Download or read book The Contrarian written by Max Chafkin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of venture capitalist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel, the enigmatic, controversial and hugely influential power broker who sits at the dynamic intersection of tech, business and politics Since the days of the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, no industry has made a greater global impact than Silicon Valley. And few individuals have done more to shape Silicon Valley than billionaire venture capitalist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel. From the technologies we use every day to the delicate power balance between Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Washington, Thiel has been a behind-the-scenes operator influencing countless aspects of contemporary life. But despite his power and the ubiquity of his projects, no public figure is quite so mysterious. In the first major biography of Thiel, Max Chafkin traces the trajectory of the innovator's singular life and worldview, from his upbringing as the child of immigrant parents and years at Stanford as a burgeoning conservative thought leader to his founding of PayPal and Palantir, early investment in Facebook and SpaceX, and relationships with fellow tech titans Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Eric Schmidt. The Contrarian illuminates the extent to which Thiel has sought to export his values to the corridors of power beyond Silicon Valley, such as funding the lawsuit that bankrupted the blog Gawker to strenuously backing far-right political candidates, including Donald Trump for president. Eye-opening and deeply reported, The Contrarian is a revelatory biography of a one-of-a-kind leader and an incisive portrait of a tech industry whose explosive growth and power is both thrilling and fraught with controversy.

Download or read book The Diversity Myth written by David O. Sacks and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a powerful exploration of the debilitating impact that politically-correct "multiculturalism" has had upon higher education and academic freedom in the United States. In the name of diversity, many leading academic and cultural institutions are working to silence dissent and stifle intellectual life. This book exposes the real impact of multiculturalism on the institution most closely identified with the politically correct decline of higher education--Stanford University. Authored by two Stanford graduates, this book is a compelling insider's tour of a world of speech codes, "dumbed-down" admissions standards and curricula, campus witch hunts, and anti-Western zealotry that masquerades as legitimate scholarly inquiry. Sacks and Thiel use numerous primary sources--the Stanford Daily, class readings, official university publications--to reveal a pattern of politicized classes, housing, budget priorities, and more. They trace the connections between such disparate trends as political correctness, the gender wars, Generation X nihilism, and culture wars, showing how these have played a role in shaping multiculturalism at institutions like Stanford. The authors convincingly show that multiculturalism is not about learning more; it is actually about learning less. They end their comprehensive study by detailing the changes necessary to reverse the tragic disintegration of American universities and restore true academic excellence.

Download or read book Zero to One written by Blake Masters and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-09-18 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WHAT VALUABLE COMPANY IS NOBODY BUILDING? The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them. It’s easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. Every new creation goes from 0 to 1. This book is about how to get there. ‘Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how.’ ELON MUSK, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla ‘This book delivers completely new and refreshing ideas on how to create value in the world.’ MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO of Facebook ‘When a risk taker writes a book, read it. In the case of Peter Thiel, read it twice. Or, to be safe, three times. This is a classic.’ NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB, author of The Black Swan

Download or read book Conspiracy written by Ryan Holiday and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An NPR Book Concierge Best Book of 2018! A stunning story about how power works in the modern age--the book the New York Times called "one helluva page-turner" and The Sunday Times of London celebrated as "riveting...an astonishing modern media conspiracy that is a fantastic read." Pick up the book everyone is talking about. In 2007, a short blogpost on Valleywag, the Silicon Valley-vertical of Gawker Media, outed PayPal founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel as gay. Thiel's sexuality had been known to close friends and family, but he didn't consider himself a public figure, and believed the information was private. This post would be the casus belli for a meticulously plotted conspiracy that would end nearly a decade later with a $140 million dollar judgment against Gawker, its bankruptcy and with Nick Denton, Gawker's CEO and founder, out of a job. Only later would the world learn that Gawker's demise was not incidental--it had been masterminded by Thiel. For years, Thiel had searched endlessly for a solution to what he'd come to call the "Gawker Problem." When an unmarked envelope delivered an illegally recorded sex tape of Hogan with his best friend's wife, Gawker had seen the chance for millions of pageviews and to say the things that others were afraid to say. Thiel saw their publication of the tape as the opportunity he was looking for. He would come to pit Hogan against Gawker in a multi-year proxy war through the Florida legal system, while Gawker remained confidently convinced they would prevail as they had over so many other lawsuit--until it was too late. The verdict would stun the world and so would Peter's ultimate unmasking as the man who had set it all in motion. Why had he done this? How had no one discovered it? What would this mean--for the First Amendment? For privacy? For culture? In Holiday's masterful telling of this nearly unbelievable conspiracy, informed by interviews with all the key players, this case transcends the narrative of how one billionaire took down a media empire or the current state of the free press. It's a study in power, strategy, and one of the most wildly ambitious--and successful--secret plots in recent memory. Some will cheer Gawker's destruction and others will lament it, but after reading these pages--and seeing the access the author was given--no one will deny that there is something ruthless and brilliant about Peter Thiel's shocking attempt to shake up the world.

