Chamath Palihapitiya Net Worth: Career & Watches

Chamath Palihapitiya, a Canadian American who is a venture capitalist, engineer, SPAC sponsor, and the founder and CEO of Social Capital, has a whopping net worth of $1.2 billion.

Facebook was not as giant as today, back in 2007.

Although Mark Zuckerberg founded the network, its phenomenal success was the result of a collaborative effort.

Chamath Palihapitiya, a computer engineer, was one of the original members of Facebook management that helped the company grow from a startup to a viable business.

Previous Facebook Executive Chamath Palihapitiya.
Previous Facebook Executive Chamath Palihapitiya.

Speaking of Palihapitiya, he was born in Sri Lanka on September 3, 1976, and migrated to Canada with his family when he was six years old.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

Palihapitiya was an early Facebook senior executive, serving there from 2007 to 2011.

When AOL established a business partnership with Facebook, he met Zuckerberg and was hired to help Facebook grow its user base and engagement.

Palihapitiya then left Facebook to start Social Capital, a venture capital firm where he also serves as CEO.

He is one of the world’s wealthiest software engineers, as well as a professional poker player.

Silicon Valley billionaire Chamath is a board member of remind101 and Syapse as of August 2020.

He has also served on Playdom, Lemon, Integrated Plasmonics Corporation, and Agnitus in the past.

Moreover, he’s a co-host of the All In podcast.

Also, read about another renowned podcaster Bill Burr.

Quick Facts

Let’s have a look at some of his details in brief.

Full Name Chamath Palihapitiya
Famous as Venture Capitalist, Sri Lankan Man
Date of birth September 3, 1975
Place of birth Sri Lanka
Age 48 Years Old
Marital Status Brigette Lau ( divorced 2018)
Children 4
Father’s name Gamage Palihapitiya
Mother’s name N\A
Siblings N\A
Gender Male
Zodiac Sign Virgo
Education Bachelor of Electrical Engineer, University of Waterloo
Hair color Black
Eye color Black
Height 1.85m
Weight 71kg
Religion Buddhism
Nationality Canada, United States
Girlfriend Nathalie Dompe
Profession American Venture Capitalist, Businessman, Entrepreneur
Years active 2007- Present
Net worth $1.2 billion
Social media Twitter
Last Update March, 2024

Chamath Palihapitiya Net Worth & Income

The tech billionaire Chamath has an asset of $1.2 billion. His main source of wealth is Facebook and Venture Capital.

Palihapitiya was paid well while he worked on Facebook (FB), and he was also rewarded with generous bonuses for his efforts.

He put his money into several promising businesses, especially into startups that paid off handsomely in a short period of time.

Pure Storage, Bumptop (later purchased by Google), Playdom (later purchased by Disney), and Palantir are some of the ventures that helped grow his fortune.

In late 2019, he financed a blank-check corporation that joined with Virgin Galactic, a space venture.

However, In early March, he sold a major portion of his Virgin Galactic interest for $200 million.

Since then, the former Facebook executive has funded SPAC IPOs for Opendoor, an online real estate startup, and Clover Health, a health insurance provider.

He has three additional blank-check companies on the market, one in talks to go public with personal finance company SoFi.

Similarly, Palihapitiya claimed in 2013 that he held the equivalent of $5 million in Bitcoin and that he hoped to possess up to $15 million.

Chamath Palihapitiya Lifestyle & Vacations

Lifestyle

Chamath is a very family-oriented individual who enjoys spending time with his loved ones.

He is an enthusiastic blogger who has contributed various technical and personal essays to ‘A Medium Corporation.

Likewise, he traces his view to his upbringing in all three nations, having lived in Sri Lanka, Canada, and the United States.

Being a skilled poker player he is, his poker skills are one of the most impressive.

Software Engineer With Some Excellent Poker Skills.
Software Engineer With Some Excellent Poker Skills.

Although this may be true, he made it big because of Facebook, but most people agree that Palihapitiya’s renown stems mostly from his philosophical views, which he is not afraid to share.

While some can portray him as not so fun, the reality is different as he enjoys traveling in elegance, joins the college team in national competitions, and lays a large Super Bowl bet in  Las Vegas.

Vacations

He manages to live life to the fullest regardless of him engaging in different controversies.

In March, Palihapitiya visited Milan on his private jet, which he purchased for $75million.

As a user’s guide, Milan’s location makes it ideal for a day or weekend excursion to the beach, with several beaches only a couple of hours away.

With their refreshing winds and azure waves, the 12 beaches near Milan allow you to enjoy the nice side of the humidity.

He also loves visiting Caribbean Island from time to time.

Chamath Palihapitiya: House, Car, Jet, Watches

House

He lives in Palo Alto, California, United States, with his girlfriend, Nathalie Dompe.

Chamath Posing In Front Of His House.
Chamath Posing In Front Of His House.

According to Business Insider, Palihapitiya conducts poker events at his house in Palo Alto with several friends daily.

Car

He also announced that he was the first person to order a Renovo Coupe, an electric supercar set to debut later this year.

Renovo is powered by twin electric sequential motors with a combined output of 500 horsepower and 1,000 pound-feet torque.

