Peter Thiel | $10B+

Get in touch with Peter Thiel | Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, is one of Silicon Valley’s most influential and contrarian thinkers, known for backing companies that challenge consensus and reshape entire industries. As an early investor in Facebook and the first outside investor in several category-defining startups, Thiel helped popularize a philosophy centered on building monopolies through deep technology rather than incremental competition. Through Founders Fund, he has backed transformative ventures across software, defense, biotech, and space. Thiel’s impact extends beyond investing into ideas, shaping debates around technology, globalization, and the future of innovation.

Peter Andreas Thiel (born October 11, 1967) is a German-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author.[1] He co-founded the online payment company PayPal in 1998, served as its CEO, and led it to a public offering before its acquisition by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.[2] Thiel also co-founded data analytics firm Palantir Technologies in 2003 and made the first outside investment in Facebook in 2004, acquiring a 10.2% stake for $500,000.[2] In 2005, he established Founders Fund, a venture capital firm that has backed companies including SpaceX and Stripe.[3] Thiel's investment philosophy emphasizes creating monopolies through innovation rather than competition, as outlined in his 2014 book Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, co-authored with Blake Masters, which advocates for "definite optimism" and breakthroughs from zero to one.[4] He has amassed significant wealth, with his net worth estimated at over $20 billion as of 2025, largely from stakes in Palantir and early tech investments.[3] In 2011, Thiel launched the Thiel Fellowship through his foundation, providing $100,000 grants (increased to $200,000 in recent years) to individuals under 23 to pursue entrepreneurial projects instead of attending college, challenging conventional education paths.[5] Thiel holds contrarian political views, expressing doubts about the compatibility of freedom and democracy in a 2009 essay and supporting Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign with a $1.25 million donation and a speech at the Republican National Convention.[6] He has influenced Republican politics by funding candidates like J.D. Vance and backing efforts to counter perceived institutional biases, while critiquing technological stagnation and regulatory overreach in the U.S. since the 1970s.[7] Thiel's advocacy for seasteading and space colonization reflects his interest in escaping terrestrial governance constraints to foster innovation.[6] Early Life and Education Family Background and Childhood Peter Andreas Thiel was born on October 11, 1967, in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, to German parents Klaus Friedrich Thiel, a chemical engineer, and Susanne Thiel.[8][9] He has one younger brother, Patrick.[8] When Thiel was one year old, his family immigrated to the United States, settling initially in Cleveland, Ohio, where his father pursued engineering opportunities.[10][11] Around age nine, in the mid-1970s, the family relocated to South Africa and then South West Africa (now Namibia) due to Klaus Thiel's work on mining projects, including chemical engineering for uranium extraction during the apartheid era.[12][10][13] The family returned to Cleveland shortly after, and by 1977, they moved again to Foster City, California, a planned community south of San Francisco, where Thiel spent much of his later childhood and attended local schools.[10][14] Thiel's upbringing involved frequent relocations, leading him to attend seven different schools by high school, which he later described as isolating.[14] His family maintained a Christian household, with parents who eventually aligned strongly with Republican politics, though Thiel has disputed characterizations of their views as overly ideological.[11] These experiences in varied cultural and political environments, including exposure to apartheid systems, shaped his early worldview, though he has emphasized intellectual pursuits over direct political engagement in youth.[12][15] Academic Pursuits at Stanford Thiel entered Stanford University in 1985, initially as an undergraduate student majoring in philosophy, a field he completed with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1989.[16][17] His choice of philosophy reflected an early interest in abstract reasoning and intellectual critique, though he later expressed reservations about higher education's value, despite his own credentials.[18] During this period, Thiel engaged in extracurricular activities, including participation on the university's chess team, where he competed in tournaments and honed strategic skills through speed chess sessions.[19][11] A pivotal academic pursuit was Thiel's co-founding of The Stanford Review in 1987 alongside high school friend Norman Book, during his sophomore year.[20][21] The publication emerged as an independent, conservative-leaning alternative to campus media, aimed at fostering open debate amid what Thiel and his collaborators viewed as a prevailing emphasis on multiculturalism in Stanford's core curriculum, which had shifted away from traditional Western canon requirements toward more diverse perspectives.[22][11] The Review challenged perceived ideological conformity on campus, publishing critiques of administrative policies and student activism, and it quickly established a network of contributors who prioritized contrarian viewpoints over prevailing orthodoxies.[23] This endeavor not only sharpened Thiel's advocacy for free inquiry but also laid groundwork for enduring professional connections, as many early editors and writers advanced to influential roles in technology and finance.[24] After obtaining his undergraduate degree, Thiel continued at Stanford Law School, where he earned a Juris Doctor in 1992.[25][26] His legal studies provided training in analytical rigor and institutional critique, though Thiel subsequently pursued paths outside traditional legal practice, reflecting a broader skepticism toward credentialism that he developed during his time at the university.[27] Intellectual Worldview Philosophical Influences and Formative Ideas Thiel majored in philosophy at Stanford University, where he graduated in 1989, an experience that exposed him to thinkers challenging conventional modern assumptions about human nature and society.[28] During this period, he encountered René Girard, a French anthropologist and literary theorist who became his professor and lifelong mentor, profoundly shaping Thiel's understanding of desire, conflict, and innovation.[28] [29] René Girard also connected Thiel to Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Stanford's chaplain and a Girard disciple, through a reading group in the early 1990s that emphasized mimetic violence and biblical interpretation.[29] Central to Thiel's formative ideas is Girard's mimetic theory, which posits that human desires are not autonomous but imitative, fostering rivalry, envy, and cycles of violence that societies resolve through scapegoating mechanisms—processes unmasked, in Girard's view, by Judeo-Christian revelation.[28] [29] Thiel applies this framework to explain competitive dynamics in business and technology, arguing that true innovation avoids zero-sum mimetic rivalries by creating new markets or monopolies, as exemplified by his early investment in Facebook, which he saw as harnessing mimetic desire for social connection.[28] [29] This perspective instilled in him a contrarian orientation, encapsulated in his signature question: "What important truth do very few people agree with you on?"—a tool for uncovering non-mimetic, original insights amid widespread imitation.[28] Thiel also drew from Leo Strauss, the political philosopher known for esoteric readings of texts and critiques of modernity's relativism, as explored in Thiel's 2004 essay "The Straussian Moment."[30] In it, Thiel contrasts ancient faith in intellect's power to shape reality with modern indefinite optimism, which he sees as post-1969 cultural retreat into indeterminacy, marked by events like the moon landing's promise yielding to Woodstock's hedonism.[30] Straussian influence fostered Thiel's emphasis on definite planning—explicit visions of the future over probabilistic drift—and skepticism toward democratic equality's leveling effects, viewing them as stifling exceptional intellect and technological ambition.[30] These ideas coalesced during Thiel's Stanford years, including his co-founding of the conservative Stanford Review in 1987 to counter perceived ideological conformity in academia, reinforcing his commitment to hidden truths and institutional critique.[21] Together, Girardian mimetics and Straussian esotericism informed Thiel's broader worldview: a pessimistic realism about human imitation's destructive potential, countered by deliberate, intellect-driven pursuits in technology and enterprise to transcend political stagnation.[28] [30] Critiques of Technological Stagnation and Definite Optimism Thiel has contended that technological innovation in the physical world has largely stalled since the 1970s, with breakthroughs confined mostly to information technology while advancements in energy, transportation, and manufacturing have stagnated.[31] He illustrates this by noting the failure to achieve promised feats like commercial nuclear fusion, supersonic passenger jets, or widespread personal flight, juxtaposed against software gains such as social media platforms.[32] The Founders Fund, which Thiel co-founded in 2005, encapsulated this critique in its tagline: "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters," highlighting a shift from ambitious hardware engineering to incremental digital tools.[33] Thiel attributes this slowdown to cultural and institutional factors, including increased risk aversion, regulatory hurdles, and a loss of engineering ambition in the West, rather than inherent physical limits.[34] In a 2025 interview, Thiel reaffirmed his "stagnation thesis," describing it as a relative rather than absolute claim: progress has not ceased entirely but has decelerated dramatically compared to the mid-20th century, posing risks to economic growth and civilizational vitality.[35] He argues that this manifests in slower productivity gains—U.S. total factor productivity growth dropped from about 2% annually pre-1970 to under 1% afterward—and in sectors like medicine and space exploration, where achievements like the Apollo program have not been replicated at scale.[36] Thiel warns that without addressing root causes such as overregulation and cultural complacency, societies risk compounding stagnation through misallocated resources toward incrementalism over transformative projects.[37] To counter this, Thiel promotes "definite optimism," a mindset outlined in his 2014 book Zero to One, where planners actively engineer a specific, superior future rather than relying on probabilistic improvements.[38] Definite optimists, exemplified by post-World War II American projects like the interstate highway system or the moon landing, commit to concrete plans and timelines, believing progress requires deliberate action over diversification or hope.[39] In contrast, he critiques prevailing "indefinite optimism" in modern finance and tech—prevalent since the 1980s—as a passive faith in markets or chance events to yield unspecified gains, fostering short-termism and avoidance of bold risks.[40] Thiel positions definite optimism as essential for escaping stagnation, urging entrepreneurs and policymakers to revive it by pursuing "secrets"—untapped truths—and monopoly-building innovations that defy consensus.[41] Thiel's framework extends to broader societal diagnosis: the U.S. transitioned from definite optimism in the 1950s–1960s to indefinite modes amid Vietnam War disillusionment and 1970s economic shocks, correlating with innovation droughts.[42] He contrasts this with historical definite pessimism (e.g., ancient China) or modern indefinite pessimism (e.g., European welfare states), arguing that only definite optimism aligns incentives for sustained breakthroughs.[43] Recent reflections, including 2025 discussions, link AI's potential to this paradigm, viewing it as a rare counter to stagnation if pursued with definite plans rather than hype.[44] Critics, however, challenge Thiel's metrics, noting unaccounted progress in areas like genomics or renewable energy, though he maintains these fall short of exponential leaps needed for true advancement.[45] Business Career Early Ventures and Legal Career Following his graduation from Stanford Law School in 1992, Thiel served as a judicial clerk for Judge James Larry Edmondson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from 1992 to 1993.[46] He had applied for Supreme Court clerkships, including positions with Justices Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, but was not selected.[46] In 1993, Thiel joined the New York office of Sullivan & Cromwell as a securities lawyer, but departed after seven months, citing a lack of intellectual fulfillment in the role.[47] [27] He then transitioned to Credit Suisse First Boston, where he worked as a derivatives trader specializing in currency options until 1996.[48] [26] During this period, Thiel engaged in high-stakes trading, applying analytical skills from his legal background to financial markets, though he later described the experience as similarly constrained by conventional thinking.[27] In 1996, Thiel founded Thiel Capital Management, a hedge fund initially managing $1 million in assets from personal contacts and focused on global macro trades.[49] [50] The fund profited notably from bets on the 1996 U.S. presidential election between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, including short positions anticipating market overreactions to political uncertainty, which yielded significant returns amid post-election stability.[50] This venture marked Thiel's shift toward independent entrepreneurship, leveraging his trading acumen to generate capital ahead of his involvement in fintech startups.[51] Thiel Capital operated as a precursor to his later firm Clarium Capital and provided seed resources for subsequent endeavors, demonstrating his early preference for contrarian, high-conviction investments over established financial paths.[49] PayPal Co-Founding and the PayPal Mafia In December 1998, Peter Thiel co-founded Confinity Inc. with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in Palo Alto, California, initially focusing on security software for handheld devices such as Palm Pilots.[52] The company pivoted to develop a money-transfer service between Palm devices, which evolved into an email-based payment system launched as PayPal in 1999, targeting eBay users for peer-to-peer transactions to address fraud risks in online auctions.[53] In March 2000, Confinity merged with X.com, an online banking startup founded by Elon Musk in 1999, in a stock swap valued at approximately $400 million; the combined entity initially operated under the X.com name before rebranding to PayPal later that year, adopting PayPal's payment technology as its core product amid internal debates over direction.[53] Thiel served as CEO of the merged PayPal from its early stages, leading the company through rapid user growth—reaching 10 million accounts by 2001—while implementing anti-fraud measures that reduced chargeback losses to under 1% of transactions, a key factor in its scalability.[54] PayPal went public via an IPO on February 15, 2002, raising $61 million at $13 per share and closing the first trading day at $20, reflecting strong market demand amid the dot-com recovery.[55] In October 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock, just eight months after the IPO, providing early employees and founders with substantial liquidity; Thiel's stake yielded him about $55 million, which he later parlayed into further investments.[56] The "PayPal Mafia" refers to the network of former PayPal executives and early employees who, after the eBay acquisition, founded or led numerous influential tech companies, leveraging shared experiences in payments, fraud detection, and scaling online services. Key members include Thiel, who co-founded Palantir Technologies in 2003; Musk, who established SpaceX in 2002 and became Tesla's CEO; Levchin, who started Affirm in 2012; and Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn in 2002.[57] Other alumni such as Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim created YouTube in 2005 (acquired by Google for $1.65 billion in 2006); Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons launched Yelp in 2004; and David Sacks founded Yammer in 2008 (sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion in 2012).[58] This group's collective impact includes over $1 trillion in market value from their ventures as of 2023, attributed to their contrarian hiring practices favoring talented immigrants and rigorous problem-solving cultures over traditional credentials.[57] Palantir Technologies Development Palantir Technologies was co-founded by Peter Thiel in May 2003, alongside Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen, Joe Lonsdale, and Nathan Gettings, with the objective of creating software platforms capable of integrating and analyzing vast, disparate datasets for intelligence purposes. The company's foundational technology adapted fraud-detection algorithms originally developed at PayPal—where Thiel had co-founded the firm—to address post-9/11 counter-terrorism needs, enabling agencies to connect siloed data sources without requiring extensive custom engineering. Named after the "seeing stones" from J.R.R. Tolkien's works, Palantir emphasized human-centric data analysis over automated systems, positioning itself as a tool for institutions facing complex, unstructured problems.[59] Thiel played a pivotal role as initial investor and chairman, committing personal funds to seed the venture and assembling a core team of engineers, including prototype developer Nathan Gettings from PayPal. His strategic vision focused on applying private-sector innovation to national security, securing early backing from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's nonprofit investment arm, which provided approximately $2 million in 2004 to accelerate development. This funding facilitated the creation of Palantir Gotham, the company's flagship intelligence platform, which integrates data from multiple sources to support investigative workflows for government users, including the U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence agencies. By 2005, additional capital from Thiel's network, including through Founders Fund (established that year), enabled scaling, with revenues reaching an estimated $250 million by 2011.