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man you dont know this guy or his life story. people say all kinds of stuff in books. who cares about his dating/marriage life? That is really low to bring that kind of stuff up in this context. the fact that this is the highest comment speaks to how toxic this community has become.

His "VC" fund is a social good company that prioritizes people's wellfare over profits. and who cares if its a success or failure, VC is hard.

He isn't a hero and he isn't a "Dickhead". He's just a human.

If you don't know him personally you really shouldn't be making these kinds of baseless adhominem attacks.

Reading your comment history, its nothing but black and white opinions and pointless preferences.

I am leaving this community forever. This whole place has gone down hill. There are no more hackers here. There is no more real discussion of anything. I feel bad for paul graham. This website is a disgrace.

Okay, I’ll take the bait. As someone with direct experience with the topic at hand, who has worked with / remains friends with people with direct experience regarding the subject of this conversation, I can say that many of the assertions of the parent ring true to me.

And, in fact, the stuff you don’t know is even worse.

What does this have to do with what he said?

Steve Jobs, the example that always gets invoked here, was a horrible human being. Did that make him wrong? No, it didn't, it made him an asshole. And Chamath being an asshole doesn't make him wrong here either. Is Chamath Steve Jobs? No, but who cares. I found what he said interesting, and probably right in ways that make people uncomfortable.

Which probably explains why folks are bringing up his love life.

> Which probably explains why folks are bringing up his love life.

yep - people here wants those who are virtuous to be more successful than those who aren't. 'cept in real life, there's no correlation, and logically there wouldn't be. In fact, the more of an asshole you are, the more likely you'd be able to take advantage of people to succeed.

Adults will go to HN articles on Chamath Palihapitiya the person to discuss these issues.

The actual problem as hinted, is it gets upvoted.

It's how Twitter has become the toxic mess it is devaluing actual content.

To grow people need to go through this stage, but it's hard to know were they can do it. Like an off topic tag.

The comment "The guy is a stock promoter through and through" was an interesting accusation and on topic, but it's lost now.

I'll bite, what happened?

Something seems a little off lately with the sudden uptick in PR/guest interviewing/attention seeking behaviour as of late.

https://www.chamathforca.com/

I do know his life story because he tells it in every interview he gives. I understand what you are trying to say but just because I have not met him doesn't mean that I can't criticize him.

His VC fund had LPs that lost money. I don't think they really give a shit about "welfare over profits". Once it's a family office yeah sure preach about welfare over profits but remember he had a fiduciary responsibility to his LPs which he (likely) broke.

"No more real discussion". This is what real discussion looks like. People LOVE chamath and I am explaining what I see is wrong about him.

suddenly patriotic

Just wait till you see how the treat Bitcoin here.

> He starts a VC fund. The fund has no "major" wins.

Box, Slack, Yammer, Palantir. I guess I don't know what the definition of "major" is, but those seem decent. The VC fund did eventually "burn down", but not because of bad investments but because he had some personal issues.

I don't have a strong opinion about him as a person. I just don't understand why a criticism was that he was a bad VC. It seems like he probably came out OK there.

Palantir was obv the biggest win. By major I mean over 50 bil market cap. He was literally writing checks during the best founding period ever (2008-2013) and didn't get any of the huge companies (Stripe, Uber, Airbnb, etc.).

I like your previous point but I can't wrap my head around this one. There are 1000s of VCs and many 1000s of startups. You can't get em all

lol, that is nonsense. Palantir's success, for example, is entirely due to covid. It would still not have IPO'ed today without the insanity taking place today due to the fed buying corporate bonds and keeping insane/illogical interest rates in place. Time is valuable, unless you live in the fed's mind.

How due to COVID?

Retail buying frenzy. PLTR has become a meme stock.

Even before COVID he would have been an early investor. That means he invested in what IPO’ed as a 5 billion dollar company at basically the ground floor (the company is now 60 billion).

Yammer was bought by MSFT for more than it was worth (and likely more than it was valued at when he invested).

I agree. Just look at the guy's twitter lately. He was hyping up some "huge" potential SAAS company and stringing people along. You could tell because in the comments you could see people speculating about which SPAC that information was associated with. It caused about 5 SPACs he is associated with to rocket up and then when he finally releases the information it is a smart lock company (latch) and not associated with any of his SPACs...which later sold off.

I was on reddit watching this speculation frenzy unfold. These idiots follow this guy's words and then spin rumors off of them....then those rumors circulate in this echo chamber until everyone is saying the same thing.

Then you have stuff like GME and AMC. I'm not surprised at all what is happening because there are so many people that just see the next big trend and just pile in.

> You can't voice any controversial opinion anymore on this site.

