Who should read *The Contrarian*?

This book suits tech industry observers, political analysts, and readers interested in Silicon Valley’s impact on democracy. It offers critical insights for those debating corporate power, libertarianism’s societal risks, and the role of figures like Thiel in shaping modern governance.

Is *The Contrarian* worth reading?

Yes. Chafkin’s rigorously reported biography exposes Thiel’s contradictions and Silicon Valley’s darker ambitions. Reviewers praise its gripping narrative and relevance to understanding tech’s threats to democracy, though some note its chilling portrayal of Thiel’s fear-driven worldview.

What ethical concerns does *The Contrarian* raise about Silicon Valley?

The book critiques how Thiel and peers sidestepped legal/ethical frameworks by framing tech as too complex for regulation. Examples include Palantir’s data-mining contracts and PayPal’s growth-at-all-costs culture, which prioritized disruption over accountability.

How does *The Contrarian* explain Peter Thiel’s support for Donald Trump?

Chafkin links Thiel’s libertarian distrust of government to his 2016 Trump endorsement, viewing it as a tactic to disrupt traditional politics. The book argues Thiel saw Trump as a tool to advance tech’s anti-regulatory agenda, despite ideological mismatches.

What are Peter Thiel’s key philosophies in *The Contrarian*?

Thiel champions monopolies over competition, distrusts democracy, and advocates for tech-driven societal transformation. His “contrarian” strategies—like betting against crowd mentalities—reflect a belief in elite-driven innovation, often at democracy’s expense.

How does *The Contrarian* critique libertarianism?

The book frames libertarianism as a blueprint for Silicon Valley’s power grabs, enabling figures like Thiel to evade oversight. Chafkin highlights how this ideology fuels anti-government rhetoric, tax avoidance schemes, and anti-democratic policy influence.

What role does Palantir play in *The Contrarian*?

Palantir exemplifies Thiel’s blurring of tech and surveillance. Chafkin details its government contracts and ethical controversies, showing how Thiel leveraged data-mining for both profit and political sway.

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Q: What is *The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power* about?

*The Contrarian* explores Peter Thiel’s rise from a socially awkward teenager to a billionaire tech mogul, revealing how his libertarian ideology shaped Silicon Valley’s unchecked power. Max Chafkin traces Thiel’s influence through PayPal, Palantir, and political ventures, arguing that tech leaders like Thiel eroded democratic norms by prioritizing growth over ethics.

Питер Тиль и погоня Кремниевой долины за властью

Макс Чафкин

3.61(2217 Reviews)

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Загляните в загадочный разум Питера Тиля: книга «Контрарианец» (The Contrarian) раскрывает, как этот миллиардер и сторонник Трампа создал PayPal, профинансировал Facebook и обанкротил Gawker. Какая мрачная философия движет самым влиятельным консерватором Кремниевой долины? Ответ заставляет иначе взглянуть на современное понимание власти.

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Глава 1

Silicon Valley's Darkest Knight: The Man Who Shaped Tech's Future

Peter Thiel once told a roomful of Stanford students that if you get one big thing right, nothing else matters. It's a philosophy that has defined his extraordinary career-from co-founding PayPal to making the first outside investment in Facebook to bankrolling Donald Trump when Silicon Valley recoiled in horror. With a net worth of approximately $10 billion (much of it sheltered from taxes through clever financial engineering), Thiel has become perhaps the most influential tech mogul of our time, despite not being the richest. His companies-PayPal and Palantir-revolutionized digital payments and data surveillance respectively, while his "PayPal Mafia" network seeded companies from YouTube to SpaceX, transforming Silicon Valley from a regional business hub into America's economic engine. What makes Thiel particularly fascinating is his contradictory nature: a gay man who funded anti-gay politicians, a libertarian who built surveillance tools for government agencies, and a self-proclaimed contrarian whose most successful investment was a social media platform he personally disdained. As tech's power has grown increasingly unchecked, understanding Thiel-the philosopher king who helped shape its values-has never been more important.

