I have no favorite quotes. It’s not about favorites.
Chamath Palihapitiya is an early-stage venture capitalist who founded True Ventures with his friends Andrew Chen, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin in 2008. He has since become a regular columnist and speaker on entrepreneurship and venture capital. He has now turned his attention to social issues and recently announced that he will be investing his wealth in the fight against racism.
Palihapitiya was a co-founder of several companies, such as Glooko Inc. and Yammer. He worked at AOL and eventually became a Vice President at the company. He has been an investor in several companies, such as Second Market and Box.
These are my favorite quotes on finance and entrepreneurship.
50 Motivational & Powerful Chamath Palihapitiya Quotes
He had to learn how to rein himself in when he ran wild investing everything he had into Facebook.
I’m not shocked at all. I’m fascinated that people think that half of the population is not as capable as the other.
Palihapitiya left Facebook at the end of 2017. He didn’t sell his shares, but he is not in a position to say whether the company was worth $40 billion or $100 billion.
The cryptocurrency market has been going through a bearish phase ever since the end of 2017. A lot of bitcoin critics have blamed the lack of price appreciation on the emergence of cryptocurrency ETFs like the Winklevoss twins’ new ETF that was supposed to have a huge impact on the market.
The only innovation pattern that matters is to constantly keep improving on one thing that people want. Whether the innovation is new technology, new service, new channel of communication or new way for people to work.
He stated that there is nothing wrong with the app ecosystem, but that it is misunderstood by the average person.
I’ve said this before, but we are betting against entrepreneurs who are changing the world. We’re talking about entrepreneurs who are creating jobs, changing lives, and making things better. That’s how the world is changing.
I wouldn’t think Apple will become aggressive or daring to do things which are outside of the norm. I think they have done a good job so far.
Chamath Palihapitiya is a former vice-president of strategic investment at Facebook and founder of the venture capital firm Social Capital. He says that fixing capitalism is a mathematical problem and that it can be done objectively.
10th of 50 Chamath Palihapitiya Quotes
Palihapitiya says that now it’s possible for someone to create a lot of followers easily, and gain a lot of popularity. But it’s important to have a lot of followers for your message to have credibility.
He said that there is a difference between getting a product out there in the market and getting to the product market fit. If you can reach it then you will have a product that customers will use. You don’t necessarily need to worry about the money until you have a product that you can profit on.
I want children who know how to resolve conflicts with their peers. I want children who are understanding of the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. I want children who know how to play nice. I don’t want children that live in a world of screens.
The full list of the interview is here.
I have money and I have a good business acumen. That’s part of my makeup and how I get by in life. You gotta be aware of it. You gotta know that you can deal with it. You gotta be comfortable with it.
A lot of people think the government is useless – that our leaders are really corrupt and they don’t care.
I know that there is a bunch of money in Silicon Valley, that’s where I want to invest. There’s a bunch of money in China, so I’m already there. I don’t want to invest in a startup in the U.S. It’s hard to get money from institutional investors.
Palihapitiya was a tech entrepreneur who grew up in Sri Lanka during the country’s civil war, and is now the CEO of Social Capital, an early stage venture capital firm.
People are going to look at you and judge what you bring and who you are on a basic level.
There are just too many things that you can do to make the world a better place. And some of them could be done tomorrow, but we cannot do anything by ourselves. We need to work together.
Facebook could have gone public immediately after it raised enough capital from investors, said Chamath Palihapitiya. The right time to go public was 2012, when investors were able to see real revenue.
20th of 50 Chamath Palihapitiya Quotes
For most startups, their primary focus is cutting costs. They are so focused on cutting costs, that they end up creating an environment that is not conducive to building successful companies.
While in Canada, Palihapitiya’s mother worked as a nurse; his father worked as a civil servant. After graduating from Stanford, Palihapitiya went on to start a venture capital firm called Social Capital, which was later acquired by Facebook.
In the world of business, it’s not always easy to get everybody on the same page because everyone’s working for the company, as a team.
I used to be a dumb investor. I thought I could beat the market
with a formula. But as an early-stage investor, you are on the front lines of the battle. You have to make the
determinations about whether opportunities are real and how to evaluate them. You have to understand that most of
the noise is out there to distort your judgment.
