In The Arena

About

In The Arena refers to a catchphrase from a tweet by entrepreneur and podcaster Chamath Palihapitiya, in which he justified his participation in what many called a scam by saying he was "in the arena trying stuff." Users then took the catchphrase and mocked it, placing the expression in different contexts.

Origin

In 2022, Chamath Palihapitiya ran a series of SPACs (initial public offerings of company stocks) and hyped them heavily so that others would invest and buy stocks, jacking up the prices. Palihapitiya then sold his shares when the stock was at its most valuable. Shortly afterwards, all the stocks tumbled in value, meaning many retail investors lost money.^[1]

Some accused Palihapitiya of deceitfully hyping the less-than-stellar stocks in order to scam people. On August 22nd, in a thread on X, @wmcintyre84 and Palihapitiya got into an argument (seen below) which resulted in Palihapitiya declaring he was "in the arena trying stuff."^[2]

Palihapitiya's use of the quote may be inspired by Theodore Roosevelt, who he cited in an April 2023 Substack post.^[5] The Theodore Roosevelt quote,^[6] from a speech he delivered in Paris in 1910, reads:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Spread

Posters in the replies to the @chamath tweet began dunking on him and on venture capital in general, arguing that his idea was ridiculous, and being "in the arena" was not an excuse for hurting average people. @Larryjamieson_ earned almost 400 likes in twelve hours (seen below left) arguing that "in the arena" was a bad excuse in a day on August 23rd.^[3] @buccocapital (seen below right) used a meme featuring RFK Jr. on Joe Rogan's podcast to mock Chamath's view that the arena metaphor excused his actions, earning almost 2,400 likes over the course of a day on August 23rd (seen below right).^[4]

Various Examples

External References