Ep 28: Peter Thiel, Billionaire Investor and Company Creator on Investing, Business, and Life

**Tim Ferriss** (0:00)
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It is freedom lies in being bold. If anything, our guest this episode is about being bold. His name is Peter Thiel and he is a serial tech founder, PayPal Palantir, billionaire investor and author of the new book Zero to One. I'll come back to all of those things, but whether you want to be a better investor, I've certainly modeled Peter and have him to thank, I think for many of my best decisions in the world of investing, a better entrepreneur or simply a free thinker who wants to do great things, create more value, I highly recommend not only this interview, but certainly that you read Zero to One, which is a collection of many of his teachings on differentiation, value creation, competition. It is a treasure trove.
Now, Peter, who is Peter? And if you're not familiar with him, I'll give you a quick snapshot.
He co-founded in 1998 PayPal, that was the beginning, which was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
But more notable, I think, is the team that he helped to assemble.
And these individuals, known now as the PayPal Mafia, that's what they're referred to as, went on to launch a raft of companies that have become household names, including at least seven now valued at more than $1 billion. I mean, literally almost every single person on the founding team, if not every person, has gone on to create multi-billion dollar companies. You have Tesla and SpaceX, co-founded by Elon Musk, LinkedIn, of course, Reid Hoffman, YouTube, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed, Yelp, Jeremy Staubman, Russell Simmons, Yammer, David Sachs, and the data mining company Palantir, which Thiel himself co-founded in 2004 He was also the first outside investor in Facebook and has invested in more than 100 startups. He has done a lot, he has learned a lot, and perhaps most important, he consistently questions assumptions and thinks differently.
So I don't want to delay this any further, but I will say this interview was an experiment. I was on sick leave, so we did it asynchronously. What you will hear is Blake Masters, who's the co-author on Zero to One, reading the questions, Peter answering them, because I was unable to be there in person, although I have met Peter on a few occasions before.
There are also written questions and answers, and you can find those written questions and answers on the blog. Go to fourhourworkweek.com forward slash podcast, click on this episode, and it'll take you to the right place. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy this interview. Please share your thoughts on Twitter at T.Ferris, that is me, two R's, two S's, or on Facebook at slash Tim Ferris, two R's, two S's, and thank you so much for listening.