So Chamath Palihapitiya is back in the SPAC game. After sitting out for a few years, he just filed to launch American Exceptionalism Acquisition Corp., looking to raise $250 million. The ticker will be AEXA once it goes public, and he's hunting for targets in energy, AI, DeFi, or defense.

Here's the thing—if you lived through 2020-2021, you remember the SPAC craze. Hundreds of blank-check companies flooded the market, and Chamath was basically the poster child for the whole movement. He launched six major SPACs in that run (IPOA through IPOF), and honestly, the track record is pretty sobering if you're thinking about jumping in again.

Out of his six main blank-check companies, only one actually made money for investors who bought in early and held on. SoFi was the winner, up 130% from the original $10 offering price. Virgin Galactic, Opendoor, and Clover Health all lost significant value—down 98.5%, 64.2%, and 75% respectively. Two of them never even found targets and just returned capital. If you'd thrown $10,000 into each of those six SPACs, you'd have around $46,750 today. That's a rough look.

Now, Chamath is claiming this time is different. And to be fair, there are some structural changes worth noting. No warrants this time—those were a huge part of the old SPAC structure and attracted a lot of speculators. More importantly, his founder shares won't vest unless the stock pops 50% after the merger closes. So theoretically, his interests are actually aligned with investors for once.

But here's what you need to understand before you buy in: you have no idea what you're actually investing in. You're putting up $10 per share on faith that Chamath will find a good company at a reasonable valuation. And historically, SPAC targets tend to be early-stage growth companies with unproven business models. Even SoFi, the success story, wasn't profitable or fully licensed when it went public via SPAC.

The broader point is that SPACs are speculative by nature. The 2020-2021 boom showed us that having a famous sponsor doesn't guarantee returns. If you're considering this, keep your position small and only use money you can afford to lose. That's just basic risk management.