Download or read book Start Now Get Perfect Later written by Rob Moore and published by Nicholas Brealey. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you have a burning ambition, brilliant business idea or creative passion: What are you waiting for? Now is the time to get going! Hardly anyone gets it right the first time, but many of us are crippled by indecision and fear of failure. The desire to get it right can inhibit us from getting started. Don't wait around for everything to fall magically into place - get started, get going and get perfect later. It's the fastest route to success. In this book, Rob Moore, the bestselling author of MONEY, shows that the quickest way to perfect is starting right now and improving as you go. This book will show you how to launch your business or idea, begin the next phase of your career, and overcome self-doubt - right away. Get perfect later, get started NOW.

Download or read book Conspiracy written by Ryan Holiday and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conspiracy theories are legion. Conspiracies are rare. And of the few that do exist, fewer are ever discovered, let alone explained. This story is the exception. In 2016, media giant Gawker was forced to declare bankruptcy after a $140 million dollar judgment in court over an illegally recorded sex tape of Hulk Hogan. The case was no accident: it was the result of a nearly decade-long plot masterminded by Facebook and Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel. With exclusive access to all the key players, Ryan Holiday takes us behind the scenes of this extraordinary and at times surreal story, and transforms the events into both a dissection of that controversial methodology - conspiracy - and an eye-opening cautionary tale on the use, abuse and consequences of power and secrecy in the modern age.

Download or read book The Know It Alls written by Noam Cohen and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Included in Backchannel’s (WIRED.com) “Top Tech Books of 2017” An “important” book on the “pervasive influence of Silicon Valley on our economy, culture and politics.” —New York Times How the titans of tech's embrace of economic disruption and a rampant libertarian ideology is fracturing America and making it a meaner place In The Know-It-Alls former New York Times technology columnist Noam Cohen chronicles the rise of Silicon Valley as a political and intellectual force in American life. Beginning nearly a century ago and showcasing the role of Stanford University as the incubator of this new class of super geeks, Cohen shows how smart guys like Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg fell in love with a radically individualistic ideal and then mainstreamed it. With these very rich men leading the way, unions, libraries, public schools, common courtesy, and even government itself have been pushed aside to make way for supposedly efficient market-based encounters via the Internet. Donald Trump’s election victory was an inadvertent triumph of the "disruption" that Silicon Valley has been pushing: Facebook and Twitter, eager to entertain their users, turned a blind eye to the fake news and the hateful ideas proliferating there. The Rust Belt states that shifted to Trump are the ones being left behind by a "meritocratic" Silicon Valley ideology that promotes an economy where, in the words of LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, each of us is our own start-up. A society that belittles civility, empathy, and collaboration can easily be led astray. The Know-It-Alls explains how these self-proclaimed geniuses failed this most important test of democracy.

Download or read book Below the Beltway written by Joe Thiel and published by Longwind Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sardonic and satiric take on key figures in American political and cultural life, both past and present. The full color illustrations will make it impossible for you to ever think of George Washington the same way again. The relationship between Church and State will make you wince, and Thiel's Nixon characature is dead-on. 55 illustrations that skewer both left and right wingers with equal glee.

Download or read book God Evil and Innocent Suffering written by John E. Thiel and published by Herder & Herder. This book was released on 2002 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Thiel insists that some people who suffer are truly innocent.

