Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel is a German-American entrepreneur and investor best known as a cofounder of PayPal, a cofounder and board chair of Palantir, and a partner at Founders Fund. He made Facebook's first outside investment, joined the company's board in 2005, and remained a director until 2022.253 He also founded the Thiel Fellowship, a program for young founders and researchers.7
Born in Frankfurt am Main on October 11, 1967, Thiel moved to the United States as a child. He earned a B.A. in philosophy from Stanford University in 1989, founded The Stanford Review as an undergraduate, and received a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1992.13
PayPal
In 1998 Thiel cofounded Confinity, a company built around payments on PalmPilot devices. Confinity merged with X.com in 1999; the combined company became PayPal, and Thiel served as its chief executive officer, president, and chairman from 2000 until eBay acquired it in 2002.136
After the eBay sale, Thiel's Founders Fund biography credits him with early funding for LinkedIn, Yelp, and dozens of startups run by former PayPal colleagues later grouped under the label "PayPal Mafia."2
Palantir, Facebook, and Founders Fund
After PayPal, Thiel started the hedge fund Clarium Capital and helped launch Palantir, the data-analysis company where he has served as chairman of the board since 2003.13 Palantir's board page also lists him as president of Thiel Capital since 2011 and as a partner of Founders Fund since 2005.3
In 2004 Thiel made the first outside investment in Facebook. When Facebook announced a $25 million financing in April 2006, the company identified Peter Thiel as one of its existing investors, and Meta's 2021 proxy statement described him as one of Facebook's early investors and longest-serving directors.245
By 2005, Thiel was a partner at Founders Fund. His official biography there says the firm has funded companies including SpaceX and Airbnb.2
Thiel's Venture Thesis
The Thiel Fellowship, founded in 2011, gives $200,000 over two years to young people who skip or stop out of college to build companies or technical projects.7
He also turned his Stanford startup lectures into Zero to One, published on September 16, 2014. Penguin Random House describes the book as an argument that startup progress comes from creating something genuinely new rather than scaling an existing model.8
Roles Across the Startup Economy
As of 2026, Thiel is a partner at Founders Fund, president of Thiel Capital, and chairman of Palantir's board.23 From 2005 to 2022 he also sat on Facebook's board.5
References
- Peter Thiel | Biography & Facts | Britannica Money(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
- Peter Thiel - Founders Fund(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
- Board of Directors - Palantir(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
- Facebook Secures $25M Investment - Meta(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
- Facebook 2021 Definitive Proxy Statement - SEC(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
- Our History - eBay Inc.(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
- Thiel Fellowship(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
- Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters - Penguin Random House(accessed Apr 18, 2026)