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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">capt 6/16. also before, 918</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/senate-hopeful-kris-kobach-bankrolled-by-billionaire-peter-thiel-says-coronavirus-numbers-are-being-cooked-to-hurt-trump/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/senate-hopeful-kris-kobach-bankrolled-by-billionaire-peter-thiel-says-coronavirus-numbers-are-being-cooked-to-hurt-trump/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Senate hopeful Kris Kobach — bankrolled by billionaire Peter Thiel — says coronavirus numbers are ‘being cooked’ to hurt Trump</b></font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Alex Henderson July 28, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">With Republicans in fear of losing the U.S. Senate in November, the last thing they need is for far-right extremist Kris Kobach to win the state’s GOP senatorial primary this summer and put the seat in play for Democrats. And Kobach’s recent comments on COVID-19 are a prime example of why Democrats believe they could defeat him in the general election: Kobach is claiming that the coronavirus death count is being exaggerated as part of a conspiracy to hurt President Donald Trump. Regardless, Kansas’ former secretary of state continues to pursue the nomination, and he has a major ally in tech billionaire and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">On the YouTube program “National File,” Kobach said of the pandemic, “I believe that the numbers are being cooked.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 654,300 people worldwide and over 148,000 in the United States. Truth be told, that 148,000+ figure is probably too low — as the death count in the U.S. focuses on hospital deaths and doesn’t take into account all of the Americans who have died from COVID-19 in their homes and were never hospitalized. But Kobach nonetheless insists that the pandemic isn’t as deadly as Trump’s critics are making it out to be.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On the July 13 edition of K-File, Kobach claimed, “The books are being cooked, and the purpose, at least on the political left, is to use those numbers to scare the public and to scare the political leadership into shutting down. Now, they want to continue the government shutdown for — the business shutdown — with government pressure, for as long as they can. If they can slow it down by&nbsp;<b>using masks as a signal that things are not back to normal&nbsp;</b>— and therefore, you should not go out, you should not buy, you shouldn’t open up your business yet — whatever, but the reason is obvious.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Such claims are a prime example of why Democrats believe they could defeat Kobach if he wins the Republican senatorial primary in Kansas and makes it to the general election — especially in light of the fact that Democrats defeated him once before. In Kansas’ gubernatorial election in 2018, Kobach (who served as chairman of the Kansas Republican Party from 2007-2009 and as Kansas’ secretary of state from 2011-2019) lost to a Democrat: centrist Laura Kelly, now Kansas’ governor. And as deep red as Kansas is, Kobach’s defeat in 2018 demonstrated that a Democrat can win a statewide race in that state if the GOP nominee is extreme enough.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">But as extreme as Kobach is, he has found a major ally in Thiel. According to Vox’s Theodore Schleifer, Thiel held a fundraiser for the Republican in Manhattan and has since “pumped $850,000 into a super PAC behind Kobach.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schleifer reports, “If Kobach is elected, it could give Thiel a loyal ally in the Senate because of how powerful he is proving to be in the race. That alliance becomes all the more key if Trump loses this fall, which would weaken the Washington influence of Thiel — a board member at Facebook and a founder of Palantir, which has deep ties to the government.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Patrick Miller, who teaches political science at the University of Kansas, believes that Thiel has become indispensable to Kobach’s Senate campaign.</b>&nbsp;Miller told Vox, “I don’t want to overstate it and say that Kobach wouldn’t have a campaign without him. But I think the money that that super PAC is putting into the race — primarily through this one rich guy — is absolutely the lifeblood of the pro-Kobach campaign at this moment. You take that money away, and Kobach doesn’t have a lot of campaign left.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kobach is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, who is retiring. In the primary, he is up against Rep. Roger Marshall — and the GOP strategists who fear that Kobach, if nominated, would lose to a Democrat are rallying around Marshall aggressively and hoping to God he becomes the nominee. Scott Reed, a political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told Politico, “A Kobach victory would definitely put the Republican majority in jeopardy because it would add another state that would need serious resources.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>According to Steven Law, president of the Senate Leadership Fund</b>, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is hoping that Kobach becomes the nominee because he believes that Kobach would be easier to defeat than Marshall. Law told Politico, “The latest ad from Schumer’s Kansas pop-up PAC shows that they want to start the general election early by going after Marshall, and we aren’t going to let them get the jump on us.”</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">part of reddit hmn</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaLago/comments/9529qd/the_shadows_of_erik_prince_peter_thiel_and/">https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaLago/comments/9529qd/the_shadows_of_erik_prince_peter_thiel_and/</a></div><div>...</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1w8oh2o-14 dSrgZx" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Maricopa County</font></span></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Maricopa County hired Patton Boggs from 2010-2012. Maricopa County’s sherriff at the time was Joe Arapio, whom Trump pardoned for his crimes in 2017.</font></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2011 Trump met with Steve Bannon over a possible 2011 run for the presidency (1). Soon after, Trump and Arapio heavily pushed the Obama birther conspiracy (2)(3) and Trump would later even emulate Arpaio’s “concentration camps” (4)(5). At the time Arpaio worked closely with Steven Seagal, even raiding a home with a military tank in September, 2011(6). Steven Seagal shared a business partner with Paul Manafort, Julius Nasso, who was connected to the Gambino crime family and worked with Manafort selling Russian nuclear tech in the US (7). in 2016, Vladimir Putin would personally reward Seagal with Russian citizenship (8).</font></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On March 19 2013, Rohrabacher met with Paul Manafort, Vin Weber, and Rick Gates while Manafort was working as an unregistered foreign agent of Ukraine and their pro-Russian Party of Regions (9), a meeting central to Gates guilty plea in the Mueller investigation (10). Two months later Dana Rohrabcher met with the Russian FSB and the head of the FSB, Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin, arranged and attended by none other than Steven Seagal (11) (12).</font></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The man who introduced Steven Seagal to Vladimir Putin, Bob Van Ronkel, happened to attend Donald Trump's Miss Universe 2013 contest in Moscow (13).</font></p><ol class="s1w8oh2o-13 gUSQAg" style="margin: 4px 0px 4px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/12/politics/steve-bannon-donald-trump-relationship/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/12/politics/steve-bannon-donald-trump-relationship/index.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/07/trump-sends-investigators-to-hawaii-to-look-into-obama/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/07/trump-sends-investigators-to-hawaii-to-look-into-obama/</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/05/22/153313783/sheriff-arpaio-sends-publicly-funded-deputy-to-hawaii-on-birther-hunt" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/05/22/153313783/sheriff-arpaio-sends-publicly-funded-deputy-to-hawaii-on-birther-hunt</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/aug/21/arizona-phoenix-concentration-camp-tent-city-jail-joe-arpaio-immigration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/aug/21/arizona-phoenix-concentration-camp-tent-city-jail-joe-arpaio-immigration</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-donald-trump-is-still-setting-up-concentration-camps-on-american-soil-1.6197513" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-donald-trump-is-still-setting-up-concentration-camps-on-american-soil-1.6197513</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032973/Steven-Seagal-killed-puppy-reality-police-breaking-cockfighting-ring.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032973/Steven-Seagal-killed-puppy-reality-police-breaking-cockfighting-ring.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaLago/comments/8rrnkx/how_trumps_mob_ties_led_to_paul_manafort_in/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaLago/comments/8rrnkx/how_trumps_mob_ties_led_to_paul_manafort_in/</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/steven-seagal-vladimir-putin-russian-citizenship" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/steven-seagal-vladimir-putin-russian-citizenship</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-rohrabacher-s-meeting-with-manafort-1498680385-htmlstory.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-rohrabacher-s-meeting-with-manafort-1498680385-htmlstory.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2018/02/23/gates-accused-of-lying-about-manafort-meeting-with-rohrabacher-weber-114848" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2018/02/23/gates-accused-of-lying-about-manafort-meeting-with-rohrabacher-weber-114848</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/steven-seagal-opened-doors-us-delegation-moscow/story?id=19310164" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://abcnews.go.com/International/steven-seagal-opened-doors-us-delegation-moscow/story?id=19310164</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/congress-in-russia-seagal-bonding-few-facts.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/congress-in-russia-seagal-bonding-few-facts.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/03/624059365/how-did-steven-seagal-and-vladimir-putin-become-bffs-bob-van-ronkel-introduced-t" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.npr.org/2018/07/03/624059365/how-did-steven-seagal-and-vladimir-putin-become-bffs-bob-van-ronkel-introduced-t</font></a></p></li></ol><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1w8oh2o-14 dSrgZx" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir</font></span></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the same time, Peter Thiel’s Palantir hired Patton-Boggs from 2010-2014.</font></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Thiel is a terrible person. Peter Thiel wrote a book about how politically-correct “multiculturalism” has had a debilitating impact on higher education (1), wrote that woman’s sufferage was bad for democracy (2), ran an unethical human herpes experiment offshore (3), and vouched for monopolies (4). Peter Thiel is the embodiment of the alt-right. In 2016 he gave a speech at Donald Trump’s inauguration (5), donated $1.25 million in support of Trump’s cause to various SuperPACs (5), and joined Trump’s transition team (6). One SuperPAC Peter Thiel donated to, along with Erik Prince, was the Mercer-back Make America #1 that funded scandal-plagued and now defunct Cambridge Analytica (7). Peter Thiel showed reporter Maureen Dowd a photo of Thiel, Erik Prince, and Donald Trump together at the "Heroes and Villains" party held in Dec 2016 (14).</font></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The same year Palantir hired Patton-Boggs, the president of the Russian federation and former head of Gazprom, Dmitry Medvedev, visited Silicone Valley along with a cadre of figures central to Trump-Russia including: Yuri Milner of DST (8); Russian "top spy" Sergey Kislyak (9); and Victor Vekselberg of Skolkovo, who is under investigation by Mueller (10). While there, they recruited Google’s Eric Schmidt to join the board of Vekselberg’s Skolkovo (11). According to US intelligence, Skolkovo was likely a Russian spy facility. Schmidt’s daughter, Sophia, later interned at Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL, and recommended CA work with Palantir (12); and Vekselberg later held a mysterious meeting with Michael Cohen at Trump Tower (13).</font></p><ol class="s1w8oh2o-13 gUSQAg" style="margin: 4px 0px 4px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.amazon.com/Diversity-Myth-Multiculturalism-Political-Intolerance/dp/0945999763" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.amazon.com/Diversity-Myth-Multiculturalism-Political-Intolerance/dp/0945999763</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-women-democracy_us_5747079be4b03ede4413f6f5" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-women-democracy_us_5747079be4b03ede4413f6f5</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.salon.com/2017/08/28/libertarian-billionaire-peter-thiel-funds-unethical-offshore-human-testing-of-herpes-vaccine-skirting-fda-rules_partner/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.salon.com/2017/08/28/libertarian-billionaire-peter-thiel-funds-unethical-offshore-human-testing-of-herpes-vaccine-skirting-fda-rules_partner/</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-losers-1410535536" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-losers-1410535536</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/technology/peter-thiel-donald-j-trump.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/technology/peter-thiel-donald-j-trump.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/11/technology/peter-thiel-trump-team/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/11/technology/peter-thiel-trump-team/index.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/thiel-backed-pac-may-have-made-illegal-payments-to-bannon-company" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.thedailybeast.com/thiel-backed-pac-may-have-made-illegal-payments-to-bannon-company</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="http://fortune.com/2010/10/04/facebooks-friend-in-russia/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://fortune.com/2010/10/04/facebooks-friend-in-russia/</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/02/world/sergey-kislyak-russian-ambassador-us-profile/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/02/world/sergey-kislyak-russian-ambassador-us-profile/index.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/us/politics/viktor-vekselberg-mueller-investigation.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/us/politics/viktor-vekselberg-mueller-investigation.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/jun/23/dmitry-medvedev-silicon-valley-visit" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/jun/23/dmitry-medvedev-silicon-valley-visit</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.inc.com/business-insider/facebook-cambridge-analytica-emails-link-sophia-schmidt-palantir-alfredas-chmieliauskas-peter-thiel-eric-schmidt.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.inc.com/business-insider/facebook-cambridge-analytica-emails-link-sophia-schmidt-palantir-alfredas-chmieliauskas-peter-thiel-eric-schmidt.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://apnews.com/5e533f93afae4a4fa5c2f7fe80ad72ac/Sanctioned-Russian-oligarch-linked-to-Cohen-has-vast-US-ties" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://apnews.com/5e533f93afae4a4fa5c2f7fe80ad72ac/Sanctioned-Russian-oligarch-linked-to-Cohen-has-vast-US-ties</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/17/notorious-mercenary-erik-prince-is-advising-trump-from-the-shadows/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://theintercept.com/2017/01/17/notorious-mercenary-erik-prince-is-advising-trump-from-the-shadows/</font></a></p></li></ol><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1w8oh2o-14 dSrgZx" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Erick Prince’s link to Peter Thiel and Dana Rohrabacher: Paul Behrends</font></span></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Peter Thiel was on Trump’s transition team, he held a four hour phone call with Stephen Bannon and Dana Rohrabacher (1). Since then, Rohrabacher’s right hand man, Paul Behrends, has become one of Thiel’s greatest confidants (2) and even arranged a meeting between Thiel and Pro-Putin Hungarian Prime Minster’s senior visor, Jeno Megyesy (5). Paul Behrends was the one that arranged Rohrabacher’s many visits into Russia and even joined in, including a meeting with Russian agent Veselnitskaya in April 2016 (3), two months before the infamous Trump Tower meeting.</font></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paul Behrends is also close with Erik Prince and arranged for Prince to intern with freshman rep Dana Rohrabacher back in 1990 when Prince was still a college student (4). In 1998, when Erik Prince opened up Blackwater, Behrends became a partner at the now infamous Alexander Strategy Group and lobbied extensively for Blackwater (5). ASG then arranged for Dana Rohrabacher’s visit to Prince’s Blackwater compound (6).</font></p><ol class="s1w8oh2o-13 gUSQAg" style="margin: 4px 0px 4px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/romney-fading-rohrabacher-bolton-rising-for-state-as-consensus-package" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/romney-fading-rohrabacher-bolton-rising-for-state-as-consensus-package</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/20/the-hill-staffer-at-the-center-of-the-russia-intrigue-215396" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/20/the-hill-staffer-at-the-center-of-the-russia-intrigue-215396</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/03/gop-congressman-met-in-moscow-with-kremlin-linked-lawyer-at-center-of-russia-investigation/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/03/gop-congressman-met-in-moscow-with-kremlin-linked-lawyer-at-center-of-russia-investigation/</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/20/the-hill-staffer-at-the-center-of-the-russia-intrigue-215396" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/20/the-hill-staffer-at-the-center-of-the-russia-intrigue-215396</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.salon.com/2007/10/02/blackwater_bush/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.salon.com/2007/10/02/blackwater_bush/</font></a></p></li></ol><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1w8oh2o-14 dSrgZx" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Facebook</font></span></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Facebook hired Patton-Boggs from 2012-2015.</font></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2012, Mark Zuckerberg visited Vekselberg and Medvedev in Moscow (1). While there, Zuckerberg had an interesting conversation with Medvedev:</font></p><blockquote class="s1w8oh2o-9 fxAmoT" style="margin: 4px 0px 4px 8px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 8px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 4px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-left-color: rgba(28, 28, 28, 0.2); border-image: initial; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Medvedev talked about Facebook’s role in politics, though only jokingly in reference to its importance in the American presidential campaign, according to Mr. Medvedev’s press office. (2)</font></p></blockquote><ol class="s1w8oh2o-13 gUSQAg" style="margin: 4px 0px 4px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.adweek.com/digital/zuckerberg-russia-skolkovo/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.adweek.com/digital/zuckerberg-russia-skolkovo/</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/technology/zuckerberg-meets-with-medvedev-in-key-market.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/technology/zuckerberg-meets-with-medvedev-in-key-market.html</font></a></p></li></ol><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1w8oh2o-14 dSrgZx" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Erik Prince's link to Cambridge Analytica: Vincent Tchenguiz, Black Cube, Ko Chun Shun, Palantir, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, and Michael Flynn</font></span></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2013 Facebook and Palantir joined forces at Cambridge Analytica following Eric Schmidt's daughter's suggestion (1). At the suggestion of a Palantir employee, Alfredas Chmieliauskas, suspected Russian spies Aleksander Kogan and Joseph Chancellor hacked Facebook and sold the data to CA (2) with Steve Bannon’s approval (3). Palantir employees later worked on that data (4). All the while, Facebook and Google hand embeds in Cambridge Analytica’s operation (5).</font></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prior to the formation of Cambridge Analytica, CA’s parent company, SCL, was owned by billionaire Robert Mercer (6) and Vincent Tchenguiz (7). After Tchenguiz divested from SCL, his employee, Julian Wheatland, stayed on the board (8). Israel's Dorian Barak introduced Prince to Tchenguiz with the hope of forming a joint venture together (9). Tchenguiz contracted with Black Cube after SFO raided Tchenguiz's Kaupthing for its links to Alfa-Bank and possible fraud (10)(11).</font></p><blockquote class="s1w8oh2o-9 fxAmoT" style="margin: 4px 0px 4px 8px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 8px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 4px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-left-color: rgba(28, 28, 28, 0.2); border-image: initial; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Trump campaign has hired Ted Cruz’s former data-analysis firm, Cambridge Analytica—and in doing so, it has connected itself with a British property tycoon, Vincent Tchenguiz, and through him with the Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash, a business associate of Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who resigned last week. (12)</font></p></blockquote><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Once CA collected Facebook's hacked data, they needed to spread to find a way to use it. Erik Prince then arranged a meeting on August 3, 2016, between Donald Trump Jr., George Nader, and Black Cube agent Joel Zamel (13), an Israeli that specialized in social media manipulation. Zamel had already drawn up a multi-million dollar social media campaign to elect Trump (14). However, when the CA scandal broke, CA shut down, but soon after a new analytics company formed, Emerdata, with many of the same board members as the defunct CA, but with a new name to the list- Erik Prince’s business associate Johnson Ko Chun Shun (15).</font></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Squire Patton-Boggs, representing CA, threatened to sue the Guardian over articles on Facebook’s data breach (16).</font></p><ol class="s1w8oh2o-13 gUSQAg" style="margin: 4px 0px 4px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/us/cambridge-analytica-palantir.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/us/cambridge-analytica-palantir.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/28/palantir-confirms-a-staff-link-with-cambridge-analytica/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/28/palantir-confirms-a-staff-link-with-cambridge-analytica/</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-bannon-cambridge-analytica-facebook-20180320-story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-bannon-cambridge-analytica-facebook-20180320-story.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/27/palantir-worked-with-cambridge-analytica-on-the-facebook-data-whistleblower.