Peter Thiel

Infobox Person
name = Peter Thiel

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birth_date = 1967
birth_place = Frankfurt am Main, Germany
occupation =
networth =
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children =
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Peter Andreas Thiel (born 1967) is an American entrepreneur,
hedge fund manager, and venture capitalist. With Max Levchin, Thiel co-founded PayPal and was its CEO. He currently serves as president of Clarium Capital Management LLC, a global macro hedge fund with more than $6 billion under management, and a managing partner in The Founders Fund, a $275 million under management venture capital fund he launched with Ken Howery and Luke Nosek in 2005. He was an early investor in Facebook, the popular social-networking site, and sits on the company’s Board of Directors.

Thiel was ranked #377 on the Forbes 400, with a net worth of $1.3 billion. [http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/54/400list08_Peter-Thiel_J5T8.html]

Biography

Born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and raised in Foster City, California, Thiel studied 20th century philosophy as an undergraduate at Stanford University. An avowed libertarian, he founded The Stanford Review, now the university's main conservative/libertarian newspaper.

After earning his J.D. from Stanford in 1992, Thiel clerked for Judge J.L. Edmondson of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, practiced law and later traded derivatives. He eventually founded Thiel Capital Management, a multistrategy fund, in 1996. After co-founding PayPal, Thiel took the company public on Feb. 15, 2002, and sold it to eBay for USD 1.5
billion later that year. [Cite web
title = eBay picks up PayPal for $1.5 billion
CNET News.com
accessdate = 2008-01-24
url = http://www.news.com/2100-1017-941964.html
archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5ZJ3x0dGI
archivedate = 2008-07-14
quote = On Monday, eBay said it is acquiring online payments company PayPal in a deal valued at $1.5 billion. [...] ] His 3.7 percent stake in PayPal was worth approximately $55 million at the time of the acquisition. [Cite web
title = SEC Info - Ebay Inc - S-4 - On 8/6/02
accessdate = 2008-01-24
url = http://www.secinfo.com/dr6nd.33fd.htm
archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5aLa2AuUR
archivedate = 2008-08-26 ] Immediately after the sale, Thiel relaunched his fund with a new name, Clarium, pursuing a global macro strategy. In 2005, Clarium was honored as global macro fund of the year by both MarHedge and Absolute Return, two trade magazines. Thiel’s approach to investing became the subject of a chapter in Steve Drobny’s book, "Inside the House of Money".

In addition to Facebook, Thiel has made early-stage investments in several startups, including Slide, LinkedIn, Friendster, Vator, Palantir Technologies, Joyent and IronPort. Slide, LinkedIn, and IronPort were each founded by colleagues of Thiel’s from PayPal. Fortune magazine reports that PayPal alumni have founded or invested in dozens of startups with an aggregate value, according to Thiel, of around $30 billion.Cite web
title = The PayPal mafia - Nov. 14, 2007
accessdate = 2008-01-24
url = http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/13/magazines/fortune/paypal_mafia.fortune/index.htm
archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5aLZvKSWi
archivedate = 2008-08-26 ]

Thiel’s cultural pursuits have recently included executive producing “Thank You for Smoking,” a feature film based on the
Christopher Buckley novel of the same name. He is a chess master. He is also the co-author (with David O. Sacks, who produced "TYFS") of the book, "", and has contributed articles to "The Wall Street Journal", "First Things", "Forbes", and "Policy Review", the journal of The Hoover Institution (on whose board he sits). In 2006, he won the Herman Lay Award for Entrepreneurship. [Cite web
title = The Association of Private Enterprise Education
accessdate = 2008-01-24
url = http://www.apee.org/award-lay.html
archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5aLaFTFDk
archivedate = 2008-08-26 ] 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.Fact|date=January 2008

Facebook

In late 2004, Peter Thiel made a $500,000 angel investment in Facebook.

Philanthropy

In February 2006 Thiel provided $100,000 of matching funds to back the Singularity Challenge donation drive of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Additionally he joined the Institute's advisory board and participated in the May 2006 Singularity Summit at Stanford.

In September 2006 Thiel announced that he would donate $3.5 million to foster anti-aging research through the Methuselah Mouse Prize foundation. [Cite web
title = The Mprize-PayPal Founder pledges $3.5 Million to antiaging research
accessdate = 2008-01-24
url = http://www.mprize.org/index.php?pagename=newsdetaildisplay&ID=0107
archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5aLaLUBuY
archivedate = 2008-08-26 ] 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. 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."

In May 2007 Thiel provided half of the $400,000 matching funds for the annual Singularity Challenge donation drive.

On April 15th, 2008, Thiel pledged $500,000 to the new Seasteading Institute, whose mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems"Cite web
title = Introducing The Seasteading Institute
accessdate = 2008-04-16
url = http://seasteading.org/stay-in-touch/press-releases/introducing-the-seasteading-institute
archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5aLaQdMrS
archivedate = 2008-08-26 ]

Politics

In December 2007, he endorsed Ron Paul for President. [Cite web
title = Endorsements » Blog Archive » Peter Thiel
accessdate = 2008-01-24
url = http://people.ronpaul2008.com/endorsements/2007/12/22/peter-thiel/
archiveurl =
archivedate = ] On April 15, 2008, he contributed $100,000 to American Solutions for Winning the Future, Newt Gingrich's conservative 527 group. [cite web
title=IRS Form 8872 Monthly Report for American Solutions for Winning the Future
accessdate = 2008-06-17
url=http://forms.irs.gov/politicalOrgsSearch/search/Print.action?formId=30129&formType=E72
archiveurl = http://www.webcitation.org/5aLaZbdlW
archivedate = 2008-08-26 ]

References

Further reading

*cite book
last = Drobny
first = Steven
authorlink = Steven Drobny
title = Inside the House of Money
publisher = Wiley
date = 2006
location = "The Dot-Commer"
url = http://www.amazon.com/dp/0471794473/
id = ISBN 0-471-79447-3

External links

* [http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail380.html Virtual Money] on ITConversations.com - November 2004
* [http://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities/peter-thiel.html Peter Thiel - Friend of Liberty] from the Advocates for Self-Government website
* [http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterthiel Peter Thiel's LinkedIn profile]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook With friends like these...] Article from the Guardian newspaper profiling Thiel and other investors in Facebook
* [http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people/Peter-Thiel/ Peter Thiel profile on Accelerating Future] video, audio and gallery
* [http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/14801241.html The Optimistic Thought Experiment] essay by Peter Thiel published in Policy Review
* [http://forex.mathonline.info/?p=11 Several words about Peter] Peter Thiel - business-angel (RUS)