a texting app used by Democratic campaigns, in 2020 with Palihapitiya taking over as CEO in 2023.
Political positions and activities
Palihapitiya has donated to the Democratic Party. As of February 2021, he had reportedly donated $1.3 million to the party over the previous decade. In March 2020, Palihapitiya told The New York Times that he would like to see Michael Bloomberg at the top of the Democratic ticket in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, paired with Amy Klobuchar or Elizabeth Warren.
In recent years, Palihapitiya has shifted towards the Republican Party. He donated $7,500 to U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz in 2011. In September 2023, Palihapitiya hosted a minimum $50,000-per-plate fundraiser at his home for presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. In 2024, Palihapitiya was confirmed as a member of the host committee for a fundraiser for Donald Trump hosted by David Sacks in San Francisco. He was a co-host, along with Jacqueline Sacks, David Sacks's wife, of the fundraising event, which raised $12 million and was held on 6 June 2024 at Sacks's Pacific Heights home.
Immigration reform and policy advocacy
Palihapitiya was listed as one of the "Founders" of the lobbying group FWD.us. The group launched on 11 April 2013, and its goals include immigration reform, improving education, and enabling technological innovation, all in a United States context. An article in The New Republic stated that Palihapitiya received a weekly report about FWD.us and also quoted him as saying, in response to controversy around the FWD.us political lobbying strategy: "The folks that are actually people that run that day to day are sophisticated and understand the nuances of how to affect it ... It's a really gnarly, gnarly thing having to deal with Washington. And to be honest with you, my perspective was, it's a really good investment because it's a good way to pay it forward, and I'm really glad there are other people other than me who are dealing with it who have the patience and resolve to figure it out."
California gubernatorial campaign
On 25 January 2021, Palihapitiya announced he would challenge incumbent California Governor Gavin Newsom in the event Newsom was recalled. If elected, Palihapitiya said he would cut the state income tax rate from 16 to 0 percent, provide free education vouchers, allow for a two thousand dollar credit for every child born in California, and work to make California the center of climate and technology jobs. He shared a campaign website that was created by a supporter.
In February 2021, however, Palihapitiya declared he would not run for governor.
Comments on persecution of Uyghurs in China
Palihapitiya said he and most Americans care more about domestic economic issues than the human rights abuses of China's Uyghur minority. In response, the Golden State Warriors issued a statement saying that Palihapitiya "does not speak on behalf of our franchise, and his views certainly don't reflect those of our organization." Palihapitiya later apologized for these comments in a tweet, stating that he recognized he came across as "lacking empathy" and that "To be clear, my belief is that human rights matter, whether in China, the United States, or elsewhere. Full stop."
Investments and philanthropy
While at Facebook, Palihapitiya invested in several startups through Embarcadero Ventures, a venture capital fund.
In 2010, Palihapitiya helped to buy the Golden State Warriors for $450 million; he remains a minority stakeholder and board member of the team. According to the team as of 2022 he was a "limited investor with no day-to-day operating functions". In 2022, Palihapitiya’s 10% stake in the team was worth $520 million - a 2000% return on his $25 million initial investment.
Palihapitiya has donated consistently to his alma mater, the University of Waterloo, including a $25 million donation to the engineering department in 2018.
In 2021, he donated $7 million to provide clean drinking water to 1,000 families in California's Central Valley through a partnership with one2one, an American foundation, and Source Global, the maker of solar-powered hydropanels that extract potable water from the air.
Personal life
After graduating from college, Palihapitiya followed his future wife, Brigette Lau, to California. They had three children together, and divorced in 2018.
Palihapitiya lives in California with his second wife, Nathalie Dompé, an Italian pharmaceutical heiress, model, and Director of Operations of Dompé Holdings, whom he started dating in 2018, and with whom he has two children. The couple were married at the Castello Brown in Italy in July 2023.
In a December 2017 interview, Palihapitiya said that he keeps his children as far away from social media as possible, except for the occasional movie, explaining, "I don't like this co-dependency of 'they need to rely on me, and when they can't, I feed them a device because that becomes a babysitter'."
Palihapitiya is an avid poker player. He has three World Series of Poker (WSOP) and two World Poker Tour (WPT) cashes for a total of $175,801. In 2011, he finished 101st out of 6,865 entries in the World Series of Poker's Main Event.
Palihapitiya purchased a $75 million Bombardier Global 7500 in 2020.
See also
- List of University of Waterloo people
