Chamath Palihapitiya – The Major Problems Facing the World – [Invest Like the Best, EP.211]

My guest today is Chamath Palihapitiya, the founder and CEO of Social Capital, whose mission is to advance humanity by solving the world's hardest problems. I didn't know where this conversation would take us given Chamath's wide-ranging activities and interests but I think it provides an interesting glimpse into some of his core beliefs and the source of his drive. In our wide-ranging discussion we cover potential paths to closing the income inequality gap, how to manage one's personal psychology, his perspective on "value investing", and tackling climate change. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Chamath Palihapitiya. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/33654465/palihapitiya-the-major-problems-facing-the-world. ----- This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest growing fintech startups. I discovered Koyfin earlier this year when I asked Twitter for the best Bloomberg alternative, and the overwhelming winner was an intriguing new product called Koyfin. Koyfin has tons of high-quality data, powerful functionality, and a nice clean interface. If you’re an individual investor, research analyst, portfolio manager, or financial advisor, you should definitely check them out. Sign up for free at koyfin.com. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors. With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Affirm, Teladoc, Roblox, or almost any company of interest. Visit https://www.tegus.co/patrick to learn more. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus Inc. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, go to https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up at https://www.joincolossus.com/newsletter. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Follow Colossus on Twitter at @JoinColossus Show Notes [00:03:13] – [First question] – His experience with debt and how he approaches personal finance [00:09:13] – Attacking the problem of perpetual income inequality [00:12:06] – Reaching the right people to fix the problem [00:15:04] – A for profit business to solve the problem of income inequality [00:19:18] – Traps he has beaten and hasn’t beaten in his finances [00:22:15] – Chamath’s focus on family, friends, memories, and legacy [00:25:01] – Big issues of our time; inequality, climate change, improving education [00:29:28] – Lessons learned from Social Capital 1.0, allocating funds for himself and others [00:32:33] – The balance between data and the qualitative analysis of companies [00:35:26] – Insights into businesses beyond the investments he makes [00:40:29] – Absurdities in the value investing style [00:43:32] – Benefits of SPAC investing and opportunities for late-stage entrepreneurs [00:45:06] – Traits in managers that he invests in [00:47:20] – What he’s learned about combatting climate change [00:51:40] – Thoughts on the supply chain, specifically as Americans [00:54:35] – Company life cycles and innovation [00:57:15] – What is most broken in the capital markets system [00:58:58] – Fixing healthcare [01:01:36] – Fixing climate change as President for a day [01:02:06] – Messaging effectively [01:03:14] – Is he a “main character” in the investing world [01:04:06] – Tweeting a picture of himself as a kid [01:04:42] – Kindest thing anyone has done for him