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Chamath is one of the most self-serving-pretending-to-be-altruistic salesmen to ever set foot in SV. If you were still a “follower” after doing even the slighte

Chamath is one of the most self-serving-pretending-to-be-altruistic salesmen to ever set foot in SV. If you were still a “follower” after doing even the slightest bit of due diligence into the man, you deserve to lose money.

jpgvm 5y ago
Definition of a snake oil salesman. Even great companies like SoFi that went public via one of his SPACs still end up screwing investors because of disadvantageous promote and PIPE. When the ticker change happens watch it drop and then wait for PIPE dump and it will drive it below IPO of the SPAC itself.
dralley 5y ago
Strongly agree. I listened to Chamath's talks for a couple hours. The impression one gets is a smart, charismatic and driven guy... Who uses every dishonest fake-populist rhetorical trick in the book. I still think he's an interesting listen, but you've got to be thoughtful about it. Slippery dude.
- briefcomment 5y ago
  It usually sounds like he believes what he's saying himself, instead of being consciously deceptive.
- FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
  I was put off by the way he attacked Vlad Tenev. Tenev became a scapegoat for the GME fiasco, and, as the facts came out, it seemed he really didn't deserve to. I get that Tenev's "we don't have liquidity problems" answer was a little disingenuous, but it also wasn't totally wrong if you include a bunch of fine print, and I get how it was necessary. In the end, it turned out that the whole T+2 system was stupid, and leaked through the abstractions built on top. He didn't have enough capital to handle a crazy outlier, and he went back to get more money for next time. What else was the guy supposed to do? So attacking Vlad for "ethics" was low. Remember that, before Robinhood, we all paid a bunch of trading fees. The dude has done some good. Chamath just piled on to an easy target. I don't like people who cast stones so they can look good. I don't know why I'm here doing Robinhood's PR for them. I guess Chamath's grandstanding just left a really bad taste.
  - paulgb 5y ago
    His attack on Vlad was especially disingenuous given that he was SPACing a competitor (SoFi). Especially since he specifically targeted PFOF, which SoFi also engages in.
  - quickthrowman 5y ago
    Re: fees The discount broker always gets paid. It might be from fees or it might be from PFOF and lending shares in margin accounts and pocketing the proceeds, but either way, they get their money. Other brokers like IKBR charge fees for all trades, but split the share lending proceeds with you 50/50.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    > In the end, it turned out that the whole T+2 system was stupid, and leaked through the abstractions built on top. While T+2 is antiquated, that doesn't excuse Robinhood giving margin accounts to unsophisticated participants (who don't understand the consequences of trading on margin), fronting them funds with "instant funding" while their ACH transfers are in flight, all while having limited capital on hand. Vlad could've come out honestly and pointed out their sleight of hand was also a contributor alongside clearinghouse requirements, but instead, smokescreen.
    - google2142 5y ago
      Then you still don't understand the problem. This had nothing to do with consumer margin; they could have not offered margin as a product and still ended up in this situation. The TLDR is that DTCC requires cash from the brokerage firm for buying a stock until settlement clears, which means the money you pay to buy $100 worth of apple, a percentage of that amount must be paid directly by the brokerage i.e. not from the $100 you gave but from the businesses account. During the gamestop fiasco, the percentage of money required from the brokers increased in orders of magnitude for GME and other meme stocks which caused a pseudo liquidation issue, but not actually since no one's balances were at risk yet. It's ironic because this prevents small brokerages from building their own clearing houses and reducing competition in that space. Robinhood innovated to push the feature development cycle faster and got punished for it due to an archaic rule about settlement time. T+2 is really 99% of the reason this happened -- sure RH could have raised additional funds, but a black swan event isn't usually what a smaller bank plans for.
tracer4201 5y ago
I’m curious why you believe he’s a self serving salesman. I’ve seen a few of his interviews on YouTube and particularly some of his CNBC interviews. I can’t recall him trying to give me specific investing advice, but his analysis on a lot of recent events has made sense. And a lot of his general life advice is great. I’m a follower of Chamath, but that doesn’t mean I believe he can predict the stock market any better than I can. What are his self serving/pretending behaviors? Who has he conned, and how? Edit: I’m genuinely curious and asking to get better informed. Why the downvotes?
