Oligarchs R Us
I’ve never seen two rots in business the likes of Chamath Palihapitya and Elon Musk. Much like Donald Trump with his social media shit in politics, these chumps are trumpeting the cause of the little guy, democratizing investing-according to them. Except they are billionaires.
Elon Mush needs no introduction. We’ll even give him the benefit of the doubt. While surely he understands the impact his huge following on social media has [Note: I don’t follow him], we’ll chop up his erratic tweets to emotional immaturity.
Chamath, on the other hand, is a venture capitalist oligarch on the rise. Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings V, his latest investment vehicle, merged with Social Finance less than a month ago -see announcement, valuing SoFi at an equity value of $8.65 billion post-money.
Chamath got into $GME on January 26 and of course, he didn’t stick around for long: he got out before Jan. 30th and pocketed $500,000. He then started saying r/WallStreetBets is the largest popular and democratic hedge fund in the world.
“r/wallstreetbets is now the largest hedge fund in the world. Excepts it’s completely decentralized and entirely democratic.” — Chamath Palihapitya on Twitter, Jan., 30th, 2021
When I see bullshit, I call it bullshit. The guy bought his calls at 115, sold at 300+, then told the world this is going to the heavens. (at business close today $GME was $90). He didn’t stick around to get into paradise he promised. I don’t mean this can’t go higher. It can. But market democratization — which may have happened with retail investors well before Chamath got in, is NOT what Chamath is into.
Chamath blew into the bubble and walked away on the clock. Like all billionaires do. (He’s started an investment fund with $50 MM seed money and 11 PMs as of Feb 1st). Let’s see and fast and sure this “democratic hedge funder” is going to post -and steal- tips on social media.
At the end of the day, “democratizing investing” is more bullshit from another oligarch.