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/27/palantir-worked-with-cambridge-analytica-on-the-facebook-data-whistleblower.html</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://twitter.com/bbcstories/status/896752720522100742?lang=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://twitter.com/bbcstories/status/896752720522100742?lang=en</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/257246/making-serious-dough-in-tel-aviv" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/257246/making-serious-dough-in-tel-aviv</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/211152/trump-data-analytics-russian-access" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/211152/trump-data-analytics-russian-access</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/revealed-erik-prince-had-business-ties-with-netanyahus-disgraced-chief-of-staff-1.5627887" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/revealed-erik-prince-had-business-ties-with-netanyahus-disgraced-chief-of-staff-1.5627887</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exista" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exista</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/apr/12/vincent-tchenguiz-black-cube" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/apr/12/vincent-tchenguiz-black-cube</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/211152/trump-data-analytics-russian-access" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/211152/trump-data-analytics-russian-access</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-who-is-joel-zamel-australian-israeli-linked-to-mueller-s-trump-probe-1.6104963" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-who-is-joel-zamel-australian-israeli-linked-to-mueller-s-trump-probe-1.6104963</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-domestic-conspiracy-that-gave-trump-the-election_us_587ed24fe4b0b110fe11dbf9" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-domestic-conspiracy-that-gave-trump-the-election_us_587ed24fe4b0b110fe11dbf9</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/21/cambridge-analytica-links-erik-prince-blackwater-f/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/21/cambridge-analytica-links-erik-prince-blackwater-f/</font></a></p></li><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/robert-mercer-guardian-lawsuit-threat_us_591c5a95e4b041db8965d6b7" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/robert-mercer-guardian-lawsuit-threat_us_591c5a95e4b041db8965d6b7</font></a></p></li></ol><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1w8oh2o-14 dSrgZx" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reflex Responses and Spectrum Health</font></span></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More directly, in 2011, Erik Prince’s own R2 hired Patton Boggs and from 2011-2012 Dick DeVos’s Spectrum Health hired Patton-Boggs as well.</font></p><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In still one of the biggest mysterious of the Trump-Russia saga, during the 2016 campaign Spectrum Health’s servers pinged servers at Trump Org and that of Russian bank Alfabank, a phenomenon currently under investigation by Mueller (1).</font></p><ol class="s1w8oh2o-13 gUSQAg" style="margin: 4px 0px 4px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li class="s1w8oh2o-11 vSpYb" style="margin: 0.4em 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="s1w8oh2o-27 gauDEJ" href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/politics/fbi-investigation-continues-into-odd-computer-link-between-russian-bank-and-trump-organization/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/politics/fbi-investigation-continues-into-odd-computer-link-between-russian-bank-and-trump-organization/index.html</font></a></p></li></ol><p class="s1w8oh2o-10 bQeEFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1w8oh2o-14 dSrgZx" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon-Mobil</font></span></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bailed from SV in a huff</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/conservatives-rail-about-free-speech-college-campuses-real-threat-our-first-amendment">https://www.alternet.org/conservatives-rail-about-free-speech-college-campuses-real-threat-our-first-amendment</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">amanda m</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">s a sign of the idiocy of Donald Trump-era politics that<b>&nbsp;hundreds of thousands of words have&nbsp;</b></span><b><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/31/17718296/campus-free-speech-political-correctness-musa-al-gharbi" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">been spent pushing what amounts to a hoax</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;about "campus censorship," while&nbsp;</span><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/the-real-threats-to-free-speech-arent-campus-protests.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">genuine assaults on free speech</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;-- especially&nbsp;</span><a href="https://deadline.com/2018/08/donald-trump-attacks-newspapers-running-editorials-defending-free-press-senate-punches-back-1202446846/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">by Trump himself</a></b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,&nbsp;just don't attract the same amount of attention.&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But while the New York Times&nbsp;prefers to&nbsp;lavish attention on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/5/10/17338290/intellectual-dark-web-rogan-peterson-harris-times-weiss" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">conservatives&nbsp;whose feelings are easily bruised</a>&nbsp;might get, there are activists fighting genuine threats to free speech and pushing back against censorship that's far more serious than having someone&nbsp;scold you that racist thing you said.</span></font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Last week, a</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;coalition of mostly left-leaning organizations — including the<b>&nbsp;ACLU, Greenpeace and Human Rights Watch — joined under the banner&nbsp;<a href="https://www.protecttheprotest.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Protect the Protest</a>&nbsp;</b>to speak out against an increasingly worrisome tactic that wealthy private interests use to squelch free speech: SLAPP suits.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;"SLAPP" is short for "strategic lawsuits against public participation." While there are many variations, most SLAPP actions use defamation lawsuits — or even just the threat of them — to scare journalists, activists and even private citizens from speaking out against injustice. While these lawsuits are&nbsp;rarely on solid legal grounds, they are nonetheless&nbsp;highly effective at the goal of keeping critics silent.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The typical SLAPP suit, as&nbsp;<b>Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.</b>, explained last week on a press call, is filed by a wealthy corporation or individual and aimed at a smaller organization or less wealthy person. The wealthy party's suit is&nbsp;"designed primarily to outlast and outspend" those who are speaking out, Whitehouse said, "to go at their funding, to make them burn their resources in litigation."</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 20px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The wealthier party, he added, "can basically win a breath-holding contest fighting in the courts."</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No doubt the most famous of these cases was the 2016 lawsuit by former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan against the website Gawker,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/nick-denton-announces-gawker-settlement-hulk-hogan-943414" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">alleging that the site had invaded his privacy by publishing a leaked sex tape in which he allegedly appeared</a>. While Hogan arguably had a sympathetic case on human grounds, it soon emerged that his lawsuit was the result of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-thiel-gawker-trial/554132/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a multi-year SLAPP campaign waged by<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">,</span>&nbsp;who was bitter that Gawker had published unflattering articles about him in the past. Thiel's efforts led to a case that was winnable — he appeared determined to destroy Gawker — but much of the time SLAPP plaintiffs aren't really interested in the legal soundness of their cases. [suit was actually about invasion of privacy, hilariouis as thiel is spy big data guy]</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/07/who-is-peter-thiel-rnc-2016-trump/492380/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twelve years ago, Peter Thiel made the luckiest gamble of his life.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He bought 10 percent of a startup founded by a scrappy Harvard kid for $500,000. It was that company’s first infusion of outside cash, and it helped it grow incredibly fast. The firm’s signature product, built around the kid’s idea of how identity should work online, picked up 4 million users in 2005 and another 6.5 million in 2006.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2012, Thiel cashed out those original shares. They now fetched more than $1 billion. To this day, he remains on the board of that company: Facebook, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Until this week, that famous bet—the “most lucrative angel investment in history”—was the main reason that most Americans would have ever heard of Peter Thiel. Along with his co-founding of PayPal, it’s why his character appeared on screen in The Social Network and a big part of why The New Yorker profiled him in 2011. But now he is stepping into a new and much more prominent role in the American republic. Thiel will speak first on Thursday evening at the 2016 Republican National Convention, where—according to early reports—he will endorse Donald Trump.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Many people are uncertain in this election year, but most Americans agree that our country is on the wrong track,” he told Wired. “I don’t think we can fix our problems unless we can talk about them frankly.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel is a real American character, down to his endless contradictions. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Thiel’s father moved the family to Ohio when he was very young. Thiel is a committed Christian who hates what he calls “the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual,” by which he means bodily death. Accordingly, he is investing millions in an “immortality project.” Finally, he is openly gay, speaking at a convention that has endorsed aggressively anti-LGBT policies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel attended Stanford University for philosophy and law. Like Newt Gingrich, Thiel is a self-conscious intellectual, fond of Leo Strauss, Ayn Rand, and René Girard. His failure to secure a Supreme Court clerkship under Justice Antonin Scalia led him to the technology industry. He founded PayPal during the first tech boom, aiming to start a pan-global currency. In 2004, he founded Palantir, a startup-like contractor that works with large corporations and national-security agencies. Now he controls four massive financial funds, including a general hedge fund and a venture-capital pool.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For most of the last decade, Thiel has fashioned himself as an old-fashioned libertarian with a techno-futurist bent. Like many Republicans, he supports paring back regulation—but his crusade against government goes much further than that. He has invested in “sea-steading” operations, which seek to create new floating city-states on enormous ships that float beyond national borders. He preaches that interplanetary space travel is important not because there is some universal human drive to discover, but because other planets don’t have laws yet.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many California-based designers and developers have a techno-libertarian bent, even if most of them ultimately pull the level for Democrats. But Thiel goes further in his ideology than almost anyone else—including in his support for Trump. Last week, more than 140 CEOs, investors, and leaders from across the sector publicly denounced Donald Trump’s candidacy. And earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, criticized Trump, though he avoided saying his name. “Instead of building walls, we can help build bridges,” Zuckerberg said, alluding to Trump’s most famous policy proposal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But maybe Thiel’s support for Trump shouldn’t come as a surprise. Survey his ideas over the past two decades and unrelated events come into focus. Peter Thiel emerges as a kind of richer, suaver Donald Trump.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">First, Thiel seems to believe that the post-1970s economy has left most Americans behind. Talking to The New Yorker in 2011, he implied that older elites had grown out of touch with regular Americans to a dangerous degree. Most college-educated Boomers benefitted from postwar affluence in a way that their less educated peers did not, he said. Sounding almost like a leftist, he blamed the globalized Information Age for consolidating wealth (including his) and destroying manufacturing jobs. “You have dizzying change where there’s no progress,” he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Second, Thiel loathes political correctness, and has said so for years. “I always think the biggest political problem we have is the problem of political correctness, properly understood,” Thiel told Glenn Beck two years ago. Before his widely praised book on business strategy came out in 2014, his only prior published work was The Diversity Myth, an attack on 1990s multiculturalism.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Third, both men are connoisseurs of litigation. Trump has been involved in 3,500 lawsuits, an unprecedented number for a presidential nominee. He has filed roughly 1,900 of those suits. Meanwhile, Thiel is dumping tens of millions into a secret war to bankrupt the news site Gawker and drive it out of business. Media law experts say that Thiel’s actions are unprecedented in American Constitutional law. Meanwhile, Trump has said that he would like to make it easier to sue journalists.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like Trump, too, Thiel savors narrowing in on the truly ludicrous comment and saying things that make people wonder, “did he really say that?” In a 2009 essay for the Cato Institute, he appeared to express doubts over whether it was a good idea to give women the right to vote:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pay attention to the words in the sentence and you’ll see that Thiel never says outright that women should not be allowed to vote. Rather, he says that women tend to favor government intervention, and—since Thiel opposes government intervention in the economy—letting women vote therefore effectively ended “capitalist democracy.” The reader can draw their own conclusions about what the right policy correction should be. “It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us,” he later added.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is the fourth Trumpian streak in Thiel: He’ll spout something contrarian or outrageous seemingly just to say it. Two years ago, he told Glenn Beck that idea that human activity alters the climate is “more pseudoscience” than science. (97 percent of climatologists, and every major U.S. scientific organization, disagree with him.) Yet during the Paris conference on climate change last year, he published an editorial in The New York Times calling for enormous reinvestment in nuclear energy. (Though that too was sly: Thiel is careful never to endorse climate change in the op-ed.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This contrarianism has come back to bite Thiel, as Packer reported in 2011. In September 2008, Thiel bucked common wisdom and assumed that government bailouts would mollify the markets. He commanded his hedge fund to invest heavily in global stocks—and lost just as heavily as they tumbled. In 2009, he bet against common wisdom again and shorted the market—causing him to lose big, again, and miss out on a historic recovery.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, though, he is playing with something far graver other people’s money. Despite Thiel’s reported libertarianism, he supports a candidate who has called for an unprecedented rollback on religious freedoms in this country. And despite &nbsp;his aversion to nation states and geopolitics (or maybe because of it), he supports a candidate who would toss NATO out the window and recklessly endanger world peace.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel will be cool about it, no doubt. This might be the best investment he’s made since that fateful August bet on Facebook. He’ll be well positioned close to a new American president and the much less stable world order he brought about—although an order where there will still be business to conduct. It’s nice, too, thatas the 243rd wealthiest person in the world, Thiel may be rich enough to escape whatever horrors befall the average American in a post-NATO world.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Or this could be a career-staining stumble for him. Libertarians are on the ascent across the country: Among Millennials, the second-most popular presidential candidate isn’t Trump, but Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party. Instead of becoming their standard-bearer, Thiel, the seer of Silicon Valley, has permanently allied himself with the orange oligarch of Manhattan. We’ll know in five months whether it was a wise choic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ron Paul Wants to Abolish the CIA; His Largest Donor Builds Toys for It</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why does 76 percent of the civil libertarian’s Super PAC money come from billionaire Peter Thiel, whose Palantir Technologies helps the government spy on citizens?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Mark AmesFEBRUARY 23, 2012</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If there’s one thing that distinguishes Ron Paul from the rest of the GOP field, it’s his principled stand against American empire and his ardent defense of individual liberties. Paul’s opposition to wars, bloated defense budgets and government espionage of US citizens has made him a hero among some young conservatives. His seemingly rock-solid principles and radicalism has even drawn some on the left; unlike even left-wing Democrats, Paul has said he wants to abolish both the CIA and the FBI to protect individual “liberty.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So it should come as a shock and disappointment to his followers that Ron Paul’s single largest donor—his Sheldon Adelson, as it were—founded a controversial defense contractor, Palantir Technologies, that profits from government espionage work for the CIA, FBI and other agencies, and which last year was caught organizing an illegal spy ring targeting American political opponents of the US Chamber of Commerce, including journalists, progressive activists and union leaders. (Palantir takes its name from the mystic stones used by characters in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings to spy one another.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to recently filed FEC disclosure documents, Ron Paul’s Super PAC has received nearly all of its money from a single source, billionaire Peter Thiel. So far, Thiel has contributed $2.6 million to Ron Paul’s Super PAC, Endorse Liberty, providing 76 percent of the Super PAC’s total intake.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel, a self-described libertarian and opponent of democracy who made his fortune as the founder of PayPal, launched Palantir in 2004 to profit from what the Wall Street Journal described as “the government spy-services marketplace.” The CIA’s venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel, was brought in to back up Thiel as one of Palantir’s first outside investors. Today, Palantir’s valuation is reported to be in the billions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A recent Businessweek profile explained how Palantir makes its money—and why Ron Paul’s followers should be bothered:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Depending where you fall on the spectrum between civil liberties absolutism and homeland security lockdown, Palantir’s technology is either creepy or heroic. Judging by the company’s growth, opinion in Washington and elsewhere has veered toward the latter. Palantir has built a customer list that includes the U.S. Defense Dept., CIA, FBI, Army, Marines, Air Force, the police departments of New York and Los Angeles, and a growing number of financial institutions trying to detect bank fraud. These deals have turned the company into one of the quietest success stories in Silicon Valley—it’s on track to hit $250 million in sales this year—and a candidate for an initial public offering. Palantir has been used to find suspects in a case involving the murder of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent, and to uncover bombing networks in Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. “It’s like plugging into the Matrix,” says a Special Forces member stationed in Afghanistan who requested anonymity out of security concerns. “The first time I saw it, I was like, ‘Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.’”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It gets worse: the technologies and know-how acquired over years of spying on suspected foreign terrorists and threats were turned to private, political use against US citizens. In what became known last year as the “Chamber-Gate” scandal, Palantir was outed by Anonymous as the lead outfit in a private espionage consortium with security technology companies HBGary and Berico; the groups spent months “creating electronic dossiers on political opponents of the Chamber through illicit means.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to ThinkProgress, Palantir “may have used techniques and technologies developed under military contracts in their pro-Chamber campaign.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel’s Palantir and its two intelligence contractor partners—collectively named “Team Themis” after the Roman goddess of law and order—proposed to the Chamber’s lawyers a plan that involved illegal cyber-espionage against the Chamber’s enemies, including targeting activists’ families and children. Among those targeted: ThinkProgress, union leaders, MoveOn, Brad Friedman and Glenn Greenwald, whose support for Wikileaks reportedly rankled Chamber member Bank of America.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ron Paul came out vocally supporting WikiLeaks and Assange, positions that made Paul popular among young libertarians and progressives. Just weeks before PayPal announced it had cut off funding for Wikileaks, Thiel’s stake in PayPal was reportedly worth $1.7 billion (he sold the company to eBay in 2002).&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel has funded a number of far-right-wing causes over the years: He was an early investor in conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe’s career, funding a video called “Taxpayer’s Clearing House,” which shows O’Keefe duping working-class minorities into believing they’d won a sweepstakes, only to stick them with a tax bill for the bailouts. O’Keefe, of course, later produced the infamous ACORN and Planned Parenthood videos and was also charged with entering a federal building under false pretenses in an attempt to wiretap the offices of US Senator Mary Landrieu. Thiel was a member of the right-wing Federalist Society while at Stanford Law School, and he co-authored an anti–affirmative action book, The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance on Campus—a book that belittles “imaginary oppressors” of minorities, blames homophobia on homosexuals and attacks domestic partnerships. Thiel himself is gay.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a recent article published in the libertarian Cato Unbound, Thiel came out against democracy and majority rule, and blamed women’s suffrage for ending “freedom”:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel also funds a libertarian project headed by Milton Friedman’s grandson, Patri Friedman, called the “Seasteading Institute,” which designs offshore “libertarian utopias.” Patri Friedman also denounced democracy as “ill-suited for a libertarian state.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Ron Paul is serious about his principled defense of Americans’ individual liberties and his opposition to war-profiteering and government espionage against its own citizens, then why does his main Super PAC rely so heavily on one of the worst violators of Paul’s core principles?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What exactly is Ron Paul talking about when he warns his followers that America is becoming a “fascist system”? In his recent speech, Paul defined this “fascist system” as “a combination of government and big business and authoritarian rule and the suppression of the individual rights of each and every American citizen.” Can Paul really oppose such “fascism” while his campaign is bankrolled by one of the chief protagonists and beneficiaries of the very system Ron Paul claims to oppose?&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MARK AMES Mark Ames is the founding editor of the eXile and author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion: From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine. He is an editor at The eXiled Online and a regular guest on MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">interesting rationales/bs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why would Peter Thiel, the avowed libertarian, allow Palantir to take an investment from the CIA?