Benzinga readers and investors know Chamath Palihapitiya best as the “SPAC King” and for his role in the 2020 SPAC boom. Here’s more about Palihapitiya and some lesser known facts that readers may not know.
About Palihapitiya: Born in Sri Lanka, Palihapitiya emigrated to Canada at the age of six.
After AOL, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) and Slack Technologies (NYSE: WORK), Palihapitiya launched The Social + Capital Partnership, a fund to invest in businesses that would not finance large companies.
Palihapitiya launched Social Capital Hedosophia with Ian Osborne to use the alternative route to traditional IPOs to bring innovative technology companies to the public market. Palihapiya plans to make companies public using SPACs named alphabetically from IPOA to IPOZ. Six of the first SPACs were launched, with three closed and one with a pending merger.
‘My ambition is to be Berkshire Hathaway of our generation. It will be a Berkshire, a holding company that, instead of Gillette and Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, will hold technology ventures, ‘Palihapitiya told Fortune.
Palihapitiya is the chairman of Virgin Galactic Holdings (NYSE: SPCE), and brought Opendoor Technologies (NASDAQ: OPEN) public with IPOB and Piano Health (NASDAQ: CLOV) with IPOC. Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp V (NYSE: IPOE) announced a merger with SoFi last week.
Palihapitiya also invested in SPAC transactions MP material (NYSE: LP), Desktop Metal (NYSE: DM) and INSU Acquisition Corp II (NASDAQ: INAQ) Target Metromile.
Related Link: Chamath Palihapitiya’s IPOD, IPOE, IPOF SPACs: What Investors Need to Know
Social Media Pioneer: Prior to launching Palihapitiya, he was the most full-fledged senior board member of Facebook. While on Facebook, Palihapitiya held roles that helped with mobile and international growth, and he had the role of vice president of user growth before leaving. While on Facebook, Palihapitiya helped the company grow its user base from 50 million to 700 million.
Palihapitiya has been critical of Facebook for the past few years, selling all of its shares in 2014. At a Benzinga Boot Camp meeting, Palihapitiya said Facebook should have become known earlier as it could help an earlier transition to mobile devices.
Before joining Facebook, Palihapitiya worked for AOL and was responsible for ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger. Palihapitiya was the youngest vice president in AOL history at the age of 26.
Big fan of poker: The SPAC King is a huge fan of poker and has even participated in several World Series of Poker events.
Palihapitiya participated in the 2011 No No Limit Hold’em WSOP event, where he placed 101st and won $ 54,851. In three World Series of Poker events, Palihapitiya earned $ 138,701.
It is also known that the investor offered poker games at his home with friends and well-known Silicon Valley investors such as David Sacks and Jason Calacanis.
Phil Hellmuth, the leading WSOP bracelet holder with 15, also took part in the poker games with Palihapitiya. Hellmuth has earned more than $ 15 million in World Series of Poker competitions.
Palihapitiya hosts the All-In podcast, named after his love of poker, featuring Sacks, Calacanis and David Friedberg.
Believers in Amazon, Tesla and Bitcoin: Three of the most popular and best performing assets of the past few years get the approval of Palihapitiya and have more room to grow.
Palihapitiya invests in Tesla Ing (NASDAQ: TSLA) in 2016. Over the years, Palihapitiya has discussed that cars are ‘only the first wave of growth’ for the company. According to Palihapitiya, Tesla could become the largest company in the world.
In 2012, Palihapitiya started investing in Bitcoin and bought more than $ 1 million on the recommendation of a friend. The investor no longer holds Bitcoin, but invests in companies that own Bitcoin, as it is easier to manage stocks instead of coins or wallets, according to Palihapitiya.
Bitcoin could rise to 200,000 in the next five or ten years, Palihapitiya said in a recent CNBC interview.
Amazon Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) could be worth $ 3 billion by 2025, Palihapitiya said in 2016.
“You are behind these people who have an (incredibly smart character), who know what they are doing, who are not going to bend to short-term gains and are only going to take the train for 10 to 20 years to make the world a better place,” Palihapitiya said. said about Elon Musk of Tesla and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
Fascinate early in wealth, pay it now: Palihapitiya was fascinated by the Forbes billionaires list at a young age and dreamed of getting rich one day.
Palihapitiya now uses his wealth as a bridge to help others. The investor is known for giving 100% a fee to restaurants as a way to pay it out and see the joy in others from this simple gesture.
NBA owner: In 2011, Palihapitiya became a minority investor in the NBA’s Golden State Warriors. He is currently a board member for the team that won the NBA Championship in 2015, 2017 and 2018.
The Warriors are the third most valuable NBA franchise by Forbes. The value of the team increased from $ 363 million in 2011 to $ 4.3 billion in 2020.
Disclosure: The author has long been DM, IPOD.
Photo credit: Cmichel67 via Wikimedia
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