Download or read book The Early Modern Subject written by Udo Thiel and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Udo Thiel presents a critical evaluation of the understanding of self-consciousness and personal identity in early modern philosophy. He explores over a century of European philosophical debate from Descartes to Hume, and argues that our interest in human subjectivity remains strongly influenced by the conceptual framework of early modern thought.

Download or read book The Sovereign Individual written by James Dale Davidson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the authors of The Great Reckoning: “A sweeping analysis of the implications, especially financial, of the information age.” —Library Journal In this book, two renowned investment advisors bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history in the twenty-first century. The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization. Few observers have had their fingers so presciently on the pulse of global political and economic realignment: Their bold prediction of disaster on Wall Street in Blood in the Streets was borne out by Black Tuesday. In their ensuing bestseller, The Great Reckoning, published just weeks before the coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev, they analyzed the pending collapse of the Soviet Union and foretold the civil war in Yugoslavia. In The Sovereign Individual, they explore the greatest economic and political transition in centuries—the shift from an industrial to an information-based society. This transition, which they have termed “the fourth stage of human society,” will liberate individuals as never before, irrevocably altering the power of government. This outstanding book will replace false hopes and fictions with new understanding and clarified values.

Download or read book The Economy in Mind written by Warren T. Brookes and published by Universe Publishing(NY). This book was released on 1982 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Research Methods for Engineers written by David V. Thiel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-11 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn how to plan for success with this hands-on guide to conducting high-quality engineering research. Plan and implement your next project for maximum impact: step-by-step instructions cover every stage in engineering research, from the identification of an appropriate research topic through to the successful presentation of results. Improve your research outcomes: discover essential tools and methods for producing high-quality, rigorous research, including statistical analysis, survey design, and optimisation techniques. Research with purpose and direction: clear explanations, real-world examples, and over 50 customisable end-of-chapter exercises, all written with the practical and ethical considerations of engineering in mind. A unique engineering perspective: written especially for engineers, and relevant across all engineering disciplines, this is the ideal book for graduate students, undergraduates, and new academics looking to launch their research careers.

Download or read book Peter Thiel written by Mike Simmons and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-06-19 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Thiel is an American businessman, philanthropist, political activist, and author. The PayPal cofounder and Facebook's first professional investor was ranked No. 4 on the Forbes Midas List of 2014, with a net worth of $2.2 billion, and No. 246 on the Forbes 400 in 2016, with a net worth of $2.7 billion. Thiel was born in Frankfurt, and holds German citizenship. He moved with his family to the United States as an infant, and spent a portion of his upbringing in Africa before returning to the U.S. and attending San Mateo High School. He studied philosophy at Stanford University, graduating with a B.A. in 1989. He then went on to the Stanford Law School, and received his J.D. in 1992. After graduation, he worked as a judicial clerk for Judge James Larry Edmondson, a securities lawyer for Sullivan & Cromwell, a speechwriter for former-U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett and as a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse prior to founding Thiel Capital in 1996. He then co-founded PayPal in 1999, and served as chief executive officer until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. After eBay's acquisition of PayPal, he founded Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund. He launched Palantir Technologies, an analytical software company, in 2004 and continues to serve as its chairman as of 2016. His Founders Fund, a venture capital firm, was launched in 2005 along with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. Earlier, Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor when he acquired a 10.2% stake for $500,000 in August 2004. He sold the majority of his shares in Facebook for over $1 billion in 2012, but remains on the board of directors. He also co-founded Valar Ventures in 2010 and operates as its chairman, co-founded Mithril Capital, of which he is investment committee chair, in 2012, and has served as a partner in Y Combinator since 2015. Thiel became a New Zealand citizen in 2011 and owns a 193 hectare (477 acre) estate near Lake Wanaka. In January 2017 questions were raised in the media about the decision to grant him New Zealand citizenship. Thiel was given a special fast track to citizenship by the then government minister, under a clause in the relevant legislation, despite having visited the country on only four occasions prior to his application. When he applied, he stated he had no intention of living in New Zealand. Thiel is involved with a variety of philanthropic and political pursuits. Through the Thiel Foundation, he governs the grant-making bodies Breakout Labs and Thiel Fellowship, and supports life extension, seasteading and other speculative research. A founder of The Stanford Review, he is a conservative libertarian who is critical of excessive government spending, high debt levels, and foreign wars. He has donated to numerous political figures, and provided financial support to Hulk Hogan in Bollea v. Gawker. In November 2016, he was named to the executive committee of President-elect Donald Trump's transition team.

