Chamath Palihapitiya made his name as a boastful meme lord, leading a crowd of retail investors into SPACs and crypto. Now he says he was blinded by zero interest rates: 'I sort of blame Jay Powell.'
The big picture:
"I sort of blame Jay Powell," said Chamath, for slashing interest rates to zero and allowing him to reap the benefits of a broad speculative fervor. "The biggest thing that I learned was how much of my early success was probably not attributable to myself." "We have actually had a massive tailwind because we had a zero interest rate environment that allowed us to raise unbelievable amounts of money."
"What it allowed us to do is crowd into companies. Many of those companies had unbelievable valuations. Eventually, these unprofitable businesses went public. Only now are we starting to sort out what are good and what are not-so-good businesses."Chamath is painting his excesses as being very much in the past. "That dog doesn't hunt when you're 46," he said.