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Randy Vollrath, SaaS B2B eCommerce PM</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">774 Views</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...from the beginning the libertarian saw Palantir as an antidote to–not a tool for–privacy violations in a society slipping into a vise of security. “It was a mission-oriented company,” says Thiel, who has personally invested $40 million in Palantir and today serves as its chairman. “I defined the problem as needing to reduce terrorism while preserving civil liberties.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He sees it as a way to protect individual rights, starting with protecting the country. &nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From: How A 'Deviant' Philosopher Built Palantir, A CIA-Funded Data-Mining Juggernaut</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel, who sits on the board and is an avowed libertarian, says civil liberties advocates should welcome Palantir. “We cannot afford to have another 9/11 event in the U.S. or anything bigger than that,” he says. “That day opened the doors to all sorts of crazy abuses and draconian policies.” In his view, the best way to avoid such scenarios in the future would be to provide the government the most cutting-edge technology possible and build in policing systems to make sure investigators use it lawfully.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From: Palantir, the War on Terror's Secret Weapon</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Updated 6 Jul 2014 • View Upvotes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Related Questions</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More Answers Below</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What was Peter Thiel's contribution to Palantir?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How was the Palantir equity divided between the founders and Peter Thiel?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What does Peter Thiel think of the direction Palantir has gone?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Which people are attending the Palantir dinner with Peter Thiel next week?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What will it take for Palantir to accept a buyout from Microsoft?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anonymous</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">434 Views</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Libertarians believe that the free market and private enterprise can solve problems much better than big government. Palantir is a private company, so taking investments from the CIA and doing government work much more efficiently and better is pretty much exactly in line with Libertarian ideals.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written 6 Jun 2014 • View Upvotes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Related Questions</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why does Peter Thiel invest in Quora and Stripe by himself, but not Founder's Fund?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Did Peter Thiel want out of the Facebook investment? Why?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Did Founders Fund actually invest in Facebook, or was it just Peter Thiel's personal angel investment?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How much influence does Peter Thiel have over what Founders Fund invests in?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What will it take for Palantir to accept a buyout from Oracle?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What are requirements to get seed money from Peter Thiel?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What does Peter Thiel think of Quora?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How does Peter Thiel's Founders Fund differ from other VCs?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why hasn't Peter Thiel invested in any Bitcoin startups?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Where did Peter Thiel invest in Israel?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why doesn't Peter Thiel mention Joe Lonsdale in his book (at all, much less as a co-founder of Palantir)?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Was Peter Thiel's Facebook investment one of the most famous investments in history?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What are the biggest take aways from the Palantir-Propeller deal?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Does the CIA allow tattoos?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How did Rypple get Peter Thiel to invest?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.covertbookreport.com/the-nsa-cia-venture-capital-and-peter-thiel/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hhmn conspir blog?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edward Snowden’s complex world is unraveling and transforming. Snowden, you will recall is the former employee of Booze Allen Hamilton, a private company used by the secretive National Security Agency.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What is not recognized is that Snowden’s revelations about the collection of meta-data, every electronic communication in the country – is nothing new. The NSA and other agencies have been doing it for years, even while they denied it. But the thing Snowden has brought to the table is how much of the work is being done by private corporations with virtually no government oversight. Snowden claims, and nobody seems to deny that just about anyone employed by these private snoops has access to the personal communications millions of innocent civilians in the United States, as well as the rest of the world. What is not clear yet is if these private contractors have the ability to trade on such information without the knowledge of government authority.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The other revelation related to Snowden’s disclosure is that social networking companies like Facebook or search engines like Google are the source of the data-mining, as well as phone companies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And here lies the intersection of private companies and the surveillance state.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Probably nobody represents this fusion of private/state cooperative surveillance better than Peter Thiel. Thiel is the German-born son of a chemical engineer that moved to California. He was a high-school whiz kid that was obsessed with the “Star Wars” movies and Tolkien’s “The Lord Of The Rings. At Stanford, he distanced himself from perceived diversity issues by founding “The Stanford Review”, the premier conservative paper of the college and according to critics it “set out to provoke and offend”.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This accusation followed Thiel as he donated $1 million to an allegedly racist group:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Insiders at Clarium Capital, the $5.3 billion hedge fund run by Facebook investor Peter Thiel, are buzzing about their boss’s $1 million donation to NumbersUSA, an anti-immigrant group. The donation is an open secret within Clarium, and it has enraged several staff members who joined Clarium because they believed Thiel shared their libertarian ideals. When I asked Thiel if he’d made the donation, an underling passed on a nondenial saying the company didn’t comment on “gossip and heresy.” A typo — he meant to say “hearsay” — but a suggestive one. Thiel has fallen under the sway of Robertson “Rob” Morrow III, a Christian right-wing thinker who has personally donated to NumbersUSA, and persuaded Thiel to make his own, much larger donation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NumbersUSA is a front organization for anti-immigrant, racist, John Tanton who founded the nativist Federation for American Immigration Reform. The Tanton and NumbersUSA agenda is basically nativist xenophobia with a good dose of anti-Latino hysteria.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel represents the schizophrenic nature of Libertarian ideology: on one hand, he proposed (along with Milton Friedman’s grandson Patri) to build huge floating Libertarian islands 200 miles off the coast. They would be out of the reach of U.S. tax authorities and the law in general. Sort of a rich man’s “Lord Of The Flies”, with servants that need not have wage or safety guarantees.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the other hand, Thiel is embedded in the surviellance culture. After creating PayPal, he moved on to help Mark Zuckerberg develop Facebook, a gift to intelligence agencies and marketing firms. Of course, Facebook is on the front line of companies rolling information into NSA files.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For a Libertarian, Thiel doesn’t mind making money off Uncle Sam. Thiel’s more recent company is Palantir, a data mining outfit that uses a software program called “Prism”. Interestingly, “Prism” is also the software name that Edward Snowden disclosed as a NSA tool. From “The Atlantic Wire”:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“On a Friday full of tech-land denials and government distancing and no real answers about how the NRA’s sweeping spy program actually works, Palanatir — the “Mysterious Silicon Valley Company Helping the NSA Spy on Americans” — now insists that its own “Prism” system for database mining has nothing to do with the NSA’s data-mining “PRISM” program, but that’s not going to calm many privacy fears, either. “Palantir’s Prism platform is completely unrelated to any US government program of the same name,” the company wrote in a statement provided to The Atlantic Wire. “Prism is Palantir’s name for a data integration technology used in the Palantir Metropolis platform (formerly branded as Palantir Finance). This software has been licensed to banks and hedge funds for quantitative analysis and research.” It’s true that Palantir Metropolis used to go by the name Palantir Finance, according to this Quora thread. And the link describing Palantir’s Prism platform falls under the “Metropolis Dev” section. But the coincidence, as well as the company’s strong ties to the CIA, have been hard to ignore.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir was a product of Thiel sponsered by In-Q-Tel:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In-Q-Tel of Arlington, Virginia, United States is a not-for-profit venture capital firm that invests in high-tech companies for the sole purpose of keeping the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability.[4]”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So Palantir, along with an unknown number of hi-tech firms, is a CIA “start-up” company. The software program “Prism”, if it was indeed the same name as another company’s product, would surely be the subject of lawsuits which are absent from the issue. In that case, Palantir’s denial that it’s Prism software is not being used by the NSA is suspect.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Again, from The Atlantic Wire:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Not only do the NSA’s PRISM program and Palantir’s Prism program share a name, but Palantir seemingly markets pretty much the exact service the NSA would need to gain direct access to databases without a backdoor from tech companies. The startup’s own Prism overview describes the product as “a software component that lets you quickly integrate external databases into Palantir,” which sounds a lot like what the Post said the NSA needed to make PRISM work: “From inside a company’s data stream the NSA is capable of pulling out anything it likes.” One of the first “examples” Palantir gives of how to use its Prism system has to do with “Connecting to Databases.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel represents hypocrisy unleashed. A “Libertarian” in the anarcho-capitalist mode that has no issue with helping the Government – strike that – private corporations glean every word, text and keystroke transmitted in the United States. His ungoverned floating island paradises as well as his willingness to be a snoop illustrate the fine line between the cult of Libertarianism and the emerging Fascism of a computer-driven surveillance state.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The raw fact that the collective bureaucracy intended to manage the affairs of the American people in an equitable way (Government) has been bought and paid for by corporations should worry all of us. In a narrow focus we see that private contractors are reaping billions of dollars managing the private information of all U.S. citizens. This appears to be going on without Government oversight, and no one knows how much information is being used by private companies for investment purposes, industrial espionage, or blackmail.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We may have gone past the point of no return in the surveillance state, and just about everyone agrees that the country needs to be protected.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But with the information in the hands of private contractors with no penalties for abusing the system, there are huge problems.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If the genie is out of the bottle, it needs to be overseen by Uncle Sam.endit</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://readwrite.com/2014/09/12/peter-thiel-reddit-ama/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">readwrite</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cheeky boy:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Thiel, at turns smug, acerbic and brilliant, has opinions on most everything. I first met him a few weeks before I graduated from law school and after he had pulled off the sale of PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion. Why did he bother to accept a random lunch invitation from a nobody?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I don’t know. But that’s part of Thiel’s odd and endearing genius.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now a successful hedge fund operator and angel investor, Thiel regularly gets asked his opinion on most everything. And he doesn’t hold back. Most recently, he took to Reddit to answer questions on everything from the CIA’s role in Palantir to Facebook’s effect on the global advertising market. Here are some of the best moments.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though, alas!—there’s nothing about the effect of cicada populations on sesame seed futures markets.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Whether Palantir Is A Front For The CIA …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No, the CIA is a front for Palantir.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Companies Having A Social Mission …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A sense of mission is critical, but I think the word “social” is problematically ambiguous: it can mean either (1) good for society, or (2) seen as good by society.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the second meaning, it leads to me-too copycat companies. I think the field of social entrepreneurship is replete with these, and that this is one of the reasons these businesses have not been that successful to date. &nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Net Neutrality …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We’ve had these debates about net neutrality for over 15 years. It hasn’t been necessary so far, and I’m not sure anything has changed to make it necessary right now.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp; And I don’t like government regulation: We need the US government to regulate the internet about as much as we need the EU to regulate Google—I suspect the cons greatly outweigh the pros, especially in practice.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On His Worst Ever Investment Decision …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Biggest mistake ever was not to do the Series B round at Facebook.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">General lesson: Whenever a tech startup has a strong up round led by a top tier investor (Accel counts), it is generally still undervalued. The steeper the up round, the greater the undervaluation. &nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Women In Technology…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If we want to have more women in tech, it is not enough to get more women engineers and executives—we need more women founders, because it is the founders of companies that set the cultural tone for so much that happens in Silicon Valley.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Starting A Company…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Start with focusing on a small market and dominate that market first.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And then there are school districts. In the past two years, wealthy neighborhoods in several states have launched campaigns to break away from school districts that include poor communities. This has taken place in Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, California and Tennessee, and some of the efforts have been successful.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elsewhere, many affluent Americans prefer to live in exclusive neighborhoods. It's common for wealthy residents of Southern California and Silicon Valley to live in gated communities, which often employ private security rather than relying on public police officers. And the security may be for a good reason. In the non-gated Lindenwood neighborhood, near Silicon Valley, average home prices exceed $7 million. Vandals recently spray-painted black graffiti on the 1 percent's walls, garages and white picket fences.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the last decade, several cities in Georgia have broken off from the state and become largely autonomous, with many locals citing a poorly run state government. The first city to do so was the affluent Sandy Springs, where almost all public services have since been privatized. Without needing to provide to poverty-stricken surrounding communities, Sandy Springs, where the average family income is $169,815, can now reportedly keep taxes lower and stay out of debt.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The tech world is particularly keen on leaving government behind to create its own utopia. Investor Peter Thiel has raised over $25,000 to build the world's first floating tech island, free from government constraints. Google CEO Larry Page wants to "set aside a part of the world" for regulation-free tech experiments. And Balaji Srinivasan, the co-founder of genetics company Counsyl, calls "Silicon Valley's Ultimate Exit" from civil society inevitable, and advocates for a techno-utopian island in the ocean. Meanwhile, the "campuses" of Google, Facebook, Apple and other Silicon Valley tech giants are essentially autonomous urban centers where an employee can see a dentist and take private buses to and from work.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.salon.com/2014/09/11/meet_the_anti_gay_sexist_celebrity_genius_why_peter_thiel_is_grossly_overrated/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THURSDAY, SEP 11, 2014 05:30 AM PDT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why celebrity “genius” Peter Thiel is grossly overrated</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fortune magazine says PayPal's co-founder is America's leading public intellectual. Come again?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MICHAEL LIND</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is wealthy Silicon Valley venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel a world-class intellectual — one of the great geniuses of our time? &nbsp;This is what journalist Roger Parloff claims, in a puff piece in Fortune that sets a new standard in sycophancy:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A gifted rhetorician and provocateur with a bottomless pocketbook, Thiel has drawn upon his wide-ranging and idiosyncratic readings in philosophy, history, economics, anthropology, and culture to become perhaps America’s leading public intellectual today, assuming a mantle once held by the likes of Thorstein Veblen or Norman Mailer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Norman Mailer-Peter Thiel comparison may be apt. &nbsp;Norman Mailer was a shameless publicity hound who should have stuck to what he was good at — writing fiction.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But is Fortune correct that Peter Thiel can be compared to the early 20th-century American economist and social thinker Thorstein Veblen? &nbsp;Let’s compare the intellectual achievements of Thorstein Veblen and Peter Thiel.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) was a brilliant satirical observer of modern capitalist society responsible for many coinages that have entered the English lexicon, like “the higher learning,” “the leisure class” and “conspicuous consumption.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like Thorstein Veblen, Peter Thiel knows something about coinages. &nbsp;He co-founded PayPal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thorstein Veblen and Peter Thiel have both been critics of American higher education. &nbsp;In “The Higher Learning in America”(1918), Veblen claimed that American higher education had been warped by the insistence of wealthy regents and their sycophants in the press and public that colleges and universities be run like businesses.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What are Peter Thiel’s contributions to debates about higher education in the U.S.? &nbsp;Here is the one, according to Fortune:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1995 he and Sacks published a book called The Diversity Myth, in which they argued that in the campus context, “those persons complaining about oppression are generally not the ones to have experienced it firsthand.” In one disturbing passage they come to the defense of a law student friend who in 1992 had shouted an antigay slur outside the cottage of a gay resident fellow as a protest against campus speech codes. The authors argue that the law student’s near-universal execration afterward, official and unofficial, was disproportionate to his offense.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel’s contributions &nbsp;to American higher education go beyond defending students who shout anti-gay slurs on campus. &nbsp;Here is another of Thiel’s ideas about education, according to the Fortune profile:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel’s most infamous charitable project has probably been his 20 Under 20 program, which provides gifted students between the ages of 18 and 20 with $100,000 to launch their own startups. …Former Harvard president Larry Summers called the program “the single most misdirected philanthropy in this decade,” according to TechCrunch, while Slate Group chairman Jacob Weisberg wrote in Newsweek, “Thiel fellows will have the opportunity to emulate their sponsor by halting their intellectual development around the onset of adulthood, maintaining a narrow-minded focus on getting rich as young as possible and thereby avoid the siren lure of helping others or pursuing knowledge for its own sake.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thorstein Veblen’s contributions to scholarship included political sociology as well as economics. &nbsp;In “Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution” (1915), Veblen argued that the combination of authoritarian and militarist traditions and modern industrialism in Germany and Japan would make them dangerous powers — an analysis borne out in World War II, following Veblen’s death in 1929.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Thiel, like Thorstein Veblen, has contributed to political theory. &nbsp;In a 2009 essay for the libertarian Cato Institute’s Cato Unbound, Thiel argued that allowing women to vote had resulted in disaster:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You have to give Thiel credit for pushing the intellectual envelope. &nbsp;I don’t know of anybody else who argues that lady suffragettes of the Model T Ford era doomed democratic capitalism to be replaced by totalitarian collectivism. &nbsp;Mainstream scholars in universities and think tanks have yet to wrestle with Thiel’s controversial thesis that modern countries are dying from bloated welfare states because women are allowed to vote. &nbsp;Perhaps he is ahead of his time.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The man whom Fortune calls “America’s leading public intellectual today” also has heterodox thoughts about the nature of political sovereignty. &nbsp;In his capacity as a “public intellectual,” as well as his capacity as a deep-pockets donor, Thiel has supported the “seastead” movement. &nbsp;Tired of losing elections to “statists” like Democrats and Republicans, libertarian “seasteaders” hope to renounce their U.S. citizenship and found their own sovereign, libertarian-only micro-states, to be built on repurposed oil derricks in international waters.