Palihapitiya says he lost $4 to $5 billion during the SPAC phase.
“Right before the SPAC phase. The SPAC phase, I torched like 4 or $5,000,000,000. That was brutal. But before that, I had another drawdown.”
Palihapitiya cites Michael Dell going public at $85M valuation as example of democratized access to operating genius.
“What that allowed is any man, woman, and child, man or woman, any American, most important to actually access a share of Michael Dell's operating genius.”
Palihapitiya says his biggest SPAC mistake was talking about them on CNBC and Twitter.
“The thing that I would have changed is I would have had nary a comment on Twitter. I would have not come on CNBC and talked about them at all.”
Palihapitiya argues banks structure IPO liquidity to embed gains for their best clients, not company needs.
“The SPAC was I didn't like the idea that two or three banks sat as the gatekeeper between companies that should be funded and exist and their ability to actually serve customers.”
Palihapitiya defends SPAC companies by citing tens of billions raised and millions of customers served.
“The answer is tens billions of dollars. How many clients or patients or customers do they serve? The answer is millions to tens of millions. How have they grown revenues and traction since that happened?”
Palihapitiya proposes posting hundreds of millions himself to create turnkey IPOs with all his risk.
“But I've talked to Paul Atkins about this. I'll post the hundreds of millions of dollars. Now it's a turnkey IPO. It's all my risk. If I find something I like, I'll just underwrite it.”