Chamath abandoned Google Loon Sri Lanka project due to political infighting
Chamath Palihapitiya · E87: Emerging markets, Sri Lanka, 9.1% CPI, market sentiment, NASA's Webb telescope & more · Jul 14, 2022 · at 21:32
Chamath Palihapitiya, founder of Social Capital, discusses his past effort to bring internet access to Sri Lanka via Google Loon balloon technology during a debate on Sri Lanka's economic collapse.
0:00 / 0:46exact quote · 46.5s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I went there and I offered to bring Google Loon, myself and Google. We offered to bring internet access to the entire country, like guaranteed internet access. This was like five years ago. And we set up an entity and the government tried to do the right thing and grant some spectrum. And instead of sort of like fast tracking this and allowing, you know, this project to become a reality, there was an enormous amount of infighting that essentially said that, you know, we were trying to steal the license, or we stole the license, or we were trying to monetize the license. And both me and Google were just like, forget this. This is not worth it. And we abandoned the project and walked away.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Chamath Palihapitiya
Chamath: Warren Buffett generated zero alpha after Regulation FD was enacted
“His returns were double the market returns when this kind of information sharing was legal. And the minute that it became illegal and you had to basically act on the same edge as everybody else, his returns went to the market return. He generated zero alpha.”
Chamath Palihapitiya predicts global software TAM will shrink to $500 billion
“I, I'm pretty sure that the market here shrinks by an order of magnitude, and instead of fighting over five trillion, I think we'll be fighting over Five hundred billion.”
Chamath: Democrats will lose California or New York within eight years
“I completely agree with you, and I'll go even further, which is, I think that the Democrats will lose one of California or New York in the next eight years.”
Palihapitiya: Human rights abuses against Uyghurs are below his line of concern
“Nobody cares about what's happening to the weakers. Okay. You bring it up because you really care. The rest of us don't care. I'm just telling you a very hard, I'm telling you a very hard, ugly truth. Okay. Of all the things that I care about. Yes, it is below…”