[59][60] Under Thiel's chairmanship, Palantir expanded beyond government contracts, launching Palantir Foundry in the early 2010s for commercial applications, allowing enterprises in sectors like healthcare and manufacturing to operationalize data for decision-making. Subsequent platforms included Apollo in 2021 for continuous deployment across environments and the Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) to incorporate machine learning models while preserving human oversight. The company achieved profitability in 2023, reporting $310 million in EBIT on $2.9 billion in revenue the following year, with roughly 55% from government sources. Thiel's influence emphasized contrarian bets on data-driven realism amid critiques of the firm's opacity and ties to surveillance, though its tools have been credited with enhancing institutional efficiency in high-stakes domains.[59][60] Founders Fund Establishment and Key Investments Founders Fund was established in 2005 in San Francisco by Peter Thiel, alongside fellow PayPal alumni Ken Howery and Luke Nosek, with an initial fund of $50 million. The firm adopted a distinctive contrarian philosophy, rejecting the venture capital norm of consensus-driven investments in favor of supporting founders with ambitious, transformative visions that challenge technological stagnation. This stance, outlined in the firm's 2017 manifesto, positions Founders Fund to finance "positive transformation" through high-risk bets on breakthroughs rather than incremental advancements, reflecting Thiel's broader critique of risk-averse innovation in Silicon Valley.[61][62][63] Key early investments underscored this approach and delivered outsized returns. In 2008, Founders Fund led a $20 million round in SpaceX, becoming the rocket company's first institutional investor and enabling its pursuit of reusable launch technology amid skepticism from traditional aerospace funders. The firm also held an early stake in Facebook, which generated substantial gains—compounded by Thiel's personal $500,000 investment yielding $1 billion—before fully exiting via a pre-planned sale of remaining shares in 2019. These successes, alongside investments in LinkedIn and Powerset, established Founders Fund's reputation for identifying undervalued opportunities in emerging tech.[64][65][66] Subsequent portfolio highlights include Airbnb, Stripe, Spotify, DeepMind, Neuralink, Anduril Industries, and Palantir Technologies, spanning consumer platforms, financial services, AI, defense, and data analytics. Founders Fund acted as an early backer in Palantir, the analytics firm Thiel co-founded in 2003, amplifying its growth in government and enterprise sectors. By emphasizing concentrated positions in "zero to one" innovations—companies creating new markets rather than competing in existing ones—the firm has managed over $12 billion in assets, with recent funds like a $4.6 billion growth vehicle in 2025 targeting scaled AI and frontier tech deployments.[67][68][66] Other Investment Vehicles and Recent Activities Thiel founded Clarium Capital Management in 2002 as a global macro hedge fund focused on predicting geopolitical and economic trends to generate returns. The fund expanded rapidly, reaching approximately $8 billion in assets under management by 2008, but incurred substantial losses amid the global financial crisis and volatile commodity markets thereafter, prompting investor redemptions and a reduction to under $400 million by 2011. Clarium has since operated on a smaller scale, with Thiel maintaining involvement in its directional trading strategies.[69] In 2012, Thiel launched Mithril Capital Management with an inaugural $402 million fund targeting growth-stage technology companies positioned to scale in expansive markets, including energy, infrastructure, and biotechnology. Thiel personally committed $100 million to the fund and co-leads investment decisions alongside Ajay Royan, emphasizing long-term value creation over short-term exits. The firm raised an additional $300 million vehicle in 2024, continuing its focus on mature startups requiring capital for global expansion.[70][71][66] Thiel Capital, established in 2011 and based in Los Angeles, functions as his family office, conducting proprietary investments in early- and growth-stage ventures while offering strategic advisory services to portfolio companies. It has backed firms across sectors like defense technology and software, often in coordination with Thiel's broader network.[72] Recent activities include direct investments via Thiel Capital and personal allocations, such as a 2025 stake in Quantum-Systems, a German manufacturer of unmanned aerial systems for defense and surveillance applications, reflecting Thiel's sustained interest in aerospace technologies amid geopolitical tensions. In July 2025, Thiel participated in Kriya Therapeutics' Series D round, supporting the biotech firm's gene therapy platform aimed at rare diseases. These moves align with Thiel's pattern of concentrating capital in high-conviction opportunities outside traditional venture syndicates.[73][74] Political Engagement Evolution from Libertarianism to Trump Support Peter Thiel's political trajectory began with strong libertarian commitments, including early activism and support for figures like Ron Paul in the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.[75] However, by 2009, Thiel articulated growing disillusionment in his essay "The Education of a Libertarian," published on April 13, 2009, where he argued that libertarian efforts since the 1970s had largely failed to deliver substantive progress in expanding freedom.[76] He contended that politics is inherently futile for libertarians, positing an incompatibility between capitalism and democracy, particularly since the expansion of suffrage in the 1920s, which he viewed as constraining innovation and escape from state control.[77] Thiel proposed technological frontiers—such as cyberspace, outer space, and seasteading—as potential avenues for libertarian escape, rather than relying on electoral victories.[76] This critique marked a pivot from orthodox libertarian optimism toward a more pragmatic realism, emphasizing that pure freedom requires alternatives to democratic consensus, which Thiel saw as perpetuating stagnation.[78] Despite these reservations, Thiel retained elements of libertarianism, blending them with nationalist inclinations that prioritized decisive action over incrementalism.[79] By 2016, this evolved worldview led him to break from Silicon Valley's predominantly liberal alignment, endorsing Donald Trump as a disruptive force against entrenched elites and failed globalization policies.[80] Thiel publicly declared his support during a speech at the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, highlighting Trump's promise to redirect resources toward American innovation rather than indefinite foreign entanglements.[81] He donated $1.25 million to Trump-aligned efforts, including $1 million to a pro-Trump super PAC and $250,000 directly to the campaign, positioning himself as an outlier among tech leaders who favored Hillary Clinton.[82] Thiel argued that Trump's flaws were outweighed by the establishment's complacency, which had stifled technological and economic progress; he viewed the candidate as embodying "definite optimism"—a rejection of probabilistic, risk-averse planning in favor of bold, engineered futures.[83] This endorsement reflected Thiel's causal assessment that democratic institutions, captured by consensus-driven inertia, necessitated unconventional leadership to restore agency and escape libertarian impasses.[77] Post-2016, Thiel's alignment with Trump deepened through advisory roles in the transition team, though he later critiqued the administration's incomplete disruption of bureaucratic norms.[84] His shift underscores a broader rejection of libertarian isolationism for a realism that leverages political power to counter institutional decay, prioritizing empirical outcomes like renewed American competitiveness over ideological purity.[85] Sources close to Thiel's thinking attribute this evolution to a first-principles reevaluation: libertarianism's market freedoms alone proved insufficient against state expansion and cultural stagnation, demanding alliances with nationalist disruption to enable technological sovereignty.[79] Funding Political Candidates and Causes Thiel's political funding began with support for libertarian causes and candidates, notably donating $1.7 million to a super PAC backing Ron Paul's 2012 presidential campaign.[86] This contribution positioned him as a major financier for Paul's anti-interventionist and limited-government platform.[87] In 2016, Thiel shifted toward broader Republican engagement by pledging $1.25 million to Donald Trump's presidential campaign, marking one of the largest tech-sector donations to Trump at the time.[88] He also contributed directly $2,700 to Trump's campaign in October of that year.[89] This support extended to public endorsement via a speech at the Republican National Convention, though his funding emphasized candidates challenging political orthodoxy.[90] Thiel escalated his involvement in the 2022 midterm elections, donating a record $15 million to super PACs supporting J.D. Vance's Ohio Senate primary bid, which propelled Vance to victory and later his selection as Trump's vice presidential running mate.[91] Similarly, he invested another $15 million in Blake Masters' Arizona Senate campaign, including an additional $3.5 million in May 2022 and $1.5 million in July, backing Masters' tech-oriented, Trump-aligned platform.[92] [93] These contributions, funneled through entities like Protect Ohio Values PAC, highlighted Thiel's strategy of elevating former associates from his venture ecosystem into national politics.[94] After the 2022 cycle, Thiel announced he would not fund candidates in the 2024 election, declining a $10 million request from Trump.[95] By mid-2025, however, he resumed donations, contributing hundreds of thousands to Republican House candidates and PACs to bolster congressional majorities aligned with Trump-era priorities.[96] This pattern reflects Thiel's selective funding of politicians advocating technological innovation, reduced regulation, and skepticism toward institutional consensus.[97] Critiques of Academia, Woke Ideology, and Institutional Stagnation Thiel has repeatedly criticized the American higher education system as an overvalued bubble characterized by escalating tuition costs—rising from approximately $10,000 annually in 1980 to over $40,000 by 2023 in constant dollars—and resulting in $1.7 trillion in outstanding student debt as of 2023, with minimal corresponding increases in genuine skill acquisition or innovation.[18] He contends that elite universities function less as engines of progress and more as exclusive social clubs akin to "Studio 54," prioritizing credentialism and networking over substantive learning or risk-taking, which discourages entrepreneurial pursuits in favor of safe, bureaucratic career paths.[18][98] This view stems from his own experiences at Stanford in the late 1980s, where he co-founded a conservative student newspaper in response to curricular controversies over Western culture requirements, perceiving academia as increasingly ideologically uniform and resistant to contrarian thought.[99] In Thiel's assessment, these institutional flaws are exacerbated by what he terms "woke" ideology, which he likens to Wahhabism in its rigid enforcement of orthodoxy and intolerance for dissent, distorting California's governance and broader society despite limited genuine adherence among the population.[100][101] He argues that diversity initiatives and political correctness in academia erode merit-based evaluation, free speech, and intellectual pluralism, transforming universities into arenas of zero-sum status competition rather than sites of discovery, where conformity to progressive norms supplants rigorous inquiry. Thiel has expressed this view by stating, "My hermeneutic suspicion is always when there's speech that is completely forbidden and questions that are not allowed to be asked, normally, you should assume that those things are simply true."[102] Thiel has framed wokeness as a form of "hyper-Christianity," fixated on victimhood, original sin (recast as privilege), and redemption through ideological purity, which distracts from addressing core economic and technological challenges by elevating identity politics over empirical progress.[103][104] This critique aligns with his broader skepticism of academia's role in fostering "fake science" that wastes resources on incremental or politically motivated research, rather than bold, foundational advancements.[105][106] Thiel ties these elements to wider institutional stagnation, positing that since the 1970s, societal progress has stalled in key domains—evident in the absence of breakthroughs like commercial supersonic flight, nuclear fusion viability, or transformative medical therapies—yielding instead marginal improvements in digital communication, such as social media platforms limited to "140 characters."[45] He attributes this to a cultural shift toward "indefinite optimism", where universities and related institutions prioritize risk aversion, regulatory capture, and consensus-driven incrementalism over "definite" plans for radical innovation, compounded by woke-driven conformity that penalizes heterodox views essential for disruption.[107][32] In a 2019 discussion, Thiel described this as an "era of stagnation and universal institutional failure," where academia's credential mills and ideological echo chambers fail to cultivate the ambition needed for escaping zero-sum games, instead perpetuating a mimicry of past achievements without surpassing them.[108][43] Despite acknowledging nuances, such as software gains, Thiel maintains that the overall deceleration in physical and scientific frontiers reflects deeper failures in human capital formation and incentive structures within stagnant institutions.[35][36] Philanthropy and Fellowships Thiel Fellowship and Talent Incubation The Thiel Fellowship, established in 2011 by Peter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation, provides a two-year, $200,000 grant to individuals aged 22 or younger who forgo or discontinue university enrollment to pursue innovative projects.[5][109] The program challenges the conventional requirement of higher education for success, enabling recipients to engage in self-directed endeavors such as startups, nonprofits, or hardware developments without institutional constraints.[5] Thiel initiated the fellowship to counter what he views as the stagnation induced by overreliance on college credentials, arguing that it diverts talent from productive risk-taking.[110] Eligibility requires no prior university degree and, for enrollees, a commitment to drop out upon selection; applications are accepted year-round and emphasize demonstrated progress toward a specific vision rather than a fully formed product or incorporated entity.[109] Fellows receive the grant without equity obligations to the foundation and gain access to a network of entrepreneurs, investors, and scientists for mentorship and connections, with flexibility to operate from any location worldwide.[109] This structure fosters independent talent development, prioritizing builders in fields beyond software, including biotechnology and consumer products.[109] The fellowship has incubated notable talents, including Dylan Field, who co-founded Figma (acquired by Adobe for $20 billion in 2022), Vitalik Buterin, co-creator of Ethereum, and Austin Russell, founder of Luminar Technologies, a lidar company valued at billions.[111][112] Other alumni encompass Chris Olah of Anthropic, an AI safety firm, and Ritesh Agarwal of OYO Rooms, India's largest budget hotel network.[112][113] These outcomes underscore the program's role in accelerating entrepreneurial paths outside academia, with alumni-founded ventures collectively generating over $750 billion in value as of 2025.[112] By funding early-stage innovators and linking them to established networks, the Thiel Fellowship serves as a mechanism for talent incubation, demonstrating that unstructured, high-risk pursuits can yield outsized results compared to standardized education trajectories.[114] Over 200 fellows have participated, contributing to sectors like AI, blockchain, and autonomous vehicles, though the program's emphasis on college avoidance has drawn criticism for potentially undervaluing formal learning despite empirical successes.[112][115] Support for Longevity, Seasteading, and Frontier Tech Thiel provided seed funding to the Seasteading Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing autonomous ocean-based communities as alternatives to traditional governance structures. In April 2008, he pledged $500,000 to launch the institute, viewing seasteading as a mechanism to foster innovation free from regulatory constraints.[116] [117] By 2011, his total contributions reached approximately $1.25 million, though he resigned from the board that year, citing unanticipated engineering and logistical difficulties in realizing floating habitats.[118] Despite these setbacks, Thiel has continued to advocate for seasteading concepts, as evidenced by his 2018 remarks linking such platforms to accelerated biomedical progress.[119][120] In the domain of longevity research, Thiel has directed significant philanthropic resources toward combating age-related decline through biomedical interventions. In September 2006, he committed $3.5 million to the Methuselah Foundation, including a matching grant of up to $3 million for SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) research aimed at repairing cellular damage underlying aging, with funds disbursed through 2009.[121] The Thiel Foundation has sustained support for the SENS Research Foundation, prioritizing therapies to reverse biological aging rather than merely mitigating symptoms.[122] Additionally, Thiel served as an early investor in Unity Biotechnology, a firm developing senolytic drugs to eliminate senescent cells implicated in age-associated diseases.[123] These efforts reflect his emphasis on engineering solutions to extend healthy human lifespan, distinct from incremental healthcare advances. Thiel's backing extends to frontier technologies via institutional vehicles emphasizing national security and technological sovereignty. In 2021, he co-founded the America's Frontier Fund (AFF), a nonprofit investment entity with Eric Schmidt, targeting deep tech sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing to counter foreign dependencies, particularly from China.[124][125] AFF seeks to leverage public-private partnerships, including advocacy for U.S. government subsidies, to onshore critical manufacturing.[126] Complementing this, the Thiel Foundation promotes long-term technological innovation through programs like Breakout Labs, which funds high-risk drug discovery and biotech ventures overlooked by conventional funding.