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now why didn’t Thorstein Veblen think of that?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What has the genius crowned by Fortune as “America’s leading public intellectual” been thinking lately?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Breakout Labs shines a spotlight on a contrarian contention Thiel has been advancing in essays, talks, and debates since about 2008, which has come to be known as the “tech stagnation thesis.” Thiel contends that the amazing advances we have seen in computer science and communications have masked ominously disappointing progress in energy, transportation, biotech, disease prevention, and space travel. That slowdown, he maintains, accounts for the near stagnation in real incomes and wages we have experienced since 1973, and for widening inequality in wealth distribution.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It may very well be true that the rate of technological innovation has slowed down. &nbsp;But is this an observation for which Peter Thiel should be given any credit? &nbsp;Is Fortune correct that this idea has “come to be known” as the “tech stagnation thesis” only since Peter Thiel began musing about it?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Fortune, Thiel arrived at this “contrarian contention … about 2008.” &nbsp;That’s odd. &nbsp;The thesis that the most recent wave of tech innovation was slowing, or would soon slow, was discussed in the 1990s by Neo-Schumpeterians like Carlota Perez, and more recently by economists Robert J. Gordon, Michael Mandel and Tyler Cowen, among many others. &nbsp;Cowen, himself a latecomer to the debate, wrote a book on the topic, “The Great Stagnation,” that was widely discussed. &nbsp;I have attended numerous discussions about this subject among experts, at which nobody mentioned Peter Thiel or alluded to the “Thiel tech stagnation thesis.” &nbsp;Nor to my knowledge have Thiel’s thoughts on this subject been cited anywhere in the extensive scholarly literature.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perhaps in 2020 some billionaire app inventor or widget maker will start wondering whether the economy is suffering from “secular stagnation,” nearly a decade after Larry Summers started a worldwide debate on the subject among economic experts. And perhaps that vain plutocrat will find a business-press reporter as obliging as Roger Parloff to portray, as a startling original insight, the tycoon’s “new contrarian contention: secular stagnation!”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fortune predicts that Thiel’s fame as a public intellectual will be increased even further (more than Veblen’s and Mailer’s?) by his newest book, co-authored by a Stanford law student (did Veblen and Mailer have “co-authors?”):</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Later this month Thiel’s fame will probably balloon further when he publishes Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. The title refers to the distinction Thiel draws between transformative, “vertical” change—going from zero to one—and incremental, “horizontal” change—going from one to n. “If you take one typewriter and build 100, you have made horizontal progress,” he explains in the book’s first chapter. “If you have a typewriter and build a word processor, you have made vertical progress.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Horizontal change: &nbsp;zero to one. &nbsp;Vertical change: &nbsp;one to n. &nbsp;This is an observation worthy of Chauncey Gardener in Jerzy Kosinski’s “Being There.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The most comical portion of Roger Parloff’s inadvertently funny profile of Peter Thiel is the attempt to redefine “public intellectual” to include people like Thiel who found companies like PayPal:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[PayPal co-founder Reid] Hoffman had aspired to become a public intellectual, by writing books and essays as a philosophy professor, but now he was tweaking his plan. “I realized,” he says in an interview, “that if you generalized what a public intellectual does to [creating] media objects”—i.e., not just books and essays—“then one could possibly create software companies that had public intellectual impact.” These would have “the strength of commercial models,” he explains, and therefore also have the advantage of letting one “play the economic thing”—i.e., make money.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So public intellectuals aren’t necessarily insightful, wide-ranging thinkers who spend their days researching and pondering and have important things to teach their fellow citizens. They can also be creators of “media objects” including “software companies that had public intellectual impact.” And who needs to go to the trouble of authoring (not “co-authoring”) books and essays when you can “play the economic thing” — i.e., make money” and be treated by Fortune as an intellectual?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Thiel wouldn’t be on any publication’s list of leading “public intellectuals” if he were a failed investor who worked in obscurity at a law firm or investment bank and, in his spare time, wrote defenses of anti-gay slurs and denunciations of female suffrage and endorsements of seasteading for the libertarian intellectual ghetto. &nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But we live in a decadent age in which worship of celebrities has all but demolished the standards for expertise that used to confine the audience for the opinions of billionaires and movie stars and sports stars to their unfortunate flunkies and suffering relatives. The Huffington Post just hired an NFL football player who, until he recently recanted, publicized 9/11 truther conspiracy theories as a “national security correspondent.” Here are some representative tweets:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“NO WAY 9/11 was carried out by ‘dying’ Bin Laden, 19 men who couldn’t fly a damn kite. STILL have NO EVIDENCE Osama was connected, like Iraq,” he tweeted on July 20, 2009.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Ggrrrrrrrrrrrrr @ ppl who actually believe a plane hit the pentagon on 9/11 … hole woulda been ASTRONOMICALLY bigger, God bless lost lives,” he added.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So perhaps I am being unfair to Peter Thiel. &nbsp;If Donte Stallworth is a national security expert, then Peter Thiel is a leading public intellectual.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Lind is the author of Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States and co-founder of the New America Foundation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11/business/media/gawker-bankruptcy-sale.html?r=0</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gawker Media, the irreverent company that pioneered the wry tone and take-no-prisoners approach that came to embody a certain style of web journalism, put itself up for sale on Friday in an acknowledgment that its future as an independent news organization was in doubt.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gawker said it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and would conduct a sale through an auction. The company is under significant financial pressure from a $140 million legal judgment in an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit by the former wrestler Hulk Hogan and facing a determined foe in the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, who is funding legal cases against it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ziff Davis, a digital media company, has submitted an opening bid, which a person briefed on Gawker’s plans said was in the range of $90 million to $100 million. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sale process. Gawker expects a sale to close by the end of the summer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But even as Gawker took stock of its next steps, it remained, in typical fashion, defiant.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hulk Hogan v. Gawker: A Guide to the Trial for the PerplexedMARCH 18, 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For Gawker, Legal Issues Beyond HoganMAY 31, 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nick Denton, Gawker Founder, Assails Peter Thiel as ‘Vindictive’ FoeMAY 27, 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Thiel, Tech Billionaire, Reveals Secret War With Gawker MAY 26, 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gawker’s sites published posts assuring readers they were not going anywhere.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But even as Gawker took stock of its next steps, it remained, in typical fashion, defiant.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Even with his billions, Thiel will not silence our writers,” Nick Denton, Gawker’s founder and chief executive, said on Twitter. “Our sites will thrive — under new ownership — and we’ll win in court.” (Mr. Denton, through a spokesman, declined further comment.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since its founding in 2002, Gawker has espoused a conversational tone that came to be mimicked across the internet and on social platforms like Twitter. Gawker and its affiliated sites — including the sports-focused Deadspin and Jezebel, which is aimed at women — have relentlessly and gleefully chronicled the lives of the powerful, and often delivered attention-grabbing, exclusive stories, some of them too over-the-edge for other publications. The company was also an incubator of talent: Employees went on to found websites like The Awl and work at publications like The New Yorker and Time.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gawker also had many detractors, who said it often went too far and published items with little news value that aimed to embarrass individuals. But over the last year Gawker.com has been going through something of a cultural transformation. Mr. Denton has vowed to make the site nicer and Gawker has shifted to politics and away from coverage of the New York media world and celebrity gossip.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The decision to file for bankruptcy and put itself up for sale is the latest development for a company that has faced a seemingly unending barrage of bad news in the last year. There was the maelstrom last summer after Gawker published, and then removed, an article about a married male media executive who sought to hire a gay escort. That decision led to the resignations of two top editors. More recently, there was the lawsuit by Mr. Hogan, whose real name is Terry G. Bollea, which has roiled the company and raised questions about its path forward.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hulk Hogan Awarded $115 Million in Privacy Suit Against Gawker MARCH 18, 2016</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It really was an incredibly bad year,” said Hamilton Nolan, a writer who has worked at Gawker for eight years. “I think they’ll study this in journalism schools one day as being the single worst year in media company history.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Gawker’s new offices in Manhattan on Friday, the mood was somber. Around noon, Mr. Denton and Heather Dietrick, the company’s president and general counsel, held a meeting to inform employees of the company’s plans and provide reassurance that Gawker would operate as usual during the sale process.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They emphasized that the future is uncertain, but for now we’re going to keep doing what we do, and that was useful for people to hear,” said Alex Pareene, the editor in chief of Gawker.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Employees said that few people had known before the meeting of the company’s decision to file for bankruptcy. A keg of beer was brought in and pizzas were ordered.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It was not a raucous or even particularly depressing affair,” Mr. Pareene said. “We’ve had more depressing meetings and we’ve had more argumentative meetings.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Filing for Chapter 11 stays claims from creditors, including court judgments — meaning Gawker will not need to begin paying the $140 million that was awarded in March to Mr. Bollea.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It also allows companies more time and more control as they reorganize themselves. In its bankruptcy filing, Gawker listed $50 million to $100 million in assets and $100 million to $500 million in liabilities. The company still plans to appeal the case.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also on Friday, a judge in Pinellas County Circuit Court in Florida granted Gawker’s request for a stay of the judgment against it in the lawsuit, pending an appeal. That decision essentially became redundant once Gawker filed for bankruptcy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Weeks earlier, Mr. Thiel acknowledged in an interview with The New York Times that he was financially supporting Mr. Bollea’s lawsuit, as well as other lawsuits against the organization. Mr. Thiel, a founder of PayPal and one of the earliest investors in Facebook, was outed as being gay by one of Gawker’s blogs, the now-defunct Valleywag, nearly a decade ago. He said that Gawker published articles that “ruined people’s lives for no reason” and prompted his decision to finance cases against the company.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence,” Mr. Thiel said of his supporting Gawker’s legal opponents. “I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A spokesman for Mr. Thiel did not return a request for comment on Friday. Gawker is also exploring at least one lawsuit against Mr. Thiel, according to the person briefed on Gawker’s plans.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The offer by Ziff Davis, whose online properties include IGN, Geek.com and AskMen.com, is what is known as a “stalking-horse bid,” essentially setting a floor in a court-supervised auction. Money from a sale would be held aside to cover creditor claims, including any damages after the appeals process.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an internal memo obtained by The New York Times, Ziff Davis’s chief executive, Vivek Shah, said that under the terms of a potential agreement, the company would acquire Gawker Media’s properties but none of its liabilities. When discussing its plans for Gawker Media, he referred to the benefits of having all of the company’s sites, but conspicuously omitted any mention of Gawker.com.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He said the auction would most likely take place at the end of July. Other bidders, which will probably include other media publishers, are expected, particularly with the threat of assuming legal claims removed with the bankruptcy filing.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In January, Gawker sold a minority stake in the company to the investment company Columbus Nova Technology Partners, partly in preparation for the lawsuit by Mr. Bollea.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Bollea sued Gawker Media in 2012 over Gawker.com’s publication of a black-and-white tape that showed Mr. Bollea having sex with a woman who was at the time the wife of a friend of his.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In March, after a two-week trial, a Florida jury awarded $115 million in damages to Mr. Bollea. A jury later awarded $25 million more in punitive damages, bringing the total to $140 million.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Friday, some Gawker employees remained hopeful that a new owner might mean a fresh start, but there was also perhaps a tacit acknowledgment that Gawker as everyone knew it could soon be a thing of the past.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There’s not going to be the magical happy ending to the story,” Mr. Nolan said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be the worst ending to the story, but we’re not just going to go back to everything being how it was.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael J. de la Merced, Nick Wingfield, John Koblin, Nick Madigan and Andrew Ross Sorkin contributed reporting.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A version of this article appears in print on June 11, 2016, on page A1 of the New York edition</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the leadup to Monday's annual Facebook shareholders meeting, the question was this: Would Peter Thiel, the secretive libertarian billionaire who funded a legal campaign that drove a liberal news organization to bankruptcy, be pushed off the company's board of directors? Would Facebook use its new perch as the most important company in journalism to send a message that the fourth estate should not be legally harassed by billionaires?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The answer was no. And it turns out, it was a strong, unequivocal no.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In voting for re-election of board members, Thiel received more "for" votes than all but one current member of the board, including Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, according to an SEC filing, With 6,044,350,047 "for" votes, Thiel had over 400 million more shares voting for him than for founder Mark Zuckerberg, and only 750,000 less than Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who secured the most yes votes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mayday pac</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">promoted to 2nd but mebbe shd be primary/evil OMG Hu right fdn</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">libertarian who says gov't shd stay out of our lives build friggin island but then sells PRIZM to CIA and CoC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.thejanedough.com/peter-thiel-libertarians/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Halvorssen’s hard-right libertarian supporter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rounding out the small stable of major donors to Human Rights Foundation is Peter Thiel, who contributed $535,000 to Halvorssen’s group through his personal foundation from 2007 to 2011.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel earned his fortune as a venture capitalist, helping to found Paypal and investing in Facebook. He is also a right-wing libertarian ideologue who declared, as reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2012, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Thiel went on to blame the extension of voting rights to women for “hav[ing] rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Besides Halvorssen’s pet human rights project, Thiel has financed the notorious and now-discredited ACORN video sting by right-wing filmmaker James O’Keefe.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A February 2012 profile of Thiel published by Mark Ames in The Nation noted that the libertarian billionaire “co-authored an anti-affirmative action book, The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance on Campus — a book that belittles ‘imaginary oppressors’ of minorities, blames homophobia on homosexuals and attacks domestic partnerships.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Halvorssen presented Thiel with an award at the 2010 libertarian film festival, Libertopia, hailing him for “revolutioniz[ing] the monetary system.” The following year, he invited Thiel to speak at the Oslo Freedom Forum.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I support the Human Rights Foundation and the Oslo Freedom Forum because their focus on dissidents engages the intellectual debate as well as the moral cause,” he remarked to the website The Street (“Peter Thiel Urges Investing in Human Rights,” 20 June 2011).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">intifada</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gawker outed theel</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s infamous golden locks.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Attorney Charles Harder on Wednesday sent a letter to the news site on behalf of a hair treatment clinic charging that Gawker reporter Ashley Feinberg made “false and defamatory” statements in her piece, headlined "Is Donald Trump’s Hair a $60,000 Weave? A Gawker Investigation. "</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Harder was behind wrestler Hulk Hogan’s successful defamation lawsuit against Gawker for publishing Hogan's sex tape. The $140 million the company was ordered to pay Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, eventually pushed the media company to declare bankruptcy and put itself up for sale. That suit and others were funded by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is unclear what, if any, involvement Thiel had in this latest legal threat. The billionaire investor is a Trump supporter who will attend the Republican National Convention as a pledged delegate on Trump’s behalf.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Gawker’s J.K. Trotter, Harder’s letter requested that Gawker immediately remove the story on Trump's hair and issue a public apology. It also threatened legal action on behalf of the hair clinic, Ivari International, and its owner, Edward Ivari, who accused Gawker of invasion of privacy, intentionally inflicting emotional distress and interfering with the company’s business relations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The letter, which Harder reportedly asked not be made public, said that Gawker’s actions exposed the company “to substantial monetary damages and punitive damages.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gawker’s investigation was kicked off by a tipster who claimed to know about Trump’s hair and said he relied on “microcylinder intervention,” an unusual treatment that cost tens of thousands of dollars for installation and maintenance. Feinberg found that the only company that uses this treatment is Ivari International, a clinic whose New York office was once located on the Trump Tower private floor reserved for Trump’s own office.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has long claimed that his hair is his own.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gawker president and general counsel Heather Dietrick wrote in the company's response to Harder that Ivari’s insistence the article be take down was “vastly overbroad,” given that he played a bit part in an article “about Donald Trump.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dietrick denied that any of the claims made in the story were libelous, noting that Harder took “no issue with the central thesis of the piece—that Mr. Ivari has worked on Donald Trump’s hair.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Halvorssen’s hard-right libertarian supporter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rounding out the small stable of major donors to Human Rights Foundation is Peter Thiel, who contributed $535,000 to Halvorssen’s group through his personal foundation from 2007 to 2011.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel earned his fortune as a venture capitalist, helping to found Paypal and investing in Facebook. He is also a right-wing libertarian ideologue who declared, as reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2012, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Thiel went on to blame the extension of voting rights to women for “hav[ing] rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Besides Halvorssen’s pet human rights project, Thiel has financed the notorious and now-discredited ACORN video sting by right-wing filmmaker James O’Keefe.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A February 2012 profile of Thiel published by Mark Ames in The Nation noted that the libertarian billionaire “co-authored an anti-affirmative action book, The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance on Campus — a book that belittles ‘imaginary oppressors’ of minorities, blames homophobia on homosexuals and attacks domestic partnerships.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Halvorssen presented Thiel with an award at the 2010 libertarian film festival, Libertopia, hailing him for “revolutioniz[ing] the monetary system.” The following year, he invited Thiel to speak at the Oslo Freedom Forum.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I support the Human Rights Foundation and the Oslo Freedom Forum because their focus on dissidents engages the intellectual debate as well as the moral cause,” he remarked to the website The Street (“Peter Thiel Urges Investing in Human Rights,” 20 June 2011).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/07/california-6-states_n_4890982.