Silicon Valley billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya: would-be governor just for a moment FacebookTwitterEmail Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya had hinted he might run against Gov. Gavin Newsom in a recall.Mike Windle / Getty Images for Vanity Fair 2016 Until Wednesday, the flavor of the month on the California political scene was Chamath Palihapitiya, a billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist who was getting plenty of Twitterverse attention for endorsing the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom and saying he might run to replace him. Until Wednesday. When he said he wasn’t. “Let’s be really honest. I’m not ready to do any of that,” the 44-year-old former Facebook executive and founder of Social Capital said on an episode of his “All In” podcast that posted Wednesday.