Peter Thiel

Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, on 11 October 1967, to Klaus Friedrich Thiel and his wife Susanne Thiel.The family migrated to the United States when Peter was one year old and lived in Cleveland, Ohio, where his father worked as a chemical engineer. Klaus then worked for various mining companies, creating an itinerant upbringing for Thiel and his younger brother, Patrick Michael Thiel. Thiel's mother became a U.S. citizen, but his father did not. 

Before settling in Foster City, California, in 1977, the Thiels lived in South Africa and South West Africa (modern-day Namibia). Peter changed elementary schools seven times. He attended a strict establishment in Swakopmund that required students to wear uniforms and utilized corporal punishment, such as striking students' hands with a ruler. This experience instilled a distaste for uniformity and regimentation later reflected in his support for individualism and libertarianism.

Thiel played Dungeons & Dragons, was an avid reader of science fiction, with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein among his favorite authors, and a fan of J. R. R. Tolkien's works, stating as an adult that he had read The Lord of the Rings over ten times.[20] Six firms (Palantir Technologies, Valar Ventures, Mithril Capital, Lembas LLC, Rivendell LLC and Arda Capital) that he founded adopted names originating from Tolkien. 

Thiel excelled in mathematics and scored first in a California-wide mathematics competition while attending Bowditch Middle School in Foster City. At San Mateo High School, he read Ayn Rand, admired the optimism and anti-communism of then-President Ronald Reagan, and became valedictorian of his graduating class in 1985.

He studied philosophy at Stanford University. During that time, debates on identity politics and political correctness were ongoing. A "Western Culture" program, which was criticized by The Rainbow Agenda because of a perceived over-representation of the achievements of European men, was replaced with a "Culture, Ideas and Values" course, which instead pushed diversity and multiculturalism. This replacement provoked controversy on the campus and led to Thiel co-founding The Stanford Review, a conservative and libertarian newspaper, in 1987 with funding from Irving Kristol. Thiel served as The Stanford Review's first editor-in-chief and remained in that post until completing his Bachelor of Arts in 1989. Over the years, Thiel has continued that relationship, consulting with the top editorial staff several times a year, hosting events at his house, donating to the newspaper and placing graduating students in internships or jobs within his network. 

Thiel enrolled in Stanford Law School and earned his Juris Doctor degree in 1992.

While at Stanford, Thiel met René Girard, whose mimetic theory influenced him. Mimetic theory posits that human behavior is based upon mimesis, and that imitation can engender pointless conflict. Girard notes the productive potential of competition: "It is because of this unprecedented capacity to promote competition within limits that always remain socially, if not individually, acceptable that we have all the amazing achievements of the modern world," but states that competition stifles progress once it becomes an end in itself: "rivals are more apt to forget about whatever objects are the cause of the rivalry and instead become more fascinated with one another." Thiel applied this theory to his personal life and business ventures, stating: "The big problem with competition is that it focuses us on the people around us, and while we get better at the things we're competing on, we lose sight of anything that's important, or transcendent, or truly meaningful in our world."

Thiel is a self-described conservative libertarian, though more recently he has espoused support for national conservatism, and criticized economically liberal attitudes towards free trade and big tech. 

In 1995, Thiel and David O. Sacks published The Diversity Myth, a book that criticized political correctness and multiculturalism in higher education. The following year, writing for Stanford Magazine, they argued against affirmative action in the United States, saying that it had hurt, not helped, the "disadvantaged" and had led to increased segregation at Stanford University in the name of "diversity". 

In 2019, Thiel called Google "seemingly treasonous" and urged a government investigation, citing Google's work with China and asking whether DeepMind or Google's senior management had been "infiltrated" by foreign intelligence agencies.

Thiel is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group, a private, annual gathering of intellectual figures, political leaders, and business executives.

In 2006, Thiel won the Herman Lay Award for Entrepreneurship. 

In 2007, he was honored as a Young Global leader by the World Economic Forum as one of the 250 most distinguished leaders age 40 and under. 

On 7 November 2009, Thiel was awarded an honorary degree from Guatemalan Universidad Francisco Marroquin. 

In 2012, Students For Liberty, an organization dedicated to spreading libertarian ideals on college campuses, awarded Thiel its "Alumnus of the Year" award. 

In February 2013, Thiel received a TechCrunch Crunchie Award for Venture Capitalist of the Year.