- vmception 5y ago
  So basically funds cannot advertise to poor people, or at all because poor people might hear. Those are the regulations in this country. To get around that (aside from using a different registration exemption), a person in the fund is elevated to mythical celebrity status and just talks about money topics a lot, while the fund self fulfills this person’s prophecies by throwing money at all problems (investments inside the company to make them profitable, whether the fund can liquidate at those prices or not) Chamath being Mr-Correct-and-influential-Money-Guy is only to be a self serving salesman Wealthy enough people hear about it and can buy into Social Capital as a limited partner. Or be a SPAC co-sponsor, or part investor in a new SPAC, or be part of the retail investing hoard that also provides liquidity. There is no other reason for him to talk at all. Riding and stoking the populist sentiment is only self serving. That doesn't mean he conned anyone (the grandparent post did not use that term), maybe ripped off but this aspect is no different than any other investment that you’re allowed to take risks on. There isnt anything special about Chamath, except that his niche involves pandering to “the little guy”.
  - person_of_color 5y ago
    Bill Ackman is another one who does this a lot.
- Melting_Harps 5y ago
  > I’ve seen a few of his interviews on YouTube and particularly some of his CNBC interviews. The on with that women at Standford comes to mind, he flat out comes out and says he 'wants to be wealthy in order to be influential,' and is what is left when you're a billionaire: so, given his presence within the high profile VC World and now his spots on the 'all in' podcast I'd say he is making his move. He kind of teased that we would run for Governor on the run up to Newson's recall, only to back track on that. I also saw he is a default 'who to follow' on Clubhouse when I was invited. The truth is I'm a fan of Chamath, mainly because he calls entrenched the SV wealthy on their BS; it doesn't mean he is a saint but you can tell he gets fed up about it as much as any reasonable person does about how much self-serving non-sense it's built on. But I also like him because he is cognizant of how his position in life as a billionaire has more to do with sheer luck and timing than anything else, including working hard, and fully acknowledges how his position is untenable for most millennials and Gen Z despite all the kool-aid drinking in SV filling every founder's head that they can be Elon 2.0 if he just works hard enough. I'm not that familiar with his SPAC positions, it all sounds too much like the derivatives of 2008, which is enough to keep me the hell away from it. I like what Social Capital stands for, but I would never invest in it, but I'm glad it exists. His position in Bitcoin, 2012 was early despite what another poster says: I was there back then and you seriously could only get drugs or socks with it so I'd say a tech person getting involved was rather early. Incidentally, that was the year we finally got retail merchant's attention and did a lot of merchant adoption for Black Friday so it was a remarkable and notable year for many. What followed with the 2013 ATH is when we had our first Eternal September moment.
jariel 5y ago
I'm really hoping for the Kumail Nanjiani spin-off of Pied Piper where he plays Chamath. The new era of RobinHood traders has brought an incredible degree of financial populism, youtube is crowded with people giving their opnion. Some of it is really great, often more insightful and detailed than what a lot of banks dare publish - but a lot of it is rubbish.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Funnily enough, it's been said that Aziz Ansari bears closer physical resemblance to the man, and they are both of Sri Lankan descent.
  - WillSlim95 5y ago
    Aziz Ansari is of Tamil descent not Sri Lankan descent.
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      Good catch
      - WillSlim95 5y ago
        In fairness Aziz can pass off as Chamath more easily than Kumail.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
gamblor956 5y ago
For an example, he claims he was "early on Amazon"...in 2014, or nearly 20 years after the IPO, and Tesla...in 2015 (IPO'd in 2010), and Bitcoin...in 2012 (or more than 2 years after the infamous pizza purchase that drew the first wave of media attention). His primary skill appears to be promoting himself as a first mover when he's always a johnny-come-lately. And on the particular topic of the article: Bloomberg notes that "His three open SPACs are all in the bottom 20th percentile for returns since the market top" compared to other SPACs, and over the course of the past 2 months alone, have all lost at least 20% of their value.
pottertheotter 5y ago
The thing is he says a lot of things that are very true that others aren't willing to say publicly. I guess that's the hook he gets people with. He then mixes the truths with a lot of half truths or false statements to pander to his audience.