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Draper told HuffPost that he initially dreamed up the proposal because California is so large that it has become "ungovernable." He said that his plan would help poor parts of the state because their unique needs would be better heard by smaller, local governments. He has until mid-July to collect the 807,615 signatures needed to get his proposal on the state's 2014 ballot. He hasn't started gathering signatures yet.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perhaps nowhere in the U.S. is income inequality as extreme as in California. One in four of its citizens live in poverty. Yet the state has the highest number of ultra-rich people in the country. The state deeply needs the tax revenue from the wealthy to support those who are less well-off. Under Draper's plan, this critical tax revenue redistribution would be lost.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Splitting up the state would "widen the chasms in education, incarceration and wealth that are already greater than they were 25 years ago," said Larry Gerston, professor of political science at San Jose State University.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Draper isn't alone in wanting to segregate rich and poor. Airlines are increasingly offering their wealthy clients more physical distance from the masses in coach. United and Delta now have private airport suites for first-class travelers, and will drive high-end passengers from one gate to another in luxury cars.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And then there are school districts. In the past two years, wealthy neighborhoods in several states have launched campaigns to break away from school districts that include poor communities. This has taken place in Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, California and Tennessee, and some of the efforts have been successful.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elsewhere, many affluent Americans prefer to live in exclusive neighborhoods. It's common for wealthy residents of Southern California and Silicon Valley to live in gated communities, which often employ private security rather than relying on public police officers. And the security may be for a good reason. In the non-gated Lindenwood neighborhood, near Silicon Valley, average home prices exceed $7 million. Vandals recently spray-painted black graffiti on the 1 percent's walls, garages and white picket fences.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the last decade, several cities in Georgia have broken off from the state and become largely autonomous, with many locals citing a poorly run state government. The first city to do so was the affluent Sandy Springs, where almost all public services have since been privatized. Without needing to provide to poverty-stricken surrounding communities, Sandy Springs, where the average family income is $169,815, can now reportedly keep taxes lower and stay out of debt.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The tech world is particularly keen on leaving government behind to create its own utopia. Investor Peter Thiel has raised over $25,000 to build the world's first floating tech island, free from government constraints. Google CEO Larry Page wants to "set aside a part of the world" for regulation-free tech experiments. And Balaji Srinivasan, the co-founder of genetics company Counsyl, calls "Silicon Valley's Ultimate Exit" from civil society inevitable, and advocates for a techno-utopian island in the ocean. Meanwhile, the "campuses" of Google, Facebook, Apple and other Silicon Valley tech giants are essentially autonomous urban centers where an employee can see a dentist and take private buses to and from work.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Draper's plan is more democratic than building an island free of the world's problems, critics say it reflects the same mentality of "figure it out yourself" instead of "we're in this together." "It’s a way for some folks to get rid of the riffraff," Gerston said. "Let's do some surgery and cut out this part and that part so that now we only have this nice part that we like."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s been lots of talk lately on where Silicon Valley stands in terms of politics. As Washington and Silicon Valley become more closely tied, we’ve been forced to wonder: are the tech titans of California Republicans, Democrats, or something else? Paypal founder and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel spells it out for us.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel spoke with CNET, which asked him about where tech bigwigs stand on the political fence. It depends what they do, he said:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think a lot of the engineers tend to be pretty libertarian in Silicon Valley. A lot of the nonengineering people tend to be more Democratic, if I had to give the cultural split.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Who are those “nonengineering people” exactly? Executives, people like Thiel, but also people like lawyers:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“That includes company executives, it includes people who are lawyers, it includes people who work in other capacities, for all sorts of complicated reasons. The actual Silicon Valley demographic, the engineering part of it, is actually quite libertarian. The nonengineering part is more demographic. I think there’s a pretty big split between the technical or engineering people and everyone else.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hmm…libertarians and Peter Thiel? We’ve heard those two in a sentence before, haven’t we? As you’ll recall, Thiel is funding the Seasteading Institute, a project to create libertarian colonies at sea. Inevitably, Seasteading came up in conversation. Though Thiel didn’t explicitly say he was enticed &nbsp;by Seasteading’s libertarian ideals — he focused on the “technology” aspect — he did manage to get pretty Ayn Rand philosophy-ish on us:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What attracted me to seasteading is, it’s linked to the technology question. We have this question about: Where in the world can one do new things? There’s a technological version of that, and there’s also a “Where can we build new communities and new societies?” All the critiques of utopianism apply to seasteading, just as they do to a lot of people in the tech industry. At the same time, I think there’s also a problem of giving up on all utopian ideas and having no theories about how things can be different or better.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TAGS: peter thiel politics | peter thiel seasteading | silicon valley libertarian | silicon valley politics</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wired</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">tired of the United States and the other 190-odd nations on Earth?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If a small team of Silicon Valley millionaires get their way, in a few years, you could have a new option for global citizenship: A permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With a $500,000 donation from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, a Google engineer and a former Sun Microsystems programmer have launched The Seasteading Institute, an organization dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities "with diverse social, political, and legal systems."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public-sector models around the world," Thiel said in a statement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It might sound like the setting for the videogame Bioshock, but the institute isn't playing around: It plans to splash a prototype into the San Francisco Bay within the next two years, the first step toward establishing deep-water city-states, or what it calls "seasteads" -- homesteads on the high seas.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Within the pantheon of would-be utopian communities, there's a particularly rich history of people trying to live outside the nation-state paradigm out in the ocean. The most ambitious was Marshall Savage's Aquarius Project, which aimed at nothing less than the colonization of the universe. There was also Las Vegas millionaire Michael Oliver's attempt to create a new island country, the Republic of Minerva, by dredging the shallow waters near Tonga. And the Freedom Ship was to be a mile-long portable country costing about $10 billion to construct.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">None of these projects has succeeded, a fact that The Seasteading Institute's founders, Google's Patri Friedman and the semi-retired Wayne Gramlich, are keenly aware of throughout the 300-page book they've written about seasteading.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead of starting with a grand scheme worthy of a James Bond villain, the Institute is bringing an entrepreneurial, DIY mentality to creating oceanic city-states.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"There's a history of a lot of crazy people trying this sort of thing, and the idea is to do it in a way that's not crazy," said Joe Lonsdale, the institute's chairman and a principal at Clarium Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The seasteaders want to build their first prototype for a few million dollars, by scaling down and modifying an existing off-shore oil rig design known as a "spar platform."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This schematic illustrates the ballasting system that Wayne Gramlich imagines would keep the seastead from tipping over. The amount of water in the ballasts could be raised or lowered to move the seastead up and down.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Holl Liou/Wired.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In essence, the seastead would consist of a reinforced concrete tube with external ballasts at the bottom that could be filled with air or water to raise or lower the living platform on top.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The spar design helps offshore platforms better withstand the onslaught of powerful ocean waves by minimizing the amount of structure that is exposed to their energy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"You have very little cross-sectional interaction with waves [with] the spar design," Gramlich said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The primary living space, about 300 square feet per person, would be inside the tube, but the duo envisions the top platform holding buildings, gardens, solar panels, wind turbines and (of course) satellites for internet access.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To some extent, they believe the outfittings for the seastead will be dependent on the business model, say aquaculture or tourism, that will support it and the number of people aboard.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We're not trying to pick the one strategy because we think there will be multiple people who want one for multiple reasons," Gramlich said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dan Donovan, a long-time spokesman for Dominion, an energy company that operated Gulf of Mexico-based gas rigs, including Devils Tower, the world's deepest spar structure, said the group's plan wasn't too far-fetched. His company's off-shore rigs, which are much larger than the institute's planned seasteads, provided long-term housing for its workers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"They were sort of like mobile homes. We could move them from one place to another," Donovan said. "People did live on them."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But even the institute members admit that their plans aren't far enough along to stand up to rigorous engineering scrutiny. Some engineers, Gramlich said, have been skeptical of their plan, particularly their desire to do it on the cheap.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We have some legitimate doubting Thomases out there," Gramlich said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But if the idea turns out to be just crazy enough that it works, Friedman, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, envisions transforming the way that government functions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"My dad and grandfather were happy arguing their ideas and were happy influencing people through the world of ideas," Friedman said. "I see a real need for people to go out and do something and show by example."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">True to his libertarian leanings, Friedman looks at the situation in market terms: the institute's modular spar platforms, he argues, would allow for the creation of far cheaper new countries out on the high-seas, driving innovation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Government is an industry with a really high barrier to entry," he said. "You basically need to win an election or a revolution to try a new one. That's a ridiculous barrier to entry. And it's got enormous customer lock-in. People complain about their cellphone plans that are like two years, but think of the effort that it takes to change your citizenship."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Friedman estimates that it would cost a few hundred million dollars to build a seastead for a few thousand people. With costs that low, Friedman can see constellations of cities springing up, giving people a variety of governmental choices. If misguided policies arose, citizens could simply motor to a new nation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"You can change your government without having to leave your house," he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of course, one major role of government is to provide security, which would seem to be an issue on the open sea. But Friedman's not worried about defense beyond simple firearms because he thinks pirates will lack the financial incentive to attack the seasteads.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"More sophisticated pirates will take entire container ships that have tens of millions of dollars of cargo and 10 crew [members]," he said. "On a seastead, there's a much different crew-to-movable assets ratio."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, his only worry is that a government will try to come calling and force their jurisdiction upon them. Toward that end, they are planning to fly a "flag of convenience" from a country that sells them, like Panama, to provide them with protection from national navies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"If you're not flying a flag … any country can do whatever they want to you," he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even if their big idea doesn't end up panning out, their story should live on in internet lore for confirming the dream that two guys with a blog and a love of Ayn Rand can land half a million dollars to pursue their dream, no matter how off-kilter or off-grid it might seem.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Everything changed when we got the funding," Friedman said. "Before that, it was two guys with some ideas writing a book and blogging about their ideas.... Now that we've got some funding, it's something I plan to make a full-time job out of."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Friday, the Seasteading Institute—a non-profit group cofounded by Peter Thiel and Patri Friedman (grandson to Ronald Reagan advisor Milton Friedman)—successfully closed itsIndiegogo campaign to design “the world’s first floating city” for “pioneers who wish to demonstrate new ways of living together.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The campaign exceeded its $20,000 goal, raising $27,082 in tax deductible funds from 291 donors: a sum that will be matched, dollar-for-dollar, by the Thiel Foundation, the philanthropic organization best known for keeping kids out of school.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Thiel Just Paid 20 Kids $100k to Not Go to College</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Techno-libertarian VC king Peter Thiel just promised $2,000,000 to kids in love with software. For…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel has personally backed this kind of matching funds arrangement for the Seasteading Institute before. However, Friedman, a man the New Yorker once described as an elfin “free-love libertarian,” was compelled to put some distance between himself and his billionaire patron a couple years back. In 2011, Friedman stepped down as CEO of the Institute just before a Details profile of Peter Thiel that quoted the following tweet from Friedman: "Explored BDSM in SF w/big group of friends tonight."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Facebook Billionaire Splits from his Libertine Pinup</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They were going to build a fantasy island together, a floating libertarian utopia where outsiders…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read more gawker.?com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This Indiegogo campaign makes it seem like the dinner party companions are as united as ever in their aquatic cause. For example, the highest category of donor (“Dolphin”) handed over $1,000 to win a conference call “or dinner if able to meet near San Francisco” with Friedman, who still serves as the Institute’s chairman of the board, as well executive director Randolph Hencken, an activist in the drug policy reform movement “since his early 20s, when he used ibogaine to kick heroin."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But this secessionist daydream isn’t just for Silicon Valley’s fringe players!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the keynote speech at Google I/O in May, CEO Larry Page described a similar hope to “set apart a piece of the world” as a safe space for technologists—a Google Island, if you will—“where we can try out new things and figure out the effect on society,” unencumbered by outdated laws on technology.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an n+1 article this summer, Friedman delineated the Institute's ultimate goal:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If we can solve the engineering challenges of Seasteading, two-thirds of the Earth’s surface becomes open for these political start-ups,” explains Friedman, a self-styled cult leader who’s known to the community as just Patri. The Seasteaders have chosen as their motto “Let a Thousand Nations Bloom’—an apparent spin on “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom,” a Maoist policy which encouraged dissidents to speak out and then used their views as a pretext to jail them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like so many technocratic pipe dreams these days, the Institute’s grand plan hinges on a pretty big “if.” Back in 2008, Friedman himself estimated that it could cost hundreds of millions to build a seastead for just a few thousand people. Now, seven years later, the proceeds from amateur investors who backed this crowdfunded campaign are going towards a white paper exploring “feasibility” of the idea—with any leftovers allocated toward "diplomacy" with countries that might "consider hosting a seastead within their territorial waters, while still granting the city substantial autonomy."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Time Magazine Wonders If "Google Can Solve Death"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Time magazine's new cover story is the about the ultimate tech company cage match: GOOGLE VS.…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lack of tangible offerings didn’t stop the Seasteading Institute from taunting idealistic donors on Indiegogo to “put skin in the game”:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Becoming a "seasteader" means that you not only yearn for a better future for humanity, but are also willing to put skin in the game to demonstrate what a better future could look like. Giving to this campaign shows that you are above partisan bickering about how government "should be," and are ready to lead by example.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If this far out brand of futurism sounds foolhardy, well that only motivates Thiel. According tothe New Yorker:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel is never happier than when others scoff at his ventures, but he’s prone to the mistaken belief that the contrarian view is always right. He defended the indefensible after the Rabois incident, in part, because it was a case of one against all. His dislike of George W. Bush didn’t soften until his poll numbers hit rock bottom, and the same is now true for Barack Obama. During the financial crisis, Thiel lost billions of dollars because he refused to behave like the rest of the world. If artificial intelligence and seasteading are our only hope, it isn’t because politicians and professors mock and fear them. Nor is it at all clear how much hope Thiel’s utopian projects really offer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s hard to believe a white paper backed by the wisdom of the unaccredited crowd will make things any clearer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://valleywag.gawker.com/peter-thiel-s-dream-of-a-lawless-utopia-floats-on-1368141049</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">iel’s own story of progress began near the end of the golden age, in 1967, in Frankfurt, Germany. When Peter was one, his father, Klaus, moved the family to Cleveland. Klaus’s employment in various large engineering firms kept uprooting the family—South Africa and Namibia were other locations—and Peter attended seven elementary schools. The final one was near Foster City, a planned community, along the southern edge of San Francisco Bay, where the Thiels settled when he was in fifth grade. His parents banned TV until Peter was in junior high school. He grew up with the untrammelled self-confidence and competitiveness of a brilliant loner. He became a math prodigy and a nationally ranked chess player; his chess kit was decorated with a sticker carrying the motto “Born to Win.” (On the rare occasions when he lost in college, he swept the pieces off the board; he would say, “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.”) As a teen-ager, his favorite book was “The Lord of the Rings,” which he read again and again. Later came Solzhenitsyn and Rand. He acquired the libertarian faith in high school and took it close to the limit. (He now allows for government spending on science.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though Thiel is forty-four, it isn’t hard to imagine him in his late teens. He walks bent slightly forward at the waist, as if he found it awkward to have a body. He has reddish-brown hair with a trace of product on top, a long fleshy nose, clear blue eyes, and fantastically white teeth. He wears T-shirts and sneakers and prefers to hang out in coffee shops. He thought that the actor who played him, for thirty-four seconds, in “The Social Network” made him look too old, and too much like an investment banker. Although he’s acquired various luxuries that one associates with a twenty-first-century mogul, he lacks the firm taste that would allow him to spend money naturally. His most striking feature is his voice: something metallic seems to be caught in his throat, deepening and flattening the timbre into an authoritative drone. During intense moments of cerebration, he can get stuck on a thought and fall silent, or else stutter for a full forty seconds: “I would say it’s—it’s—um—you know, it is—yes, I sort of agree—I sort of—I sort of agree with all this. I don’t—um—I don’t—um—there is a sense in which it’s an unambitious perspective on politics.” Thiel expresses no ill will toward anyone, never stoops to gossip, and seldom cracks a joke or acknowledges that one has been made. In an amiably impersonal way, he is both transparent and opaque. He opens himself to all questions and answers them at length, but his line of reasoning is so uninflected that it becomes a barrier against intimacy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel’s closest friends date back to the early days of PayPal, in the late nineties, or even further, to his years at Stanford, in the late eighties. They are, for the most part, like him and one another: male, conservative, and super-smart in the fields of math and logical reasoning. These friendships were forged through abstract argument. David Sacks, who left PayPal in 2002 and now runs Yammer, a social-network site for businesses, met Thiel at Stanford, where they were members of the same eating club. The topics of conversation included evolutionary theory, libertarian philosophy, and the anthropic principle, which holds that observations about the universe depend on the existence of a consciousness that can observe. “He would demolish your arguments in five minutes,” Sacks said. “It was like playing chess. He was libertarian, but he would ask questions like ‘Should there even be a market for nuclear weapons?’ He would drill down and find the weakness in your argument. He does like to win.