In Silicon Valley, Chamath Palihapitiya, who has earned billions of dollars while tweeting things like “Im about to really fuck some shit up” to his 1.5 million followers, rarely requires identification beyond his first name. That’s in part because, in the past decade, he has spent significant time saying things in public that rich people aren’t supposed to say. Venture capitalists are “a bunch of soulless cowards.” Of hedge-fund managers: “Let them get wiped out. Who cares? They don’t get to summer in the Hamptons? Who cares?” (He made both proclamations after he had become a venture capitalist and started a hedge fund; he has yachted off the Italian coast.)
Recently, Palihapitiya has achieved even greater prominence by launching a series of special-purpose acquisition companies, or spacs, which are among the fastest-growing financial instruments in the world. A spac takes a company public by attempting to sidestep regulations that help protect investors from potentially dodgy new businesses. People place money in a “blank check” fund, which then merges with an existing private company, allowing it to sell shares without having a formal initial public offering, a process that involves rigorous scrutiny by banks and regulators. spacs have been celebrated as a way to spread Wall Street riches more equitably—you can often buy a share in one for just ten dollars—and condemned as potential catalysts of a financial crash. Palihapitiya promotes the spac as an innovation that “democratizes access to high-growth companies” while “dismantling” the “traditional capital market.” But he has sometimes acknowledged a simpler allegiance. “I want the fucking money,” he told students at Stanford’s business school, in 2017. “I will play the goddam game, and I will win.”
Published in the print edition of the June 7, 2021, issue, with the headline “Cool Story, Bro.”
Charles Duhigg is the author of “The Power of Habit” and “Smarter Faster Better.” He was a member of the Times team that won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting.