jpgvm 5y ago

Definition of a snake oil salesman. Even great companies like SoFi that went public via one of his SPACs still end up screwing investors because of disadvantageous promote and PIPE. When the ticker change happens watch it drop and then wait for PIPE dump and it will drive it below IPO of the SPAC itself.

dralley 5y ago

Strongly agree. I listened to Chamath's talks for a couple hours. The impression one gets is a smart, charismatic and driven guy... Who uses every dishonest fake-populist rhetorical trick in the book. I still think he's an interesting listen, but you've got to be thoughtful about it. Slippery dude.

briefcomment 5y ago
It usually sounds like he believes what he's saying himself, instead of being consciously deceptive.
FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
I was put off by the way he attacked Vlad Tenev. Tenev became a scapegoat for the GME fiasco, and, as the facts came out, it seemed he really didn't deserve to. I get that Tenev's "we don't have liquidity problems" answer was a little disingenuous, but it also wasn't totally wrong if you include a bunch of fine print, and I get how it was necessary. In the end, it turned out that the whole T+2 system was stupid, and leaked through the abstractions built on top. He didn't have enough capital to handle a crazy outlier, and he went back to get more money for next time. What else was the guy supposed to do? So attacking Vlad for "ethics" was low. Remember that, before Robinhood, we all paid a bunch of trading fees. The dude has done some good. Chamath just piled on to an easy target. I don't like people who cast stones so they can look good. I don't know why I'm here doing Robinhood's PR for them. I guess Chamath's grandstanding just left a really bad taste.
- paulgb 5y ago
  His attack on Vlad was especially disingenuous given that he was SPACing a competitor (SoFi). Especially since he specifically targeted PFOF, which SoFi also engages in.
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  Re: fees The discount broker always gets paid. It might be from fees or it might be from PFOF and lending shares in margin accounts and pocketing the proceeds, but either way, they get their money. Other brokers like IKBR charge fees for all trades, but split the share lending proceeds with you 50/50.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  > In the end, it turned out that the whole T+2 system was stupid, and leaked through the abstractions built on top. While T+2 is antiquated, that doesn't excuse Robinhood giving margin accounts to unsophisticated participants (who don't understand the consequences of trading on margin), fronting them funds with "instant funding" while their ACH transfers are in flight, all while having limited capital on hand. Vlad could've come out honestly and pointed out their sleight of hand was also a contributor alongside clearinghouse requirements, but instead, smokescreen.
  - google2142 5y ago
    Then you still don't understand the problem. This had nothing to do with consumer margin; they could have not offered margin as a product and still ended up in this situation. The TLDR is that DTCC requires cash from the brokerage firm for buying a stock until settlement clears, which means the money you pay to buy $100 worth of apple, a percentage of that amount must be paid directly by the brokerage i.e. not from the $100 you gave but from the businesses account. During the gamestop fiasco, the percentage of money required from the brokers increased in orders of magnitude for GME and other meme stocks which caused a pseudo liquidation issue, but not actually since no one's balances were at risk yet. It's ironic because this prevents small brokerages from building their own clearing houses and reducing competition in that space. Robinhood innovated to push the feature development cycle faster and got punished for it due to an archaic rule about settlement time. T+2 is really 99% of the reason this happened -- sure RH could have raised additional funds, but a black swan event isn't usually what a smaller bank plans for.

tracer4201 5y ago

I’m curious why you believe he’s a self serving salesman. I’ve seen a few of his interviews on YouTube and particularly some of his CNBC interviews. I can’t recall him trying to give me specific investing advice, but his analysis on a lot of recent events has made sense. And a lot of his general life advice is great. I’m a follower of Chamath, but that doesn’t mean I believe he can predict the stock market any better than I can. What are his self serving/pretending behaviors? Who has he conned, and how? Edit: I’m genuinely curious and asking to get better informed. Why the downvotes?

