Whilst learning philosophy and legislation at Stanford, Thiel based a newspaper referred to as The Stanford Evaluate to take goal on the college’s emphasis on political correctness.
RuslanKaln/Getty Photographs
Thiel was a world-ranked chess participant at a tender age and the sport even impressed a few of his industry methods.
Getty Photographs
Supply: GQ.
Ahead of transferring into the tech sector, Thiel labored as a clerk for an appeals pass judgement on. He had interviews to clerk for US Ideal Courtroom Justice Anthony Kennedy and Justice Antonin Scalia, however wasn’t a hit.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photographs
Supply: Industry Insider
After operating as a securities attorney for seven months, Thiel was a derivatives dealer at Credit score Suisse and made sufficient money to release PayPal with Max Levchin.
MediaNews Workforce/Bay House Information by the use of Getty Photographs
Supply: Insider
The similar yr PayPal used to be based, Thiel coauthored a debatable e-book with David Sachs titled “The Variety Fable” that challenged what he referred to as political correctness in schooling.
Getty / Chip Somodevilla
The “PayPal Mafia,” together with Keith Rabois, Elon Musk, David Sacks, and Reid Hoffman, went directly to change into rich angel buyers.
Corbis/The Telegraph
Thiel’s stake in PayPal netted him about $55 million, which he used to release a hedge fund, Clarium Capital. It misplaced 90% of its property by way of 2011.
Neilson Barnard/Getty Photographs for New York Instances
In 2004, Thiel and Alexander Karp cofounded Palantir, which is able to sift thru footage, movies and different knowledge to stumble on criminal activity. It used to be in keeping with Thiel’s concept of the use of monetary trade fraud-detection device to observe terrorist process.
Scott Olson/Getty Photographs
In 2004 Thiel was the primary outdoor investor in Fb by way of paying $500,000 for a ten% stake and joined the board.
Igor Golovniov/Getty Photographs
Quickly afterwards, Thiel began his VC company, Founders Fund, which targets to handle “regularly tricky clinical or engineering issues.”
John Lamparski/Getty Photographs
Within the 2010 movie about Fb, “The Social Community,” Thiel used to be performed by way of Wallace Langham. Thiel reportedly disliked the portrayal.
Wallace Langham
Supply: Reddit
In 2011, he introduced the Thiel Fellowship, which gave $100,000 and two years of improve to twenty candidates below the age of 20 so they might release their firms.
Thiel Fellowship
Supply: The Thiel Fellowship
He coauthored any other e-book, referred to as “0 to One.” He defined the name by way of pronouncing: “Each time we create one thing new, we pass from 0 to one.”
Amazon
Supply: Insider
His mantra used to be not to replica current concepts. “The following Invoice Gates won’t construct an running machine. The following Larry Web page or Sergey Brin would possibly not make a seek engine. And the following Mark Zuckerberg would possibly not create a social community.”
Taylor Hill/Getty Photographs
Supply: Insider
Thiel wrote in a 2015 Reddit publish that he aimed to are living to be 120 years previous and takes human enlargement hormone day by day. He is additionally expressed hobby in getting blood transfusions from more youthful folks to sluggish getting older.
Scott Olson/Getty Photographs
Supply: Reddit
In 2007, Thiel started a feud with Gawker after it revealed a tale headlined “Peter Thiel is completely homosexual, folks.” He spoke back by way of evaluating the web page to Al-Qaeda “in that it scares everyone.”
Medium
Supply: PE Hub Community