Глава 2

From Outcast to Outsider: The Making of a Contrarian

In the early 1980s, thirteen-year-old Peter Thiel gathered with friends around a kitchen table in Foster City, California, hiding behind three-ring binders as they played Dungeons & Dragons. This scene captures something essential about Thiel-his lifelong attraction to fantasy worlds and alternative realities. Born to German parents who had moved to Cleveland before relocating frequently, Thiel experienced a stern upbringing marked by emotional distance. When he was just three, his father Klaus explained death to him in coldly factual terms, a trauma that would later fuel his obsession with mortality and life extension technologies. The family's time in apartheid South Africa, where Klaus helped build a uranium mine for the country's clandestine nuclear weapons program, exposed young Peter to political systems that exploited racial hierarchies-a formative experience that would later inform his complicated relationship with democratic institutions. By high school, Thiel had developed a chess prodigy's mind and a defensive personality that friends described as saying "Fuck you, world." Despite being voted "Most Likely to Succeed," he remained aloof from his peers, already displaying the outsider mentality that would become his trademark. At Stanford, Thiel approached college with the same intensity he brought to everything, rising early and celebrating his perfect 4.0 GPA with competitive zeal. He spent hours playing blitz chess at the student union, developing a strategy that would serve him throughout his career: move quickly with apparent purpose, even without a clear plan. This projection of confidence despite uncertainty became central to his business approach. His chess style was revealing-he played "by the book" with prepared openings but struggled when opponents made unexpected moves. A telling incident occurred during a chess team road trip when Thiel drove recklessly through California's dangerous Route 17. When pulled over, he calmly informed the officer that "the concept of a speed limit may not make sense" and that it was "definitely an infringement on liberty." After being let off with a warning, he immediately resumed speeding-behaving as if neither legal nor physical laws applied to him. Thiel's most significant undergraduate venture was founding the Stanford Review in 1987, a conservative newspaper that became his platform for fighting what he perceived as Stanford's dangerous multicultural liberalism. This adversarial relationship with elite education would persist throughout his life, with Thiel eventually viewing universities as "corrupt as the Catholic Church 500 years ago"-institutions he sought to either destroy or replace. Through the Review, Thiel began cultivating a network of like-minded conservatives who would later populate his companies and investment firms, creating the first iteration of what would become his powerful "Thielverse."

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Глава 3

The Politics of Provocation: Finding Power Through Confrontation

By his third year at Stanford Law School, Thiel had developed a distinctive approach to building influence: positioning himself as persecuted by a liberal establishment while using provocative tactics to gain attention. The Stanford Review, modeled after Dinesh D'Souza's controversial Dartmouth Review, became his platform for airing grievances against "politically correct" peers. In a regular column called "PC to Employment," he mockingly claimed liberals' job options were limited to "anthropology studies, counting spotted owls, or educating people about how to use condoms." This contradiction-loudly complaining about being silenced-didn't trouble Thiel. For him, these complaints offered a direct path into elite Republican circles. The Review regularly published inflammatory content, including homophobic material, despite several staff members, including Thiel himself, being closeted gay men. In March 1992, Thiel's protege Keith Rabois (also a closeted gay man) shouted homophobic slurs outside a student residence, claiming it was a protest against speech regulations. Days later, the Review published "The Rape Issue," featuring an article by David Sacks defending a student who pled no contest to statutory rape, arguing the perpetrator deserved sympathy because the 17-year-old victim "could have uttered the word 'no.'" The issue included a guide for men to avoid "feminist witch hunts," illustrated with a femininity symbol fused onto a swastika, calling feminists "Feminazis." Despite the publication's inflammatory content, most contributors faced no career consequences-in fact, many would go on to become part of Thiel's business empire. After graduating, Thiel secured a prestigious clerkship with Judge James Larry Edmondson but found his subsequent position at Sullivan & Cromwell deeply disappointing. The corporate law world lacked the ideological battles he'd thrived on at Stanford-there were no liberals to fight, just endless ambitious peers competing in a grinding environment where he felt like "a cog" with "no hope of having any impact." After just seven months, he quit. A subsequent position at Credit Suisse Financial Products proved equally unfulfilling. Socially isolated in New York with minimal dating life, Thiel eventually moved back to California, living briefly with his parents before settling in a "dumpy apartment" in San Mateo, determined to start a hedge fund despite minimal experience. His culture war book "The Diversity Myth," co-authored with David Sacks, generated only brief attention before fading from relevance. By 1998, with the dot-com boom in full swing, Thiel decided to pivot away from hedge fund investing and into the hot tech sector, searching for his opportunity to finally make a mark on the world.

