How a Tech Billionaire Lost $58 Million Buying a Lake Tahoe Vacation Home

Lake Tahoe has become a refuge for tech billionaires to vacation away from the hustle and bustle of Silicon Valley. The famed outdoor destination in Northern California is a vacation destination for people like Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Ellison, becoming one of the hottest real estate markets on the planet.

One tech billionaire revealed how he lost a whopping $58 million on a Tahoe home, and it’s probably not how you think.

Chamath Palihapitiya is a venture capitalist and minority owner of the Golden State Warriors, making hundreds of millions of dollars off investments in companies like Facebook and Slack. When you’re that rich, sometimes investments go south – like when he purchased a Truckee vacation home in 2014 for 2,739 Bitcoin. Back then, it was worth $1.6 million. Today, those Bitcoin would be $60 million.

I got the math wrong…it cost $128M. #FML

— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) February 9, 2021

It’s a classic tale of Bay Area money being completely ridiculous while also significantly changing the landscape of Tahoe. Just 10 years ago, real estate in the area was dominated by outdoor adventurers and lifelong residents. Today, the tech elite are fleeing the Bay Area and pricing out the locals.

We may never see Tahoe the same way again. Will gentrification, and tech money, destroy one of our favorite destinations?