vmception 5y ago
So basically funds cannot advertise to poor people, or at all because poor people might hear. Those are the regulations in this country. To get around that (aside from using a different registration exemption), a person in the fund is elevated to mythical celebrity status and just talks about money topics a lot, while the fund self fulfills this person’s prophecies by throwing money at all problems (investments inside the company to make them profitable, whether the fund can liquidate at those prices or not) Chamath being Mr-Correct-and-influential-Money-Guy is only to be a self serving salesman Wealthy enough people hear about it and can buy into Social Capital as a limited partner. Or be a SPAC co-sponsor, or part investor in a new SPAC, or be part of the retail investing hoard that also provides liquidity. There is no other reason for him to talk at all. Riding and stoking the populist sentiment is only self serving. That doesn't mean he conned anyone (the grandparent post did not use that term), maybe ripped off but this aspect is no different than any other investment that you’re allowed to take risks on. There isnt anything special about Chamath, except that his niche involves pandering to “the little guy”.
- person_of_color 5y ago
  Bill Ackman is another one who does this a lot.
Melting_Harps 5y ago
> I’ve seen a few of his interviews on YouTube and particularly some of his CNBC interviews. The on with that women at Standford comes to mind, he flat out comes out and says he 'wants to be wealthy in order to be influential,' and is what is left when you're a billionaire: so, given his presence within the high profile VC World and now his spots on the 'all in' podcast I'd say he is making his move. He kind of teased that we would run for Governor on the run up to Newson's recall, only to back track on that. I also saw he is a default 'who to follow' on Clubhouse when I was invited. The truth is I'm a fan of Chamath, mainly because he calls entrenched the SV wealthy on their BS; it doesn't mean he is a saint but you can tell he gets fed up about it as much as any reasonable person does about how much self-serving non-sense it's built on. But I also like him because he is cognizant of how his position in life as a billionaire has more to do with sheer luck and timing than anything else, including working hard, and fully acknowledges how his position is untenable for most millennials and Gen Z despite all the kool-aid drinking in SV filling every founder's head that they can be Elon 2.0 if he just works hard enough. I'm not that familiar with his SPAC positions, it all sounds too much like the derivatives of 2008, which is enough to keep me the hell away from it. I like what Social Capital stands for, but I would never invest in it, but I'm glad it exists. His position in Bitcoin, 2012 was early despite what another poster says: I was there back then and you seriously could only get drugs or socks with it so I'd say a tech person getting involved was rather early. Incidentally, that was the year we finally got retail merchant's attention and did a lot of merchant adoption for Black Friday so it was a remarkable and notable year for many. What followed with the 2013 ATH is when we had our first Eternal September moment.

jariel 5y ago

I'm really hoping for the Kumail Nanjiani spin-off of Pied Piper where he plays Chamath. The new era of RobinHood traders has brought an incredible degree of financial populism, youtube is crowded with people giving their opnion. Some of it is really great, often more insightful and detailed than what a lot of banks dare publish - but a lot of it is rubbish.

Apocryphon 5y ago
Funnily enough, it's been said that Aziz Ansari bears closer physical resemblance to the man, and they are both of Sri Lankan descent.
- WillSlim95 5y ago
  Aziz Ansari is of Tamil descent not Sri Lankan descent.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Good catch
    - WillSlim95 5y ago
      In fairness Aziz can pass off as Chamath more easily than Kumail.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

gamblor956 5y ago

For an example, he claims he was "early on Amazon"...in 2014, or nearly 20 years after the IPO, and Tesla...in 2015 (IPO'd in 2010), and Bitcoin...in 2012 (or more than 2 years after the infamous pizza purchase that drew the first wave of media attention). His primary skill appears to be promoting himself as a first mover when he's always a johnny-come-lately. And on the particular topic of the article: Bloomberg notes that "His three open SPACs are all in the bottom 20th percentile for returns since the market top" compared to other SPACs, and over the course of the past 2 months alone, have all lost at least 20% of their value.

pottertheotter 5y ago

The thing is he says a lot of things that are very true that others aren't willing to say publicly. I guess that's the hook he gets people with. He then mixes the truths with a lot of half truths or false statements to pander to his audience.