Глава 4

The PayPal Revolution: Building a Financial Insurgency

In the summer of 1998, Thiel met Max Levchin, a brilliant 23-year-old Ukrainian immigrant cryptographer who'd taught himself English watching sitcoms. After a chance meeting at Stanford, Thiel immediately invested $250,000 in Levchin's PalmPilot security concept, which evolved into Confinity. Their product, PayPal, began as a way to beam IOUs between PalmPilots but Thiel envisioned it as something revolutionary-a new currency that could erode nation-states by letting people bypass government-controlled financial systems. Thiel imposed his libertarian philosophy on PayPal, hiring primarily young white male libertarians, including many former Stanford Review staffers. The office resembled "a tech fraternity house" with pizza boxes and Coke cans piled high. PayPal's biggest competitor was X.com, founded by Elon Musk, which operated from the same building. While Thiel was secretive and risk-averse, Musk was combative, uncensored, and perpetually going for broke. Both companies engaged in aggressive growth tactics, offering $10 signup bonuses and referral fees. PayPal tracked its explosive growth with a "World Domination Index" counter that rang a bell with each new signup. By early 2000, PayPal was adding 9,000 users daily through its viral referral program, with Thiel boasting to The Wall Street Journal that it was "spreading as fast as a virus." Despite this growth, PayPal faced a fundamental problem: unlike typical startups that had some revenue alongside losses, PayPal had no revenue whatsoever. The service was free, and the company was bleeding money-paying $100,000 daily in incentives, covering credit card processing fees, and absorbing fraud losses. The faster PayPal grew, the more money it lost. Terrified of losing the business, Thiel asked Reid Hoffman to shop PayPal to potential acquirers. While Verisign and Yahoo! showed interest, Elon Musk swooped in with a merger proposal between PayPal and his X.com. They struck a fifty-fifty merger with X.com as the formal acquirer, retiring the Confinity name. Musk became chair and largest shareholder, appointing himself CEO two months later. The partnership proved personally awkward. Thiel viewed Musk as reckless after witnessing him crash his uninsured McLaren, while Musk saw Thiel as merely a money-focused investor rather than an engineer. As one insider put it: "Musk thinks Peter is a sociopath, and Peter thinks Musk is a fraud and a braggart." The dot-com crash hit in March 2000, just as Thiel and Musk were finalizing their merger. Thiel saw the writing on the wall and disappeared, eventually sending a terse resignation email citing exhaustion. He left Musk to navigate the downturn while he retreated to focus on his hedge fund. Under Musk's leadership, PayPal implemented bank verification through small test deposits but failed to address its fundamental fraud vulnerability. When finance head Roelof Botha examined chargeback rates, he discovered a catastrophic accounting error-PayPal had been calculating fraud instantaneously rather than accounting for the 120-day window customers had to dispute charges. When Musk left on a two-week honeymoon/business trip, Thiel's loyalists seized their opportunity. They gathered at Botha's girlfriend's house and plotted a coup. The group included Hoffman, Sacks, Levchin, and Botha, who called Thiel to confirm he would return as CEO if they ousted Musk. Their plan was simple: threaten mass resignation unless the board replaced Musk. The board voted Musk out, and Thiel spent days calming angry employees, convincing most to stay by refocusing exclusively on PayPal's core business.

