Chamath Palihapitiya

Chamath Palihapitiya (born 1976) fled Sri Lanka’s civil war as a child, grew up in Canada, and ran Facebook’s growth team before founding the venture firm Social Capital in 2011. He became one of tech’s loudest public investors — the self-styled “SPAC king” of the 2020–21 boom and a co-host of the All-In podcast, where his pronouncements move markets and start feuds in equal measure.

From AI bull to AI builder

In January 2024 he announced 8090 Inc., an incubator funded entirely by himself, with a blunt pitch posted to X: name the enterprise software you pay for, and his team will rebuild it at 80% of the features for 90% less money, using AI and offshore engineering. When the company came out of stealth in September 2024, he claimed production code was already delivering on the math. By 2025, 8090 had raised a $135 million Series A led by Salesforce Ventures, repositioning as an AI-native software development platform.

On All-In, alongside Jason Calacanis and David Sacks, he frames AI as the deflationary force that will rewrite enterprise software economics — a thesis critics greet warily, noting his SPAC vehicles left retail investors with steep losses after he sold, and that his headline claims tend to outrun audited results. Even detractors concede he has put his own capital where the thesis is.