Yahoo Finance Former Facebook exec says he is in a 'better mental state' without social media
Social media pioneer Chamath Palihapitiya is once again going where no one has gone before, space. His venture capital fund Social Capital owned roughly 49% of space tourism company Virgin Galactic when it began publicly trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol (SPCE) Monday.
Palihapitiya’s fund Social Capital invested about $800 million in Virgin Galactic, which he says is a lot like investing in tech startups. “This is a business that has almost 70% operating margins, which means that it is as good of a business as a Google or an Apple or a Facebook,” he told Yahoo Finance’s On the Move.
Palihapitiya should know. He ran AOL’s instant messaging division when he left the company in 2007 to join Facebook (FB) as a social media pioneer helping it build a user base. In 2011 he left Facebook and founded his venture capital fund.
But in 2017 Palihapitiya made headlines when he criticized Facebook and other social media sites saying, “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works.” He quickly clarified his statement saying, “I genuinely believe Facebook is a source for good in the world.”
Yet, today Palihapitiya does not use social media, saying, “I have not used them myself for six or seven years, and I find myself to just be in a much better mental state as a result.”
Nor does he allow his children to use social media. “I just think that there is a pretty positive correlation with too much device use and social media at too young of an age, and frankly, a lack of really good mental health,” he said.
Palihapitiya says he wants his kids to grow up “with the world outside, playing, running, winning, losing, failing, all the typical things that a child needs to do to build a robust sense of self.” He points out his children, once grown, can buy their own phones and choose their own social media sites.
Today, his attention is focused on outer space. Palihapitiya said, “The totality of that, to me, I find deeply inspiring, and the exploration of life outside of just the Earth in which we've lived, I think, is really important for humankind. So for me, it's just an opportunity to be around great people and help usher that along in my own way.”
Virgin Galactic will take commercial space flight into new territory sometime next year when it launches the first commercial space tourism flight with company founder Sir Richard Branson among the passengers. Tickets cost $250,000 and 600 people from 60 different countries have already placed deposits totaling $80 million dollars.
“I think if you survey people in general, most people would raise their hands and say if they could go to space, they would,” said Palihapitiya.
Adam Shapiro is co-anchor of Yahoo Finance On the Move.
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