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Глава 5

Gray Areas and Golden Opportunities: The Ethics of Success

As Silicon Valley's mythology was being defined by Steve Jobs' countercultural idealism, Thiel represented a sharp departure toward market domination. While Jobs saw technology as expanding human potential (the "bicycle for the mind"), Thiel focused on market power, inspiring companies like Facebook to adopt imperial ambitions. This shift reflected the internet's winner-take-all dynamics, where "blitzscaling" became the strategy-grow ruthlessly, achieve market dominance, then raise prices. Facing the tech crash in late 2000, Thiel needed to reduce PayPal's losses by addressing rampant fraud. Rather than implementing strict identity verification that might hurt growth, Levchin developed the Gausebeck-Levchin Test (later known as captcha) to block automated account creation. Security investigator John Kothanek made a breakthrough by visually mapping fraud networks, discovering a Russian mastermind called "Igor" who had stolen $15-20 million. Levchin's team automated this system, cutting fraud by half and enabling cooperation with the FBI to prosecute offenders. As venture funding dried up, PayPal found profit in online gambling and pornography, areas where banks often refused transactions. By coding transactions simply as "eCommerce" and allowing bank transfers rather than credit cards, PayPal became the payment processor of choice for these industries, charging gambling customers higher fees (4% versus 2%) plus additional reserves for chargebacks. Gambling eventually accounted for 30% of PayPal's profits, creating tension at the office where Thiel and others would avoid mentioning these revenue sources when speaking with the company's religious employees. Despite gambling being illegal in many states, PayPal received subpoenas from New York's attorney general and the U.S. Attorney for Missouri, eventually paying settlements in both cases. The company also faced scrutiny from multiple states for operating as an unlicensed bank. Thiel pushed back against regulatory pressure by lobbying Congress to keep online gambling legal and prevent PayPal from being classified as a bank-a political engagement that contradicted his stated libertarian principles. PayPal's relationship with eBay remained tense, with CEO Meg Whitman viewed as the embodiment of everything Thiel and his Stanford Review allies despised-"Her face was on dartboards," according to one executive. When eBay tried forcing sellers to use its Billpoint payment system, PayPal threatened antitrust action. Whitman offered to buy PayPal for $300 million in late 2000, warning "We are teaming up with Wells Fargo and we're going to kick the shit out of you." Before agreeing to an IPO in 2001, Thiel threatened to quit unless the board increased his equity stake, arguing his 3% ownership was unfair compared to Musk's 14%. The board reluctantly awarded him 4.5 million additional shares at a huge discount, increasing his stake to 5.6%. Controversially, Thiel used $500,000 from his Roth IRA to purchase shares that would later be worth billions tax-free-a legally questionable move since using IRAs to buy stock in companies you control was prohibited. PayPal successfully went public on February 14, 2002. Months later, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion, with Thiel receiving over $50 million in eBay stock. Though Thiel publicly claimed he would stay at PayPal, privately he had other plans. On the day eBay announced the closed deal, senior managers were shocked to learn Thiel had resigned as CEO. His reasoning was financial-he believed eBay was overvalued and wanted to hedge his position with put options. To many employees, this represented a betrayal of PayPal's innovative values in favor of pure greed.

Глава 6

Reinvention: From Tech Founder to Kingmaker

With his newfound wealth from the eBay deal, Thiel began reinventing himself. He traded his untucked t-shirts for suits, bought a silver Ferrari Spider 360, and moved to a three-bedroom condo in San Francisco's Four Seasons. To project his new identity, he opened Frisson, a lounge-style nightclub in San Francisco, sparing no expense with an enormous light-up mural, famous landscape designer, and $1 million sound system. The bathrooms were designed "expressly for couples looking for a quickie." Though the business ultimately failed, it served its purpose as Thiel's meeting spot for several years, attracting celebrities and tech millionaires. Thiel styled himself as a contrarian "global macro" investor, predicting major economic and political shifts rather than making frequent trades. This approach matched his combination of indecisiveness and high risk tolerance. "His worldview is that if you get one big thing right, and move hard with conviction, then nothing else matters," explained an early employee. Thiel positioned Clarium as "a combination of a startup, think tank, and hedge fund," bringing along PayPal loyalists like Ken Howery, Nathan Linn, and Joe Lonsdale. By early 2004, Thiel was attracting financial press attention with Clarium managing $260 million and returns up 125 percent. In 2005, Thiel's bet on rising oil prices paid off spectacularly through investments in Canadian tar sands companies like Western Oil Sands and OPTI Canada, which doubled in value. By 2006, the fund managed over $2 billion, and Thiel was being hailed as the next George Soros. In August 2007, months before most recognized the recession, Thiel declared to investors that "We have begun a post-Long Boom phase that can be called the Long Goodbye." Predicting a "painful de-leveraging and reduction in liquidity," Clarium began shorting the dollar and betting against heavily leveraged companies. By mid-2008, when most hedge funds were losing money, Clarium had achieved nearly 60 percent returns and managed $6.4 billion. Even as Thiel's hedge fund thrived, he began quietly investing in startups. Though publicly declaring "It's the worst time ever to be a venture capitalist" in 2004, he made small investments in social networks like LinkedIn and Friendster. His most significant opportunity came through Sean Parker, Napster's controversial co-founder. After being fired from his company Plaxo, Parker approached Thiel about Mark Zuckerberg's website that was "going absolutely bonkers on Ivy League campuses." The Facebook meeting played out differently than portrayed in The Social Network film. Zuckerberg arrived in shower shoes, jeans and a gray t-shirt, mostly looking at the table. Thiel invested $500,000 from his Roth IRA, telling Zuckerberg simply: "Don't fuck it up." The investment was structured as a loan that would convert if Facebook hit 1.5 million users and reincorporated in Delaware. Thiel helped Zuckerberg consolidate control, pushing out co-founder Eduardo Saverin in a move Zuckerberg explicitly acknowledged learning from Thiel's "dirty tricks" against Moritz at PayPal.

