Peter Thiel
 | |
| Nationality | American, New Zealander |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, venture capitalist |
| Known for | PayPal, Palantir, Founders Fund, Zero to One |
Peter Thiel (born October 11, 1967) is a German-born American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and political donor. He co-founded PayPal and Palantir, was the first outside investor in Facebook, and co-founded the venture firm Founders Fund. He is known for his libertarian and later conservative politics, his book Zero to One (2014), and a 2025 lecture series on the Antichrist.
Career
Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, and grew up partly in the United States. In 1998 he co-founded Confinity with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek; it merged with Elon Musk's X.com in 2000 and became PayPal. In 2004, he became Facebook's first outside investor, paying $500,000 for about a 10% stake.[1] He co-founded the data-analysis company Palantir in 2003 and Founders Fund in 2005. In 2011, he launched the Thiel Fellowship, which pays young people $100,000 to skip or leave college and pursue their own projects.[2]
In 2016, Thiel confirmed that he had secretly funded the wrestler Hulk Hogan's privacy lawsuit against Gawker Media, which won a $140 million verdict and drove the company into bankruptcy.[3]
Politics
In a 2009 essay for the Cato Institute, "The Education of a Libertarian", Thiel wrote: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."[4] He spoke in support of Donald Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and in 2022 gave $15 million to a super PAC backing JD Vance's successful Senate campaign in Ohio.[5] He has been an investor in and supporter of projects associated with Curtis Yarvin, including Urbit.
Zero to One
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (2014), written with Blake Masters, grew out of a course Thiel taught at Stanford in 2012. It argues that real progress comes from creating new things ("going from 0 to 1") rather than copying existing ones, that creative monopolies rather than competition produce lasting value, and that founders should look for "secrets", important truths that few people agree with. An excerpt in The Wall Street Journal ran under the headline "Competition Is for Losers".[6]
Antichrist lectures
In September and October 2025, Thiel gave a sold-out, off-the-record four-part lecture series on the Antichrist at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, organized by the Christian nonprofit Acts 17 Collective.[7] According to reporting on leaked recordings, he argued that the Antichrist would rise by promising "peace and safety" through a world government, and that in the 21st century the Antichrist would be a figure who wants to stop scientific progress. He named advocates of AI restrictions and climate activism, including Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nick Bostrom and Greta Thunberg, as among those arguing for such a world government.[8]
See also
References
- ↑ Fore, Preston (July 1, 2025). "Peter Thiel was Facebook's first outside investor". Fortune. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
- ↑ Lamb, Gregory M. (May 27, 2011). "Peter Thiel gives $100,000 each for 24 youths to skip college". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
- ↑ Sorkin, Andrew Ross (May 25, 2016). "Peter Thiel, tech billionaire, reveals secret war with Gawker". CNBC. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
- ↑ Peter Thiel (April 13, 2009). "The Education of a Libertarian". Cato Unbound. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
- ↑ "JD Vance and Peter Thiel". CBS News. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
- ↑ November 28, 2014. "Peter Thiel's Start-Up Manifesto". Reason. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
- ↑ Smith, Dave (September 2, 2025). "Peter Thiel's Antichrist lectures". Fortune. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
- ↑ Nicastro, Jack (October 14, 2025). "I listened to over 7 hours of Peter Thiel's leaked Antichrist lectures. They're surprisingly libertarian.". Reason. Retrieved November 12, 2026.