PETER THIEL

1967–

One of software entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s early investments was an expensive failure, but he learned from the experience and went on to establish PayPal as the first and most successful digital money transfer service. He famously invested in social networking start-up Facebook, making millions when he sold his shares.

Although he was born in Germany, most of Peter Andreas Thiel’s early years were divided between the US and southern Africa. He was a bright student, graduating in philosophy from Stanford University, California, in 1989, and then gaining a law degree at Stanford Law School three years later. In his 20s, he worked as a judicial clerk, a securities lawyer, and a speechwriter for politicians but found none of these jobs fulfilling. In the mid-1990s, he moved to the Bay area of California, determined to go it alone.

With financial support from his family and friends, Thiel raised $1 million and in 1996 founded Thiel Capital Management (TCM) as a vehicle to invest in start-up businesses. TCM was a venture capital project, designed to take on the risk of financing tech-based start-up businesses with the potential for high growth but also with an above-average risk of failure. It was no overnight success; the company lost $100,000 after investing in a web-based calendar project put forward by one of Thiel’s friend’s, which failed.

Within five months of its launch, PayPal had one million customers, and a year later, the service was available in 26 countries. During 2001, an average of 20,000 new customers signed up daily. PayPal was launched as a public company in February 2002. Its shares sold initially for $13 each, but by the close of trading, they were changing hands for $20 and the business was valued at $800 million. Just five months later, Thiel sold the ever-expanding PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion, and by 2015, PayPal was valued at a staggering $50.8 billion.

New ventures

After his direct involvement with PayPal ended, Thiel helped finance the new Facebook social networking service in 2004. His $500,000 investment bought him a 10.2 percent share in the business. Eight years later, he sold most of his shares, making a handsome profit.

Thiel has also invested in other companies, including Clarium Capital—a global hedge fund that made millions speculating on the rise and fall of the dollar—and Palantir Technologies—a private software company that specializes in big data analysis, including counterterrorism and anti-fraud analytics. Several of Thiel’s former PayPal colleagues have also gone on to successfully invest in other start-up companies, leading some to refer to Thiel as the “don of the PayPal mafia.” In 2005, Thiel joined forces with ex-PayPal coworkers Ken Howery and Luke Nosek to establish the venture capital firm Founders Fund. Thiel’s investment business has continued to thrive, and he is considered to be one of the world’s top technology investors.

Thiel is a national Chess Master, ranked in the top 1,000 chess players in the US. The game informs much of his business strategy.

Funding the future

Thiel set up The Thiel Foundation in 2006, a philanthropic organization that has allocated grants to a range of cutting-edge projects, including artificial intelligence and antiaging research. Through its Thiel Fellowship, established in 2011, it also funds young entrepreneurs who want to start their own businesses rather than go to college. In 2014, Thiel coauthored the book Zero to One, based on a lecture he gave at Stanford University about computer history, start-ups, and the future of technology.

PATRICK AND JOHN COLLISON

In building their software company Stripe, Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison facilitated businesses to talk directly with banking systems.

Patrick (1988–) enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006 to study math. He did not finish his course but instead teamed up with John (1990–) to create software company Auctomatic that same year. Two years later, after selling this for $5 million, they created software that enabled businesses to plug in to websites and apps to instantly connect with credit card and banking systems. Marketed through their company Stripe, this made online financial transactions quicker and easier and particularly helped start-up companies. By 2018, more than 100,000 businesses were using the product.