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Глава 7

Palantir: Building the Surveillance State

The post-9/11 period represented national trauma-recession, unpopular war, and pervasive fear. For Thiel, this moment sparked both concern about Islamic terrorism and opportunity. In 2004, he criticized Bush for not being tough enough on Islam and complained about the "fundamentalist civil rights mania" of the ACLU. Thiel advocated for extrajudicial methods against terrorism, suggesting "a political framework that operates outside the checks and balances of representative democracy." While Zuckerberg was pitching Facebook, another group worked nearby on repurposing PayPal's anti-fraud software to catch terrorists. The team included Stanford conservatives Stephen Cohen and Joe Lonsdale from the Review, plus PayPal fraud expert Nathan Gettings. Thiel named it Palantir after the seeing stones in Lord of the Rings-ironically objects primarily used by the story's villain for surveillance and manipulation. Thiel recruited Alex Karp, a Stanford Law School acquaintance with liberal leanings who'd been equally miserable there-their shared misanthropy forming their bond. With his wild hair and performative style, Karp proved adept at fundraising, initially helping Thiel raise venture capital before agreeing to run Palantir. Though traditional Silicon Valley firms rejected them, Palantir found traction in Washington through connections to architects of the War on Terror, including John Poindexter of the controversial Total Information Awareness program. The CIA's venture firm In-Q-Tel invested $2 million in 2005, with Thiel again using his Roth IRA for his own investment. Palantir rebranded with a privacy focus, developing the "Gotham" system that tracked who accessed what data-a strategy Karp insisted on to address civil liberties concerns, though Thiel was initially skeptical. In practice, the privacy safeguards seemed performative; former engineers recalled government clients attempting to look up ex-girlfriends immediately after privacy briefings, with Palantir employees merely reminding them searches were logged before allowing them to proceed. For years, Palantir's intelligence software was essentially a demo rather than a functional product, but post-9/11 government agencies were willing to nurture promising ideas. The company gradually secured contracts with intelligence agencies and the NYPD, using the latter to catch JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon's attention. In 2009, Karp's remarkable salesmanship convinced JPMorgan to buy both Palantir's security product and the failing Palantir Finance for $10 million annually-a feat so impressive the commercial team adopted the codename "Inception." When Osama bin Laden was killed in May 2011, Palantir employees wondered if their technology had played a role. The company adopted a strategic ambiguity-neither confirming nor denying involvement-that proved immensely valuable. Though former intelligence analysts later claimed Palantir's role was limited to creating visualization aids rather than performing sophisticated data analysis, the perception of involvement in the bin Laden operation caused media interest to explode. The company's valuation grew from $2.5 billion in 2011 to $9 billion two years later.

Глава 8

The Contrarian's Revenge: Gawker and the Alt-Right

In 2006, Gawker Media entered Silicon Valley through its Valleywag blog, publishing gossip about tech executives' romantic relationships while critiquing the industry's "toothless press corps." Silicon Valley journalists had traditionally been deferential to tech power players, focusing on gadgets rather than scrutiny. This environment benefited Thiel, who despite being a conservative firebrand with CIA connections and controversial views on Islam, was portrayed by mainstream tech journalists like Kara Swisher as simply "Silicon Valley's most interesting venture capitalist and all-around great character." Nick Denton, Gawker's founder, shared Thiel's libertarian worldview and skepticism of elite institutions, but unlike Thiel, was openly gay. "Maybe because I was gay, I grew up hating open secrets," Denton would later say. This made him uniquely dangerous to Thiel, who had carefully crafted different personas for different audiences. In December 2007, Valleywag editor Owen Thomas published a post titled "PETER THIEL IS TOTALLY GAY, PEOPLE." The article framed Thiel's sexuality as relevant to his contrarian identity and investment approach, arguing that being gay freed him from conventional thinking. Though Thiel didn't show his anger publicly, he had already begun investigating ways to fight back against Gawker, hiring private investigators to dig into Denton's personal life. In January, he made the surprising announcement that Clarium would relocate to New York. While he claimed this move was because "if you want to be a hedge fund manager, you move to New York," some employees believed "the real reason was Gawker. He wanted to get away." Thiel's revenge against Gawker began in April 2011 during a Berlin dinner with Aron D'Souza, a young Oxford intellectual property lawyer. D'Souza proposed creating a shell company to anonymously fund lawsuits against Gawker until it collapsed. Thiel committed $10 million to the scheme. Through D'Souza, Thiel hired entertainment lawyer Charles Harder to conduct opposition research against Gawker, scouring their archives for potential plaintiffs. Harder's most promising case involved Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan), who sued Gawker in October 2012 after they published a sex tape of him. When settlement negotiations were underway, Bollea's lawyers suddenly disappeared and returned to announce the deal was dead. In December 2014, Bollea made the unusual move of dropping his "emotional distress" claim, which effectively prevented Gawker from using its liability insurance. The jury delivered a devastating $140 million verdict against Gawker, which Thiel privately celebrated as "the most philanthropic thing I've ever done." While Thiel never fully embraced the alt-right, dismissing them as "losers," he found them intellectually interesting and potentially valuable. In 2015, he developed friendships with figures on the far-right fringes, including Marcus Epstein, founder of an anti-diversity group who had once assaulted a Black woman while shouting racial slurs. Thiel had dinner with Kevin DeAnna, a key ideological architect of white nationalism according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Johnson arranged a meeting between Thiel and Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart.