Download or read book Zero to One by Peter Thiel Conversation Starters written by dailyBooks and published by . This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zero to One: by Peter Thiel | Conversation Starters A Brief Look Inside: Zero to One: Notes on Startups or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel is exactly what the tagline suggests, but with contrarian and unconventional thinking. The author tries to motivate the readers to take risks and set up a business with a unique technology or product. He gives his personal notes and real-life examples of successful people and companies that stand out in the crowd and the reasons for their success. He advises people with the most important factors to keep in mind at all times in order to be successful. All in all, the book provides some interesting thoughts, ideas, and a different perspective for those who are planning to start a business. Peter Thiel’s Zero to One: Notes on Startups or How to Build the Future is a New York Times bestseller and is ranked in the top five on Amazon in various categories including Economic Policy, Economic Policy and Development and New Business Enterprises. EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPER than the surface of its pages. The characters and their world come alive, and the characters and its world still live on. Conversation Starters is peppered with questions designed to bring us beneath the surface of the page and invite us into the world that lives on. These questions can be used to... Create Hours of Conversation: • Foster a deeper understanding of the book • Promote an atmosphere of discussion for groups • Assist in the study of the book, either individually or corporately • Explore unseen realms of the book as never seen before Disclaimer: This book you are about to enjoy is an independent resource to supplement the original book, enhancing your experience of Zero to One. If you have not yet purchased a copy of the original book, please do before purchasing this unofficial Conversation Starters.

Download or read book People Paths and Purposes written by Philip Thiel and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1951 at MIT Architect Thiel began his crusade for urban environments based on the eye-level experience of users in the course of their movement through it. That first project has now become Freedom Trail linking historical sites in Boston. He discusses such factors as the human drama, user-partic

Download or read book Zero to One by Peter Thiel A 20 minute Instaread Summary written by Instaread Summaries and published by Instaread Summaries. This book was released on 2014-10-16 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PLEASE NOTE: This is a summary of the book and NOT the original book. Zero to One by Peter Thiel - A 20-minute Instaread Summary Inside this Instaread Summary: • Overview of the entire book • Introduction to the important people in the book • Summary and analysis of all the chapters in the book • Key Takeaways of the book • A Reader's Perspective Preview of this summary:Chapter 1 Progress is the goal of the future. Horizontal and vertical are the two kinds of progress. Horizontal progress means more of what is currently working. Another word for horizontal progress is globalization, the act of taking a product and integrating it world wide. Vertical progress comes from doing new things that have not been done before. Technology, the new and better way of doing something, is another word for vertical progress. In terms of the world’s future, technology matters more than globalization. New technology generally comes from startups. These small groups of people with a mission have improved the world one new idea at a time. Big organizations are bureaucracies that move too slowly. Individuals alone cannot develop new ideas. New thinking is a new company’s strongest characteristic. Chapter 2 When a person can recognize a popular belief that is delusional, that person can find the truth that few believe behind it. Traditional beliefs are seen as wrong only in retrospect. Although the 1990s are remembered as being a prosperous decade, they were actually a time when the old economy could not withstand the challenges of globalization. The internet boom and bust at the end of the decade was intense but lasted only eighteen months. The most successful companies had what seemed to be an anti-business model where they lost money as they got larger. This is why the mania could not be sustained. At this time, globalization replaced technology as the best hope for the future. Entrepreneurs who stayed in business after the dot-com bust identified four lessons that act as general rules for the business world today. The first is that small steps forward are the only safe path. The second is to remain flexible and lean. The third is to improve products already being made by successful competitors. The fourth is to focus primarily on the product. The opposite of these four rules are actually better principles for startup companies to follow. Risk being bold, have a plan, competition destroys profits, and sales are as important as the product…