Chamath Palihapitiya

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 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 the father had been criticized for his views about violence during the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Palihapitiya's father was frequently unemployed, and his mother did low-paying housekeeping jobs.

At age 14, Palihapitiya worked at a Burger King to support his family.

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.

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 the first year was messy by his account.

Palihapitiya led the release of Facebook Beacon, an advertising system that which failed and became the subject of lawsuits.

Palihapitiya next headed 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.

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.

In 2011, he left Facebook and started his own fund, The Social+Capital Partnership, with his then-wife.

His father died in October 2014.

He attended Lisgar Collegiate Institute.

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.

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.

After transitioning to a single GP firm, essentially Palihapitiya's 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.

Palihapitiya previously said that he reserved symbols from IPOA through IPOZ.

In December 2019 Palihapitiya stepped down as a member of the board of directors of Slack.

In 2019, Palihapitiya helped take Virgin Galactic public through a SPAC, previously known as IPOA.

In March 2021, Palihapitiya sold his stake 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.