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Глава 9

From Silicon Valley to the White House: Thiel's Trump Gambit

Thiel's search for a presidential candidate who would protect his wealth and be open to buying Palantir's software led him first to Carly Fiorina, to whom he donated $2 million. When Fiorina dropped out, Thiel had dinner with Cruz's finance chair Hal Lambert, but made no commitment despite previously praising Cruz's intelligence. Instead, Thiel told Charles Johnson he believed politics would be "all about globalization" and that "Trump is going to win." Though Thiel had previously criticized Trump as "symptomatic of everything wrong with New York City," he saw Trump as the perfect avatar for his political project-anti-immigration, open to white identity politics, and willing to be "the craziest son of a bitch in the race." Most importantly, Trump directly attacked political correctness, which Thiel had long despised. Johnson described their connection as "almost spiritual"-"He thought Trump was something special." At the chaotic Republican National Convention in July, Thiel stood out as a rare legitimate business leader supporting Trump. The convention placed him in prime time on Thursday night, just before Trump's acceptance speech. His most memorable moment came when he declared: "I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all I am proud to be an American." The crowd erupted with "USA!" chants-a striking moment for a gay immigrant at a convention whose platform opposed gay marriage. After Thiel's convention speech, Trump told him, "We're friends for life," though he seemed primarily interested in Thiel's money, the legitimacy he conferred, and his potential as a conduit to other tech billionaires. When the "grab 'em by the pussy" Access Hollywood tape leaked in October, most Republicans distanced themselves from Trump. Johnson, however, encouraged Thiel to double down, suggesting he make a $1.25 million contribution to Rebekah Mercer's PAC. On election night, Thiel hosted about twenty guests at his San Francisco mansion. As Trump's victory became apparent, the mood shifted from subdued to celebratory, with attendees particularly relishing Silicon Valley liberals' dismay. Thiel began receiving calls from administration hopefuls. His aides discussed transition plans openly, suggesting Thiel would have significant influence in staffing the new administration. At Founders Fund, employees began referring to Thiel as "Shadow President." On November 11, Trump named Thiel to his transition team's executive committee alongside Bannon, Mercer, and Trump family members. Thiel arrived at Trump Tower a week after Election Day with an unusual entourage-a half dozen disconcertingly attractive young men who "looked like male models." Bannon gave them an office on the fourteenth floor where they worked Silicon Valley-style, often late into the evening, producing a list of 150 potential appointees. Many were ultra-libertarians or reactionaries with positions so extreme that Bannon described them as "out there." By January, Thiel's influence was waning. Of his 150 proposed appointees, only about a dozen secured positions. Bannon attributed this failure to Trump "not being a revolutionary," while others suggested Thiel's alliance with the alt-right had backfired when moderates in Trump's circle prevailed.

