Peter Thiel - Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 
 
 
 
 
 
 American entrepreneur and venture capitalist (born 1967) 
 For the German Olympic skier, see Peter Thiel (cross-country skier) . For the Danish philosopher, author and publisher, see Peter Thielst . 
 

 Peter Thiel Thiel in 2022 Born Peter Andreas Thiel 
 ( 1967-10-11 ) 11 October 1967 (age 58) 
 Frankfurt , West Germany Citizenship 
 Germany

 United States

 New Zealand
 
 Education Stanford University ( BA , JD ) Occupations Businessman
 entrepreneur
 venture capitalist 
 Title 
 President of Clarium Capital 

 Chairman of Palantir 

 Partner in Founders Fund 

 President of Thiel Capital 

 Chairman of Valar Ventures 

 Chair of Mithril Capital 
 
 Political party Republican Spouse 
 Matt Danzeisen   ​ ( m.  2017) ​ 
 Peter Andreas Thiel ( / t iː l /   ⓘ ; born 11 October 1967) is a German and American [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and conservative political activist. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] A co-founder of PayPal (1998), Palantir Technologies (2003), and Founders Fund (2005), he was also the first outside investor in Facebook (2004). [ 8 ] [ 9 ] According to The New York Times , as of December 2025, Thiel's estimated net worth stood at US$27.5 billion, placing him among the 100 richest individuals in the world. [ 10 ] 

 Born in Germany, Thiel was taken to the US by his parents when he was one year old. In 1971, his family moved to South Africa, then South West Africa , [ 11 ] before moving back to the US in 1977. [ 11 ] After graduating from Stanford, Thiel worked as a clerk, a securities lawyer, a speechwriter, and a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse . He founded Thiel Capital Management in 1996 and co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998. He was PayPal's chief executive officer until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

 Thiel then founded Clarium Capital , a global macro hedge fund based in San Francisco. [ 12 ] In 2003, he launched Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company, and has been its chairman since its inception. In August 2004, Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor by acquiring a 10.2% stake in the company for $500,000. In 2005, he launched Founders Fund with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. He co-founded Valar Ventures in 2010, founded Thiel Capital in 2011, co-founded Mithril Capital in 2012, was investment committee chair in 2012, and was a part-time partner at Y Combinator from 2015 to 2017. [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 16 ] He was granted New Zealand citizenship in 2011, which became controversial when made public in 2017. [ 17 ] 

 Thiel has been described as "perhaps America's leading public intellectual today" [ 18 ] or an "intellectual architect of Silicon Valley 's contemporary ethos". [ 19 ] Others debat

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