Currently worth $2.7 billion USD, the 48 year old Peter Andreas Thiel, a German-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and hedge fund manager, currently serves as serves as president of Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund with $700 million in assets under management; a managing partner in Founders Fund, a venture capital fund with $2 billion in assets under management; co-founder and investment committee chair of Mithril Capital Management; and co-founder and chairman of Valar Ventures. Most renowned for his role as cofunder of PayPal, Thiel has continued to build an impressive resume of success as a leading investor or partner in a number of industry changing startups including Facebook, Linkedin, and Y Combinator.
After receiving a B.A in Philosophy from Stanford in 1989 and acquiring a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1992, Thiel co-foudned Paypal
In August 2004, Thiel made a $500,000 angel investment in the social network Facebook
Much of Thiel's notable activity has come through the formation of several major investment funds that have since gained respect on the back of strong performances through. In 2005, Thiel launched Clarium Captial, an employee-owned firm that invests in public equity with a focus on micro cap companies, fixed income, and hedging markets. Clarium was recognized early on as global macro fund of the year in 2005 by both MarHedge and Absolute Return, two trade magazines. In June 2012, Peter Thiel launched Mithril, a late-stage investment fund with $402 million at the time of launch, intended for companies that were at the cusp between being private and going public.
Peter Thiel's role as an angel investor and venture capitalist has had lasting influence, especially within technology sector. Espousing deep rooted ideological beliefs, Thiel has stated, "There's a sense in which technology is, by definition, non-repetitive. And every moment in technological history only happens once." His early stage investments in Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp Inc., Palantir Technologies, Airbnb, and Quora have demonstrated a remarkable capacity for leadership in an investors role in addition to a prescient insight and influence on the future direction of the industry.
Thiel was ranked #293 on the Forbes 400 in 2011, with a net worth of $1.5 billion as of March 2012. He was ranked #4 on the Forbes Midas List of 2014 at $2.2 billion. Currently, his largest holding is in Palantir, the CIA-backed big data company he cofounded and chairs.