[122] These initiatives underscore Thiel's strategy of allocating resources to domains where stagnation in established institutions hinders breakthroughs.[127] AI Research and Contrarian Philanthropy Thiel's Thiel Foundation provided $1.63 million to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) in 2015, supporting mathematical research aimed at ensuring advanced artificial intelligence systems align with human values and avoid existential risks.[128] MIRI, founded in 2000, focuses on formal approaches to AI safety, including decision theory and program verification, which were niche and contrarian pursuits at the time amid limited mainstream attention to superintelligence hazards. This grant aligned with Thiel's emphasis on long-term technological foresight, though his later public commentary has diverged from dominant AI safety narratives by critiquing decelerationist impulses within effective altruism circles. Thiel's philanthropy in AI reflects a broader contrarian strategy, prioritizing high-risk investments in frontier technologies over conventional charitable causes, which he views as often misallocating resources toward short-term relief rather than transformative progress. In a 2025 lecture series, Thiel advised against donating to left-leaning nonprofits, urging instead the deployment of capital toward countering stagnation and advancing capabilities like AI, echoing his counsel to Elon Musk to forgo the Giving Pledge in favor of strategic wealth retention for innovation.[129] [130] This stance positions Thiel against regulatory slowdowns in AI development, which he argues could exacerbate global power imbalances or unintended dystopias, as expressed in discussions questioning AI's path to true intelligence.[131] Through the Thiel Foundation, which backs science and invention across domains, Thiel has sustained support for AI-adjacent endeavors undergirded by mimetic theory and institutional critique, fostering talent and ideas skeptical of consensus-driven tech policy.[122] His approach contrasts with philanthropy funneled into safety advocacy by figures like Musk or Sam Altman, favoring acceleration via private initiative—evident in foundation-aligned ventures exploring AI's geopolitical implications without bureaucratic constraints. This framework has informed selective grants prioritizing empirical breakthroughs over precautionary principles, amid Thiel's warnings that over-caution in AI mirrors historical failures to harness atomic or computing revolutions. Intellectual Outputs Authored Books and Co-Authorships Peter Thiel co-authored The Diversity Myth: "Multiculturalism" and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford with David O. Sacks, published in 1995 by the Independent Institute.[132] The book critiques what the authors describe as the enforcement of ideological conformity on the Stanford University campus during the late 1980s and early 1990s, drawing on their experiences as students there; it argues that multiculturalism initiatives often prioritized political orthodoxy over genuine diversity of thought, leading to intolerance toward dissenting views.[133] Thiel's most prominent work, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, was co-authored with Blake Masters and published on September 16, 2014, by Crown Business.[4] Originating from Thiel's notes for his Stanford University course CS183: Startup in 2012, the book emphasizes creating innovative monopolies through vertical progress—going from "zero to one" by inventing new technologies—rather than horizontal globalization or incremental improvements; it critiques competition as destructive and advocates for definite optimism in planning the future.[134] The text has sold over a million copies and influenced entrepreneurial thinking by challenging conventional wisdom on competition and secrets in business.[4] Thiel has not authored additional full-length books independently or in co-authorship beyond these works, though class materials from CS183 have been compiled and distributed in various formats.[135] Lectures, Essays, and Public Commentary Thiel taught the CS183: Startup course at Stanford University during spring 2012, delivering 19 lectures on entrepreneurship principles, including the preference for monopolies over competition, the pursuit of "secrets" in markets, and definite versus indefinite optimism in planning.[136] The course featured guest speakers like Sam Altman and Paul Graham, with student notes by Blake Masters later expanded into Thiel's book Zero to One.[136] Key lectures emphasized that "competition is for losers," arguing firms should create unique value rather than vie in commoditized spaces, a view Thiel illustrated with examples from PayPal's early dominance.[137] In September 2019, Thiel presented "The Straussian Moment" at the Hoover Institution, drawing on Leo Strauss's ideas to contrast ancient faith in human intellect's transformative power with modern skepticism, positing that rediscovering such optimism could counter cultural pessimism.[30] He has also guest-lectured on niche topics, such as the future of legal technology at Stanford Law School, where he critiqued regulatory inefficiencies hindering innovation.[138] In 2025, Thiel conducted a series of four off-the-record lectures on the biblical Antichrist, structured around theology, history, literature, and contemporary applications, including links to technological risks like artificial intelligence and nuclear proliferation as potential fulfillments of apocalyptic prophecies.[139] [140] Recordings revealed Thiel's reluctance to pinpoint the Antichrist's identity but his insistence on treating eschatological warnings seriously amid modern advancements, avoiding definitive predictions while urging intellectual engagement with such texts.[139] In a related November 2024 Hoover Institution discussion titled "Apocalypse Now?," Thiel connected ancient prophecies to current technologies, arguing that AI and weapons systems amplify existential threats warranting renewed prophetic scrutiny.[141] Thiel's essays often critique post-1970s technological stagnation and advocate contrarian thinking. In "The End of the Future," published in National Review, he diagnosed a shift from bold innovation to risk-averse globalization, attributing it to cultural and regulatory failures that prioritize distribution over invention.[35] His March 2020 First Things piece "Back to the Future" called for escaping zero-sum political traps by recommitting to progress-oriented narratives, contrasting them with indefinite optimism's complacency.[142] In October 2025, Thiel co-authored "Voyages to the End of the World" with Sam Wolfe in First Things, exploring themes of science, Christianity, and eschatology through literary analysis of works like Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and others.[143] Other works include "Good for Google, Bad for America," a 2019 New York Times op-ed co-authored with Blake Masters decrying offshoring's national security costs, and "Against Edenism," which challenges environmentalist stasis in favor of human expansion.[142] [144] In January 2025's "A Time for Truth and Reconciliation" for the Financial Times, Thiel urged confronting institutional lies to enable genuine advancement.[142] Thiel's public commentary spans interviews and talks emphasizing skepticism toward consensus. In a June 2025 New York Times dialogue with Ross Douthat, he explored intersections of transhumanism, Christianity, and apocalypse, defending pursuits like AI and space colonization against critics while questioning indefinite progress assumptions.[35] A 2015 Conversations with Tyler episode highlighted his views on innovation stagnation, biblical influences, and strategic naming in business, reinforcing that true breakthroughs require rejecting mimetic rivalry.[43] In April 2025's Jordan Peterson podcast appearance, Thiel lamented the erosion of meaning amid technological plateaus, attributing it to lost definite visions and calling for renewed focus on vertical progress over horizontal expansion.[145] He frequently employs his signature question—"What important truth do very few agree with you on?"—to probe speakers, as in venture interviews, underscoring contrarianism's role in discovery.[146] Controversies and Legal Battles Gawker Lawsuit and Media Accountability In December 2007, Gawker's Silicon Valley-focused blog Valleywag published an article titled "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people," which publicly outed Thiel's sexual orientation without his consent, framing it as a response to perceived discomfort among tech elites discussing the topic.[147] Thiel later described this and subsequent Gawker coverage as part of a pattern of "personal vendettas" and privacy violations that treated individuals as "monsters to be destroyed," motivating his long-term opposition to the outlet.[147] Gawker escalated its controversial practices in October 2012 by publishing excerpts from a sex tape featuring professional wrestler Hulk Hogan (real name Terry Bollea) engaging in a non-consensual act recorded without his knowledge, justifying it as newsworthy due to Hogan's celebrity status.[148] Bollea filed an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Gawker in Florida state court on October 15, 2012, alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of Florida's right-of-publicity laws.[148] Unbeknownst to the public, Thiel had begun secretly funding the litigation through shell companies and lawyers starting around 2013, ultimately providing approximately $10 million to support Bollea's case and at least four other lawsuits against Gawker, viewing it as a mechanism to impose financial accountability on the media company for its invasive tactics.[147][149] The trial commenced in March 2016, culminating on March 18 in a jury verdict awarding Bollea $55 million in compensatory damages, $60 million in punitive damages (later trebled to $75 million by the judge, plus $5 million in economic damages, totaling $140 million), finding Gawker's publication exceeded First Amendment protections by prioritizing sensationalism over privacy rights.[150] Gawker's appeal efforts were thwarted when Thiel's funding role was publicly revealed by Forbes on May 24, 2016, prompting the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 10, 2016, with liabilities estimated at $100-500 million against $50-100 million in assets.[151] The case settled in November 2016 for $31 million paid to Bollea, leading to Gawker's assets being sold to Univision Communications, effectively ending its independent operations.[152] Thiel defended his involvement in an August 2016 New York Times op-ed, arguing that Gawker's model exemplified "lawless" media behavior—bullying private citizens and public figures alike without regard for harm—and that litigation funding served as a necessary counter to outlets insulated from market discipline, stating, "If you give people the power to do certain things to you, the right thing is to use that power for good."[153] Critics, including free-speech advocates, contended the funding blurred lines between justice and personal retribution, potentially chilling investigative journalism by enabling wealthy individuals to target adversarial media.[153] However, the verdict underscored legal limits on publishing intimate materials without consent, even for celebrities, reinforcing privacy torts under Florida law and prompting broader discussions on third-party litigation funding's role in enforcing media accountability where reputational incentives fail.[154] Thiel maintained the action was philanthropic, aimed at deterring similar abuses rather than suppressing speech, noting Gawker's prior settlements in other privacy suits evidenced a pattern of recklessness.[155] Palantir Contracts, Surveillance Debates, and Ethical Critiques Palantir Technologies, co-founded by Peter Thiel in 2003, secured early funding from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital arm, with an investment of approximately $2 million in 2004 to develop data analytics tools for intelligence analysis.[156] This support facilitated Palantir's entry into government contracts focused on counterterrorism and national security post-9/11, emphasizing software platforms like Gotham for integrating disparate data sources to identify threats.[157] By 2025, Palantir's federal revenue had grown substantially, with major awards including a U.S. Army enterprise agreement valued at up to $10 billion over 10 years, announced on August 1, 2025, consolidating 75 prior contracts for software and data services.[158] Key contracts extended to agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), where Palantir provides tools for tracking immigrants and managing deportations. In April 2025, ICE awarded Palantir $30 million to develop "ImmigrationOS," an AI-driven platform building on a 2022 contract worth about $17 million, aimed at enhancing investigative case management and operations across ICE branches.[159] An additional $30 million order in September 2025 supported "voluntary return" initiatives, part of a potential $157.5 million deal for targeting individuals.[160] Other obligations include a General Services Administration schedule contract worth $650 million awarded in February 2024 for federal supply services.[161] These contracts have fueled debates over surveillance, with critics arguing Palantir's platforms enable mass data aggregation that risks eroding privacy rights. Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union, have highlighted uses in predictive policing and immigration enforcement that allegedly facilitate family separations and disproportionate targeting of minorities, potentially amplifying biases in law enforcement data.[162] Operations involving Palantir tools have been linked to detentions of migrant families, drawing condemnation for prioritizing enforcement over due process.[163] Proponents, including Palantir CEO Alex Karp, counter that the technology targets specific threats like terrorism rather than indiscriminate public surveillance, emphasizing its role in preventing attacks and saving lives amid real security imperatives.[164] Ethical critiques often emanate from civil liberties advocates and former employees, who accuse Palantir of complicity in human rights abuses through opaque government partnerships. In May 2025, over a dozen ex-workers publicly rebuked the company's alignment with Trump administration policies, citing risks to free speech and potential misuse for political targeting.[165] Sources like The Guardian have warned of "weaponized AI surveillance" threatening global rights, particularly in military and border contexts.[166] Thiel, as Palantir chairman, has implicitly defended such work by advocating for decisive state action against existential threats, viewing data-driven security as essential to countering adversaries in an era of asymmetric warfare, though he has not directly addressed specific surveillance allegations in recent public statements.[167] These concerns persist despite Palantir's claims of built-in safeguards, such as audit logs and human oversight, to prevent abuse.[60] Political Influence Accusations and Eschatological Lectures Thiel has faced accusations of wielding disproportionate political influence through strategic financial contributions and personal networks, particularly within Republican circles. In October 2016, he donated $1.25 million to Donald Trump's presidential campaign, marking him as one of the few prominent Silicon Valley figures to back the candidate publicly.[88] This support included a speaking appearance at the Republican National Convention that July, where Thiel advocated for technological innovation over welfare expansion.[168] Critics, including outlets like Vanity Fair, highlighted potential conflicts of interest, noting Thiel's companies such as Palantir stood to benefit from government contracts under a Trump administration, with Palantir securing expanded defense and surveillance deals post-2016.[169] Thiel also backed Senate candidates aligned with his views on deregulation and innovation, including over $15 million to J.D. Vance's 2022 Ohio campaign, $10 million to Blake Masters in Arizona, and support for Josh Hawley, positioning him as a key financier in shaping a tech-sympathetic GOP faction.[79] Following the 2022 midterms, Thiel paused direct donations but resumed in 2025, contributing hundreds of thousands to House Republican PACs amid Palantir's growing federal contracts under the incoming Trump administration.[96] [170] Such actions have drawn claims of undue sway, with detractors arguing Thiel's libertarian critique of government—viewing it as stifling innovation through enforced equality and antitrust measures—translates into self-interested lobbying rather than principled advocacy.[171] These accusations often intersect with scrutiny of Thiel's intellectual output, including lectures blending eschatology with critiques of modern stagnation. In November 2024, Thiel appeared on the Hoover Institution's Uncommon Knowledge, discussing apocalyptic prophecies from biblical texts like Revelation alongside philosopher René Girard's mimetic theory, positing that historical end-times thinking reveals patterns of technological deceleration and risk aversion in contemporary society.[141] He argued that excessive focus on existential threats, such as climate change or AI safety, mirrors Antichrist-like deception by prioritizing stasis over progress, potentially enabling authoritarian control. From September to October 2025, Thiel delivered a series of four off-the-record lectures in San Francisco titled "The Antichrist," exploring the biblical figure through lenses of theology, technology, and politics; leaked audio revealed his framing of the Antichrist as a regulator who halts innovation under guises of safety, drawing on thinkers like Carl Schmitt to critique centralized power that suppresses human potential.[140] [139] In these talks, Thiel speculated that modern institutions fixated on averting apocalypse—through overregulation or equality mandates—embody antichrist tendencies, echoing his broader writings on "definite optimism" versus indefinite pessimism. Critics, including Wired and Guardian analyses, interpret these as rationalizations for Thiel's political investments, suggesting his eschatological framework justifies backing figures who dismantle regulatory barriers, though Thiel maintains such views stem from first-principles analysis of historical and scriptural patterns rather than personal gain.[172] [173] Thiel's engagements, often unrecorded to encourage candor, underscore his contrarian stance against prevailing apocalyptic narratives in tech and policy circles.