Peter Thiel

Thiel is a German citizen by birth. He became a naturalized citizen of the US in 1978, and a citizen of New Zealand in 2011.

Thiel is a gay. He got married to his long-time partner, Matt Danzeisen, in Vienna, Austria, in October 2017. He has backed different gay right causes like ‘GOProud’ and ‘American Foundation for Equal Rights.’

Peter Thiel was born on October 11, 1967, in Frankfurt, West Germany, to Klaus Friedrich Thiel and Susanne. He has a younger brother called Patrick Michael Thiel.

When Thiel was a year old, his family migrated to the US and settled in Cleveland. His father’s professional endeavours saw the family moving to South Africa and South West Africa (presently Namibia) prior to settling down in Foster City, California, in 1977.

He was a chess prodigy; he started playing the game at the age of six. In 1992, he attained a peak rating of 2342 from United States Chess Federation (USCF). He was awarded the title of Life Master.

He attended San Mateo High School where he was chosen valedictorian of his graduating class in 1985. He then attended the Stanford University to study philosophy. At Stanford, Thiel along with Norman Book founded the student-run newspaper, ‘The Stanford Review,’ to provide conservative and libertarian viewpoints. Thiel became the newspaper’s first editor-in-chief and served the position till he earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1989.

He then attended the Stanford Law School and obtained his Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1992.

After receiving his J.D. Thiel started working as a judicial clerk for Judge James Larry Edmondson. Thereafter, he served international law firm Sullivan & Cromwell in New York as a securities lawyer for around seven months.

In 1993, he began working with Credit Suisse as a derivatives trader in currency options. Meanwhile, he also worked as speechwriter for former-U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett.

In 1996, he returned to California and set-up ‘Thiel Capital Management.’

In December 1998, he along with Luke Nosek and Max Levchin co-founded the American software company, ‘Confinity Inc.,’ in Silicon Valley. The company was originally launched as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company.

Thiel had the objective of creating a digital wallet, which eventually led Confinity to launch ‘PayPal’ in 1999. PayPal supports online money transfer and works as an electronic alternative of the conventional mode of payments, such as cheques and money orders. During launch of PayPal, Deutsche Bank and Nokia representatives used PayPal on their PalmPilots to sent Thiel $3 million in venture funding.

Thiel is a libertarian, and as a dedicated member of the Republican Party he has been contributing for different Libertarian and Republican causes.

He endorsed Ron Paul for President in December 2007, contributed to the John McCain 2008 presidential campaign, backed Meg Whitman during the 2010 California gubernatorial election, and supported Ron Paul for president in 2012, and upon Paul’s failure to get the Republican Party nomination for president, Thiel contributed to the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan presidential ticket of 2012.

He backed Donald Trump and donated $1.25 million to support the latter’s 2016 presidential campaign. Following the victory of Trump, Thiel was included in the executive committee of the Trump transition team.

Thiel has also contributed donations to several other politicians, including Sen. Lamar Alexander, Ryan Brumberg, Rep. Mike Coffman and Douglas Forrester.

He is a Steering Committee member of the Bilderberg Group.