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HOW HE MADE BILLIONS THROUGH
FINANCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HOW HE MADE BILLIONS THROUGH FINANCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HOW HE MADE BILLIONS THROUGH FINANCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Peter Thiel is an American venture capitalist, author, and entrepreneur with a net worth of $3.2 billion, according to Forbes. In 2014, he was included in the Forbes Midas List at No. 4. In 2017, he was featured on the Forbes 400 list. Thiel co-founded PayPal along with billionaire Elon Musk in 1999. He was the company’s CEO until its acquisition by eBay in 2002. Thiel is the author of “Zero to One” and “The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance on Campus.”
Thiel was born on October 11, 1967 in Frankfurt, Germany. His family later on moved to the United States, but the billionaire entrepreneur ended up spending a part of his childhood in Africa before completely settling down back in the U.S. While his businesses vary and are wide-ranging, Thiel is more popularly known as a technology investor. He first attracted public attention with his innovations and contributions to the field of banking and startup finance.
These days, Thiel has been working on preventing a technology deficit crisis which he believes could bring extreme economic harm to all countries. Part of his efforts to stop this impending disaster is providing funding and recognition to technology concepts that have the potential to solve the issues. Apart from helping these innovators gain proper funding, he also endeavors to push them to hopefully dominate their chosen industries.
His finance background was boosted during his stint at Credit Suisse, where he worked as a derivatives trader. By 1996, Thiel founded Thiel Capital and co-created Confinity in 1998. The following year, Thiel’s Confinity merged with Musk’s X.com and eventually became known as PayPal.
Following the sale of PayPal to eBay, Thiel started a global macro fund company called Clarium Capital. In 2004, he started a data analysis company, called Palantir Technologies, along with Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen, Joe Lonsdale, and Nathan Gettings. This company aims to provide finance companies as well as defense, law enforcement, and intelligence organizations with avenues to assimilate, envision, and investigate worldwide data. This marked also the same year he invested on Facebook and served on the social networking company’s board.
In line with his goal to help promising innovators and entrepreneurs, Thiel co-founded the Founders Fund with Sean Parker, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek. This is a venture capital fund in Silicon Valley that aims to provide venture financing for up and coming founders. Through this company along with his own private investments, Thiel has helped budding entrepreneurs including the creators of LinkedIn, Spotify, Yelp, SpaceX, and RoboteX.
Peter Thiel’s Book, Zero To One — TIP007
Peter Thiel’s Book, Zero To One — TIP007
Peter Thiel’s Book, Zero To One — TIP007
Listen to The Investor’s Podcast’s episode wherein Preston and Stig discusses Peter Thiel’s book, Zero to One. Learn more about his journey to success and his tips and tricks on making it big in business and investing.
Get to listen to more free episodes of The Investor’s Podcast and discover the secrets to success and other books about other Billionaires by subscribing via iTunes, Stitcher, or Soundcloud.