[174] Personal Life and Legacy Relationships, Citizenship, and Residences Thiel is openly homosexual, having publicly acknowledged his sexual orientation in a 2007 opinion piece in National Review. He married Matt Danzeisen, a financier who previously worked at BlackRock and later joined Thiel Capital, on October 13, 2017, in Vienna, Austria.[175] The couple maintains a low public profile regarding their personal life. Thiel has publicly acknowledged having children.[35][176] In 2023, model Jeff Thomas, described in reports as having been in a long-term romantic relationship with Thiel, died by suicide after falling from a hotel balcony in Miami; Thomas had resided in a Hollywood Hills home purchased by Thiel.[177] Thiel holds United States citizenship, having immigrated there as an infant with his parents in 1968 from Frankfurt, West Germany, where he was born on October 11, 1967. In January 2011, he applied for New Zealand citizenship, which was granted on June 30, 2011, under the "exceptional circumstances" provision of Section 9(1)(c) of the Citizenship Act, despite having spent only 12 days in the country prior to approval; this decision, made by then-Internal Affairs Minister Nathan Guy, later drew scrutiny for bypassing standard residency requirements.[178] [179] Thiel has cited New Zealand's stability as a factor in seeking citizenship there, viewing it as a potential "escape hatch" amid global uncertainties.[180] Thiel primarily resides in Los Angeles, where he owns multiple properties, including a 5,870-square-foot, four-bedroom estate in Hollywood Hills West purchased in 2011 for $11.5 million, featuring indoor-outdoor living spaces with a Hawaiian aesthetic.[181] He also owns a beachfront estate on Maui, Hawaii, acquired for $27 million, and has maintained homes in San Francisco and a rental in New York City. In August 2024, Thiel expressed consideration of relocating permanently to either Nashville, Tennessee, or Miami, Florida, citing high California taxes and political climate as motivations.[182] [183] Despite this, he has signaled interest in increasing time in New Zealand, including potential permanent residency there.[184] Hobbies, Wealth Strategies, and Public Persona Thiel maintains a competitive interest in chess, achieving a peak FIDE rating of 2199 and competing in 36 recorded tournament games between 1993 and 2003, where he secured a winning record of +24 -7 =5.[185] He has been rated as a U.S. Chess Master and has used chess analogies in business discussions, such as crediting a decisive game against a rival for securing early funding for his startup Confinity in the late 1990s.[186] Beyond chess, Thiel pursues outdoor activities including hiking and surfing, as he shared in a 2016 interview.[187] Thiel's wealth accumulation emphasizes contrarian investments in transformative technologies overlooked by mainstream markets, prioritizing "definite optimism" through backing founders solving profound problems rather than incremental improvements.[188] Via Founders Fund, established in 2005, he has directed capital toward ventures like SpaceX and Palantir, yielding substantial returns from early-stage bets on scalability and monopoly potential over commoditized competition.[188] A notable tactic involved seeding a Roth IRA with $2,000 in 1999, investing it in PayPal shares that appreciated dramatically post-acquisition by eBay in 2002, reportedly growing the account to over $5 billion by 2025 through tax-advantaged compounding in high-growth assets.[189] This approach exploits regulatory structures for long-term, low-visibility growth while minimizing taxable events.[190] Publicly, Thiel projects a persona as a contrarian philosopher critiquing institutional stagnation in technology and higher education, advocating for innovation amid perceived societal deceleration since the 1970s.[191] He has cultivated an image of intellectual detachment, delivering off-the-record lectures on eschatological themes, including interpretations of the Antichrist as a techno-authoritarian figure harnessing AI and surveillance for total control, as revealed in 2025 leaked recordings from sessions dating back decades.Despite funding Republican causes—such as $1.25 million to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign—Thiel distances himself from partisan labels, positioning as a libertarian skeptic of globalization and bureaucracy who influences policy through networked investments rather than direct office-seeking.[191] This enigmatic style, blending reclusiveness with provocative commentary, has earned him descriptions as Silicon Valley's "intellectual architect." Peter Andreas Thiel (/tiːl/ ⓘ; born 11 October 1967) is a German and American[1][2][3][4] entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist.[5][6][7] A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook.[8][9] According to the New York Times, as of December 2025, Thiel's estimated net worth stood at US$27.5 billion, making him among the 100-richest individuals in the world.[10] Thiel has been described as "perhaps America's leading public intellectual today",[11] or "intellectual architect of Silicon Valley's contemporary ethos".[12] Others debate the consistency or morality of his views.[13][N 1][15][16] Born in Germany, Thiel was taken to the US by his parents when he was one year old. In 1971, his family moved to South Africa then South West Africa,[17] before moving back to the US in 1977.[17] After graduating from Stanford, he worked as a clerk, a securities lawyer, a speechwriter, and subsequently a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse. He founded Thiel Capital Management in 1996 and co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998. He was the chief executive officer of PayPal until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Following PayPal, Thiel founded Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund based in San Francisco.[18] In 2003, he launched Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company, and has been its chairman since its inception. In 2005, Thiel launched Founders Fund with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor when he acquired a 10.2% stake in the company for $500,000 in August 2004. He co-founded Valar Ventures in 2010, founded Thiel Capital in 2011, co-founded Mithril Capital in 2012, was investment committee chair, in 2012, and was a part-time partner at Y Combinator from 2015 to 2017.[19][20][21][22] He was granted New Zealand citizenship in 2011, which later became controversial in New Zealand. Variously described as a conservative libertarian and democracy-skeptic authoritarian, Thiel has made substantial donations to American right-wing figures and causes. Through the Thiel Foundation, Thiel governs the grant-making bodies Breakout Labs and Thiel Fellowship. In 2016, when the Bollea v. Gawker lawsuit ended up with Gawker losing the case, Thiel confirmed that he had funded Bollea (Hulk Hogan). Gawker had previously outed Thiel as gay. Early life and education Peter Andreas Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, then part of West Germany, on 11 October 1967, to Klaus Friedrich Thiel and Susanne Thiel.[23][24] The family emigrated to the United States when Peter was one year old and lived in Cleveland, Ohio, where his father worked as a chemical engineer.[5] Klaus worked for various mining companies, which created an itinerant upbringing for Thiel and his younger brother, Patrick Michael Thiel.[25] Thiel and his mother later naturalized as U.S. citizens, whereas his father did not.[24][26] Before settling in Foster City, California, in 1977, the Thiel family lived in South Africa and South West Africa (modern-day Namibia) in the time of apartheid. Peter changed elementary schools seven times. He attended a German-language school in Swakopmund for two years that required students to wear uniforms and utilized corporal punishment, such as striking students' hands with a ruler. He said this experience instilled a distaste for uniformity and regimentation later reflected in his support for individualism and libertarianism.[27][28] The German community in Swakopmund was known at the time for its continued glorification of Nazism.[17] Thiel was noted as a smart, but lonely, withdrawn boy, with whom others would not mingle because they knew he would not stay long in the town.[29] Thiel played Dungeons & Dragons and was an avid reader of science fiction, with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein among his favorite authors. He is a fan of J. R. R. Tolkien's works, stating as an adult that he had read The Lord of the Rings over ten times.[30] Thiel excelled in mathematics and scored first in a California-wide mathematics competition while attending Bowditch Middle School in Foster City.[31] At San Mateo High School, he read Ayn Rand and, influenced by his parents, admired Nixon and Reagan.[32] He was valedictorian of his graduating class in 1985.[31][33] When at school, he reportedly charged $500 each to take the SAT for underclassmen, knowing this would cost him his spot at Stanford if discovered.[32] Thiel studied philosophy at Stanford University. The replacement of a "Western Culture" program at Stanford with a "Culture, Ideas and Values" course that addressed diversity and multiculturalism prompted Thiel to co-found The Stanford Review, a conservative and libertarian newspaper, in 1987. The paper received funding from Irving Kristol.[34] Thiel was The Stanford Review's first editor-in-chief until he graduated in 1989. Thiel has maintained his relationship with the paper, consulting with staff and donating to the newspaper.[35] According to Marc Andreessen, Thiel's time at the Review marked the beginning of a career-long strategy: using provocative verbal cues – later delivered through talks, books and mottos – as a way to attract capable individuals to his projects, preferring this method over actively seeking out talent. The Review has spawned a large network of industry leaders, among whom Andrew Granato and the Fortune respectively identify around 300 people who have worked for or received investment from Peter Thiel or Joe Lonsdale, another prominent editor-in-chief and Thiel's mentee. A number of Review alumni have also become public officials, beginning with Jay Bhattacharya and Paula M. Stannard who were editors during Thiel's time as editor-in-chief.[35][36][37][38] After graduation, Thiel attended Stanford Law School, graduating in 1992 with a Juris Doctor degree.[39] While at Stanford, Thiel met René Girard, whose mimetic theory influenced him.[40][41] Career Early career After graduating from Stanford Law School, Thiel was a law clerk to Judge James Larry Edmondson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from 1992 to 1993.[42] Thiel then worked as a securities lawyer for Sullivan & Cromwell in New York. He left the law firm in under a year.[43] He then took a job as a derivatives trader in currency options at Credit Suisse in 1993 while also working as a speechwriter for former United States secretary of education William Bennett. Thiel returned to California in 1996.[44] Upon returning to the Bay Area, Thiel capitalized on the dot-com boom. With financial support from friends and family, he raised $1 million toward the establishment of Thiel Capital Management and embarked on his venture capital career. Early on, he experienced a setback after investing $100,000 in his friend Luke Nosek's unsuccessful web-based calendar project. Soon thereafter, Nosek's friend Max Levchin described to Thiel his cryptography-related company idea, which became their first venture called Fieldlink (later renamed Confinity) in 1998.[45][46] PayPal Further information: PayPal § Early history Thiel provided the initial $100,000 for Fieldlink in 1998.[47] In February 1999, they raised $500,000 largely from friends and family ($35,000 was from Thiel's parents).[48] By middle 1999, they raised $4,5 million, with Nokia Ventures contributing $3 million.[49] With Confinity, Thiel realized they could develop software to bridge a gap in making online payments. Although the use of credit cards and expanding automated teller machine networks provided consumers with more payment options, not all merchants had the necessary hardware to accept credit cards. Thus, consumers had to pay with exact cash or check. Thiel wanted to create a type of digital wallet for consumer convenience and security by encrypting data on digital devices, and in 1999 Confinity launched PayPal.[50] PayPal promised to open up new possibilities for handling money. Thiel viewed PayPal's mission as liberating people from the erosion of the value of their currencies due to inflation.[51][N 2] When PayPal launched at a press conference in 1999, representatives from Nokia and Deutsche Bank sent $3 million in venture funding to Thiel using PayPal on their PalmPilots. PayPal then continued to grow through mergers in 2000 with Elon Musk's online financial services company X.com, and with Pixo, a company specializing in mobile commerce. These mergers allowed PayPal to expand into the wireless phone market and transformed it into a safer and more user-friendly tool by enabling users to transfer money via a free online registration and email rather than by exchanging bank account information. PayPal went public on 15 February 2002 and was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion in October of that year.[53] Thiel remained CEO of the company until the sale.[9] His 3.7% stake in the company was worth $55 million at the time of acquisition.[54] In Silicon Valley circles, Thiel is colloquially referred to as the "Don of the PayPal Mafia".[55] Clarium Capital Further information: Clarium Capital Thiel used $10 million of his proceeds to create Clarium Capital Management, a global macro hedge fund focusing on directional and liquid instruments in currencies, interest rates, commodities, and equities.[56] Thiel stated that "the big, macroeconomic idea that we had at Clarium—the idée fixe—was the peak-oil theory, which was basically that the world was running out of oil, and that there were no easy alternatives."[31] In 2003, Thiel successfully bet that the United States dollar would weaken.[57] In 2004, Thiel spoke of the dot-com bubble having migrated, in effect, into a growing bubble in the financial sector, and specified General Electric and Walmart as vulnerable. In 2005, Clarium saw a 57.1% return as Thiel predicted that the dollar would rally.[58][57] However, Clarium faltered in 2006 with a 7.8% loss. Thereafter, the firm sought to profit in the long-term from its petrodollar analysis, which foresaw the impending decline in oil supplies.[59] Clarium's assets under management grew after achieving a 40.3% return in 2007 to more than $7 billion by the first quarter of 2008, but fell later in the year and again in 2009 after financial markets collapsed.[60][61] By 2011, after missing out on the economic rebound, many key investors pulled out, reducing the value of Clarium's assets to $350 million, two thirds of which was Thiel's money.[62] Palantir Further information: Palantir Technologies In May 2003, Thiel incorporated Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company named after the Tolkien artifact.[63] He continues as its chairman, as of 2022.[64][65] Thiel stated that the idea for the company was based on the realization that "the approaches that PayPal had used to fight fraud could be extended into other contexts, like fighting terrorism". He also stated that, after the September 11 attacks, the debate in the United States was "will we have more security with less privacy or less security with more privacy?". He envisioned Palantir as providing the government the technology to find terrorism without operating illegally.[66][67] Palantir's reputation is controversial. Although the software only analyzes data collected by the customers, some criticize it for enabling surveillance.[68][69][N 3][71] Professor Vasilis Galis notes that the software is not a mere tool, but shapes policing culture with new policing norms.[72][N 4] According to Geoff Shullenberger (managing director of Compact) and Moira Weigel (Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard), Peter Thiel and Alex Karp built Palantir on the basis of their understanding of Leo Strauss and the Frankfurt School.[74][75] Facebook Further information: Facebook § Thefacebook, Thiel investment, and name change After the first meeting with Zuckerberg in August 2004, Thiel made a $500,000 angel investment in the startup (then "a three-person dormroom") for a 10.2% stake in the company and joined Facebook's board. This was the first outside investment in Facebook and valued the company at $4.9 million. He also bought Zuckerberg a car.[76][77] The investment was originally in the form of a convertible note, to be converted to equity if Facebook reached 1.5 million users by the end of 2004. Although Facebook narrowly missed the target, Thiel allowed the loan to be converted to equity anyway.[78] Thiel said of his investment: "I was comfortable with them pursuing their original vision. And it was a very reasonable valuation. I thought it was going to be a pretty safe investment."[78][79][76] Facebook employees reported that Thiel's influence was unusual for a board member who was not also the CEO. Some criticized Thiel for pushing his mentee Zuckerberg and the company to the right.[80] Zuckerberg credited Thiel with helping him time Facebook's 2007 Series D, which closed before the 2008 financial crisis.[81] Facebook's initial public offering was in May 2012, with a market cap of nearly $100 billion ($38 a share), at which time Thiel sold 16.8 million shares for $638 million.[82] In August 2012, immediately upon the conclusion of the early investor lock-up period, Thiel sold almost all of his remaining stake for between $19.27 and $20.69 per share, or $395.8 million, for a total of more than $1 billion.[83] In 2016, he sold a little under 1 million of his shares for around $100 million. In November 2017, he sold another 160,805 shares for $29 million, putting his holdings in Facebook at 59,913 Class A shares.[84] As of April 2020, he owned less than 10,000 shares in Facebook.[85] On 7 February 2022, Thiel announced he would not stand for re-election to the board of Facebook owner Meta at the 2022 annual stockholders' meeting and would leave after 17 years in order to support pro–Donald Trump candidates in the 2022 United States elections.[65][86] Founders Fund Further information: Founders Fund In 2005, Thiel created Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund.[87][18] Other partners in the fund include Sean Parker, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek.[88] The fund focuses on defense-related startups and technology.[89] After Facebook, even though it was a big financial success, Thiel made the Founders Fund pivot to hard tech, with the reasoning that while companies like Twitter might have a high value, they would not take "civilization to the next level."