Peter Theil, a famously successful technology investor, is the founder of PayPal and the first outsider to take a stake of Facebook. He eventually sold PayPal in 2002 to eBay for $1.5 Billion and later sold his 10.2% stake in Facebook for over $1 Billion. Thiel, an outspoken libertarian, earned his undergraduate degree in in Philosophy at Stanford University and followed that up with a Law degree from Stanford Law School.
After practicing law for a short time he worked as a speechwriter for U.S. Education Secretary William Bennet, then went on the become a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse. Eventually he moved to Silicon Valley and became a famously successful technology investor. He is still a technology investor and teaches as an adjunct at Stanford University.
In September of 2019 he was interviewed by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution. The wide ranging discussion was sparked by an essay Thiel published titled “The Straussian Moment”.
It is a fascinating discussion and well worth watching. It can be seen below.
JFB