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the summer of 1998, Max Levchin, a twenty-three-year-old Ukrainian-born computer programmer, had just arrived in the Bay Area when he heard Thiel give a talk at Stanford on currency trading. The next day, they met for smoothies in Palo Alto and came up with the idea that became PayPal: a system of electronic payment designed to make e-commerce easy, consistent, and secure. “I’m addicted to hanging out with smart people,” Levchin said. “And I found myself craving more time with Peter.” While developing the first prototype for PayPal, Levchin and Thiel tried to stump each other with increasingly difficult math puzzles. (How many digits does the number 125100 have? Two hundred and ten.) “It was a bit like a weird courting process, nerds trying to impress each other,” Levchin said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2005, Eliezer Yudkowsky, an artificial-intelligence researcher, met Thiel at a dinner given by the Foresight Institute, a nanotechnology think tank in Palo Alto. They argued about whether someone could have an anti-knack for playing the stock market—whether “reverse stupidity” could be a form of intelligence. Yudkowsky said, “I remember all my conversations with Peter as very pleasant, far-ranging experiences that I would be more tempted to analogize to a real-world I.Q. test than to anything else.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Few people in Silicon Valley can match Thiel’s combination of business prowess and philosophical breadth. He pushed hard to build PayPal, against formidable obstacles, because he wanted to create an online currency that could circumvent government control. (Though the company succeeded as a business, it never achieved that libertarian goal—Thiel attributes the failure mainly to heightened concerns, after 9/11, that terrorists might exploit electronic currency systems.) At Stanford, he was heavily influenced by the French philosopher René Girard, whose theory of mimetic desire—of people learning to want the same thing—attempts to explain the origins of social conflict and violence. Thiel once said, “Thinking about how disturbingly herdlike people become in so many different contexts—mimetic theory forces you to think about that, which is knowledge that’s generally suppressed and hidden. As an investor-entrepreneur, I’ve always tried to be contrarian, to go against the crowd, to identify opportunities in places where people are not looking.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel’s friends value his openness to intellectual weirdness. Elon Musk, who went on from PayPal to found SpaceX, a company that makes low-cost rockets for space exploration, and Tesla, the electric-car manufacturer, said, “He’s unconstrained by convention. There are very few people in the world who actually use unconstrained critical thinking. Almost everyone either thinks by analogy or follows the crowd. Peter is much more willing to look at things from a first-principle standpoint.” Musk added, “I’m somewhat libertarian, but Peter’s extremely libertarian.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet Thiel is hardly an unconstrained person. He seems uneasy with the world of grownup feelings, as if he were still a precocious youth. Someone who has known him for more than a decade said, “He’s very cerebral, and I’m not sure how much value he places on the more intimate human emotions. I’ve never seen him express them. It’s certainly not the most developed aspect of his personality.” The friend added, “There are some irreconcilable elements that remain unreconciled in him”—a reference to Thiel’s being both Christian and gay, two facts that get no mention in his public utterances and are barely acknowledged in his private conversations. Though he is known for his competitiveness, he has an equally pronounced aversion to conflict. As chief executive of PayPal, which counted its users with a “world domination index,” Thiel avoided the personal friction that comes with managing people by delegating those responsibilities. Similarly, he hired from a small pool of like-minded friends, because “figuring out how well people work together would have been really difficult.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of those friends was Reid Hoffman. As students at Stanford, Thiel and Hoffman had argued about the relative importance of individuals and society in the creation of property. Thiel liked to quote Margaret Thatcher: “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women.” Hoffman, who was far to the left of Thiel, countered that property was a social construct. In 1997, Hoffman put his beliefs about the primacy of social interactions into practice by starting SocialNet, an online dating service that Thiel calls “the first of the social-networking companies.” The model failed—users adopted fictional identities, which wasn’t the way most people wanted to connect on the Web—and Hoffman joined the board of PayPal, becoming the company’s vice-president of external relations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2002, after PayPal was sold to eBay, Thiel turned to investing. He set up a hedge fund called Clarium Capital Management, starting with ten million dollars, most of it his own money. In the summer of 2004, Hoffman, who had recently founded LinkedIn, and Sean Parker, the Silicon Valley enfant terrible, introduced Thiel to Mark Zuckerberg, who was looking for a major investor in Facebook, then a site for college students. Thiel concluded that Facebook would succeed where similar companies had failed. His investment was a kind of philosophical concession to his friend Hoffman. Thiel explained, “Even though I still ideologically believed that it’s unhealthy if society is totalitarian or dominates everything, if I had been libertarian in the most narrow, Ayn Rand-type way, I would have never invested in Facebook.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clarium became one of the meteors of the hedge-fund world. Thiel and his colleagues placed bets that reflected his contrarian nature: they bought Japanese government bonds when others were selling, concluded that oil supplies were running out and went long on energy, and saw a bubble growing in the U.S. housing market. By the summer of 2008, Clarium had assets of more than seven billion dollars, a seven-hundred-fold increase in six years. Thiel acquired a reputation as an investing genius. That year, he was interviewed by Reason, the libertarian magazine. “My optimistic take is that even though politics is moving very anti-libertarian, that itself is a symptom of the fact that the world’s becoming more libertarian,” he said. “Maybe it’s just a symptom of how good things are.” In September, 2008, Clarium moved most of its operations to Manhattan.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The financial markets collapsed later that month. The fund began to lose money, and contrarianism became Thiel’s enemy. Expecting coördinated international intervention to calm the global economy, he went long on the stock market for the rest of the year—and stocks plummeted. Then, in 2009, he shorted stocks, and they rose. Investors began redeeming their money. Some of them grumbled that Thiel had brilliant ideas but couldn’t time trades or manage risk. One of Clarium’s largest investors concluded that the fund was a kind of Thiel cult, staffed by young intellectuals who were in awe of their boss and imitated his politics, his chess playing, his aversion to TV and sports. Clarium continued to bleed. In mid-2010, Thiel closed the New York office and moved Clarium back to San Francisco. This year, Clarium’s assets are valued at just three hundred and fifty million dollars; two-thirds of it is Thiel’s money, representing the entirety of his liquid net wealth. “Clarium is now a de-facto family office for Peter,” a colleague said. “He’s an exceptionally competitive person. He was on the cusp of entering the pantheon of world-class, John Paulson-esque hedge-fund managers in the summer of 2008, and he just missed it.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel took the first great humbling of his career well. No chess pieces were thrown. But, as his personal fortune declined, Thiel developed his pessimistic theory of a tech slowdown. He began to believe that, without a new technology revolution, globalization’s discontents would lead to increased conflict and, perhaps, a worldwide conflagration.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel, who runs Founders Fund with Sean Parker and four others, poured his energy into a group of audacious projects that had less to do with financial returns than with utopian ideas. He invested in nanotechnology, space exploration, and robotics. Believing that computers with more brainpower than human beings would revolutionize life faster than any other technology, Thiel became the largest contributor to the Singularity Institute, a think tank, co-founded, in 2000, by his friend Eliezer Yudkowsky. The institute is preparing for the moment when a machine can make a smarter version of itself, and aims to insure that this “intelligence explosion” remains “human-friendly.” Thiel also gave three and a half million dollars to the Methuselah Foundation, whose goal is to reverse human aging. He became an early patron of the Seasteading Institute, a libertarian nonprofit group that was founded, in 2008, by Patri Friedman, a former Google engineer and Milton Friedman’s grandson. “Seasteading” refers to the founding of new city-states on floating platforms in international waters—communities beyond the reach of laws and regulations. The goal is to innovate more minimalist forms of government that would force existing regimes to change under competitive pressure. Thiel became an enthusiast of the idea, if not an actual candidate for resettlement on the high seas: he gave $1.25 million to Seasteading and, for a time, sat on its board.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The answer to the tech slowdown, Thiel concluded, was the lonely and audacious entrepreneur, seized with a burning vision and unafraid of the mindless herd. In 2009, Thiel posted an essay, “The Education of a Libertarian,” on the Cato Institute’s Web site. Sounding even more like an Ayn Rand hero than usual, he wrote, “In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms—from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called ‘social democracy.’ . . . We are in a deadly race between politics and technology. . . . The fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism.” There was little doubt who the single person might be.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was a rainy morning in Silicon Valley, and Thiel, in a windbreaker and jeans, was at the wheel of his dark-blue Mercedes SL500, trying to find an address in an industrial park between Highway 101 and the bay. The address was for a company called Halcyon Molecular, which wants to cure aging. Thiel, who is the company’s biggest investor and sits on its board, was driving with his seat belt off. “I oscillate on the seat-belt question,” he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I asked what the poles of the oscillation were.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s uh—it’s the, uh—it’s the—it’s um—it’s probably, uh—it’s probably just that it’s not that—well, the pro-seat-belt argument is that it’s safer, and the anti-seat-belt argument is that if you know that it’s not as safe you’ll be a more careful driver.” He made a left turn and fastened his seat belt. “Empirically, it’s actually the safest if you wear a seat belt and are careful at the same time, so I’m not even going to try to debate this point.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel began telling the story of his first awareness of death. The memory seemed so fresh that it might as well have happened earlier that morning, but it took place when he was three years old, sitting on a cowhide rug in his parents’ apartment in Cleveland. He asked his father where the rug came from. A cow. What happened with the cow? It died. What did that mean? What was death? It was something that happened to all cows. All animals. All people. “And then it was sort of like—it was a very, very disturbing day,” Thiel said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He never stopped being disturbed. Even in adulthood, he hasn’t made his peace with death, or what he calls “the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual.” For millions of people, Thiel believes, accepting mortality really means ignoring it—the complacency of the mob. He sees death as a problem to be solved, and the sooner the better. Given the current state of medical research, he expects to live to a hundred and twenty—a sorry compromise, given the grand possibilities of life extension.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2010, Luke Nosek, his friend and a partner at Founders Fund, told Thiel about a biotech startup that was developing a way to read the entire DNA sequence of the human genome through an electron microscope, potentially allowing doctors to learn everything about their patients’ genetic makeup quickly, for around a thousand dollars. Halcyon Molecular’s work held the promise of radical improvements in detecting and reversing genetic disorders, and Thiel decided to make Founders Fund the first outside investor. He took note of the talent and passion of the young scientists at Halcyon, and when they asked him for fifty thousand dollars he gave them a first round of five hundred thousand.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel finally found Halcyon’s offices, parked, and hurried inside. In the hallway, a row of posters asked “WHAT IF WE HAD MORE TIME?” A picture of a futuristic library, a giant cage of bookshelves, was captioned “129,864,880 known books. How many have you read?” In the conference room, an all-hands meeting was going on: forty or so people, most of them in their twenties and thirties. They took turns giving slide presentations while Halcyon’s founder, William Andregg, asked the occasional question. Andregg, a lanky twenty-eight-year-old, was wearing cargo pants and a rumpled, untucked pink button-down shirt. One day, as an undergrad studying biochemistry at the University of Arizona, he made a list of all the things he wanted to do in life, which included travelling to other solar systems. He realized that he would not live long enough to do even a fraction of them. He plunged into gloom for a few weeks, then decided to put “cure aging” at the top of his list. At first, he was guarded about using the phrase, but Thiel urged him to make it the company’s message: some people might think it was crazy, but others would be attracted.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the meeting, Thiel had no trouble following the technical jargon. During one particularly impenetrable presentation, he raised his hand. “I realize this is a dangerous question to ask, but what’s your over/under for prototype A?”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Fifty per cent by the beginning of summer,” the scientist at the screen, laser pointer in hand, said. His hair and beard appeared to have been cut by a macaque. “Eighty per cent by the end of summer.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Very cool.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Thiel saw that I was lost, he scribbled on his yellow legal pad, “You attach big atoms (like platinum/gold) to DNA so it will show up under a microscope.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As part of the weekly meeting, several staff members gave presentations about themselves. Michael Andregg, William’s brother and Halcyon’s chief technology officer, showed a slide that listed his hobbies and interests:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CRYONICS, IN CASE ALL ELSE FAILS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DODGEBALL</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SELF-IMPROVEMENT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PERSONAL DIGITAL ARCHIVIZATION</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SUPER INTELLIGENCE THROUGH A.I. OR UPLOADING</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Uploading,” I learned, means emulating a human brain on a computer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On his way out, Thiel dispensed some business advice: by the following Monday, everyone in the company should have come up with the names of the three smartest people they knew. “We should try to build things through existing networks as much as possible,” he told the group. It was what he had done at PayPal. “We have to be building this company as if it’s going to be an incredibly successful company. Once you hit that inflection point, you’re under incredible pressure to hire people yesterday.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The next stop, in another industrial park, a few miles away, was a company whose goal is to cure all viral diseases, by engineering “liquid computers”—systems of hundreds of molecules that can process basic information. If all goes according to plan, the liquid computers, introduced into cells, will recognize viral markers, causing cells with those markers to shut down by short-circuiting their operations. The company was at such an early stage that I was asked not to print the name. It consisted of three men and three women in their twenties, who were eating sandwiches and grapes in the kitchenette of a cramped office, above a lab that was packed with a DNA synthesizer, a flow cytometer, and other equipment. They were rebels from grad school—ideal finds for Thiel.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last year, Brian, one of the two founders, was thirteen days away from defending his doctoral thesis in chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute, in La Jolla, when his adviser discovered that he was planning to leave academia and start a biotech company. “He got very upset and added a bunch of additional requirements to my graduation,” Brian said over lunch. “I had to quit and leave unfinished.” (Eventually, he completed his degree.) In Brian’s view, the best way to change the world was to start a company, “and just have everyone be properly motivated to get the goal done.” D.J., the other founder, was a refugee from Stanford. In his experience, even the best universities turned undergrads with Nobel-worthy ideas into conforming professionals.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In June, 2010, Brian and D.J. were camping out at a Motel 6 in Palo Alto and getting ready to drive to Pittsburgh, where they planned on starting the company at their alma mater, Carnegie Mellon. Before leaving, they spoke with Max Levchin, the programmer who was Thiel’s co-founder at PayPal. (Brian’s brother had interned for Levchin there.) Levchin introduced them to Thiel, who told them, “This isn’t a Pittsburgh company. This is a Silicon Valley company. Give me a week to convince you of that.” Brian and D.J. ended up starting their company in the Valley, with funding from Levchin and Thiel.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel believes that education is the next bubble in the U.S. economy. He has compared university administrators to subprime-mortgage brokers, and called debt-saddled graduates the last indentured workers in the developed world, unable to free themselves even through bankruptcy. Nowhere is the blind complacency of the establishment more evident than in its bovine attitude toward academic degrees: as long as my child goes to the right schools, upward mobility will continue. A university education has become a very expensive insurance policy—proof, Thiel argues, that true innovation has stalled. In the midst of economic stagnation, education has become a status game, “purely positional and extremely decoupled” from the question of its benefit to the individual and society.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s easy to criticize higher education for burdening students with years of debt, which can force them into careers, like law and finance, that they otherwise might not have embraced. And a university degree has become an unquestioned prerequisite in an increasingly stratified society. But Thiel goes much further: he dislikes the whole idea of using college to find an intellectual focus. Majoring in the humanities strikes him as particularly unwise, since it so often leads to the default choice of law school. The academic sciences are nearly as dubious—timid and narrow, driven by turf battles rather than by the quest for breakthroughs. Above all, a college education teaches nothing about entrepreneurship. Thiel thinks that young people—especially the most talented ones—should establish a plan for their lives early, and he favors one plan in particular: starting a technology company.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel thought about creating his own university, but he concluded that it would be too difficult to persuade parents to resist the prestige of the Ivies and Stanford. Then, last September, on a flight back from New York, he and Luke Nosek came up with the idea of giving fellowships to brilliant young people who would leave college and launch their own startups. Thiel moves fast: the next day, at TechCrunch Disrupt, an annual conference in San Francisco, he announced the Thiel Fellowships: twenty two-year grants, of a hundred thousand dollars each, to people under the age of twenty. The program made news, and critics accused Thiel of corrupting youth into chasing riches while truncating their educations. He pointed out that the winners could return to school at the end of the fellowship. This was true, but also somewhat disingenuous. No small part of his goal was to poke a stick in the eye of top universities and steal away some of their best.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Founders Fund, Clarium Capital Management, and Thiel’s foundation are housed together on the fourth floor of a stylish brick-and-glass building at the edge of San Francisco’s Presidio Park, with views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. The building is on the grounds of the San Francisco headquarters of Lucasfilm, and its first floor is decorated with statuary of Darth Vader and Yoda. As it happens, Thiel’s favorite movie was “Star Wars.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After Thiel’s visits to the biotech startups, he was scheduled to interview the few of the fifty or so applicants, from a pool of six hundred, who had made the final cut for his fellowships. The first candidate to sit down at the dark-stained conference table was a&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chinese-American, from Washington state, named Andrew Hsu. A nineteen-year-old prodigy, he still had braces on his teeth. At five, he had been solving simple algebra problems; at eleven, he and his brother co-founded a nonprofit group, the World Children’s Organization, that provided schoolbooks and vaccinations for Asian countries; at twelve, he entered the University of Washington; until recently, he had been a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at Stanford, and he hoped to start a company that makes educational video games based on the latest neuroscientific research. “My core goal is to disrupt both the education and the game sectors,” he said, sounding like Peter Thiel.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel expressed concern that the company would attract people with a nonprofit attitude, who felt that “it’s not about making money, we’re doing something good, so we don’t have to work as hard. And I think this has been an endemic problem, parenthetically, in the clean-tech space, which has attracted a lot of very talented people who believe they’re making the world a better place.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They don’t work as hard?” Hsu asked.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Have you thought about how to mitigate against that problem?”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“So you’re saying that might be a problem just because the company has an educational slant?”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Yes,” Thiel said. “Our main bias against investing in these sorts of companies is that you end up attracting people who just don’t want to work that hard. And that, sort of, is my deep theory on why they haven’t worked.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hsu caught Thiel’s drift. “Yeah, well, this is a game company. I wouldn’t call it an educational startup. I would say it’s a game startup. The types of people that I want to bring in are hard-core game engineers. So I don’t think these are the types of people that would slack off.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hsu would get a Thiel Fellowship. So would the Stanford sophomore from Minnesota, who had been obsessed with energy and water scarcity since the age of nine, when he tried to build the first-ever perpetual-motion machine. (He didn’t want to be named.) “After two years of being unsuccessful, I realized that even if we solved perpetual motion we wouldn’t use it if it was too expensive,” he told Thiel. “The sun is a source of perpetual energy, yet we’re not harnessing that. So I became obsessed with cost reductions.