[90][91] The Economist notes that the fund and Thiel, personally, have a history of incubating startups that do hypersensitive work related to national security. The fund casts Palantir, Anduril and the newly minted nuclear startup General Matter as the three parts of a trilogy, to which it hopes to add others, among which a plan for onshoring ultraviolet light lithography.[92] Business Insider reports that, among Thiel's inner circle (who know well the billionaire's fondness for Tolkien's works), the fund is nicknamed "the Precious", in reference to the One Ring of Sauron.[93] In addition to Facebook, the Founders Fund made early-stage investments in numerous startups, including Airbnb,[31] Slide.com,[94] LinkedIn,[31] Friendster,[95] RapLeaf, Geni.com, Yammer, Spotify,[31] Practice Fusion, MetaMed, Vator, SpaceX,[31] IronPort, Votizen, Asana, Big Think, CapLinked, Nanotronics Imaging, Powerset (Thiel is on the board of Nanotronics and Powerset[96]), Stripe, Bullish Global (the parent company Block.one had also received investment from Thiel [97]), AltSchool,[98] Trade Republic,[99] PsiQuantum (photonic quantum computing),[100] and Rigetti Computing (superconducting quantum computing).[101] Thiel also backed DeepMind, a UK start-up that was acquired by Google in early 2014 for £400 million.[102] Founders Fund is an important backer of the Berlin-based platform ResearchGate.[103] Since 2012, Founders Fund had been quietly buying bitcoin, with the investment totaling around $20 million" (Bloomberg remarked that, "the investment amounts to a rounding error for Thiel’s firm.").[104] The company sold the majority of its crypto holdings for $1.8 billion in March 2022 (with bitcoin making up two-thirds of its holdings), right before the market crashed.[105] Also in 2017, Thiel was one of the first outside investors in Clearview AI, a facial recognition technology startup that has raised concerns in the tech world and media for its risks of weaponization.[106] In 2024, alongside General Catalyst and Red Cell Partners, the Founders Fund incubated the defense incubator Valinor Enterprises. The co-founders are former Palantir's senior vice president Julie Bush (CEO), Trae Stephens, General Catalyst's Paul Kwan and Red Cell's Grant Verstandig.[107] In 2024, the Founders Fund led a massive US$85 million seed round for the UAE's decentralized, open-source AI platform SentientAGI (Sentient Foundation), which seeks to challenge Perplexity and OpenAI's closed models as well as handle the problem of AI proliferation, which concentrates power in the hands of large players like Google and Amazon.[108][109] In 2024 it also invested in Impulse Space (in-space transportation services),[110] Ramp,[111] Crusoe (AI infrastructure using clean energy).[112] In 2025, the Founders Fund invests in Erebor (a new digital bank which is founded by Palmer Luckey and has quickly reached a US$2 billion valuation),[113] EnduroSat (Bulgarian startup that produces Gen3 satellites at scale),[114] Varda (space medicine and hypersonic testbed startup, founded by the Thiel Fellow Delian Asparouhov, Trae Stephens and Will Bruey, and incubated at the Founders Fund),[115][116] Hadrian Automation.[117] Anduril Industries Main article: Anduril Industries Anduril is a defense hardware startup that was founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey (who is Thiel's mentee), Joe Chen, Trae Stephens, Matt Grimm and Brian Schimpf (the latter three are Palantir and Founders Fund alumni).[118][119] The Founders Fund backed the company since its inception, leading its 2017 seed round. The $1 billion (part of the $2.5 billion Series G funding round) the Founders Fund invested in Anduril in June 2025 was the largest investment in the fund's history.[120][121] In December 2024, it was reported that Palantir and Anduril were forming a consortium of new generation defense companies (which included SpaceX, OpenAI, Scale AI, Saronic Technologies and others) that they would lead in order to challenge the dominance of traditional defense companies.[122] In July 2025, when the Trump administration's budget bill included a provision that required border surveillance towers to be "tested and accepted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to deliver autonomous capabilities", Edith Olmsted of The New Republic made the criticism that the government favoured Peter Thiel's business, as the provision (which only Anduril fulfilled) effectively ruled out Anduril's rivals, namely General Dynamics and the Israeli-based Elbit Systems.[123][124] General Matter Main article: General Matter General Matter emerged from stealth in April 2025, focusing on "production and handling of High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU)."[125] Scott Nolan, who formerly worked for SpaceX, left the Founders Fund to focus on the company and become the CEO, Thiel is also on the company's board of directors, which is noted by the Economist to be a rare occurrence these days.[92] The plant in Paducah, built by General Matter, will be the "first privately developed US uranium enrichment facility".[126] Valar Ventures Further information: Valar Ventures Valar Ventures is an internationally focused venture firm Thiel cofounded with Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald in 2010.[127] Valar's portfolio includes TransferWise (now Wise), reforestation-funding finance platform Treecard, fintech startup Atoa (Wise, Treecard and Atoa are based in London),[128][129][130] Miami-headquartered Novo and Fortú (digital bank which focuses on underbanked Latino and Hispanic communities),[131][132] fintech unicorn Qonto, fintech startup Hero, accounting automation software startup Regate (all three are Paris-based),[133][134][135] Vienna-based crypto unicorn Bitpanda,[136] Lagos- and London-based banking startup Kuda Bank,[137] Indonesian fintech startup Bukuwarung,[138] Nigerian banking platform Maplerad,[139] Mexican banking startup Albo,[140] banking unicorn N26, B2B paytech Mondu, spend management platform Moss, tax filling unicorn Taxfix, instant payment API startup Ivy (N26, Mondu, Moss, Taxfix and Ivy are all Berlin-based; Ivy is founded by the Thiel Fellow Ferdinand Dabitz),[141][142][143][144][145][146] Dubai-based fintech startup Baraka.[147] Valar also invested in New-Zealand based companies including in the software firm Xero,[148] undersea communication company Pacific Fibre[149] and e-reader platform Booktrack.[150] Recent investments include Arkansas-based Panacea Financial (digital fintech for medical practitioners),[151] Riyadh-based SILQ ("largest B2B commerce platform across the Gulf and South Asia", resulted from the recent merger between Bangladesh-based Shop-Up and Saudi-based Sary),[152] Canadian startup Neo (fintech),[153] London-based fertility care startup Gaia.[154] Thiel Capital Main article: Thiel Capital Thiel Capital is a venture capital fund founded by Thiel in 2011 and based in Los Angeles, also referred to as Thiel's family office.[155][156] It provides "strategic and operational support" for many of Peter Thiel's initiatives and ventures.[157] It incubated and launched Founders Fund, Mithril, Valar, the Thiel Fellowship and Breakout Labs, and also sponsors Crescendo Equity Partners.[158][159] The firm's investments include Alloy Therapeutics (with Founders Fund and 8VC),[160] EnClear Therapies (Jason Camm became a board member in 2020),[161] the German unicorn ATAI Life Sciences (found by Thiel's friend, the biotech billionaire Christian Angermayer; Jason Camm also became a director in 2020),[162] Compass Pathways (also partly owned by ATAI),[163] Pilgrim (dual-use biotech startup founded by Thiel Fellow Jake Adler),[164] Hugoboom,[165] Rhea,[166] Bullish Global (Founders Fund and Angermeyer are also investors),[167] FTX (also received investment from Rivendell LLC),[168] QA Wolf,[169] Rollup (software platform to develop complex hardware),[170] Neros (military drone startup found by Thiel Fellow Soren Monroe-Anderson),[171][172] Regent Craft (electric seaglider, invested together with Founders Fund).[173] Thiel Capital is also an investor (including post-IPO financial investment as major backer) of the dual-use German laser communications startup Mynaric. Angermayer also backs Mynaric.[174][175] Hugoboom's app 28 requires users to input the first day of their last period to calculate the menstrual phases. The app's pro-life rhetoric and scientific basis is controversial.[176][177][178][179] Some of the firm's notable (past) employees include former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, American politician and entrepreneur Blake Masters, Kevin Harrington (Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the United States National Security Council) and Michael Kratsios.[180][181][182][183] Quantum-Systems and Stark Thiel Capital's investment in the Gilching-based drone startup Quantum-Systems as well as Thiel's subsequent backing of the Berlin-based attack drone startup Stark are sometimes considered controversial, due to Thiel's politics.[184][185][186] In May 2025, Quantum-Systems became Europe's first dual-use unicorn and third defense unicorn, after fellow Bavarian startup Helsing and the Portuguese Tekever (Thiel has a role in the success of Helsing too and the startup is considered a part of the "Thiel ecosystem", although he does not directly invest in it).[187][188][189][190] Thiel's mentee Moritz Döpfner brokered the deal with Quantum-Systems on Thiel's behalf and sits on its board. His venture fund Doepfner Capital also invests in Stark.[191][192][193][194] Mithril Capital In June 2012, he launched Mithril Capital Management, named after the fictitious metal in The Lord of the Rings, with Jim O'Neill and Ajay Royan. Unlike Clarium Capital, Mithril Capital, a fund with $402 million at the time of launch, targets companies that are beyond the startup stage and ready to scale up.[195][196] Thiel holds shares in the space-based intelligence company BlackSky through Mithril.[197][198] It also invests in Helion Energy.[199] 1517 Fund The 1517 Fund was founded in 2015 by Danielle Strachman and Michael Gibson, who were both in the founding team of the Thiel Fellowship. The fund provides cash grants and investments, aiming at extending the support already granted by the Thiel Fellowship. It targets "dropouts, renegade students, and deep tech scientists". Peter Thiel backs the fund.[200][201][202] Its portfolio companies include Luminar Technologies, Loom, Inc., Atom Computing and Durin Mining Technologies among others.[203][204] America's Frontier Fund Thiel is the co-founder of America's Frontier Fund, together with Eric Schmidt. The New York Times writes that, America's Frontier Fund is an organization committed to bring manufacturing back to the US, especially that of semiconductors, and the leaders are determined to carry out this mission whether the state helps them or not.[205] InfluenceWatch notes the fund's bipartisan character, with the participation of Ashton B. Carter and H.R. McMaster and the fact that the two founders are left and right-of-center respectively. The chief executive is Gilman Louie.[206] In December 2024, it got approval to get funding from the Small Business Investment Company Critical Technology Initiative (SBICCT), which is "a joint effort by the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Department of Defense."[207] In July 2025, it reportedly raised US$315 million for its first fund.[208] It backs Venus Aerospace, a company develops hypersonic flight using rotating detonation rocket engine (since November 2024) and Foundation Alloy.[209][210][211][212] The fund is characterized by Intelligence Online as "China-sceptic".[213] Rivada Space Networks Around the early 2020s, the Bavarian startup Kleo-Connect successfully developed a highly advanced satellite technology, which is considered much more suitable for governmental and military use than that of Starlink, which was originally conceived for civilian use only. It was feared the technology would fall into the hand of the PLA through its Chinese investors (who invested in the startup since 2018) though. Thus, the German government banned the sale of the company to China, but 144 lawsuits worldwide deterred investors from helping the company to expand the constellation. The founders decided to bring in the US's "highest conservative circles" (which led to the formation of Rivada Space Networks, which drew its personnel mainly from Kleo-Connect, in 2022), among which Karl Rove participated as an investor and lobbyist, and former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo joined the board of the mother company in the US, alongside others like Richard Myers, Jeb Bush, James Loy, Lord Guthrie and the Democrat Martin O'Malley. Rivada Networks's chairman Declan Ganley notes in particular the power of Thiel's name (whose investment in the firm remains undisclosed) in negotiation with investors.[214][215] The United States Department of Defense is also an investor.[216] Newt Gingrich is noted to have lobbied for the firm too.[217] By 2025, the "politically connected company" has already expanded to 33 countries and collected 16 billion dollars in investments, despite having not launched its satellites (deployment is set to begin in 2027 with initial tests set for 2026).[218][219] Thiel reportedly works to help the company's development, especially regarding its legal battles.[220][221][222][223] SNÖ Ventures Thiel is an investor and strategic partner of the Oslo-based SNÖ Ventures, having joined the firm in 2021, accompanied by a group of international strategic advisors.[224][225] In 2024, the fund made its first investment in the defense tech sector, an early funding for the Swedish startup Nordic Air Defence, which developed counter-drone missile technology and is staffed with former employees from Palantir and Quantum Systems.[226] Arctic Today sees this as an evidence of Sweden's strong transatlantic bond which is "seeping into defence", which is also shown in Daniel Ek's Prima Materia's investment in Helsing (which is a strategic partner of Palantir), which happened three months before Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.[227] Elevat3 In 2020, Thiel became a strategic partner and anchor investor of Elevat3, which is set up by Christian Angermayer's Apeiron Investment Group to invest in startups in German-speaking countries. The fund focuses on "life sciences, deep tech, fintech (financial technology), property and insurance". The fund has a partnership with the Founder Fund.[228][229][230] In 2020, Thiel invested into the Neunkirchen-based startup Neodigital through the fund.[228][231] The fund also backs other European startups such as the London-based aggregator startup Olsam.[232] In 2022, through Elevat3 and in partnership with the Founders Fund, the Apeiron Group bought shares from the Chinese Fosun International and others to become a shareholder in the Hamburg-based NAGA Group.[233] Thiel also holds shares in Heidelberger Beteiligungsholding [de] (which will be renamed as SQD.AI Strategies AG), the first dedicated German crypto holding treasury, through the firm.[234] Crescendo Equity Partners Seoul-based Crescendo Equity is a private equity firm which focuses on mid-cap manufacturing and technology companies in Asia.[235][236] According to the official website, "Crescendo was established in 2012 with the sponsorship of Peter Thiel".[237] The fund is co-founded by Peter Thiel, Matt Danzeisen (who serves as a member of its investment committee and representative to selected portfolio companies),[158] Andy Lee (company chairman), Matt Price (CEO) and Slava Zhakov (CTO). The president is Anand Chandrasekaran. General Catalyst is also heavily involved in its financing and organization.[238][239][240] The fund invests in Line Next (a unit of the Line Corporation), a joint venture between Softbank and Naver.[241] The Business Korea credits Crescendo Equity Partners with transforming Korea's HPSP, which it invested in since 2017, into a global player in the semiconductor equipment sector. In 2025, Crescendo initiated the sale of its 40.9% controlling equity stake in the semiconductor firm, often dubbed Korea's ASML. The three major global PEF firms, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), Carlyle, and Blackstone, which are dubbed the "big three buyout funds", have submitted their bids.[238][242][243] The firm also plays an important role in the Korean semiconductor industry through investments and support of other companies like Hanmi Semiconductor [ko], Samyang NCchem [ko].[244] and Movensys (originally known as Soft Servo Group or Soft Motions & Robotics; the name was changed to Movensys in 2021 after Crescendo's investment).[245][246] The firm also invests in companies that make metal equipment, including Seojin System and Model Solution.[247] Pronomos Capital Thiel began to explore investing in charter cities on land after his interest in seasteading faded.[248] Thiel is the anchor backer of Pronomos Capital, a firm "set up like a venture capital fund" that seeks to establish experimental, semi-autonomous cities in vacant lands, with acceptance from the countries involved. The founder of the firm is Patri Friedman.[249] Projects backed by the firm include Próspera in Honduras.[250] The Próspera project attracted companies like Oklo Inc. (nuclear startup backed by Thiel's Mithril[251] and Sam Altman) and biotech startups, but led to legal struggles when the new Honduran government changed the laws in 2022.[248][250] Praxis and controversies in Denmark Praxis is a company that seeks to establish a new city-state and has explored Greenland as a possible location.[252] In 2025, when the Danish government was integrating Palantir into the country's military, police and intelligence services, a major argument put forth by opponents was that the Praxis project (backed by Thiel through Pronomos) was a threat to Greenland. Other arguments were concerned with Thiel's politics in the US and Palantir's association with American and other European intelligence services, as well as the security risk that might arise from handing citizens' data to Palantir. The Danish National Police answered with a reference to a 2021 response to the Folketing, but otherwise, the Police, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service and Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard refused to comment on the matter.[253][254][255] Thiel Bio The firm was found in 2023 by Jason Camm (Chief Medical Officer of Thiel Capital). The regulatory filing does not disclose the name of the single investor who provides US$100 million or Thiel's involvement beyond the use of his name.[256] The fund has invested in Ataraxis AI and EnClear Therapies together with the Founders Fund.[257][258] Reports about investments in October 2025 (infection therapeutics company Peptilogics and cancer treatment startup HistoSonics) confirm that the firm is Thiel's. Hannes Holste from Thiel Capital is a partner.