Peter Thiel: 1967–2002

<p>As regular listeners will know, I’ve wanted to cover Thiel for some time now.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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. </p><p>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.</p><p><br></p>