Chamath Palihapitiya

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Chamath Palihapitiya is a venture capitalist in the United States.

Life and career

Early life

Palihapitiya was born in Sri Lanka. He moved with his family to Canada at the age of six. He later moved to California in 2000, just after the peak of the Internet boom.[1]

Career as a software engineer

Palihapitiya joined AOL and rose through the ranks to become the head of AOL's instant messaging division in 2004.[1] He then left AOL and joined Mayfield Fund in 2005. However, he left the job after a few months and joined Facebook, which at the time was a little more than a year old.[1] Palihapitiya's work at Facebook involved trying to increase Facebook's userbase.[2]

Palihapitiya claims to have joined Facebook with a "chip on my shoulder" and a contempt of people who merely write code, but his experience at Facebook led him to revise his beliefs.[3] One of the things Palihapitiya admired about Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's principal founder and CEO, was Zuckerberg's lack of ego and his ability to avoid letting personal egos get in the way of business decisions.[3]

Career as a venture capitalist

Palihapitiya started off making investments on the side while still employed at Facebook, including investments in Playdom (bought by The Walt Disney Company) and Bumptop (bought by Google). In 2011, he had enough money to quit his job at Facebook and start his own fund called The Social+Capital Partnership.[1][4][5] The fund was praised by Peter Thiel, who invested in it and expressed enthusiasm for Palihapitiya's approach.[2]

Palihapitiya has invested (through the fund) in a number of companies since then, including Yammer[6] and SecondMarket.[7]

In March 2013, Palihapitiya confirmed that his venture fund had raised over $275 million in its second round of fundraising.[8][9]

Controversy

Airbnb controversy

In early October 2011, an email allegedly written by Chamath Palihapitiya to Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, that was critical of the manner in which Airbnb was structuring its funding round, was leaked to Kara Swisher of AllThingsD.[10][11] A follow-up revealed that new aspects of the deal were in development that might alleviate some of the concerns expressed by Palihapitiya, and he was reconsidering his decision not to invest in the funding round. He also expressed regret about the email being leaked, and he said that he was not responsible for the leak.[12][13]

Politics

Palihapitiya was listed as one of the "Founders" of the lobbying group FWD.us.[14] The group launched on April 11, 2013, and its goals include immigration reform, improving education, and enabling technological innovation, all in a United States context.[15][16] 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 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."[17]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Rusli, Evelyn (2011-10-06). "In Flip-Flops and Jeans, An Unconventional Venture Capitalist". Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Bennett, Drake (2012-07-26). "Social+Capital, the League of Extraordinarily Rich Gentlemen". Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Thomas, Owen (2013-03-04). "'Zuckerberg Is A Good CEO On His Way To Being A Great CEO'". Business Insider. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  4. ↑ "The Social+Capital Partnership". Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  5. ↑ Arrington, Michael (2011-06-03). "Facebook VP Chamath Palihapitiya Forms New Venture Fund, The Social+Capital Partnership". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  6. ↑ Rao, Leena (2011-09-27). "Former Facebook VP Chamath Palihapitiya Leads $17M Round In Enterprise Social Networking Platform Yammer". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  7. ↑ Marshall, Matt (2011-11-02). "SecondMarket raises $15M at $200M valuation from former Facebook exec". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  8. ↑ Ha, Anthony (2013-03-04). "Chamath Palihapitiya Confirms That His Social+Capital Partnership Has Raised A New Fund Of $275M+". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  9. ↑ Grant, Rebecca (2013-03-04). "Making money and a difference, Social+Capital Partnership confirms new fund". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  10. ↑ Swisher, Kara (2011-10-01). "Email: Chamath Palihapitiya Decries Airbnb’s Recent $112M Funding for Founder Control and Cash-Out". AllThingsD. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  11. ↑ Schonfeld, Erick (2011-10-01). "Chamath Palihapitiya To Airbnb CEO: "If You Want Liquidity... Make It Available To Everyone"". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  12. ↑ Swisher, Kara (2011-10-02). "Airbnb, Investor Chamath Palihapitiya Settle Differences; Employees Will Get Liquidity". AllThingsD. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  13. ↑ Arrington, Michael (2011-10-01). "Chamath Palihapitiya’s Statement On Airbnb Email Fiasco". Uncrunched. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  14. ↑ "Our Supporters". FWD.us. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  15. ↑ "About Us". FWD.us. Retrieved 2013-04-23. 
  16. ↑ Zuckerberg, Mark (2013-04-11). "Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg: Immigration and the knowledge economy". Washington Post. Retrieved 2013-04-17. 
  17. ↑ DePillis, Lydia (2013-05-06). "Mark Zuckerberg’s Cynical, Necessary Washington Strategy". The New Republic. Retrieved 2013-05-07. 

External links


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