[259][260] Rivendell companies Thiel owns multiple entities named Rivendell, such as Rivendell One LLC, Rivendell 7 and Rivendell 25. Rivendell 7 and Rivendell 25 are personal investment vehicles, which are also used to hold Palantir shares.[261][262][263] ProPublica reports that Thiel’s $1,700 PayPal investment and later investments In Palantir and Facebook through a Roth IRA had grown tax-free to over $5 billion by 2019. The Roth was held in Rivendell Trust since 2018.[264] Thiel bankrolled the satellite imaging startup HySpecIQ, known for serving government agencies but struggling financially, through Rivendell Fund.[265] Rivendell entities are known to participate in his German or Korean investments.[266][267][268] Other business enterprises According to a 2020 article from Bloomberg, Thiel was at the time an investor in funds managed by 8VC and in the bank Disruptive Technology Advisers.[269] A 2017 Globe and mail article names Thiel as a limited partner at Social Capital.[270] He also sponsored Sam Altman's first venture fund, Hydrazine Capital as well as J.D.Vance's Narya Capital.[271][272] He also backs Doepfner Capital, the venture fund of Moritz Döpfner, the son of Mathias Döpfner.[273][274] He funded 90% of Zeev Ventures's first fund and has backed it ever since.[275] The Founders Fund was also a backer of the second fund of the Indonesia-focused Intudo. The involvement helped Intudo to validate its mission.[276][277] Founders Fund is also among the backers of the Israel-based Mensch Capital.[278] Thiel also backs the Singaporean venture investment firm Syfe Group through Valar.[279] The Founders Fund also invested in the Seattle-based private equity fund Privateer Holdings in 2015, thereby becoming the first institutional investor in the cannabis industry.[280] His first investment in a hedge fund managed by an outside manager was made in 2011: the firm was Grandmaster Capital Management, founded by Patrick Wolff, former Clarium and Thiel Macro executive.[281] Also in 2011, he backed the second fund of Joshua Kushner's Thrive Capital.[282][283] In 2019, Thiel, together with Mark Cuban and Marc Andreessen, backed the San Francisco-based crypto investment fund 1Confirmation.[284] Thiel gives backing to Vivek Ramaswamy's financial firm Strive Asset Management, also described as an activist fund. The firm aims to free "corporate America" of what they deem to be "stakeholder capitalism" ESG mandates created by the three companies BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street and accuse them of causing the energy crisis. The firm does not deny climate science.[285][286] In 2021, Thiel backed the first fund of A-Star Partners, founded by Kevin Hartz, former partner at Founders Fund.[287] In 2022, he backed B2B-focused Wischoff Ventures founded by solo GP Nichole Wischoff.[288] Thiel is also a major backer of the venture debt firm Tacora, founded by Keri Findley.[289] Its inaugural fund in 2022 raised US$350 million in total, including US$250 million from Thiel. Bloomberg comments that, "It's an unusually large investment for Thiel, the size of which hasn't been previously reported." Findley was originally an associate of Danzeisen, whom she met because she and Thiel Capital both invested in SoFi. Thiel agreed to fund her after she discussed the idea with him at a casual dinner.[290][291] Alexandra Ulmer and Joseph Tanfani from Reuters remark that Thiel was an instrumental force behind the creation of 1789 Capital, which was co-founded in 2022 by Omeed Malik and Chris Buskirk, a confidant of Thiel's. Blake Masters is also a board member. The fund is intended to create a "parallel economy", a network that combines "businesses, media outlets and political organizations" associated with the America First movement. In 2024, it recruited Donald Trump Jr. as a partner.[292][293] He personally invests in Quora (leading its Series B),[294] Reddit,[295] and nuclear startup Seaborg Technologies (now Saltfoss Energy).[296] AbCellera He served on AbCellera's board from 2020 to 2024, when he resigned for personal reasons. Both sides stated that there was no disagreement, with Thiel saying that he was proud to have helped the company and AbCellera's founder Carl Hansen thanking him for his mentorship.[297] He also retains his stake in the company, as of November 2024.[298] Y Combinator In March 2015, Thiel joined Y Combinator as one of 10 part-time partners.[299] In November 2017, it was reported that Y Combinator had severed its ties with Thiel.[300] Enhanced Games In 2024, Thiel became the lead funder of the Enhanced Games, a proposed multi-sport event that will allow athletes to use performance-enhancing substances without being subject to drug tests.[301][302] The founder is the Australian lawyer Aron D'Souza, who came to know and become Thiel's confidant in the process of leading the Gawker case for him. Angermayer, who was introduced to D'Souza by Thiel, also invested, even though, as per Wired, Thiel and Angermayer were not normally interested in sports.[303][304] The startup agrees to cover legal expenses for any clean athletes who participate in the event and are banned from mainstream competitions as a result.[302] Carbyne In 2018, the Founders Fund invested in the Israeli company Carbyne (emergency service).[305] Leaked emails (released by the hacker group Handala, which "likely operates out of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence", according to Reuters[306]) show that in 2014, Jeffrey Epstein leveraged his relationship with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to get access to Thiel.[305] Epstein arranged for Barak to meet Thiel in New York on June 9, 2014. In 2016, Epstein pitched Reporty (later Carbyne) to Valar, but the proposal got rejected on account of being premature (Epstein invested in total 40 million in Valar in 2015 and 2016).[307]). Valar's McCormack said they would try to reengage when the startup was more developed. In 2018, the Founders Fund joined Carbyne's $15 million Series B.[305] Thiel said that the subsequent interactions with Epstein following their introduction in 2014 were due to the fact Epstein was a "crazed networker". One of the people introduced to Thiel by Epstein was the Russian diplomat Vitaly Churkin.[308] Byline Times suggests that Epstein was one of contact points that Thiel used for his political network in the UK, including with on the Labour Party (UK), although there is no record of Thiel's social visits to Epstein's homes or flights on his jet.[309][310] Documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal in 2023 show that others, there were scheduled meetings (half a dozen between 2014 and 2016) betwwen Thiel and Epstein, including with others such as Woody Allen and Obama's advisor Kathryn Ruemmler. Reid Hoffman, Thiel's friend from the PayPal Mafia and a big Democratic donor was the one who directly introduced Thiel to Epstein (For years Epstein acquaintances had tried to invite Thiel to meet Epstein but were rejected) and also participated.[311] Documents from the US House of Representatives showed Epstein invited him to his private island in 2018. A spokesperson for Thiel said he never visited the island.[312] In 2025, Snopes criticized a claim on the internet that Epstein offered girls to Thiel and others as misleading by omitting context.[313] Journalist[314] Whitney Webb claims Palantir is a CIA front, and links Thiel to the CIA, Mossad, and Epstein's alleged plan for an "Orwellian nightmare." Webb has shared these theories via the Chinese website of MintPress News – known for being part of the "Russian web of disinformation"[315][316][317] – and Trineday, a publisher founded by conspiracy theorist[318] Kris Millegan.[319][320] The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs lists her as a MintPress journalist.[321] Euronews writes that there is no known major financial connection between Thiel and Epstein, but Thiel seemed to treat Epstein as a contact point.[322] The San Francisco Standard comments that around the time, other Israeli officials (acting independently of Barak) tried to build contact with Thiel as well , often aiming at a "lucrative" job at Palantir.[323] Gawker lawsuit Main article: Bollea v. Gawker In May 2016, Thiel confirmed in an interview with The New York Times that he had paid $10 million in legal expenses to finance several lawsuits brought by others, including a lawsuit by Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) against Gawker Media for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and infringement of personality rights after Gawker made sections of a sex tape involving Bollea public.[324] The jury awarded Bollea $140 million, and Gawker announced it was permanently closing due to the lawsuit in August 2016.[325] Thiel referred to his financial support of Bollea's case as one of the "greater philanthropic things that I've done."[326] Thiel said he was motivated to sue Gawker after they published a 2007 article publicly outing him, headlined "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people." Thiel stated that Gawker articles about others, including his friends, had "ruined people's lives for no reason," and said, "It's less about revenge and more about specific deterrence."[326] In response to criticism that his funding of lawsuits against Gawker could restrict the freedom of the press, Thiel cited his donations to the Committee to Protect Journalists and stated, "I refuse to believe that journalism means massive privacy violations. I think much more highly of journalists than that. It's precisely because I respect journalists that I do not believe they are endangered by fighting back against Gawker."[326] Owen Thomas, the author of the Gawker article, stated that he did not think it was an outing in the conventional sense, as Thiel had been open about his homosexuality, but the "strangely conservative" Silicon Valley had refused to talk about it. Thiel said that the problem was less about the outing itself, but the troubles it caused with regard to his business in Saudi Arabia and his parents.[327] On 15 August 2016, Thiel published an opinion piece in The New York Times in which he argued that his defense of online privacy went beyond Gawker.[328] He highlighted his support for the Intimate Privacy Protection Act and said that athletes and business executives have the right to stay in the closet as long as they want to.[328] In an open letter to Thiel after losing the case, Gawker's Nick Denton accused Thiel of making them "stripped naked", together with the warning "in the next phase, you too will be subject to a dose of transparency. However philanthropic your intention, and careful the planning, the details of your involvement will be gruesome."[329] Later though, in 2025, Denton said that Thiel was right and did him a favor in forcing the sale of Gawker Media.[330] Views and political activities Peter Thiel and David Graeber discussing technology, democracy and the future in 2014[331] Philosophical views Thiel is described by different authors and media sources in different ways.[332][333][334] He identifies as a libertarian.[335] He has been called an Ayn Rand libertarian,[336] plutocratic reactionary,[337] militarist techno-libertarian,[338] and libertarian authoritarian.[339] His attitude towards democracy has been described as democracy-skeptic,[16] partly antidemocratic,[340] or post-democratic.[341] French economist Yann Algan links Peter Thiel and Elon Musk to the concept of "liquid democracy" and the rise of libertarian AI governance, which Algan defines as "a radically decentralized, algorithm-driven democracy", which "prioritizes efficiency and individual freedom over democratic safeguards".[342] Thiel's biographer Max Chafkin notes that his thinking is a mix of libertarianism and authoritarianism, but describes what Thiel truly believes and wants as a mystery.[343] Thiel describes himself as a political atheist.[331] He opines that trying to radically alter the current U.S. government is unrealistic. He also suggests that Curtis Yarvin methods will lead to Xi's China or Putin's Russia.[344] He does not deny the value of statemanship though,[345][N 5] but opines that "people should spend less time trying to change the system than simply creating things outside it".[331] Journalist Murad Ahmed from Financial Times calls Thiel "philosopher king at the very top of Silicon Valley" (with France 24 using a similar description).[347][348] German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk also remarks: "Peter Thiel can be seen as more of a philosopher king. He acts very coolly and strategically – a dazzling figure, far outside our left-liberal perception patterns",[349] while Ross Douthat from New York Times describes him as "most influential right-wing intellectual of the last 20 years".[350] Commenting on Douthat's description, Luke Munn of the University of Queensland notes that, "Thiel's influence on politics is at once financial, technical and ideological [...] his potent cocktail of networks, money, strategy and support exerts a rightward force on the political landscape."[351] In 2025, the author Ijoma Mangold [de] wrote an article for Die Zeit, describing Thiel's theories as obscure and incoherent at first glance, but often displaying an accurate intuition, while noting that both the man and his ideas "simultaneously fascinates, repels, and outrages."[352] Later the author René Martens wrote on Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, criticizing Mangold and Die Zeit for masking their admiration with pseudo-criticism and called Thiel a disciple of Carl Schmitt.[353] In 2009, The Guardian stated that Thiel was a member of the neoconservative, Reaganite/Thatcherite "TheVanguard.org". The outlet said Thiel believes the Enlightenment led humanity from nature's rule to a world where nature has been conquered, and also noted Thiel's philosophy disregarded art, beauty, love, pleasure, and truth.[333] The Guardian linked Thiel's investment in projects like the Singularity Institute to his belief in life-extension technologies as an escape from humanity's "nasty, brutish, and short" life. It criticized him for seeking to replace the natural world with a virtual one.[333] Vadym Kovalenko notes that during the 90s and 2000s, Silicon Valley followed the spirit of Steve Jobs, who saw technology as art. But later this has translated into Thielism, which emphasizes "truth, the ideal, ontology" and matters like flying to Mars, curing aging and creating a new world over the superficiality. Kovalenko sees Thiel as a humanitarian Über-artist.[354] On the question of exotericism versus esoteticism, Paul Leslie writes that in "The Straussian moment", Thiel tries to "weave together Schmitt's political theology—with its emphasis on the friend/enemy distinction—and Strauss's advocacy for esoteric wisdom and hidden hierarchies."[355] In the article "Exotericism and the Untroubled Race for the Future", Thiel discerns between ancient esotericism, in which "thrice-great Hermes revealed his magical recipes only to a few" and "modern esotericism of grantwriting". He remarks, though, that exotericism takes time, and Goethe was "perhaps [...] the last human being to command the sum total of human knowledge."[356] Writing for the Quarterly Journal of Speech in 2024, James Rushing Daniel wrote that:[357] (...) "a rhetor ambitiously capitalizing on the material crises and political disillusionment of the day, defending a "cultural revolution" to put an end not just to the progressivism of the long 1990s but the values of collectivism and social justice and the remnants of social democracy and the Keynesian welfare state, replacing them with Randian individualism and the absolute dominance of the capitalist project."[357] According to Daniel, Thiel has financially supported the intellectual wing of "the reactionary, traditionalist turn of conservative politics" termed by some as "the New Right".[357] The Nation notes that he advocates "for a dramatic, right-wing political turn to address technological stagnation".[337] Nick Land attributed Thiel's 2009 essay "The Education of a Libertarian" and statement that "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" as a watershed moment in the development of the Dark Enlightenment movement.[357] Patrick Zarrelli argues the quote is misread as anti-democratic, when Thiel's real concern is that mass democracy could erode the freedoms essential for innovation, but notes that Thiel underestimates the limits of technocracy like lack of democratic accountability. Zarelli remarks that Thiel has partially realized his philosophy: "By aligning technology with national priorities like defense modernization, pandemic response, and intelligence fusion. He has built parallel governance inside the state itself.", and notes that critics call Thiel a "shadow oligarch". Zarelli opines that a solution might be a hybrid form between technocracy and democracy.[358] Italian professor Giuliano da Empoli opines that Thiel represents the alliance between the post-modern Silicon Valley and the archaic Trump, that threatens democracy. The author recognizes that the Silicon Valley actors are gifted and have the means to govern more efficiently than democratic institutions in some respects. He argues that humanity must not respond to post-modern tech leaders like the Aztecs did to the conquistadors, but must instead make deliberate choices about which areas should still prioritize democratic decision-making, even at the risk of less efficient outcomes. In his book L'Empire de l'ombre, Da Empoli echoes the sentiment of Thiel's quote, "Darker questions still emerge in these dusky final weeks of our interregnum," interpreting the "apocalypse" not as the end of the world, but as a sudden unveiling of forces that had long been taking shape beneath the surface.[359][360][361] Blue Labour founder Maurice Glasman (who first met Thiel at Oxford, where Glasman rebuked Thiel's description of the British Empire as the Antichrist) denounces Thiel's view on democracy but defends leftist politicians' interaction with Thiel, saying that parties which have no place in the AI conversation will be out of the game very fast.[362] Danish politician Christopher Arzrouni [da] dismisses Dagbladet Information's description of Thiel as a Prussian warhorse (preussisk kamphest) or a bigot tech prince who would bring the end of democracy or the world, calling him "a smart European who finds better opportunities in the U.S.", and criticizes European intellectuals' fear of new technology.[363][364] Jacob Silverman noted that Thiel's actual political work drifted away from libertarianism, but it remained his intellectual guiding star.[365] Jack Nicastro of Reason notes that Thiel's solution for "the dangers of government overreach and a one-world state" is "surprisingly libertarian".[366] George A. Dunn believes that Thiel is the pathbreaker in connecting the thoughts of Girard and Strauss to debates on the origins of modernity.