An Electric Super Car Renovo Coupe
An Electric Super Car Renovo Coupe

Summery, in short, this lavish motor is expected to cost $529,000, according to reports.

 Private Jet

According to Bloomberg News, Palihapitiya bought a $75 million Bombardier Global 7500 the ultra-long-range business jets in 2020.

The Jet Owned By Billionaire Palihapitiya.
The Jet Owned By Billionaire Palihapitiya.

The longer, four-zone cabin 7500 is based on the Global 6000 with a redesigned transonic wing and has a range of 7,700 nautical miles that is 14,300 km.

Watches

Unlike other tech billionaires, Chamath knows how to display himself. The brands represented among his powerful watch collection are Richard Mille, Audemars Piguet, and A Lange & Sohne.

Audemars Piguet

He wears a 41mm Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel Open-Worked Rose-Gold.

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak.
Audemars Piguet Royal Oak.

This is a very colorful watch, not only because of the color and meticulous handwork but also because of the technical brilliance of the additional balance wheel, which improves reliability and accuracy.

A Lange & Sohne

Palihapitiya also wears watches by the German brand A Lange & Sohne, whose timepieces are regarded as “grails” by Haute horologists.

German brand A Lange & Sohne
German brand A Lange & Sohne

The watch displays the date, day of the week, month, and leap year, with no need for adjustment until 2100.

Richard Mille

Last but not least, his Richard Mille RM035 Rafael Nadal line watch is perhaps the most flexing in Palihapitiya’s watch collection.

However, wearing a Richard Mille watch almost always ensures that you are the person wearing the watch with the most engineering on display, even among the super-rich.

Richard Mille
Richard Mille

The manually wound RM035 timepiece has a 55-hour power reserve, weighs only 4.3 grams, and is strong enough to resist being strapped to Nadal’s wrist on the court.

In short, he knows how to and what to flex in particular events.

Chamath Palihapitiya Investments, Endorsements & Book Publications

Investments

Palihapitiya created his own fund, The Social+Capital Partnership, after leaving Facebook, through which he invested in several firms, including Yammer and Slack.

Furthermore, In 2015, the Social+Capital Partnership was renamed Social Capital.

Some of the other organizations he invested in are :

  • SuperRare
  • Kahuna Company
  • Tykoon
  • Red Robot Labs
  • GateGuru
  • Desktop Metal
  • Baby.com.br
  • ecomom
  • Treehouse Company
  • Rescour

Palihapitiya is still a major supporter of bitcoin and the decentralized blockchain in general.

Chamath, a keen investor of BItcoin.
Chamath, a keen investor of BItcoin.

Right now, Nobody knows where cryptocurrencies will go because it is currently a very high-risk investment.

Book Publications

Although this may be true he hasn’t published any books himself, but he recommends three books to new graduates, and these are:

  1. Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker
  2. Simon Singh’s Fermat’s Enigma
  3.  The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King by Michael Craig.

Charity

As it is equally important for billionaires to make donations, Chamath also made it to the list as he donated to the Democratic Party of Sri Lanka.

Chamath Palihapitiya, a billionaire investor, also contributes the money he got shorting GameStop shares to Barstool’s small-company fund.

The Barstool Fund was established by Dave Portnoy, the creator of Barstool Sports, to help struggling small companies during the epidemic.

It has so far raised approximately $33 million from 205,525 sponsors to help 187 enterprises.

He tweeted on Dec. 30, 2020, that if the price of Bitcoin, another of his passions hits, $150,000, he’ll buy the Hamptons and turn the entire region into affordable homes.

He hinted at a run for governor of California in January and began supporting a recall effort against current Governor Gavin Newsom.

Click here to know about Multi Billionaire Charles Koch Net Worth.

Career

He started work in the product and business development department at Winamp & Spinner.com in 2000.

Previously, In 1999 he started working as an associate for a year at Bmo Nesbitt Burns.

Following that year, he left the company for AOL as one of its directors, and he remained with the company until he was promoted to vice president and general manager. He served there for about five years.

Afterward, Palihapitiya spent a year as a venture capitalist at Mayfield Fund.

Palihapitiya was promoted to vice president of platform and monetization at Facebook and subsequently concentrated on user growth for both mobile and foreign markets after that.

Moreover, Palihapitiya co-founded Athos, which is a wearable tech company alongside Chris Wiebe and Dhananja Jayalath.

As of August 2020, he is still operating as its executive chairman.

Some Interesting Facts About Him

  • Palihapitiya grew up dreaming of being a billionaire and obsessing over Forbes’ Billionaire List.
  • Palihapitiya stated in November 2017 that he regretted assisting Facebook in becoming the largest social media platform for ethical concerns.

  • Chamath has frequently expressed his dissatisfaction with the growing number of young and inexperienced entrepreneurs. He believes that investors need to be smarter to put the youth’s potential to good use.

FAQs

Is chamath palihapitiya divorce?

He was married to Brigette Lau and had three children together; however, they divorced in 2018.

Who is Nathalie Dompe?

Chamath started dating Nathalie Dompe, who is a very wealthy Italian entrepreneur. In addition, she has worked in the pharmaceutical industry since 2012.

Where is chamath palihapitiya from?

Palihapitiya was born in Sri Lanka and migrated to Canada when he was six years old.

 

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