'SPAC King' Chamath Palihapitiya fires two partners at venture-capital firm

financialpost.com:

Social Capital, the venture capital firm led by podcaster and former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, fired two of its partners, citing an undisclosed “situation,” according to a letter sent to its investors that was reviewed by Bloomberg.

Palihapitiya said that Jay Zaveri and Ravi Tanuku were both terminated after the firm became aware of the situation last week. The company hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and subsequently fired the two partners over the weekend. Palihapitiya informed investors of the move Tuesday via email.

“We became aware of a situation last Tuesday and after probing internally, retained Wachtell Lipton to investigate the matter on Thursday,” Palihapitiya wrote. “On Sunday night we terminated Jay Zaveri and Ravi Tanuku.”

While the firm has declined to elaborate on the reasons for the firings, one person familiar with the matter said that it stemmed from perceived breaches of company policy.

The situation is related to the artificial intelligence startup Groq Inc., which Social Capital backed in 2017 and 2018 through a US$60 million convertible note. Groq has since surged in value, reaching a US$1.1 billion valuation in 2021, according to PitchBook data. Zaveri, who is on Groq’s board, and Tanuku had marketed a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that offered an allocation in Groq’s convertible note, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

A representative for Groq didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The Financial Times earlier reported Groq’s involvement.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Social Capital wrote, “We have terminated the employment of two of our employees due to employee-specific circumstances. We have no further comments at this time.”

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