TIP354: BUILDING BERKSHIRE 2.0

W/ CHAMATH PALIHAPITIYA

19 June 2021

On today’s episode, Trey Lockerbie sits down with Chamath Palihapitiya. Chamath is the founder and CEO of Social Capital, his conglomerate focused on solving climate change and inequality, which he has referred to as Berkshire Hathaway 2.0. Chamath was an early executive at Facebook and then went on to become a super successful Venture Capitalist, with early investments into Amazon, Tesla, Slack, and Bitcoin. He’s also now the Chairman of Virgin Galactic and a part-owner of the Golden State Warriors. Chamath has developed a large internet following because of the broadcasting of his SPAC investments in easy-to-digest one-pagers, earning the title SPAC king in recent headlines, but has recently taken a step back from the limelight and Chamath talks about why that is.

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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

  • How Chamath became a billionaire by age 32
  • What he’s learned from Warren Buffett’s approach and how it applies to Social Capital
  • His journey to living an authentic life and much much more

TRANSCRIPT

Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.

Trey Lockerbie (00:02):
On today’s episode, I sit down with Chamath Palihapitiya. Chamath is the founder and CEO of Social Capital, his conglomerate focused on solving climate change and inequality which is often referred to as Berkshire Hathaway 2.0. Chamath was an early executive at Facebook and went on to become a super successful venture capitalist with early investments in Amazon, Tesla, Slack, and even Bitcoin. He’s also now the chairman of Virgin Galactic and a part-owner of the Golden State Warriors.

Trey Lockerbie (00:31):
Chamath has recently developed a large internet following because of his broadcasting of his SPAC investments and easy-to-digest one-pagers earning the title SPAC King in recent headlines, but lately, he’s taken a step back from the limelight. We talk a little bit about why that is. In this episode, we also cover how Chamath became a billionaire at age 32. What he’s learned from Warren Buffett’s approach and how it applies to social capital. His journey to living an authentic life and much, much more. There’s a lot to unpack here. So without further ado, please enjoy this discussion with Chamath Palihapitiya.

Intro (01:08):
You are listening to The Investor’s Podcast where we study the financial markets and read the books that influence self-made billionaires the most. We keep you informed and prepared for the unexpected.

Trey Lockerbie (01:28):
Welcome to The Investors Podcast, I’m your host Trey Lockerbie and man, oh man am I so excited to have with me today Chamath Palihapitiya. My man, how are you doing?

Chamath Palihapitiya (01:41):
Great. Just sipping some kombucha, how are you?

Trey Lockerbie (01:43):
That’s my jam. I told you, I gotta get you some. Well listen, I don’t typically do this with most guests, meaning, digging into their past a little bit. But I find your background so fascinating that I just felt like we had to touch on it and I was inspired by something I recently read a little bit, the stat that stated that nearly half of Fortune 500 companies are currently founded by immigrants. And I’m just curious, I know, it’s interesting. I was wondering what your takeaway on that is, and how much you think immigrating from Sri Lanka has shaped your success to date?

Chamath Palihapitiya (02:17):
I think that it’s been everything. And the reason is that it’s very easy when you’re born natively into a country to fit into all of the societal norms that exist in that country. And if you’re an immigrant, you have to throw all of those things away because by definition, you’re rejecting all of that when you move to a different place. And so you’re more prone to question things and you’re more prone frankly to feel like a bit of an outsider.

Chamath Palihapitiya (02:46):
And all of those tend to be good boundary conditions to want to build something. And that typically, I think, drives a lot of great entrepreneurs forward. I was actually going to give you a slightly different thought as well on this whole topic which is that if you actually look at where the most amount of innovation tends to happen, it’s also because of people that had some, I don’t think discrimination is the right word, but difficulty as well. And now, that doesn’t necessarily have to mean because you’re an immigrant.

Chamath Palihapitiya (03:18):
But those difficulties also made somebody feel like an outsider. And you felt outside the system. And this is what’s interesting about what I’m saying. It’s not about religion, or gender, or color of skin. And the reason is because I would tell you that my children are largely insiders, they’re born into this country, they natively speak this language, they’re a part of the system. And so the odds will be against them to achieve some version of what I achieve. And that actually makes their life in many ways harder than mine.

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