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Peter Thiel
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Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thiel (/tiːl/ ⓘ; born 11 October 1967) is a German and American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. According to Forbes, as of May 2025, Thiel's estimated net worth stood at US$20.8 billion, making him the 103rd-richest individual in the world. Thiel has been described as "perhaps America's leading public intellectual today," or "intellectual architect of Silicon Valley's contemporary ethos". Others debate the consistency or morality of his views.
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, before moving back to the US in 1977. 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. 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, co-founded Mithril Capital, was investment committee chair, in 2012, and was a part-time partner at Y Combinator from 2015 to 2017. 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 Hulk Hogan. Gawker had previously outed Thiel as gay.
Peter Andreas Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, then part of West Germany, on 11 October 1967, to Klaus Friedrich Thiel and his wife Susanne Thiel. 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. Klaus worked for various mining companies, which created an itinerant upbringing for Thiel and his younger brother, Patrick Michael Thiel. Thiel and his mother later naturalized as U.S. citizens, whereas his father did not.
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 for two years a German-language school in Swakopmund 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. The German community in Swakopmund was known at the time for its continued glorification of Nazism. 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.
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. Thiel has founded six firms (Palantir Technologies, Valar Ventures, Mithril Capital, Lembas LLC, Rivendell LLC and Arda Capital) with names originating from Tolkien.
Thiel excelled in mathematics and scored first in a California-wide mathematics competition while attending Bowditch Middle School in Foster City. At San Mateo High School, he read Ayn Rand and admired the optimism and anti-communism of then-President Ronald Reagan. He was valedictorian of his graduating class in 1985.
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Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thiel (/tiːl/ ⓘ; born 11 October 1967) is a German and American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. According to Forbes, as of May 2025, Thiel's estimated net worth stood at US$20.8 billion, making him the 103rd-richest individual in the world. Thiel has been described as "perhaps America's leading public intellectual today," or "intellectual architect of Silicon Valley's contemporary ethos". Others debate the consistency or morality of his views.
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, before moving back to the US in 1977. 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. 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, co-founded Mithril Capital, was investment committee chair, in 2012, and was a part-time partner at Y Combinator from 2015 to 2017. 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 Hulk Hogan. Gawker had previously outed Thiel as gay.
Peter Andreas Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, then part of West Germany, on 11 October 1967, to Klaus Friedrich Thiel and his wife Susanne Thiel. 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. Klaus worked for various mining companies, which created an itinerant upbringing for Thiel and his younger brother, Patrick Michael Thiel. Thiel and his mother later naturalized as U.S. citizens, whereas his father did not.
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 for two years a German-language school in Swakopmund 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. The German community in Swakopmund was known at the time for its continued glorification of Nazism. 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.
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. Thiel has founded six firms (Palantir Technologies, Valar Ventures, Mithril Capital, Lembas LLC, Rivendell LLC and Arda Capital) with names originating from Tolkien.
Thiel excelled in mathematics and scored first in a California-wide mathematics competition while attending Bowditch Middle School in Foster City. At San Mateo High School, he read Ayn Rand and admired the optimism and anti-communism of then-President Ronald Reagan. He was valedictorian of his graduating class in 1985.
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