Everything you need to know about Chamath Palihapitiya net worth
Chamath Palihapitiya is a Sri Lankan-Canadian-American engineer, venture capitalist, and SPAC sponsor. He is also the founder and CEO of Social Capital and has a net worth of $1.2 billion as of March 2021. In addition to all these accolades, he was also a senior executive at Facebook from 2007 to 2011 and is currently a board member and minority stakeholder of the world-renowned NBA team the Golden State Warriors.
Here are some more details about the person who currently is in charge of more than 12 companies;
Early Life and Education
- Palihapitiya was born in Sri Lanka on September 3rd,1976. At the age of 6, he moved to Canada along with his family. In 1988, he enrolled in the Lisgar Collegiate Institute and graduated at the age of 17. In 1999 he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo.
Time at AOL and Facebook
- After graduating with an electrical engineering degree, Palihapitiya started working as a trader at the investment bank known as BMO. After a one-year stint there he started working at Winamp which prompted him to move to California. There he joined AOL and quickly became the company’s youngest vice president ever. While working for AOL, he headed their instant messaging division in 2004.
During his time at AOL, the company made a small deal with Facebook that linked the AOL instant messenger to Facebook’s website. As this deal was being finalized, Palihapitiya formed a connection with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg which later facilitated his move to Facebook.
- After leaving AOL in 2005, Palihapitiya joined Mayfield Fund and after spending a few months there he left to join Facebook where he worked in the company's product marketing and operations division. Palihapitiya’s main job at Facebook was to try and increase the company’s user base.
Leaving Facebook and Starting a Life as a Venture Capitalist
- While still working at Facebook, Palihapitiya made investments in several companies like Playdom, Bumptop, Pure Storage, and Palantir. In 2011, Palihapitiya left Facebook citing creative differences with the company and the direction it was taking. After leaving Facebook, he started his own fund by the name The Social+Capital Partnership with his then-wife Brigette Lau. In 2015, the firm changed its name to Social Capital.
After the fund was created, it was praised by a lot of people including German-American billionaire Peter Thiel who became the primary investor. With the help of this fund, Palihapitiya invested in numerous companies including Yammer, Box, Premise, Glooko, and Inc. He became a member of the board of directors of Slack in 2017, a company he had initially invested in. Palihapitiya officially announced that he had raised more than $275 million through fundraising in March 2013.
This number grew to about $1.1 billion by 2015. In early 2019, Palihapitiya resigned from his position as a member of the board of directors of Slack. In 2020 and 2021 he helped take companies like Virgin Galactic and Medicare insurance public through a SPAC.
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