[Battwenue]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lauriebe...aul-super-pac/

Life and career Born in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, and raised in Foster City, California, Thiel was a US-rated Chess Master and one of the highest ranked under-21 players in the country. He 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. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Stanford in 1989 and acquired a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1992.[5]

Thiel clerked for Judge J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.[citation needed] From 1993 to 1996, he traded derivatives for Credit Suisse Group.[6] He founded Thiel Capital Management, a multistrategy fund, in 1996. After co-founding PayPal, Thiel took the company public on February 15, 2002, and sold it to eBay for $1.5bn later that year.[7] His 3.7 percent stake in PayPal was worth approximately $55M at the time of the acquisition.[8] Immediately after the sale, Thiel launched a global macro hedge fund, 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. Thiel successfully bet that the US dollar would weaken in 2003, and gained significant returns betting that the dollar and energy would rally in 2005. After significant losses starting in 2009, Clarium dropped from $7bn dollars in assets in 2008 to around $350M in 2011.[9]

In 2004, well before the financial crisis of 2007–2010 bore him out in general terms, Thiel spoke of the dot-com bubble of 2000 having migrated, in effect, into a growing bubble in the financial sector. He specified General Electric, with its large financing arm, and WalMart as vulnerable. At the same time, he was "always talking about a real estate bubble." To illustrate, in 2004, he reported having backed away from buying Martha Stewart's Manhattan duplex for $7M in the winter of 2003-2004.[6] While the apartment did sell in 2004 for $6.65M to another buyer, it was on the market but unsold in early 2010 at $15.9M,[10] and later at the reduced price of $13.9M.[11]

In late 2004, Thiel made a $500,000 angel investment in Facebook for 10.2% of the company.[12][3] In addition to Facebook, Thiel has made early-stage investments in numerous startups (personally or through his venture capital fund), including Booktrack, Slide, LinkedIn, Friendster, Rapleaf, Geni.com, Yammer, Yelp, Inc., Powerset, Practice Fusion, Vator, Palantir Technologies, IronPort, and Votizen. Slide, LinkedIn, Yelp, Geni.com, and Yammer were founded by Thiel's former colleagues at PayPal: Slide by Levchin, Linkedin by Reid Hoffman, Yelp by Jeremy Stoppelman, Geni.com, Yammer by David Sacks and Xero by Rod Drury. Fortune magazine reports that PayPal alumni have founded or invested in dozens of startups with an aggregate value of around $30bn. In Silicon Valley circles, Thiel is colloquially referred to as the "Don of the PayPal Mafia", as noted in the Fortune magazine article.[13] Thiel's views on management are highly regarded, especially his famous observation that start-up success is highly correlated with low CEO pay.

Thiel is an occasional commentator on CNBC, having appeared numerous times on both Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo, and Squawk Box with Becky Quick.[14] He has been interviewed twice by Charlie Rose on PBS.[15] In 2006, he won the Herman Lay Award for Entrepreneurship.[16] 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.[17] On November 7, 2009, Thiel was awarded an honorary degree from Universidad Francisco Marroquin[18]

Thiel's cultural pursuits have included executive production of “Thank You for Smoking”, a 2005 feature film based on Christopher Buckley's 1994 novel of the same name. Thiel is the co-author (with David O. Sacks, who produced TYFS) of the 1995 book The Diversity Myth: 'Multiculturalism' and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford, which "drew a sharp rebuttal from then-Stanford Provost (and later President George W. Bush's National Security Advisor) Condoleezza Rice."[3] He has contributed articles to The Wall Street Journal, First Things, Forbes, and Policy Review, the journal published by the Hoover Institution, on whose board he sits.

[edit] PhilanthropyIn 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 as well as at the 2011 Summit held in New York City.

In September 2006, Thiel announced that he would donate $3.5M to foster anti-aging research through the Methuselah Mouse Prize foundation.[19] 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 15, 2008, Thiel pledged $500,000 to the new Seasteading Institute, directed by Patri Friedman, whose mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems".[20] This was followed in February 2010 by a subsequent grant of $250,000, and an additional $100,000 in matching funds.[21]

On September 29, 2010, Thiel said he had created a new fellowship called the Thiel Fellowship, which will award $100,000 each to 20 people under 20 years old,[22] in order to spur them to quit college and create their own ventures.[23]

Thiel is a supporter of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which promotes the right of journalists to report the news freely without fear of reprisal.[24]

[edit] Bilderberg GroupThiel is listed as a member of the Steering Committee of The Bilderberg Group, a controversial group of influential business and government leaders who meet annually behind closed doors under a media blackout to discuss world issues.[25]

[edit] PoliticsIn 2004, it was reported that Thiel, "a libertarian, advise[d] several free-market think tanks, including the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. 'He believes in open markets and that self-interest can be harnessed in useful and productive ways,' sa[id] Sonia Arrison, the institute's director of technology studies."[3]

When asked about his political beliefs in a 2006 United Press International interview, Thiel stated, "Well, I was pretty libertarian when I started [in business]. I'm way libertarian now."[26][27] In December 2007, he endorsed Ron Paul for President.[28]

In a two-part article for the Cato Institute, Thiel wrote: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."[29] Thiel later clarified several of his initial statements in a follow-up essay, stating that, "While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better."[30]

Peter Thiel professes that he is unable to engage in what he terms “unacceptable compromise politics," further spelling out his views in a piece for the Oslo Freedom Forum: "We tend to like a government very much when we believe we’re among its net winners. That makes it very hard to think clearly about whether any of its laws are just or unjust. And because power corrupts, any state unchecked by vigorous public scrutiny and a free press will attempt to become the judge in its own cause and the intermediary of all human interaction."[31]

In 2009, it was reported that Thiel helped fund college student James O'Keefe's "Taxpayers Clearing House" video - a satirical look at the politics behind the Wall Street bailout.[32] O'Keefe went on to produce the ACORN undercover sting videos.[33]

Thiel, who is openly gay, has also supported gay-rights causes such as the American Foundation for Equal Rights and GOProud.[34]

In 2010, Thiel supported Meg Whitman, who as CEO of eBay had purchased PayPal from Thiel and his co-founders and investors, in her unsuccessful bid for the governorship of California. He contributed the maximum allowable $25,900 to the Whitman campaign.[35]

In 2011, Thiel was reported as having given $1.25M to the Seasteading Institute, a group seeking to build sovereign nations on artificial islands in international waters ("seasteading"). He previously gained attention when he gave the group $500,000 in 2008.[36]

In 2012, Thiel, along with PayPal co-founder Luke Nosek and Scott Banister, an early adviser and board member, put their support behind the Endorse Liberty Super PAC, alongside Internet advertising veteran Stephen Oskoui and entrepreneur Jeffrey Harmon, who founded Endorse Liberty in November 2011. Collectively Thiel et al gave $3.9 million to Endorse Liberty, whose purpose was to promote Texas congressman Ron Paul for president in 2012. As of January 31, 2012 (2012 -01-31)[update], Endorse Liberty reported spending about $3.3 million promoting Paul by setting up two YouTube channels, buying ads from Google and Facebook and StumbleUpon, and building a presence on the Web.[37]

[edit] Depictions in mediaIn the film The Social Network, Peter Thiel is played by actor Wallace Langham. The film depicts him making the $500,000 angel investment in Facebook.