Suggestions
Brigette Lau
Venture capitalist, engineer, and CEO of Social Capital
Chamath Palihapitiya: founder, CEO, and VC investor extraordinaire. This Sri Lanka-born, Canada-raised businessman studied electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo before jumping into the startup world. He's held leading roles at Mayfield Fund, AOL, and Winamp but is best known for being a key member of the early Facebook team, driving user growth and development across the social network's platforms. In 2011, Palihapitiya founded Social Capital, a VC firm investing in transformative companies with profit-minded potential for a better future. Under his leadership and guidance, Social Capital has backed well-known companies such as Virgin Galactic and Slack, along with over 70 others. Beyond business ventures, Palihapitiya is a part-owner and director of NBA's Golden State Warriors. With his extensive background in tech, social media, and venture capital, Chamath Palihapitiya is a well-respected figure in the industry.
Highlights
How much data did we need before we understood the harmful societal effects of smoking and implemented restrictions?
Actually, it was a lot.
A lot of data was needed because the cigarette companies wanted to milk their golden goose as long as possible. The cost of paying class action lawsuits in the future was far less than the cash they could make in the moment.
This is the same incentive today with social media and their app makers.
Some parents try to organize their other classroom parents together in a coalition to limit the apps. This seems to work but it’s so few and far between.
A broad societal moratorium on social media for people under 16yo diminishes NOTHING and probably helps millions and millions of kids and then these kids as they enter adulthood.
It would also help parents. I, personally, have strict social media rules for myself and my kids. And I will keep pushing back on my kids when they ask for instagram because that’s my job as their dad.
But having a broad moratorium would make the lives of all parents far simpler and, in hindsight, will be proven as the right public health policy thing to have done.
This is really bad. I love Italy.
If this trend isn’t reversed, it will put them under a lot of pressure.