You clearly can, considering your comment hasn't been removed. Why do you think your opinion deserves to be on the top of the page over anyone else's?

I agree with the comment that @mysore has written in a response to this but I wanted to add my two cents as well.

I mean if you have a disagreement with his ideas, it makes sense to debate them/attack them but on a post about his comments on the WSB debate you've tried to take his personal life and accomplishments to the cleaners.

> Yes, I am pretty pro WSB just like chamath. I think he is wrong about the "research" that is happening though. There is a bull case but not a $25 bil mkt cap one

And that's after you've already mentioned that you're pretty pro WSB. Is he wrong though, WSB posters identified, correctly, that they could use the GME short interest in their favour by squeezing the folks on the other side of the trade. @chamath never mentioned there's fundamental research to support a $25 billion market cap.

I don't know the backstory on his time at facebook but from all the articles I've read on his VC fund, he returned north of 30-40% / year while it was active. When commenters have pointed out his wins, you've discounted it as 'oh, but it's just one company' or something along the lines.

Additionally, Steve Cohen isn't really a fair comparison - that dude's company was literally shut down for insider trading - it's a whole different ballgame that Steve Cohen pretty much got away without so much as a slap on the wrist though.

Also the world is littered with people who've made poor decisions / decisions that are suboptimal to the external observer but I think given you don't have a microphone into their personal stuff, it seems really disingenuous to use that to disparage him.

Just to be clear, you aren't disagreeing with the argument he is making in this clip? Correct?

Yes, I am pretty pro WSB just like chamath. I think he is wrong about the "research" that is happening though. There is a bull case but not a $25 bil mkt cap one.

Chamath's comment was that there is a lot of great market analysis happening on WSB every day, on par with that of large hedge funds, so it isn't wise to treat the forum as just a joke. The interviewer twisted that into him saying that WSB thinks $350 is the correct price for GameStop. No one – least of all WSB – thinks that. This is purely a play for squeezing the shorts.

Some people did due diligence but still have lower price targets: https://www.gmedd.com/

>The Chamath Craze is ridiculous.

It helps that there aren't very many big names with airplay in the media right now that aren't being ridiculously biased against WSB here.

It's just as ridiculous as the fact that r/wsb insiders are obviously abusing their positions to get rich at the cost of newcomers, basically constructing a public pyramid scheme, while everyone there keep repeating it's a way for the average person to avenge wall street, because that shit really works with the average young reddit person.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f3/f9/6c/f3f96c06ddc73aa35cfa...

I find this, similar to the arguments against robinhood and extremists on social media, basically boils down to treating people as sheep and wanting to protect them from themselves.

I think it is a stretch to say r/wsb insiders are obviously taking advantage of newcomers. You can’t spend much time with WSB without developing some financial literacy, and there are compelling ideas. It is not just flexing and hype. Also, I don’t think there is a precedent (such as the pyramid scheme) for what they are doing in the market.

I think there is some truth to your mention of young Reddit person being vulnerable, but I think it is risky trying to protect them with regulation.

You have a very nice view from the outside. The sub is misunderstood. Self deprecation and arrogance of being both ignorant and reckless are, at least for me, defining characteristics of the members. They don't take themselves seriously at all.

Most times WSB talk about normal stocks and positions and the gains or losses thereof. A few like TSLA, PLNTR and now GME hit the mainstream airways are meme stocks. Losing money and bragging about is about as big a kudos as gaining as much.

The level of organisation and criminality you might think exists isn't there at all.

It's hard to know who is good, and in the banking business apparently being famous matters.

The guy from Shark Tank, Kevin O'Leary can raise a fund just by virtue of that, being a known brand.

He seems like a person with good intentions, but just kind of a hustler, not a bad one, I don't think he's starting pyramid schemes - but I also don't think he has anything to contribute.

We're in a new era of Twitter/Youtube experts with a ton of populism via RobinHood and ETrade Retirees so we're going to have to live with the talking heads.

"The fund has no "major" wins."

Slack?

On the call, he mentioned hedge fund's unfair practices to take down businesses based on their shorts.

But imagine retail investors doing this out of sentiment, a la Facebook. It is even scarier and more sinister.

Thieves robbing thieves, it is best to stay out if you have ethics.

“No major wins”

>Comes from nothing

>is a billionaire

He became a billionaire from Facebook stock not from venture investing.

EDIT: That's according to him. I wouldn't be surprised if the guy overhypes his assets. Also his divorce likely cost him half (they got married before he joined FB).

Your edit is basically conjecture and ad hominems. Can you back that up with sources?

the guy literally has math in his name. what are you talking about girlfriends here boomer?