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At seventeen, he had learned about photovoltaic heliostats, or solar trackers—“dual-access tracking mirrors that direct sunlight to one point.” If he could invent a cheap-enough way to produce heat using heliostats, solar energy could become financially competitive with coal. At Stanford, he started a company to work on the problem, but the university refused to count his hours on the project as academic units. So he went on leave and applied for a Thiel Fellowship.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I asked the candidate if he worried about losing the benefits of a university education. “I think I’m getting the best possible things out of Stanford,” he said. “I’m staying in this entrepreneurial house called Black Box. It’s about twelve minutes off campus. And so that’ll be really fun, because it’s really close to our office, and they have a hot tub and pool, and then just go to Stanford to see my friends on the weekends. You get all the best of the social but get to fundamentally work on what you love.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A pair of Stanford freshmen—an entrepreneur named Stanley Tang and a programmer named Thomas Schmidt—came in next, with an idea for a mobile-phone application called QuadMob, which would allow you to locate your closest friends on a map, in real time. “It’s about taking your phone out and knowing where your friends are right now, whether they’re at the library or at the gym,” Tang, who came from Hong Kong, said. He had published a book called “eMillions: Behind-the-Scenes Stories of 14 Successful Internet Millionaires.” He went on, “On Friday night, every single week, I go to a party, and somehow you just lose your friends—people roll out to different parties. And I always have to text people, ‘Where are you, what are you doing, which party are you at?’ and I have to do that for, like, ten friends, and that’s just like a huge pain point.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tang was asked how QuadMob would change the world. “We’re redefining college life, we’re connecting people,” he said. “And, once this expands outside of college life, we’re really defining social life. We’d like to think of ourselves as bridging the gap between the digital and the physical world.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel was skeptical. It sounded like too many other venture startups looking to find a narrow opening between Facebook and Foursquare. It certainly wasn’t going to propel America out of the tech slowdown. The QuadMob candidates would not get a Thiel Fellowship.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1992, a Stanford law student named Keith Rabois tested the limits of free speech on campus by standing outside the dorm residence of an instructor and shouting, “Faggot! Faggot! Hope you die of AIDS!” The furious reaction to this provocation eventually drove Rabois out of Stanford. Thiel, who was in law school at the time, was also the president of the Stanford Federalist Society and the founder of the Stanford Review, a more highbrow, less bad-boy version of the notoriously incendiary Dartmouth Review. Not long after the incident, he decided to write a book with his friend David Sacks, exposing the dangers of political correctness and multiculturalism on campus. “Peter wanted to write a book pretty early on,” Sacks said. “If you had asked us in college, ‘Where do you think Peter’s going to end up?’ we would have said, ‘He’s going to be the next William F. Buckley or George Will.’ But we also knew he wanted to make money—not small sums, enormous sums. It’s sort of like if Buckley decided to become a billionaire first and then become an intellectual.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The Diversity Myth,” which appeared in 1995 (and remains Thiel’s only book), is more Dinesh D’Souza than “God and Man at Yale.” The authors line up example after example of the excesses of identity politics on campus, warning the country that a reign of intolerance, if not totalitarianism, is at hand. Characterizing the Rabois incident as a case of individual courage in the face of a witch hunt, they write, “His demonstration directly challenged one of the most fundamental taboos: To suggest a correlation between homosexual acts and AIDS implies that one of the multiculturalists’ favorite lifestyles is more prone to contracting the disease and that not all lifestyles are equally desirable.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel didn’t discuss with Sacks the personal implications of writing about the incident from a position hostile to homosexuality. “Peter wasn’t out of the closet back then,” Sacks told me. Thiel didn’t come out to his friends until 2003, when he was in his mid-thirties. “Do you know how many people in the financial world are openly gay?” he asked one friend, explaining that he didn’t want his sexual orientation to get in the way of his work.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though the subject of homosexuality remains one that he doesn’t much like to discuss, Thiel says that he wishes he’d never written about the Rabois incident. “All of the identity-related things are in my mind much more nuanced,” he said. “I think there is a gay experience, I think there is a black experience, I think there is a woman’s experience that is meaningfully different. I also think there was a tendency to exaggerate it and turn it into an ideological category.” But his reaction against political correctness, he said, was just as narrowly ideological. “The Diversity Myth” now seems to cause Thiel mild embarrassment: political correctness on campus turned out to be the least of the country’s problems.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel inherited the Christianity of his parents—he grew up as an Evangelical—but he describes his beliefs as “somewhat heterodox,” complicated by his cultural liberalism. “I believe Christianity is true,” he said. “I don’t sort of feel a compelling need to convince other people of that.” (It’s hard to think of another subject about which Thiel would say this.) Sonia Arrison, the author of “100 Plus,” a book on research into life extension, first met Thiel in 2003, when she heard him give a lunch talk about the failure of the U.S. Constitution. Eight years later, they are close friends, but she has no idea of his religious beliefs. “He won’t tell me what he is,” she said. “He thinks I should just know. He would never tell me whether he believes in God.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel compares the difference between faith and empiricism to the difference between technology and globalization: “Technology maps to miraculous supernatural creation, and globalization maps to naturalistic uniformitarian evolution. Technology involves the creation of radically new things that have not existed, and globalization maps to the continual copying of things that already exist.” As for being gay and Christian, Thiel said, “There obviously are all these things that are complicated about it, but I still don’t like the ideological thing that the correct response means that you have to give up your entire faith.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel’s friends say that these elements of his identity have no bearing on what matters most—his ideas. Thiel himself is not so categorical, but he fogs the subject up with elusiveness and irony: “I can come up with stories about how they’re factors, but I’m not sure they’re that interesting. The gay thing is that you’re sort of an outsider—there are things about it that are problematic, there are things about it that can be positive. But it also feels contrived. Maybe I’m more of an outsider because I was a gifted and introverted child,” not because he is gay. “Maybe it’s some complicated combination of all these things.” A knowing smile. “And maybe I’m not even an outsider.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Ideology” is one of Thiel’s least favorite words. Another is “politics.” Yet he has a long history of political involvement, beginning with the Stanford Review. After graduating from law school and clerking for a federal judge, he was turned down for a Supreme Court clerkship by Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy. The fortune that Thiel has since accumulated has given him an influential role in Republican Party politics. During the primary phase of the 2008 Presidential campaign, he gave money to Ron Paul, the libertarian representative from Texas; during the general election, he gave money to John McCain. He has raised funds for Senator Jim DeMint, of South Carolina, and Representative Eric Cantor, of Virginia—both champions of the anti-government Tea Party.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2009, he gave a ten-thousand-dollar grant to a conservative libertarian organization that, in turn, funded James O’Keefe, a young activist. O’Keefe subsequently made undercover sting videos in which employees of the advocacy group Acorn appeared to offer advice on how to cover up tax evasion, human trafficking, and child prostitution. Thiel said that he didn’t know in advance about the videos—which have been widely denounced for being misleading—but, through a spokesman, he told the Village Voice that he had no objection to them, since he opposes things like human trafficking. Last year, at his Manhattan apartment in Union Square, Thiel hosted a fund-raiser for the gay conservative group GOProud, with Ann Coulter as the featured speaker. (Also last year, he appeared at a fund-raiser for gay marriage, and he has given money to the Committee to Protect Journalists.) Thiel regularly gets himself in trouble with his public provocations, such as this passage from his “Education of a Libertarian” essay:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although Michele Bachmann once described homosexuality as “personal enslavement,” and Rick Perry compares it to alcoholism, Thiel says that the Republican Party of 2011 is actually more open and tolerant than the party of George W. Bush and Karl Rove. Gay marriage is no longer a wedge issue in Republican campaigns, Thiel believes, and, as for the outright hostility toward gays among some conservatives, “there are a lot of people who have crazy emotional issues, and politics is a way to channel that.” Nor is he much troubled by the Party’s distrust of science. Thiel himself, perhaps out of sheer contrarianism, is uncertain about Darwinian evolution. “I think it’s true,” he said, “but it’s also possible that it’s missing a lot of things, and it’s possible it’s not the most important thing.” Global warming is also “probably true,” but the matter is too clouded by political correctness to be properly assessed. The closer science gets to politics, the more vague and less convincing Thiel’s thinking becomes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite, or perhaps because of, all this activism, Thiel has recently begun to express a strong antipathy toward politics. He doubts that it can solve fundamental problems, and he doesn’t think that libertarians can win elections, because most Americans would not vote for unfettered capitalism. “At its best, politics is pretty bad, and at its worst it’s really ugly,” he said. “So I think it would be good if we had a less political world. I think it was Disraeli who said that all merely political careers end in failure.” (Actually, it was the Conservative British politician Enoch Powell, who said, even more depressingly, “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure.”) Thiel hasn’t backed a candidate for 2012. He is spending his time and money building the “machinery of freedom” outside politics, so that technology will win the race.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In late March, Thiel hosted a small dinner party. His house stands grandly between the Presidio and the bay, beside the illuminated dome and arches of the Palace of Fine Arts. A chessboard and a bookcase filled with sci-fi and philosophy titles were the main indicators of who lived there; otherwise, the living and dining rooms were decorated, with impeccable elegance, for no one in particular. Thiel’s assistants—blondes in black dresses—refilled wineglasses and called the guests to dinner. A menu at each place setting announced a three-course meal, with a choice between poached wild salmon and pan-roasted sweet-pepper polenta.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel’s guests seemed as out of place in this candlelit formality as their host. There was David Sacks, Thiel’s friend from Stanford and the co-author of “The Diversity Myth,” and Luke Nosek, the biotech specialist at Founders Fund, and Eliezer Yudkowsky, the artificial-intelligence researcher. Yudkowsky, an autodidact who never went past the eighth grade, is the author of a thousand-page online “fanfic” text called “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality,” which recasts the original story in an attempt to explain Harry’s wizardry through the scientific method. Then there was Patri Friedman, the founder of the Seasteading Institute. An elfin man with cropped black hair and a thin line of beard, he was dressed in the eccentrically antic manner of Raskolnikov. He lived in Silicon Valley, in an “intentional community” as a free-love libertarian, about which he regularly blogged and tweeted: “Polyamory/competitive govt parallel: more choice/competition yields more challenge, change, growth. Whatever lasts is tougher.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The two subjects of conversation were the superiority of entrepreneurship and the worthlessness of higher education. Nosek argued that the best entrepreneurs devoted their lives to a single idea. Founders Fund backed these visionaries and kept them in charge of their own companies, protecting them from the meddling of other venture capitalists, who were prone to replacing them with plodding executives.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel picked up the theme. There were four places in America where ambitious young people traditionally went, he said: New York, Washington, Los Angeles, and Silicon Valley. The first three were used up; Wall Street lost its allure after the financial crisis. Only Silicon Valley still attracted young people with big dreams—though their ideas had sometimes already been snuffed out by higher education. The Thiel Fellowships would help ambitious young talents change the world before they could be numbed by the establishment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I suggested that there was something to be gained from staying in school, reading great works of literature and philosophy, and arguing about ideas with people who have different views. After all, this had been the education of Peter Thiel. In “The Diversity Myth,” he and Sacks wrote, “The antidote to the multiculture is civilization.” I didn’t disagree. Wasn’t the world of libertarian entrepreneurs one more self-enclosed cell of identity politics?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Around the table, the response was swift and negative. Yudkowsky reported that he was having a “visceral reaction” to what I’d said about great books. Nosek was visibly upset: in high school, in Illinois, he had failed an English class because the teacher had said that he couldn’t write. If something like the Thiel Fellowships had existed, he and others like him could have been spared a lot of pain.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel was smiling at the turn the conversation had taken. Then he pushed back his chair. “Most dinners go on too long or not long enough,” he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Escaping from politics is a libertarian’s right and a billionaire’s privilege. Thiel conceded, “There is always a question whether the escape from politics is somehow a selfish thing to do. You can say the whole Internet has something very escapist to it. You have all these Internet companies over the past decade, and the people who run them are sort of autistic. These mild cases of Asperger’s seem to be quite rampant. There’s no need for sales—the companies themselves are weirdly nonsocial in nature.” But, he added, “In a society where things are not great and a lot of stuff is fairly dysfunctional, that may actually be the thing where you can add the most value. You can say that’s an escapist impulse of sorts, or an anti-political impulse, but maybe it is also the best way you can actually help things in this country.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nlike many Silicon Valley boosters, Thiel knows that, as he puts it, thirty miles to the east most people are not doing well, and that this problem is more important than the next social-media company. He also knows that the establishment has been coasting for a long time and is out of answers. “The failure of the establishment points, maybe, to Marxism,” he said. “Maybe it points to libertarianism. It sort of suggests that we’ll get something outside the establishment, but it’s going to be this increasingly volatile trajectory of figuring out what that’s going to be.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel is never happier than when others scoff at his ventures, but he’s prone to the mistaken belief that the contrarian view is always right. He defended the indefensible after the Rabois incident, in part, because it was a case of one against all. His dislike of George W. Bush didn’t soften until his poll numbers hit rock bottom, and the same is now true for Barack Obama. During the financial crisis, Thiel lost billions of dollars because he refused to behave like the rest of the world. If artificial intelligence and seasteading are our only hope, it isn’t because politicians and professors mock and fear them. Nor is it at all clear how much hope Thiel’s utopian projects really offer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The theory of an innovation gap as the main cause of economic decline has a lot of explanatory power, but it’s far from axiomatic. Trains and planes have scarcely improved since the seventies, and neither have median wages. What is the exact relation between the two? The middle class has eroded during the same years when the productivity of American workers has increased. (“I don’t believe the productivity numbers,” Thiel said flatly, defying reams of evidence. “We tend to just measure input, not output.”) Why, then, should breakthroughs in robotics and artificial intelligence reverse this trend? “Yes, a robotics revolution would basically have the effect of people losing their jobs, as you need fewer workers to do the same things,” Thiel said. “And it would have the benefit of freeing people up to do many other things. There would be social-dislocation problems, but I don’t think those are the ones we’ve been having. We’ve had a globalization problem.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But, if the production of silicon chips can be outsourced, wouldn’t the same thing happen with anti-aging pills? And, in a deregulated market, what will guarantee an equitable distribution of those pills? Technological breakthroughs don’t always lessen inequality, and can sometimes increase it. Life extension is a vivid example: as Thiel said, “Probably the most extreme form of inequality is between people who are alive and people who are dead.” Most likely, the first people to live to a hundred and twenty will be rich.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No technological change would have more effect on the living standards of struggling Americans than improvements in energy and food, which dominate the economy and drive up prices. “That’s not one I focus on as much,” Thiel admitted. “It is very heavily politically linked, and my instinct is to stay away from that stuff.” Such oversights are telling. In Thiel’s techno-utopia, a few thousand Americans might own robot-driven cars and live to a hundred and fifty, while millions of others lose their jobs to computers that are far smarter than they are, then perish at sixty.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The next great technology revolution might be around the corner, but it won’t automatically improve most people’s lives. That will depend on politics, which is indeed ugly, but also inescapable. The libertarian worship of individual freedom, and contempt for social convention, comes easiest to people who have never really had to grow up. An appetite for disruption and risk—two of Thiel’s favorite words—reflects, in part, a sense of immunity to the normal heartbreak and defeats that a deadening job, money trouble, and unhappy children deal out to the “unthinking herd.” Thiel and his circle in Silicon Valley may be able to imagine a future that would never occur to other people precisely because they’ve refused to leave that stage of youthful wonder which life forces most human beings to outgrow. Everyone finds justification for his or her views in logic and analysis, but a personal philosophy often emerges from some archaic part of the mind, an early idea of how the world should be. Thiel is no different. He wants to live forever, have the option to escape to outer space or an oceanic city-state, and play chess against a robot that can discuss Tolkien, because these were the fantasies that filled his childhood imagination.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At least Thiel’s fantasies are aimed at improving the world. “It seems like we’ve not been thinking about the right issues for a long time,” he said. “I actually think it is a big step just to ask the question ‘What does one need to do to make the U.S. a better place?’ That’s where I’m weirdly hopeful, in spite of the fact that a lot of things aren’t going perfectly these days. There is a very cathartic crisis that’s gone on, and it’s not clear where it’s going to go. But at least everyone knows things are rotten. We’re in a much better place than when things were rotten and everyone thought things were great.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James O'Keefe, the activist filmmaker who achieved sudden fame for a series of undercover videos recording ACORN workers, has repeatedly said that he is "absolutely independent" and received no outside funding to make his films.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the Voice has learned that O'Keefe, in fact, has had heavyweight conservative backers who funded the young filmmaker as recently as a few months before his ACORN films were made.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ACORN videos are actually just the latest of several films O'Keefe has produced and uploaded to YouTube. An earlier film posted in February, "Taxpayers Clearing House" featured nonwhite, working class people being duped by O'Keefe, who led them to believe they had won money in a sweepstakes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That video was produced with the help of a grant -- said to be about $30,000 [Thiel's spokesman says closer to $10,000 -- see update] -- from Peter Thiel, one of the founders of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook -- an investment which made him a billionaire. Thiel is one of Silicon Valley's more interesting figures: a gay man (according to Gawker's "Valleywag") who has railed against the evils of "multiculturalism." He lives in San Francisco and today runs a hedge fund.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">O'Keefe is now well known as the young man who dressed up as a pimp with a colleague, Townhall.com blogger Hannah Giles, who was dressed like a prostitute. The pair traveled around the country, seeking advice from ACORN workers about how to hide prostitution money for tax purposes. At five of the offices they visited, ACORN workers gave such advice while O'Keefe's hidden camera was rolling. The videos have cost ACORN the support of Congress, the U.S. Census and the White House, and the organization stands to lose tens of millions of dollars in government grants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">O'Keefe, meanwhile, has repeatedly claimed to be financially independent. In an interview with the New York Post shortly after the ACORN videos hit the Internet, O'Keefe claimed to be "absolutely independent." Giles said she had "drained my entire savings" to spend the summer making the undercover videos. O'Keefe estimated his budget at $1,300, and said that Giles had paid for her own plane ticket to California. The couple said they lived off of Power Bars and Subway sandwiches for two months.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But O'Keefe turns out to have a substantial history of being funded by conservative figures.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February, a video called "Taxpayers Clearing House" was posted to YouTube. In it, O'Keefe and others drive around in a van with a logo on the side that looks like the "Publishers Clearing House" vehicle known for showing up and surprising sweepstakes winners with oversized checks. In O'Keefe's video, working class Blacks are shown jumping up and down in excitement - until they learn that O'Keefe is actually delivering a bill for $28,000, their share of the federal banks bailout.