As regular listeners will know, I’ve wanted to cover Thiel for some time now.
He’s going to warrant a three-parter at least because, love him or loathe him, Thiel is without doubt one of the most interesting, controversial and polarising people in business over the last 30 years.
For listeners who don’t know him, Thiel was part of what became known as the PayPal Mafia - this group of supersmart guys who founded and built PayPal. The company survived the dot-com crash, it almost went under because of Russian fraudsters and they eventually cashed out in 2002.
And then a lot of the people involved went on to even more success. We’re talking Thiel himself, Elon Musk, David Sacks and Reid Hoffman.
So this episode focuses on Thiel’s early life and brings us right up to the sale of PayPal in 2002. It is a cracking story. Enjoy.