There’s no secret about the fact that Tesla is doing a very good job at capturing market share and customer mindshare. I think this is something that’s very, very positive.
I was a living testament to the value of immigration for the first 8 years of my life.
Palihapitiya thinks Apple is a cash machine. The company has so much cash, it can do anything. And he’s right. Apple does have a lot of cash. But it is an investor’s paradise.
Palihapitiya said that it would be a good thing to force these companies to be transparent. He added that he wanted every single citizen to have a right to know what is factual versus what is amplified by good actors or bad actors.
Palihapitiya said that IBM uses their sales and marketing infrastructure to convince people who have asymmetrically less knowledge to spend money.
He says that in growing up in Nigeria he never had any female role models. His mother was the primary breadwinner in the family.
30th of 50 Chamath Palihapitiya Quotes
In the course of a career as a professional poker player, I found that a lot of successful poker players grew up poor. And I’m convinced that poor people have a risk tolerance that rich people don’t have because poor people fundamentally don’t value money that much because they’re used to not having it.
The market is a winner-take-all market. Companies that are exceptional and can drive value creation will always be the best.
What Chamath did was to start a company that is trying to do a lot of work to build and get the ground truth of what’s happening inside of a company. That being said, it’s a lot of hard work but it’s definitely worth your time and money to try and do some research and build a really good learning engine.
Chamath Palihapitiya is known as the founder of $1B company Social Capital, and is one of the most successful VCs in Silicon Valley from the past decade. He often talks about the need for entrepreneurs and founders to make a big splash in the market.
When we feel like we are in a race, we are in a race. We are living in a bubble. We’re in a race for likes, hearts, and followers. At times we use these actions as a way to validate our lives, even though there’s no objective measure of “success.”
How to use:
Like, share, and subscribe to my stories and you will help me get better at my craft.
It takes a long time to build a valuable company and we need to build companies that are valuable and worth many billions of dollars. There is the need to be patient and to be patient if we want to build a multi-billion dollar company.
Mr. Palihapitiya, who founded both Social+Capital and Social+Capital Asia, was born in Sri Lanka, an island nation located in the Indian Ocean.
Chamath Palihapitiya says we should focus on health, climate change and other big issues that if solved would create immense wealth and opportunity that would cascade across countries.
His first startup venture was a failed restaurant called Social Tables. Then he invested in SnapChat but its Series A was not successful.
I came to the conclusion that the main purpose of my life is to give everything I do the best effort that I can. I came to the realization that money is just a byproduct of good things. So, the money is not so important. The more important point is that is that you give the best effort.
40th of 50 Chamath Palihapitiya Quotes
Chamath Palihapitiya recommends that entrepreneurs look for venture investors, not capital to take their companies to the next level. Chamath recommends that you look for the right partner…not the right capital.
When looking at the future of the financial sector, Chamath Palihapitiya believes that companies will transcend power. The capital structures that matter, will become the companies that matter.
Chamath Palihapitiya was hired at Burger King when he was 15 years old. He worked there for four years.
Palihapitiya said it’s important to understand that a CEO and founder has a different compensation equation with his or her employees.
I think we should make sure that immigrants to the US are people that will fit in and are willing to learn other languages and will go to school, and are willing to integrate.
A lot of government employees, like many Americans, are fed up with all the nonsense and wish the government would just shut down. In this case, it wouldn’t be disastrous for our economy because most government workers wouldn’t be affected, but it wouldn’t be good either.
Palihapitiya has an interesting perspective on burn. I think it applies to a lot of startups who have a product that is extremely valuable to a small group of people. In this case, it’s the founders and early employees. In the early days, it’s all about burning money to build a business and attract customers. These days, you want to keep the customer base happy and keep your employees happy. Burn is the word of the day!
Palihapitiya, a noted former Facebook employee, said: I don’t buy technology stocks, I don’t own consumer goods companies, I don’t own real estate companies, I don’t own technology companies.
Zuck seems emotionally stable. It is unlikely that he has emotional difficulties.
Chamath Palihapitiya mentioned that startups should be in the position of a J-curve. They should start with no money, and when they do grow, it’s exponential.
The Facebook IPO was a big deal, and investors wanted to know whether the company was a good one. That is the question Chamath asked, and he didn’t have a very good answer.
Summary
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