Investment fund manager and venture capitalist, ardent defender of cryptocurrencies and chess master in his youth, the figure of Peter Thiel is curious to say the least. He was the first external investor in Facebook, when he saw that it was a gold mine, and his wealth is such that he is estimated to be among the 200 richest men in the world.
He quickly understood the value of money when he founded Thiel Capital Management in 1996. Two years later, he co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998. It was not until March 2000 that Elon Musk enters the scene, merging Confinity, the prototype of Paypal, with X.com, Musk’s online banking company. In any case, he played the role of the most arrogant rooster in the henhouse, serving as interim CEO until the sale in 2002, when eBay pockets it for 1.5 billion dollars.
Who is Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel is a businessman born in Germany in 1967, but raised in the United States. The Thiel family also lived in South Africa, like Elon Musk’s. I was good at math, but Also an avid reader of science fiction and medieval fantasy
As a pro-libertarian, he founded The Stanford Review, known for being one of the most conservative student newspapers of its generation and for criticizing politically correct thinking on campus. And after his years as a lawyer and investor, Thiel found his true calling in technology: to be an “angel” in the development of Silicon Valley.
Because today everyone knows PayPal. PayPal was wildly successful, and that success catapulted him as an investor, creating Clarium Capital. and later founded Palantir Technologies in 2003, a data analytics software company that has played an important role in the government and security industries. His first client was the USIC agency, that’s nothing. but also the CIA, the FBI, the NSA…
His masterstrokes continued in 2005, when he renewed his friendship with Ken Howery and Luke Nosek and launched the Founders Fund, Facebook’s first external investor: acquired 10.2% of the company for $500,000 in August 2004 and sold it in 2012 for $1 billion —and, in addition, he retains a seat as a member of the board of directors—.
The night Steve Jobs stood up to Peter Thiel
Apparently, Thiel has always been an avowed admirer of Steve Jobs. The one who wouldn’t be ashamed to write him letters as a fan. According to rumors, he pursued it for months to be able to enter Apple as an investor. One day, he finally managed to earn a place in his busy schedule. The plan was simple: meet in an affluent restaurant, have dinner and chat quietly.
A student of Peter Thiel tells on Quora that he had the opportunity to attend one of his masterclasses on start-up. It was there that Thiel told a very curious anecdote:
Thiel recounted how they shared a table for dinner on a Saturday night a year or two ago. However, Jobs didn’t interact with him much and left after a few minutessaying he had to go to the office to work. Thiel’s purpose in telling this story was to question whether businessmen would lie to perpetuate a public image. Did Jobs really have so much work that he had to leave dinner early on a Saturday night? Or was Jobs trying to maintain the impression that he was a workaholic, when in reality he was simply bored and uninterested in talking to Thiel?
The reality, it seems, is that Thiel intellectualized a real sit-in. Because Jobs left without dinner and left him speechless.
A controversy that has lasted for years
On the other hand, some voices suggest that Jobs did not sympathize with Thiel’s shark style. His career as venture capitalist did not make him a master of technology, even if has managed to achieve successful investments with companies like SpaceX, Airbnb and Spotifyin addition to being a renowned author of “Zero to One”, the book where he expounds his theories on innovation and business growth.
However, despite his success, Thiel has always been a controversial figure. His support for conservative political causes has fallen like a bucket of cold water on some businesses. His company financed the lawsuit against Gawker. Additionally, in 2016, he was one of the few Silicon Valley executives to publicly support Donald Trump. In fact, he spoke at the party congress. And as the saying goes, it’s best not to transfer what you’re thinking at the dining room table to the work table. It’s one of the maxims of Silicon Valley.
And how is your relationship with Musk? Well, even though they both vote Republican, Max Chafkin in his book “Peter Thiel and His Search for Power in Silicon Valley” stated that Peter Thiel called Elon Musk a ‘fraud,’ while Elon called Peter a ‘psychopath’. They don’t seem like best friends.
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