Chamath Palihapitiya

Chamath Palihapitiya (born 3 September 1976) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian and American venture capitalist, engineer, SPAC sponsor, founder and CEO of Social Capital. Palihapitiya was an early senior executive at Facebook, working at the company from 2007 to 2011. Following his departure from Facebook, Palihapitiya started his fund, The Social+Capital Partnership, through which he invested in several companies, including Yammer and Slack. The Social+Capital Partnership changed its name to Social Capital in 2015. He is a co-host of the technology podcast All In. Early life and education Palihapitiya was born on 3 September 1976 in Sri Lanka. His family has origins in Galle. His father Gamage had been posted to the High Commission of Sri Lanka, Ottawa and moved his family to Canada when Chamath was aged five. Five years later, in 1986, the posting came to an end, and the family applied for asylum rather than returning home on the basis that Gamage had been criticized for his views on the violence during the Sri Lankan Civil War. Palihapitiya's father was frequently unemployed, and his mother did low-paying housekeeping jobs. At age 14, Palihapitiya worked at a Burger King to support his family. His father died in October 2014. He attended Lisgar Collegiate Institute. After graduating from the University of Waterloo in 1999 with a degree in electrical engineering, Palihapitiya worked for a year as a derivatives trader at the investment bank BMO Nesbitt Burns. He then accepted a job offer at Winamp and moved to California.