Peter Thiel

Peter Andreas Thiel (born 1967 in Frankfurt ) is an American investor German origin. He is a partner of the venture capital firm Founders Fund in San Francisco.

Life

Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main. When he was one year old, his parents emigrated to the United States. He studied philosophy and law at Stanford University.

1998 Thiel learned the computer scientist Max Levchin know. He invested 280,000 dollars in the Startup PayPal and became CEO of the company. 2002 brought Thiel PayPal on the stock market. With the proceeds of $ 55 million from the acquisition of PayPal by eBay in the same year founded Thiel Clarium Capital Management, a global macro fund. This hedge fund managed early 2007, approximately U.S. $ 2.1 billion. In June 2004, Thiel, was the first investor with a loan of $ 500,000 at Facebook one. He later converted it to 7% stake in Facebook. In Facebook IPO in May 2012, Thiel sold 16.8 million Facebook shares worth 640 million U.S. $. After the end of the holding period for investors on 16 August he sold a further 20 million shares for approximately $ 400 million.

Besides his work as a financial manager Thiel dedicated varied. So he financed a so-called " Executive Producer", the satirical comedy film Thank You for Smoking. He supported the work of Aubrey de Grey to overcome the aging process in humans with several million U.S. dollars. In addition, Thiel specifically promotes young entrepreneurs in the technology sector. In 2011, for example, he awarded scholarships to 20 students in the U.S. each worth U.S. $ 100,000.

Also, as a chess player Thiel was very successful, but no more tournament games are listed since the end of July 2003. With the current Elo rating of 2199, however, he is still one of the thousand best chess players in the United States. His written with Garry Kasparov and Max Levchin book The Blueprint diagnosed stagnation of technological progress and calls for more extensive investment in research and development to increase global welfare.

His political orientation has signed off while studying, in 1987 he founded the libertarian, weekly campus newspaper The Stanford Review. Already in the 2008 election campaign, he supported Ron Paul, a proponent of the Austrian School, for the nomination for the Republican presidential candidate. In the presidential election campaign in 2012, he was the largest single donor of Paul, he donated $ 2.6 million in Paul's Super PAC and the Tea Party movement received money from him.

Thiel is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Conference.

• The Blueprint: Reviving Innovation, Rediscovering Risk, and Rescuing the Free Market ( with Garry Kasparov and Max Levchin ). W. W. Norton & Company, in 2012. ISBN 0,393,081,478th