Глава 10

Legacy of Contradiction: Thiel's Enduring Influence

Despite Thiel's wide-ranging influence across dozens of companies, billions in earnings, and his role in the rise of the far-right, many still know him primarily for his interest in parabiosis-the experimental practice of joining two bodies' circulatory systems to potentially halt aging. Following a 2016 mouse study funded by Thiel-backed SENS, he expressed interest in young blood transfusions, leading to wild speculation and mockery, including an episode of HBO's Silicon Valley featuring a "blood boy." Though Thiel has declared SENS's work central to his legacy and religious faith-"death is evil... we should fight it in every way"-his last donation to the organization was in 2016. Thiel has retreated from public life, now a parent of two with Matt Danzeisen, which may have softened him. Yet his legacy is assured through his network of acolytes. His PayPal mafia continues reshaping finance-Max Levchin's Affirm went public at $25 billion, while Stripe (valued as one of the world's most valuable private companies) advances Thiel's decades-old payment network vision. Thiel has seeded dozens of funds run by proteges like Sam Altman and Sarah Cone, often taking stakes in their performance bonuses. His political influence continues expanding through his financial backing of proteges. Beyond his $10 million pledges to both Blake Masters and J.D. Vance for their 2022 Senate campaigns, he's positioned them as extensions of himself-Masters serves as COO of Thiel Capital and president of the Thiel Foundation, while Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, was Thiel's former employee and counts him as an investor in his venture capital firm. In his 2016 Hamilton College commencement address, Thiel deliberately positioned himself against Steve Jobs' famous Stanford speech. Where Jobs advised "follow your heart," Thiel countered "Do not be true to yourself." Against Jobs' embrace of mortality as motivation, Thiel urged graduates to "Live each day as if you will live forever." This contrarian inversion reflected both his life extension interests and his network-building philosophy. Yet despite surrounding himself with admirers and building vast wealth and influence, Thiel's legacy feels hollow. His explicitly transactional view of relationships-treating people well for expected "returns"-reveals the isolation inherent in his contrarianism. For all his success and power, Thiel has built a world where achievement depends on shedding ties and going it alone, contradicting his own advice about building "durable friendships and long-lasting relationships." In the end, Thiel remains Silicon Valley's most fascinating paradox-a brilliant innovator who helped create our digital world while simultaneously working to undermine the very institutions that made his success possible.

★★★★★

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Ключевые темы в Противоречащий всемуузел

silicon valley power
contrarian investment strategy
data surveillance ethics
libertarian political influence
tech elite networks

Цитаты из Противоречащий всемуузел

Fuck you, world.
The concept of a speed limit may not make sense.
Definitely an infringement on liberty.
Corrupt as the Catholic Church 500 years ago.

Персонажи в Противоречащий всемуузел

Klaus ThielPeter's father and a chemical engineer
Keith RaboisThiel's protege and Stanford Review contributor
David SacksStanford Review writer and future tech executive
Max ChafkinThe author and investigative journalist

Об авторе

Макс Чафкин — автор книги «The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power» («Контрарианец: Питер Тиль и погоня Кремниевой долины за властью»), известный технологический журналист и репортер-расследователь в Bloomberg Businessweek.

Его биография Питера Тиля — провокационное исследование власти в технологической индустрии, политического влияния и философии вопреки общепринятому мнению — опирается на десятилетний опыт Чафкина в освещении эволюции Кремниевой долины.

Будучи редактором лонгридов в Bloomberg Businessweek, он также публиковался в Fast Company и других ведущих изданиях. Он регулярно анализирует влияние технологий на общество на таких платформах, как Commonwealth Club и подкаст Bloomberg «The Big Picture».

Предыдущая книга Чафкина, «Design Crazy: Good Looks, Hot Tempers, and True Genius at Apple», закрепила за ним репутацию мастера по детальному разбору ключевых фигур техсектора. Книга «The Contrarian» была отмечена The New York Times как «леденящий душу» и «мастерский» портрет, получив одобрение таких авторов, как Брэд Стоун и Шила Колхаткар. Книга вызвала широкий общественный резонанс по поводу роли технологий в пересмотре глобальных структур власти.

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Создано выпускниками Колумбийского университета в Сан-Франциско

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Создано выпускниками Колумбийского университета в Сан-Франциско

LOVED BY

1,000,000+ curious minds.

4.7

avg rating

1M+ learners

"Instead of endless scrolling, I just hit play on BeFreed. It saves me so much time."

@Moemenn

"I never knew where to start with nonfiction—BeFreed’s book lists turned into podcasts gave me a clear path."

@Chloe, Solo founder, LA

117

"Perfect balance between learning and entertainment. Finished ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ on my commute this week."

@Raaaaaachelw

"Crazy how much I learned while walking the dog. BeFreed = small habits → big gains."

@Matt, YC alum

108

"Reading used to feel like a chore. Now it’s just part of my lifestyle."

@Erin, Investment Banking Associate , NYC

254

"Feels effortless compared to reading. I’ve finished 6 books this month already."

@djmikemoore

"BeFreed turned my guilty doomscrolling into something that feels productive and inspiring."

@Pitiful

4.5K

"BeFreed turned my commute into learning time. 20-min podcasts are perfect for finishing books I never had time for."

@SofiaP

"BeFreed replaced my podcast queue. Imagine Spotify for books — that’s it. 🙌"

@Jaded_Falcon

201

"It is great for me to learn something from the book without reading it."