[367] Political views Part of a series on Libertarianism in the United States Schools Principles History Issues Intellectuals Politicians Commentators Activists Literature Parties Organizations Symbols Movements Related  Libertarianism portal  United States portal vte Thiel is a self-described conservative libertarian.[368] Since the late 2010s, he has espoused support for national conservatism,[369] and criticized economically liberal attitudes towards free trade[370] and Big Tech.[369] Thiel advocates that companies should avoid competition and attention, and try to develop into monopolies by creating something new, dominate a niche market before expanding into slightly broader markets. He notes that years or even decades of profits can come from such specific markets.[371] In The Straussian Moment, Thiel notes that, "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women – two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians – have rendered the notion of 'capitalist democracy' into an oxymoron." After the statement caused controversies, he replied that, he had made a "commonplace statistical observation about voting patterns that is often called the gender gap", and that women's right to vote was not under siege nor would taking it away solve any problem, but people should focus on projects outside of voting and politics.[335] Adam Rogers contends that this essay has prefigured the Department of Government Efficiency project.[372] In the 2025 Douthat interview, Thiel stated that, "Reagan was consumer capitalism, which is oxymoronic. You don't save money as a capitalist; you borrow money. And Obama was low-tax socialism – just as oxymoronic as the consumerist capitalism of Reagan."[350] In 2021, Thiel wrote an article for Die Welt, claiming that the extreme political experiments of fascism and communism in the 20th century had led Germany to fear extremism in both politics and technology. However, as "the decisive arena for the future of the West", being the land of poets and thinkers would not be enough for Germany in the new era. He criticized "green quietism" and opined that new ideas could be dangerous but would be the source of growth.[373] In a 2015 conversation with Tyler Cowen, Thiel claimed that innovative breakthroughs were happening in computing/IT and not the physical world. He lamented the lack of progress in space travel, high-speed transit, and medical devices. As a cause for the discrepancy, he said: "I would say that we lived in a world in which bits were unregulated and atoms were regulated."[374] On international relations The Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures are backers of the Hill & Valley Forum, a group that is described by the Wall Street Journal as an anti-China alliance between Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill.[375][376] In an article named Silicon soldiers of fortune, the China Daily, the channel of the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party,[377] identifies Thiel, Palmer Luckey and Jacob Helberg as tech hawks who are increasingly shaping the US policy towards China.[378] The Xinhua News Agency, China's official state news agency,[379] states that Palantir and its leaders like Thiel and Vice President Wendy R. Anderson as well as other companies like Anduril and Saronic Technologies, as representatives of "the new military industrial complex", are an unpredictable danger to the US and the international community.[380] The tech-focused outlet 36Kr though praises his long-term vision and methods in breaking down the traditional barriers in the US military-industrial complex and government sector, and his contribution to leading startups like Palantir, Anduril and SpaceX.[381] The Brazilian newspaper Brasil de Fato (described by The New York Times as part of a "global web of Chinese propaganda"[382]) portrays Thiel as "the brightest anti-communist in the US", part of the anti-China brigade, "the leader of the tech-based section of the military-industrial complex" as well as "the most geo-politically strategic tech billionaire" and "the most dangerous non-state figure in the world today". According to Brasil de Fato, among all the capitalists, Thiel has the strongest grip on the National Security Council.[383] In 2019, Thiel called Google "seemingly treasonous" and urged a government investigation, citing Google's work with China and asking whether DeepMind or Google's senior management had been "infiltrated" by foreign intelligence agencies.[384] In 2025, Thiel called for a drastic reset in economic relations with China, stressing that economic relations should be viewed from a geopolitical standpoint as well.[385] In an discussion with Peter Robinson, he opined that the US should not let itself be stuck between two extreme views about China (that China itself encourages to promote an attitude of political inaction towards them): "It's China is super weak, and China is super strong. And I've been in meetings in China where in some sense you got both messages within 20 minutes of one another, and it's like logically inconsistent but psychologically it doubles up."[386] In 2024, Palantir became a strategic partner of Israel in military technology in an occasion both Thiel and Karp visited the country.[387] In a 2024 interview with Bari Weiss, Thiel advocated cooperation with Israel to deter Iran from getting nuclear weapons: One of the lessons I take of the mid-20th century was every time a country got a nuclear weapon, we got a regional war. The Soviet Union gets the bomb in 1949. The Korean War starts in 1950 because when the Soviet Union backs North Korea, we can't bomb Russia. Then they can back North Korea with impunity, and we get a massive, massive regional war. That's, in a way, the price for being asleep at the switch and letting the Soviets get the bomb. 1964, Communist China gets the bomb. Vietnam War explodes in 1965. And again, China can back North Vietnam with impunity. We can't reciprocate. And the way I understand why would an Iranian nuclear bomb be a catastrophe? Because the degree to which Iran can support this plethora of bad actors, the Houthis, the Hamas people, and Hezbollah, and on and on throughout the Middle East, you could not retaliate against Iran [...] And so we don't have to go to the crazy theocracy that said they'd use the bomb and would use it.[388] Regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, he opined that "the relentless NATO expansion might not have been a good idea", but the US could not simply retreat from Ukraine, because it would become a rout.[388] In 2025, writing for the Singapore-based think tank ThinkChina, Artyom Lukin, a leading Russian expert on Asia-Pacific geopolitical issues,[389] wrote that Thiel, whom Lukin described as "the éminence grise of Trump's own deep state" and "the most anti-China figure in the US top elite", together with his allies, were pushing the American geostrategy towards focusing on China (a country Thiel saw as "a half fascist, half communist gerontocracy" with "a socialism of a nationalistic sort, and [...] extremely racist.") as the paramount threat. Lukin noted that Thiel had little sympathy for Russia, but viewed it as a lesser threat and did not want to push Moscow towards Beijing's arms.[390] According to The Intercept, Thiel is the source of the warrior culture in Silicon Valley, one focused on an arms race with China, although the anti-China sentiment is found on both sides of the political spectrum.[391] Alex Karp notes that Palantir has a warrior culture, which values excellence over money.[392][393] Political activism Part of a series on Conservatism in the United States Schools Principles History Intellectuals Politicians Jurists Commentators Activists AbramoffAgostinelliAndreessenAtwaterBannonBennettBezmenovBozellCohnDansDobsonFalwellFeulnerFlynnGabrielGainesHegsethHorowitzKirk (Charlie)KrikorianKristolLaHayeLindellLindberghLeoMcEnteeMercer (Rebekah)Mercer (Robert)MillerMurdochMusk political viewsO'KeefeParkPhillipsPosobiecPowellRaichikReedRegneryRoberts (Kevin)RoveRufoScaifeSchlafly (Andrew)Schlafly (Phyllis)StoneThielThomas (Ginni)WeyrichWilesWood Literature Parties Think tanks Media Other organizations Movements Related  Conservatism portal  United States portal vte Thiel is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group,[394] a gathering of intellectual figures, political leaders, and business executives,[395] characterized as focused on defense and espionage,[396] as well as Atlanticist and Europhile.[397] Thiel's outsized influence at the gathering has been noted.[398][399] Thiel, together with Auren Hoffman, is also the founder of Dialog, which is often compared to Bilderberg, but focuses more on tech. It does not share the lists of participants but is known to have invited American tech and political leaders, as well as intellectual heavyweights, on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as representatives from Europe and Middle East. Past topics included "AI's energy demands, the future of health care, and political realignments" and "caring for aging parents, love, mental health and the afterlife."[400] Palantir is partner of the World Economic Forum, but Thiel has not gone to the meeting since 2013, because he considers it a place without individuals – there are only representatives of companies, governments and NGOs. He opines that some types of global governance might work, but it is necessary to have dissenting views.[401][402] The Thiel Foundation is a supporter of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which promotes the right of journalists to report the news freely without fear of reprisal.[403] Beginning in 2008, Thiel has donated over $1 million to the CPJ.[404] He is also a supporter of the Human Rights Foundation, which organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum.[405][406] In 2011 he was a featured speaker at the Oslo Freedom Forum, and the Thiel Foundation was one of the event's main sponsors.[406] He also backs the Alliance of Democracies Foundation founded by Anders Fogh Rasmussen.[407] Thiel has supported mostly conservative gay rights causes such as the American Foundation for Equal Rights and GOProud.[408] He invited conservative columnist and friend Ann Coulter to Homocon 2010 as a guest speaker.[409] Coulter later dedicated her 2011 book, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America, to Thiel.[410][411] In 2012, Thiel donated $10,000 to Minnesotans United for All Families, in order to fight Minnesota Amendment 1[412] that proposed to ban marriage between same-sex couples there. In 2009, it was reported that Thiel helped fund James O'Keefe's "Taxpayers Clearing House" video—a satirical look at the Wall Street bailout.[413] O'Keefe went on to produce the ACORN undercover sting videos; Thiel denied involvement in the ACORN sting.[413] In July 2012, Thiel made a $1 million donation to the Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative 501(c)(4) organization, becoming the group's largest contributor.[414] He is a major backer of the conservative Rockbridge Network, which is now an international network with Asian branches.[415] In 2023, Business Insider reported that Thiel became an FBI informant in 2021. Business Insider also noted the fact that politicians sponsored by Thiel, including Vance and Masters, had repeatedly attacked the FBI and its leadership in public.[416][417] According to former FBI agent Jonathan Buma, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and David Sacks have been targets of Russian intelligence. Buma notes that Thiel cooperated with the FBI to identify the foreign espionage network.[418][419][420] He visited president of Argentina and fellow libertarian Javier Milei three times in 2024. The Noticias de América Latina y el Caribe (NODAL) remarks that the cooperation between Thiel and Milei marks the political alignment between Argentina and Washington and Silicon Valley, also through organizations like Endeavor. According to NODAL, the introduction of Argentina into Thiel's network is erasing traditional politics while promoting a tech-based order which increases efficiency but also puts sovereignty at stake.[421][422] Matt Stoller, research director of American Economic Liberties Project, remarks that Thiel is a "really smart nihilist", and notes that his focus is entirely on power. Thiel's biographer Max Chafkin writes that this is a likely explanation for Thiel's activities.[423] In 2017, Thiel reportedly refused the offer to become chairman of the president's intelligence advisory board, despite Trump's urging.[424][425] In the same year, there were reports that he considered becoming U.S. Ambassador to Germany or a bid for governorship of California. At the time, he said that he was not interested in a full-time job in politics.[426][427] In 2024, he said that he had gotten used to tech and a full-time job as a politician would lead to depression.[428][426][429] Support for political candidates Thiel is a member of the Republican Party.[26] He contributes to both Libertarian and Republican candidates and causes. In December 2007, Thiel endorsed Ron Paul for President in the 2008 United States presidential election.[430] After Paul failed to secure the Republican nomination, Thiel contributed to the John McCain campaign.[431] In 2010, Thiel supported Republican Meg Whitman in her unsuccessful bid for the governorship of California. He contributed the maximum allowable $25,900 to the Whitman campaign.[432] In 2012, Thiel, along with Nosek and Scott Banister, put their support behind the Endorse Liberty Super PAC. Collectively they gave $3.9 million to Endorse Liberty, whose purpose was to promote Ron Paul.[433] After Paul again failed to secure the nomination in the 2012 United States presidential election, Thiel contributed to the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan presidential ticket of 2012.[431] Thiel initially supported Carly Fiorina's campaign during the 2016 GOP presidential primary elections.[434] After Fiorina dropped out, Thiel supported Donald Trump and became one of the California delegates for Trump's nomination. He was a headline speaker during the 2016 Republican National Convention, during which he announced that he was proud to be gay, Republican, and American, for which the assembled Republicans cheered.[435][436] On 15 October 2016, Thiel announced a $1.25 million donation in support of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.[437] Thiel stated to The New York Times: "I didn't give him any money for a long time because I didn't think it mattered, and then the campaign asked me to."[438] After Trump's victory, Thiel was named to the executive committee of the president-elect's transition team.[439] In 2017, Gavin Newsom (then lieutenant governor of California), whose campaign and marijuana legalization effort Thiel had supported, noted that Thiel cared deeply about criminal justice reform and had done a lot of behind-the-scene good work on marriage equality, which he was also passionate about. Newsom remarked, though, that "None of us are jumping up and down that he's aligned himself with President Donald Trump."[440] By February 2022, Thiel was one of the largest donors to Republican candidates in the 2022 election campaign. By November 2022 he had spent 32 million. He supported 16 senatorial and congressional candidates. Two of said senatorial candidates (Blake Masters (who lost his race) and later U.S. Vice President JD Vance) were also tech investors who had previously worked for Thiel.[441][442] In 2023, Barton Gellman of The Atlantic wrote in an article interviewing Thiel that Thiel "has lost interest in democracy" and that "he wouldn't be giving money to any politician, including Donald Trump, in the next presidential campaign". According to Reuters this occurred after he disagreed with the Republican party's focus on cultural issues.[344][443] In the same Atlantic interview, he stated that the first Trump administration failed even his initial low expectations.[444] In 2024, he described Trump as a clown whom Reid Hoffman's lawsuit turned into a martyr.[445] In 2025, when interviewed by Ross Douthat, Thiel indicated that Trump and the populists were a disruptive factor that would prepare the stage for the process of true rebuilding (in 2023, he also opined that Trump's election would "slash regulations, crush the administrative state – before the country could rebuild"). He stressed that the support of large parts of the Silicon Valley for Trump was not pro-Trump in nature. He stated that disruption did not equal progress, and even his thought of trying to having a conversation with Trump about it (in Trump's first term) later proved "a preposterous fantasy". But he was satisfied about the fact that in the second term, deregulation was happening, for example regarding nuclear energy.[446][444] Thiel has his own political-action committee, Free Forever, which is committed to supporting political candidates who support stricter border control, restrictive immigration policy, funds for veterans, and anti-interventionist foreign policy, among other things.[447][448] According to OpenSecrets, the PAC was active only during the 2020 election cycle and then only in support of Kansas attorney general Kris Kobach's failed U.S. Senate bid. The campaign by Kobach, who lost in the Republican primary, had received almost all of its contributions from Thiel himself.[449][450][451] In 2025, Brendan Glavin, director of insights for OpenSecrets, remarked that Thiel's political donations have "an ideological agenda that's not strictly motivated by financial or business concerns [...] His views are libertarian generally, and he wants to elect people who are like minded."[452] Philanthropy Further information: Thiel Foundation Thiel carries out most of his philanthropic activities through the Thiel Foundation.[453][454] Research Artificial intelligence In 2006, Thiel provided $100,000 of matching funds to back the Singularity Challenge donation drive of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (now known as the Machine Intelligence Research Institute), a nonprofit organization that promotes the development of friendly artificial intelligence.[455] He provided half of the $400,000 matching funds for the 2007 donation drive, and as of 2013 the Thiel Foundation had donated over $1 million to the institute.[455] Additionally, he has spoken at multiple Singularity Summits.[456][457][458] At the 2009 Singularity Summit, he said his greatest concern is the technological singularity not arriving soon enough.[457] In December 2015, OpenAI, a nonprofit company aimed at the safe development of artificial general intelligence, announced that Thiel was one of its financial backers.[459] Life extension In September 2006, Thiel announced that he would donate $3.5 million to foster anti-aging research through the non-profit Methuselah Mouse Prize foundation.