Entrepreneurs: a Tale of Two Billionaires
by Miki Saxon
Chamath Palihapitiya grew up poor, became a billionaire, but found it wasn’t enough.
As a VC, he is building the kind of real legacy he wants by investing in companies like Glooko, a mobile diabetes management company, and Treehouse, a company that trains computer engineers and helps them find jobs.
Compare his attitude to billionaire Vinod Khosla, who blocked access to a previously public beach and now is ignoring a judge’s order to return public access.
Khosla’s actions even spurred passage of a new law that can use eminent domain to force a sale of the property.
Perhaps it’s time to follow an old Roman custom that was used to keep victorious generals’ egos in check; they were required to have a person in their victory chariot who kept repeating “Remember, you are not a god.”
It’s definitely time to rewrite the adage, “money is root of all evil” to a more accurate “ego is the root of all evil.”
Flickr image credit: Jason Eppink
