At age 14, Palihapitiya worked at a Burger King to support his family. Palihapitiya's father was frequently unemployed, and his mother did low-paying housekeeping jobs. Five years later, in 1986, the posting came to an end, and the family applied for asylum rather than returning home on the basis that Gamage had been criticized for his views on the violence during the Sri Lankan Civil War. His father Gamage had been posted to the High Commission of Sri Lanka, Ottawa and moved his family to Canada when Chamath was aged five. Palihapitiya was born on 3 September 1976 in Sri Lanka. He is a co-host of the technology podcast All In. The Social+Capital Partnership changed its name to Social Capital in 2015.

Following his departure from Facebook, Palihapitiya started his fund, The Social+Capital Partnership, through which he invested in several companies, including Yammer and Slack. Palihapitiya was an early senior executive at Facebook, working at the company from 2007 to 2011. Chamath Palihapitiya (born 3 September 1976) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian and American venture capitalist, engineer, SPAC sponsor, founder and CEO of Social Capital.