Chamath Palihapitiya Quotes

The IPO is no exit for the entrepreneur; it's the start of purgatory.

You have to have in mind what you want when you go public. It's not just an end in and of itself. Suddenly, you have investors to satisfy. Investors who want - who demand - a return.

In China, going public has a cachet from a branding standpoint. It will improve our image to ad agencies, government regulators.

With a private company, you've got to get into who's investing and what's the balance sheet like. So going public is a positive thing from the perspective of the sales organization.

The second you think you've arrived, someone passes you. You have to always be in pursuit.

I think that Harold MacMillan is a very intelligent man, who, as so often happens in politics, achieved supreme power too late.

I think, for me as an actor, if you get to a place where you're satisfied, you're happy with it, then you're dead. It's over. You're not hungry anymore. You won't try things anymore.

Writing is a key differentiator. I've used it for 14 years. Writing will not just lead to differentiation. Writing is the credibility you need to create buyer confidence

To gain credibility, you must consistently demonstrate three things: Initiative: You have to get up to go up. Sacrifice: You have to give up to go up. Maturity: You have to grow up to go up. If you show the way, people will want to follow you. The higher you go, the greater the number of people who will be willing to travel with you.

I think going public should not be a goal and the more that we make it a goal, the less it will be a goal. It's kind of like, I have three young children and when I tell them to eat vegetables, the last thing they will ever do is eat vegetables. I think it's just this weird thing where entrepreneurs have a reflexive negative reaction when people are pushing for it. I think you have to view going public for what it is, which is a transitional moment where you can consolidate mindshare and win at an even larger scale.

I ended up getting a lion chain. I had to make my own mascot - I want to start my own dynasty eventually.

Does any woman ever count the grains of her harvest and say: Good enough? Or does one always think of what more one might have laid in, had the labor been harder, the ambition more vast, the choices more sage?

The great thing about this jungle of ours is that anyone of you could grow up to be Lord of the apes.

[The reason a man has] so much trouble with the Senate is that there isn't a man in the Senate who doesn't think he is better suited to be President than the President, and thinks he might have been President except for luck.

I don't want to rule the universe. I just think it could be more sensibly organised.

But you know what, honestly? I'm not that interested in advertising. I think it's a great way... It's such a huge part of our culture. It's like saying, "Are you interested in hair?" It's such a part of our life, and it's such a reflection of how we feel about ourselves, and what we're interested in, and what we want to be.

I don't think I've arrived. I think I'm continuing to get there, getting closer and closer to where I want to go. But I'm not there yet.

The concept of why is already in the vernacular. It is now a noun. "That company doesn't know their why." "They need to learn their why." "That politician needs to understand his why." We talk about it as a noun. That never existed prior to 2009. That never existed prior to 2006 when I first started articulating it. This is the most amazing thing to me. It has now become a concept. It's part of the way we think about businesses and transactions and decisions.

I think ambition is a desire for recognition. People want to be special. I think ambition can take in a whole package of things, power or sexual excitement.

Ambition thinks no face so beautiful as that which looks from under a crown.

I think big, get cash, make em blink fast

Once you become complacent and once you're happy with your performance or whatever it is, I don't think you'll get better as quickly.

I think when we stop putting labels and start worrying more about the performance, that's when you're able to cross over and make yourself a household name and go everywhere.

With leadership the question at the beginning of the day is, 'how far can we take this...how big can we grow it...and how fast can we get there?'

To go in the direction that I went takes a lot of work. And I don't think you can do the work - the five or six hours of working out a day - if you don't have a clear goal or know why you're doing it. If you just hang out at the gym and train for five or six hours a day without a goal is almost impossible.