@OojasSalunke

"The themed book list podcasts help me connect ideas across authors—like a guided audio journey."

@Leo, Law Student, UPenn

483

"Makes me feel smarter every time before going to work"

@Cashflowbubu

"Instead of endless scrolling, I just hit play on BeFreed. It saves me so much time."

@Moemenn

"I never knew where to start with nonfiction—BeFreed’s book lists turned into podcasts gave me a clear path."

@Chloe, Solo founder, LA

117

"Perfect balance between learning and entertainment. Finished ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ on my commute this week."

@Raaaaaachelw

"Crazy how much I learned while walking the dog. BeFreed = small habits → big gains."

@Matt, YC alum

108

"Reading used to feel like a chore. Now it’s just part of my lifestyle."

@Erin, Investment Banking Associate , NYC

254

"Feels effortless compared to reading. I’ve finished 6 books this month already."

@djmikemoore

"BeFreed turned my guilty doomscrolling into something that feels productive and inspiring."

@Pitiful

4.5K

"BeFreed turned my commute into learning time. 20-min podcasts are perfect for finishing books I never had time for."

@SofiaP

"BeFreed replaced my podcast queue. Imagine Spotify for books — that’s it. 🙌"

@Jaded_Falcon

201

"It is great for me to learn something from the book without reading it."

@OojasSalunke

"The themed book list podcasts help me connect ideas across authors—like a guided audio journey."

@Leo, Law Student, UPenn

483

"Makes me feel smarter every time before going to work"

@Cashflowbubu

"Instead of endless scrolling, I just hit play on BeFreed. It saves me so much time."

@Moemenn

"I never knew where to start with nonfiction—BeFreed’s book lists turned into podcasts gave me a clear path."

@Chloe, Solo founder, LA

117

"Perfect balance between learning and entertainment. Finished ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ on my commute this week."

@Raaaaaachelw

"Crazy how much I learned while walking the dog. BeFreed = small habits → big gains."

@Matt, YC alum

108

"Reading used to feel like a chore. Now it’s just part of my lifestyle."

@Erin, Investment Banking Associate , NYC

254

"Feels effortless compared to reading. I’ve finished 6 books this month already."

@djmikemoore

"BeFreed turned my guilty doomscrolling into something that feels productive and inspiring."

@Pitiful

4.5K

"BeFreed turned my commute into learning time. 20-min podcasts are perfect for finishing books I never had time for."

@SofiaP

"BeFreed replaced my podcast queue. Imagine Spotify for books — that’s it. 🙌"

@Jaded_Falcon

201

"It is great for me to learn something from the book without reading it."

@OojasSalunke

"The themed book list podcasts help me connect ideas across authors—like a guided audio journey."

@Leo, Law Student, UPenn

483

"Makes me feel smarter every time before going to work"

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Silicon Valley's Darkest Knight: The Man Who Shaped Tech's Future

From Outcast to Outsider: The Making of a Contrarian

Следите за каждым словом во время прослушивания

The Politics of Provocation: Finding Power Through Confrontation

The PayPal Revolution: Building a Financial Insurgency

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Gray Areas and Golden Opportunities: The Ethics of Success

Reinvention: From Tech Founder to Kingmaker

Следите за каждым словом во время прослушивания

Palantir: Building the Surveillance State

The Contrarian's Revenge: Gawker and the Alt-Right

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From Silicon Valley to the White House: Thiel's Trump Gambit

Legacy of Contradiction: Thiel's Enduring Influence

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1,000,000+ curious minds.

1,000,000+ curious minds.

Одна книга. Множество способов её услышать.

Silicon Valley's Darkest Knight: The Man Who Shaped Tech's Future

From Outcast to Outsider: The Making of a Contrarian

Следите за каждым словом во время прослушивания

The Politics of Provocation: Finding Power Through Confrontation

The PayPal Revolution: Building a Financial Insurgency

Получите больше от Противоречащий всемуузел

Gray Areas and Golden Opportunities: The Ethics of Success

Reinvention: From Tech Founder to Kingmaker

Следите за каждым словом во время прослушивания

Palantir: Building the Surveillance State

The Contrarian's Revenge: Gawker and the Alt-Right

Получите больше от Противоречащий всемуузел

From Silicon Valley to the White House: Thiel's Trump Gambit

Legacy of Contradiction: Thiel's Enduring Influence

Вы дочитали Противоречащий всемуузел до конца

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