[460][461] He gave the following reasons for his pledge: "Rapid advances in biological science foretell of a treasure trove of discoveries this century, including dramatically improved health and longevity for all. I'm backing Dr. [Aubrey] de Grey, because I believe that his revolutionary approach to aging research will accelerate this process, allowing many people alive today to enjoy radically longer and healthier lives for themselves and their loved ones." As of February 2017, he had donated over $7 million to the foundation.[462] When asked "What is the biggest achievement that you haven't achieved yet?" by the moderator of a discussion panel at the Venture Alpha West 2014 conference, Thiel said he wants to make progress in anti-aging research.[463] Thiel also said that he is registered to be cryonically preserved, meaning that he would be subject to low-temperature preservation in case of his legal death in hopes that he might be successfully revived by future medical technology, and is signed up with the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.[30] Thiel has expressed interest in the science of parabiosis, including young blood transfusion for potential health benefits.[444][464] He said in a 2016 Inc. interview that the technology had been found to work on mice before being strangely dropped after the 1950s.[465] The same Inc. article reported that the Thiel Capital medical director Jason Camm had contacted the transfusion startup Ambrosia,[465] but its founder Jesse Karmazin told TechCrunch in a 2017 article that they had never been contacted by Thiel or Thiel Capital.[466] In a 2022 Jacobin article, Ben Burgis characterizes the blood transfusion story as part of a deliberate attempt by Thiel to portray himself as an "evil genius".[467] Seasteading On 15 April 2008, Thiel pledged $500,000 to the newly created non-profit Seasteading Institute,[468] directed by Patri Friedman, whose mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems."[469][470] At one of the institute's conferences, he described seasteading as "one of the few technological frontiers that has the promise to create a new space for human freedom."[471] In 2011, Thiel gave $1.25 million to the Seasteading Institute,[472][473] but resigned from its board the same year.[474] In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, Thiel said seasteads are "not quite feasible from an engineering perspective" and "still very far in the future".[438][475] Thiel Fellowship Main article: Thiel Fellowship On 29 September 2010, Thiel created the controversial Thiel Fellowship, which annually offers them a total of $100,000 (raised to $200,000 since 2025[476]) over two years to 20 people under the age of 23 in order to spur them to drop out of college and create their own ventures.[477][478][479] According to Thiel, many young people choose college simply because they're unsure of what else to do with their lives.[30] He envisions a future system that offers different paths for different people, and believes that change in the university system will require external pressure ("Reformation") before any internal willingness to adapt can arise.[480][481][482][483] Breakout Labs In November 2011, the Thiel Foundation announced the creation of Breakout Labs, a grant-making program intended "to fill the funding gap that exists for innovative research outside the confines of an academic institution, large corporation, or government."[484][485] It offers grants of up to $350,000 to science-focused start-ups, "with no strings attached".[486][487] In April 2012, Breakout Labs announced its first set of grantees.[485][488] In total, 12 startups received funding, for a total of $4.5 million in grants.[486] One of the first ventures to receive funding from Breakout Labs was 3Scan, a tissue imaging platform.[487] Breakout Ventures is a privately held venture capital firm founded in 2016 out of Breakout Labs to invest in science.[489][490] Based in San Francisco, California, it invests in early-stage companies in technology, biology, and chemistry focused on human health and sustainability.[491] The program focuses on biotech with a mix of hardware. Its partners include Founders Fund, Formation 8, OATV, Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures among others.[492] Some of its recent investments include Noetik (cancer treatment),[493] Phantom Neuro (neurotechnology).[494][495] Corpernic Catalysts (catalysts for ammonia production),[496][497] EnPlusOne Biosciences (RNA therapeutics),[498] Passkey Therapeutics (synergistic multifunctional therapeutics),[499][500] Cytovale (medical diagnostics).[501][502] Other causes In 2011, Thiel made a NZ$1 million donation to an appeal fund for the casualties of the Christchurch earthquake.[503] In Girard's honour, he has established the Imitatio project (part of the philanthropic Thiel Foundation), which aims to "supports research, education, and publications building on Rene Girard's mimetic theory."[504] Personal life Thiel resided in San Francisco, California, until 2018, when he moved to Los Angeles. He had criticized San Francisco for being "intolerant of conservatives, insular and overpriced".[505] Both Thiel Capital and Thiel Foundation followed him to Los Angeles, but the Founders Fund remains in San Francisco. Mithril's headquarters moved to Austin.[506][18] Thiel married his long-time partner, Matt Danzeisen, in Vienna, Austria, on Thiel's 50th birthday (October 2017), when he was reported to have proposed to Danzeisen.[507][444][508] Danzeisen started his career as an investment banker at Bank of America Securities.[509] By 2007, when the couple were dating, Danzeisen was vice president of BlackRock. By 2021, he was chairman of Bridgetown 1 and Bridgetown 2, sponsored by Thiel Capital and Richard Li's Pacific Century Group. Sam Altman also sat on the board.[510][511] Danzeisen also participates in other Thiel enterprises related to the family of Li Ka-shing (father of Richard Li), such as the Malta-based EUM.[512] In 2017 Danzeisen was working as head of private investments at Thiel Capital, with a primary focus on North America and Asia.[513][514] Thiel and Danzeisen have two young daughters, aged five and three as of June 2024, born through a surrogate.[515][516] Adrian Wooldridge from Bloomberg reported in August 2025 that Thiel had four children.[517] In 2023, in an interview with the Atlantic, Thiel noted that Danzeisen had tried to dissuade him from donating money to Republicans.[444] Thiel was in a long-term relationship with model Jeff Thomas until Thomas's suicide in March 2023. Media coverage of Thomas's death drew widespread attention, partly because of Thomas's involvement with Democratic researchers led by David Brock and Jack Bury.[518][519] Puck.news wrote that the anti-Thiel campaign exposed an undercurrent in modern politics in which there is an increasing tendency towards using people's private problems to achieve political goals.[520] Religious views Thiel is a self-described Christian and a promoter of René Girard's Christian anthropology.[521] Girard, a Catholic, explained the role of sacrifice and the scapegoat mechanism in resolving social conflict, which appealed to Thiel as it offered a basis for his Christian faith without the fundamentalism of his parents.[522] Thiel grew up in an evangelical household but, as of 2011, described his religious beliefs as "somewhat heterodox", stating: "I believe Christianity is true but I don't sort of feel a compelling need to convince other people of that."[62] According to Thiel, "Christianity for me is the anti-identity. Your identity is in Christ [...] and it's in that context we can figure out things about the world and truth [...] [Truth] is not a social construct."[523] Thiel has participated in Veritas Forum events with the theologian N. T. Wright discussing religion, politics, and technology.[524][525] Thiel opines that wokeism or "the woke religion" is a type of secular religion, which is "in some ways [...] anti-Christian and some ways [...] hyper-Christian" and fills the void of a weakened Church because people are attached to post-Christian values rather than a "rationalist, atheist" worldview. He notes that wokeism has a concept of the original sin as well as demands confession and repentance, while offering no transcendental values, no forgiveness or chance of redemption through sacrifice.[526][527][528][529] He claims that this strand of thinking, which attacks Christians for not doing enough for victims or the poor, is a continuation of communism and the social gospel, which also inherit some Christian characteristics while being anti-Christian at the same time.[523] Mikhail Minakov writes that "Thiel's conception of will integrates Christian eschatology, Girardian mimetic theory, and Straussian elitism to critique the impotence of liberal democracy while proposing the efficiency of a techno-feudal alternative."[527] Elke Schwarz, a professor of political theory, notes that Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen are the foremost proponents of techno-eschatology, which demonstrates the sacralizing of AI and uses spiritualism to bolster the logic of venture capitalism.[530] Thiel opines that, "Crypto is decentralizing, AI is centralizing. Or, if you want to frame it more ideologically, crypto is libertarian and AI is communist."[531] A topic Thiel is interested in is the Antichrist, Armageddon and Apocalypse, about which he has given talks in multiple events, including a September 2025 series of off-the-record private lectures organized by David Wood's Acts 17 Collective in San Francisco,[532][533][534] which drew a group of protesters.[535] Thiel opines that different people are worried about different apocalyptic threats like environment degradation, nuclear wars or bioweapons. He recognizes these as credible threats, but sees a total one-world government as closer to the Antichrist.[536][537] He sees humanity as facing the double threats of the Antichrist and the Armageddon, which is the collapse of civilization through global warfare. He sees salvation in the figure of the Katechon, a mysterious force that restrains the Antichrist.[538][539] He has referred to individuals, organizations, communism or even anti-tech regulations as precursors of the Antichrist.[539][536][540][534] Different commentators see his Antichrist theory as a narrative to highlight the role of a hero,[533] or a framework to attack political opponents[540] or an attempt to brand himself as tech's free thinker (who has also touched on topics such as the Kennedy assassination, Epstein's crimes or aliens).[534] Kayla Carman from the Russian Strategic Culture Foundation writes that the hero Thiel describes is implied to be Thiel himself, and states that Thiel, "auditioning for a role in a cosmic drama that no one asked him to star in", will never be this savior of civilization he aspires to be and the true Katechon should be "our collective refusal to be restrained" by billionaire philosopher kings.[541] German scholar Adrian Daub, Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Stanford University, describes the lectures as "amateurish talks" and a desperate effort from a man with immense power and full of contradiction to disassociate himself from his own power and even his attempts to be understood.[542] Professor Matthew Avery Sutton, representing the Washington State University, notes that Thiel is sincere in his interest in Christianity and draws from serious sources, but suggests that leaders should stop dressing their political theories in apocalyptic dress, because this will "raise anxieties, delegitimize compromise and insinuate that democratic deliberation is spiritually suspect".[543] Chess Thiel began playing chess at the age of six[31] and was at one time one of the top junior players in the United States.[22][544][545] He holds the title of Life Master,[546][547] but he has not competed since 2003.[26] On 30 November 2016, Thiel made the ceremonial first move in the first tiebreak game of the World Chess Championship 2016 between Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen.[544][548][549] He said that he stopped trying to become better at chess, because once a certain level had been reached, chess created an alternate reality that made him lose sight of the real world.[550] Media appearances Thiel is an occasional commentator on CNBC, having appeared on both Closing Bell with Kelly Evans, and Squawk Box with Becky Quick.[551] He has been interviewed twice by Charlie Rose on PBS.[552] He has also contributed articles to The Wall Street Journal, First Things, Forbes, and Policy Review, a journal formerly published by the Hoover Institution, on whose board he sits. In The Social Network, Thiel was portrayed by Wallace Langham.[553] He described the film as "wrong on many levels".[554] His distaste for the portrayal led to the establishment of the Thiel Fellowship on a whim.[555] Thiel was the inspiration for the Peter Gregory character on HBO's Silicon Valley.[556] Thiel said of Gregory, "I liked him [...] I think eccentric is always better than evil".[557] Jonas Lüscher stated in an interview with Basellandschaftliche Zeitung that he based the character Tobias Erkner in his novel Kraft ("Force") on Thiel.[558] After he hired former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz (following scandals that led to Kurz's resignation) for Thiel Capital in 2022, Jan Böhmermann of the ZDF wrote and performed the satirical song Right time to Thiel that portrayed Thiel as a James Bond villain.[559] New Zealand citizenship Thiel was a German citizen by birth and became an American citizen by naturalization.[560] He received New Zealand citizenship in a private ceremony at the New Zealand consulate in Santa Monica, California, in August 2011; his citizenship status was not made public until 2017.[561][562][563] Thiel had visited the country on four occasions prior to his application for citizenship,[564] staying a total of 12 days; the typical residency requirement is 1,350 days in five years.[565] When he applied, Thiel stated he had no intention of living in New Zealand, which is a criterion for citizenship.[566] Then-Minister of Internal Affairs Nathan Guy waived those normal requirements, under an "exceptional circumstances" clause of the Citizenship Act.[561][564][566] Thiel's application cited his contribution to the economy—he had founded a venture capital fund in Auckland before applying, and had invested $7 million in two local companies—as well as a $1 million donation to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake appeal fund.[564] Rod Drury, founder of Xero, also provided a formal reference for Thiel's application.[561] Thiel's case was cited by critics as an example of how New Zealand passports can be bought,[564][567] something the New Zealand government denied.[564] At the time that his citizenship was revealed, The New Zealand Herald came out with the report that the New Zealand Defence Force, the Security Intelligence Service, and the Government Communications and Security Bureau have long-standing links with Thiel's Palantir.[565] In 2015, Thiel purchased a 193-hectare (477-acre) estate near Wānaka, which fit the classification of "sensitive land" and required foreign buyers to obtain permission from New Zealand's Overseas Investment Office. Thiel did not require permission, as he was a citizen.[568] Awards and honors In 2006, Thiel won the Herman Lay Award for Entrepreneurship.[569] In 2007, he was honored as a Young Global leader by the World Economic Forum as one of the 250 most distinguished leaders age 40 and under.[570] On 7 November 2009, Thiel was awarded an honorary degree from Guatemalan Universidad Francisco Marroquin.[571] In 2012, Students For Liberty, an organization dedicated to spreading libertarian ideals on college campuses, awarded Thiel its "Alumnus of the Year" award.[572] In 2018, German-American Heritage Foundation and Museum (GAHMUSA) honoured Thiel as Distinguished German-American of the Year.[1] In 2021, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) gave him the Frank Schirrmacher prize, which typically honors intellectuals and artists for "outstanding achievements in understanding our current events." The awarding caused some controversies. The Frank Schirrmacher Foundation stated that, "By awarding Thiel the prize, his comprehensive work in analyzing the opportunities and risks of technological progress will be honored [...] disregarding prohibitions on thinking, he provides intellectual impulses and thus enriches the current socio-political discussions in a wide variety of fields."[573] Works The Diversity Myth In 1995, the Independent Institute published The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford, which Thiel co-authored along with fellow tech entrepreneur David O. Sacks, and with a foreword by the late Emory University historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.[574] The book is critical of political correctness and multiculturalism in higher education and alleges that it has diluted academic rigor. The authors also argue that, " You don't have diversity when you gather people who look different but talk and think alike."[575][N 6] Thiel and Sacks's writings drew criticism from then-Stanford Provost Condoleezza Rice and then-Stanford President Gerhard Casper in describing Thiel and Sacks's view of Stanford as "a cartoon, not a description of our freshman curriculum",[577] and their commentary as "demagoguery, pure and simple".[578] In 2016, Thiel apologized for two statements involving the rape crisis movement and date rape that he made in the book.[579] Zero to One In spring 2012, Thiel taught the class CS 183: Startup at Stanford University.[580] Notes for the course, taken by student Blake Masters, led to a book titled Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Thiel and Masters, which was released in September 2014.[581][582][583] Derek Thompson, writing for The Atlantic, stated Zero to One "might be the best business book I've read". He described it as a "self-help book for entrepreneurs, bursting with bromides" but also as a "lucid and profound articulation of capitalism and success in the 21st century economy."[584] "The Straussian Moment" "The Straussian Moment" is an essay written by Thiel in 2004, sometimes considered to be a fundamental text in his political thinking and was the subject of a 2019 interview at the Hoover Institution. The essay draws on several thinkers and political theorists and argues that the September 11 attacks upset "the entire political and military framework of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries", and therefore "a reexamination of the foundations of modern politics" was needed.[5] Others One of Thiel's favorite books is The Sovereign Individual, which was a little-known work before he helped to popularize it.[585] He wrote the preface for the reprinted edition.[586] Thiel also has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss's self-help book Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers.

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