02461cam a2200301 i 4500 512859311 TxAuBib 20211021120000.0 210304s2021||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2021007920 9781984878533 HRD 28.00 1984878530 HRD 28.00 TxAuBib rda Chafkin, Max. Contrarian. The contrarian [BOOK] : Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's pursuit of power / Max Chafkin. New York : Penguin Press, 2021. xviii, 382 pages, [8] unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 25 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-366) and index. Since the days of the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, no industry has made a greater impact on the world than Silicon Valley. And few individuals have done more to shape Silicon Valley than Peter Thiel. The billionaire venture capitalist and entrepreneur has been a behind-the-scenes operator influencing countless aspects of our contemporary way of life, from the technologies we use every day to the delicate power balance between Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Washington. 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, including funding the lawsuit that destroyed the blog Gawker and strenuously backing far-right political candidates, notably Donald Trump for president in 2016. Provided by publisher. 20211021. Thiel, Peter A. Capitalists and financiers United States Biography. Power (Social sciences.) Santa Clara Valley (Santa Clara County, Calif) Biography.