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">O'Keefe told a friend, Liz Farkas, that he had approached Thiel with the idea for the video, and had walked away with "approximately $30,000" to produce it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Farkas told the New York Times this week that she and O'Keefe, who met at Rutgers University, clashed over publishing incomplete transcripts from another sting involving an abortion provider.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Through a representative, Peter Thiel confirmed that he had funded "Taxpayers Clearing House" through a "small-government group," but denied having any involvement with the ACORN videos. The representative says Thiel first learned of the new O'Keefe videos after they hit the Internet, and having "watched them on YouTube...he shares the view that taxpayer money should not promote human trafficking."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel, who co-runs the Founders Fund, is a hedge fund manager, web entrepreneur and venture capitalist worth $1.2 billion. Fortune magazine referred to him as the "don" of "the Pay Pal Mafia." Thiel is also co-author of The Diversity Myth: 'Multiculturalism' and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford. He was also co-founding editor of the conservative Stanford Review and was a member of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal circle that has included Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Is the new consciousness about race, gender, and sexual preference really the antidote to America's problems or a cause of them?" Thiel's book asks in its introduction. Another representative quote: "Multiculturalists like thinking of themselves as victims far too much to want to end their victimization. They need their imaginary oppressors to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">give their lives meaning."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel's book does not spare homosexuality. "Much [homosexual] behavior is being conducted in public, for the express purpose of shocking and offending others. The shock is then called 'homophobia' and is used as evidence of the oppression and victimization of homosexuals." The book (published in 1995) argues against Stanford instituting domestic partner benefits, complaining "even in purely economic terms, the costs are substantial...The end result is something of a random scrambling of people into "relationships," all claiming the right to live off of everyone else."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though Thiel denies directly funding O'Keefe's latest videos, Thiel may have made them financially possible anyway. O'Keefe has, in the past, used support from one project to fuel another.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">O'Keefe is a former member of the Leadership Institute, the conservative think tank that has turned out such graduates as Bush strategist Karl Rove, Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, and "Talon News" fake White House blogger Jeff Gannon (real name: James Dale Guckert). The Institute has been involved in setting up conservative newspapers at colleges across the country, and gave O'Keefe a $500 "Balance in Media" grant to begin the Rutgers Centurion in 2005.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On his personal blog (quoted at Daily Kos, O'Keefe has taken the original link down), O'Keefe thanks "LI" for a $4,000 monitor to help him make his movies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the same way O'Keefe used equipment from the Leadership Institute to make his future films, he may have made use of Thiel's cash infusion for future projects, too. The "Taxpayers Clearing House" video that Thiel's money made possible was posted just a few months before O'Keefe and Giles set off on their summer adventure. The multiple ACORN videos were shot and produced over the course of more than two months, in San Diego, San Bernardino, Brooklyn, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. (plus an unknown number of other cities, like Philadelphia, where O'Keefe attempted to shoot but the sting failed).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">O'Keefe declined to be interviewed by phone for this article, and did not respond to e-mailed questions. But he has not publicly explained how the help he's received from either the Leadership Institute or from Peter Thiel has influenced his filmmaking -- or how they may have made a summer traveling around the country for undercover stings possible.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UPDATE: Thiel's spokesman, James O'Neill, disputes Farkas' estimate of $30,000, saying that Thiel's contribution was only "about $10,000."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">College and law school</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel studied 20th-century philosophy as an undergraduate at Stanford University. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Stanford in 1989 and acquired a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1992.[8]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An avowed libertarian, he founded The Stanford Review in 1987 along with Norman Book. The Stanford Review became famous for challenging campus mores including political correctness and laws against hate speech. The Stanford Review is now the university's main conservative/libertarian newspaper.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel formed friendships with other students at Stanford, many of whom contributed to the Stanford Review. These include Keith Rabois, David Sacks, and Reid Hoffman. Some of these friends later took up jobs at PayPal (co-founded by Thiel) and became part of the PayPal Mafia.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While studying at Stanford, Thiel also encountered Rene Girard, whose mimetic theory influenced him.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Career</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Early career</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel clerked for Judge J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.[citation needed] From 1993 to 1996, he traded derivatives for Credit Suisse Group.[9] He founded Thiel Capital Management, a multistrategy fund, in 1996.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PayPal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1998 Peter Thiel co-founded PayPal, an online payments system, with Max Levchin. The company later merged with X.com, then headed by Elon Musk. PayPal went public on February 15, 2002, and was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion later that year.[10] Thiel's 3.7 percent stake in PayPal was worth approximately $55 million at the time of the acquisition.[11]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Eric Jackson's account of PayPal in his book The PayPal Wars, Thiel viewed PayPal's mission as liberating people throughout the world from the erosion of the value of their currencies due to inflation. Jackson recalls an inspirational speech by Thiel in 1999:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We're definitely onto something big. The need PayPal answers is monumental. Everyone in the world needs money - to get paid, to trade, to live. Paper money is an ancient technology and an inconvenient means of payment. You can run out of it. It wears out. It can get lost or stolen. In the twenty-first century, people need a form of money that's more convenient and secure, something that can be accessed from anywhere with a PDA or an Internet connection. Of course, what we're calling 'convenient' for American users will be revolutionary for the developing world. Many of these countries' governments play fast and loose with their currencies," the former derivatives trader [referring to Thiel] noted, before continuing, "They use inflation and sometimes wholesale currency devaluations, like we saw in Russia and several Southeast Asian countries last year [referring to the 1998 Russian financial crisis and 1997 Asian financial crisis, to take wealth away from their citizens. Most of the ordinary people there never have an opportunity to open an offshore account or to get their hands on more than a few bills of a stable currency like U.S. dollars. Eventually PayPal will be able to change this. In the future, when we make our service available outside the U.S. and as Internet penetration continues to expand to all economic tiers of people, PayPal will give citizens worldwide more direct control over their currencies than they ever had before. It will be nearly impossible for corrupt governments to steal wealth from their people through their old means because if they try the people will switch to dollars or Pounds or Yen, in effect dumping the worthless local currency for something more secure."[12]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clarium Capital</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Immediately after selling PayPal, Thiel launched a global macro hedge fund, Clarium Capital, pursuing a global macro strategy. In 2005 Clarium was honored as global macro fund of the year by both MarHedge and Absolute Return, two trade magazines. Thiel’s approach to investing became the subject of a chapter in Steve Drobny’s book, Inside the House of Money. Thiel successfully bet that the U.S. dollar would weaken in 2003, and gained significant returns betting that the dollar and energy would rally in 2005. After significant losses starting in 2009, Clarium dropped from $7 billion dollars in assets in 2008 to around $350 million in 2011.[13]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2004, well before the financial crisis of 2007–2010 bore him out in general terms, Thiel spoke of the dot-com bubble of 2000 having migrated, in effect, into a growing bubble in the financial sector. He specified General Electric, with its large financing arm, and WalMart as vulnerable. At the same time, he was "always talking about a real estate bubble". To illustrate, in 2004, he reported having backed away from buying Martha Stewart's Manhattan duplex for $7 million in the winter of 2003-2004.[9] While the apartment did sell in 2004 for $6.65 million to another buyer, it was on the market but unsold in early 2010 at $15.9 million,[14] and later at the reduced price of $13.9 million.[15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Facebook</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In August 2004, Thiel made a $500,000 angel investment in the social network Facebook for 10.2% of the company and joined Facebook's board. This was the first outside investment in Facebook.[3][16]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his book The Facebook Effect, David Kirkpatrick outlines the story of how Thiel came to make his investment: Former Napster and Plaxo employee Sean Parker, who at the time had assumed the title of "President" of Facebook, was seeking investors for Facebook. Parker approached Reid Hoffman, the CEO of work-based social network LinkedIn. Hoffman liked Facebook but declined to be the lead investor because of the potential for conflict of interest with his duties as LinkedIn CEO. He redirected Parker to Peter Thiel, whom he knew from their PayPal days (both Hoffman and Thiel are considered members of the PayPal Mafia). Thiel met Parker and Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard college student who had founded Facebook and controlled it. Thiel and Zuckerberg got along well and Thiel agreed to lead Facebook's seed round with $500,000 for 10.2% of the company. Hoffman and Mark Pincus also participated in the round. The investment was originally in the form of a convertible note, to be converted to equity if Facebook reached 1.5 million users by the end of 2004. Although Facebook narrowly missed the target, Thiel allowed the loan to be converted to equity anyway.[17] Thiel said of his investment:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I was comfortable with them pursuing their original vison. And it was a very reasonable valuation. I thought it was going to be a pretty safe investment."[17]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a board member, Thiel was not actively involved in Facebook's day-to-day decision making. According to Sarah Lacy, Thiel's main advice to Zuckerberg in their initial years was "Just don’t fuck it up."[18] However, he did provide help with timing the various rounds of funding. Zuckerberg credited Thiel with helping him time Facebook's 2007 Series D to close before the 2007-2010 financial crisis. [19]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In September 2010, Thiel, while expressing skepticism about the potential for growth in the consumer Internet sector, argued that relative to other Internet companies, Facebook (which then had a secondary market valuation of $30 billion) was comparatively undervalued.[20]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Angel investor and venture capitalist</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2005 Peter Thiel created the Founders Fund, a fund for angel investments and venture capital investments. Other partners in the fund include Sean Parker, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to Facebook, Thiel has made early-stage investments in numerous startups (personally or through his venture capital fund), including Booktrack, Slide, LinkedIn, Friendster, Rapleaf, Geni.com, Yammer, Yelp, Inc., Powerset, Practice Fusion, Vator, Palantir Technologies, IronPort, Votizen, Asana, Big Think, and Quora. Slide, LinkedIn, Yelp, Geni.com, and Yammer were founded by Thiel's former colleagues at PayPal: Slide by Levchin, Linkedin by Reid Hoffman, Yelp by Jeremy Stoppelman, Geni.com, Yammer by David Sacks and Xero by Rod Drury. Fortune magazine reports that PayPal alumni have founded or invested in dozens of startups with an aggregate value of around $30 billion. In Silicon Valley circles, Thiel is colloquially referred to as the "Don of the PayPal Mafia", as noted in the Fortune magazine article.[21] Thiel's views on management are highly regarded, especially his famous observation that start-up success is highly correlated with low CEO pay.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel founded Palantir Technologies funded by the CIA's venture capital arm In-Q-Tel.[22]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Views</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Libertarianism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2004, it was reported that Thiel, "a libertarian, advise[d] several free-market think tanks, including the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. 'He believes in open markets and that self-interest can be harnessed in useful and productive ways,' sa[id] Sonia Arrison, the institute's director of technology studies."[3]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When asked about his political beliefs in a 2006 United Press International interview, Thiel stated, "Well, I was pretty libertarian when I started [in business]. I'm way libertarian now."[23][24]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Skepticism of democracy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an article for an issue of Cato Unbound, a publication of the Cato Institute, Thiel wrote: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." He elaborated by saying that "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."[25] Thiel's essay sparked immediate controversy and was criticized as misogynistic, racist, and utopian by many people including Jacob Weisberg and Amanda Marcotte.[26][27][28] Thiel later clarified several of his initial statements in a follow-up essay, stating that, "While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better."[29]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Free speech as check on state power</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Thiel professes that he is unable to engage in what he terms “unacceptable compromise politics", further spelling out his views in a piece for the Oslo Freedom Forum: "We tend to like a government very much when we believe we’re among its net winners. That makes it very hard to think clearly about whether any of its laws are just or unjust. And because power corrupts, any state unchecked by vigorous public scrutiny and a free press will attempt to become the judge in its own cause and the intermediary of all human interaction."[30]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mimetic theory</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel met René Girard at Stanford and embraces mimetic theory. In an interview, Thiel said that his first impression of Girard mimetics was that it "is crazy...that it can't be true that imitation is this important and drives this many different things".[31] However, Thiel gradually came around to believing in mimetic theory. Thiel attributes his success at predicting bubbles and his past successes at contrarian thinking to the insights that mimetic theory provides into understanding the reasons behind herding and the bubble mentality.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Innovation, technology, and globalization: intensive versus extensive...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other causes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Thiel Foundation is a supporter of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which promotes the right of journalists to report the news freely without fear of reprisal.[51]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Thiel Foundation is also a supporter of the Human Rights Foundation which organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum.[52]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Thiel Foundation also supports Imitatio, which studies the problem of violence using Rene Girard's mimetic theory.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Political activities</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bilderberg Group</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel is listed as a member of the Steering Committee of The Bilderberg Group, a controversial group of influential business and government leaders who meet annually behind closed doors under a media blackout to discuss world issues.[53]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Support for political activism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel, who is openly gay, has supported gay-rights causes such as the American Foundation for Equal Rights and GOProud.[54]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2009, it was reported that Thiel helped fund college student James O'Keefe's "Taxpayers Clearing House" video - a satirical look at the politics behind the Wall Street bailout.[55] O'Keefe went on to produce the ACORN undercover sting videos.[56]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Support for political candidates</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In December 2007, Thiel endorsed Ron Paul for President.[57]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2010, Thiel supported Meg Whitman, who as CEO of eBay had purchased PayPal from Thiel and his co-founders and investors, in her unsuccessful bid for the governorship of California. He contributed the maximum allowable $25,900 to the Whitman campaign.[58]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2012, Thiel, along with PayPal co-founder Luke Nosek and Scott Banister, an early adviser and board member, put their support behind the Endorse Liberty Super PAC, alongside Internet advertising veteran Stephen Oskoui and entrepreneur Jeffrey Harmon, who founded Endorse Liberty in November 2011. Collectively Thiel et al. gave $3.9 million to Endorse Liberty, whose purpose was to promote Texas congressman Ron Paul for president in 2012. As of January 31, 2012, Endorse Liberty reported spending about $3.3 million promoting Paul by setting up two YouTube channels, buying ads from Google and Facebook and StumbleUpon, and building a presence on the Web.[59]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">swtch</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter A. Thiel "is a Research Fellow and Member of the Board of Directors at the Independent Institute. He is Founder and Managing Member of Clarium Capital Management, LLC, and Founder and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PayPal, Inc. Past president of Thiel Capital International and chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Confinity, Inc., Mr. Thiel has worked as a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse Financial Products, a securities lawyer for Sullivan & Cromwell, speechwriter for former Education Secretary William J. Bennett, and a law clerk for Judge Larry Edmondson of the U. S. Court of Appeals.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Mr. Thiel graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University, where he received an A.B. in philosophy and a J.D. from the Stanford University School of Law. He was also the founding editor of The Stanford Review, and president of the Stanford Federalist Society.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Mr. Thiel is also co-author (with David Sacks) of the Independent Institute book, The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance on Campus, and his articles have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Stanford Magazine, National Review, Policy Review, Rocky Mountain News, Academic Questions, Washington Times, and San Francisco Chronicle. He has appeared on such television programs as Kudlow and Cramer (CNBC), Your World (Fox News), Firing Line (PBS), Debates Debates (PBS), Washington Journal (C-SPAN), and Bay-TV Prime (San Francisco)." [1]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Director, Pacific Research Institute [2]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Resources and articles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; ? Peter A. Thiel, Independent Institute, accessed July 31, 2007.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Board of Directors, Pacific Research Institute, accessed July 2007.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right-Wing Sugar Daddy #5: Peter Thiel</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This super-wealthy technodork, who made his money cofounding the PayPal online payment service and being one of Facebook’s earliest investors, is using his cash to influence hearts and minds, albeit in a significantly different way from the previous right-wing sugar daddies we’ve examined. For instead of funding right-wing political campaigns, advertising blitzes and think tanks, Thiel is instead trying to influence his fellow libertarians to flee society, not change it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thiel officially lost faith in American society after the 2008 presidential election and he confessed on the Cato Institute’s Web site that he thought democracy and freedom were no longer compatible. The big reason for this, Thiel said, was that over the past century too many people went on welfare and women got the right to vote. Since welfare recipients and women are “two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians,” Thiel reasoned, then “the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’” has become “an oxymoron. ”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To rectify this, Thiel sunk more than $500,000 into the hilariously bone-headed “Seasteading” project being headed up by Patri Friedman, the grandson of famous conservative economist Milton Friedman. With money from Thiel and other like-minded rich libertarians, the seasteading project aims to build large, floating, concrete platforms in international waters where libertarians can live without the greedy hands of Uncle Sam taking their hard-earned cash.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They also plan to make money for themselves by using these platforms as intranational havens for drugs and prostitution, since no legal authority would be able to arrest them out in the open waters. And presumably, women living on the platforms won’t have any say in how the seasteads are run, lest they transform these aquatic libertarian paradises into scummy socialist hellholes. Thiel is also interested in funding transhumanist life-extension projects, as he has given the Methuselah Foundation excess of $3.5 million to ensure that he and his buddies can haunt the Earth with their presence for at least the next few hundred years.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When you think about it, Thiel’s devotion to dopey libertarian escapism, while elitist and horribly sexist, actually makes him the most palatable of all the right-wing sugar daddies we’ve examined. Unlike Scaife, Adelson and the Wylys, Thiel doesn’t want to influence how we think about the world. Rather, he wants to flee the wretched mediocrity of his fellow fleshbags and escape to a no-girls-allowed cyber-treehouse out in the middle of the ocean. To which I say, “You go, Galt!” The only tragedy is that if Thiel succeeds he likely won’t bring any of his brethren with him to the seastead platforms. Because what America needs now more than ever is for a bunch of its self-appointed Atlases to go shrug themselves.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brad Reed is a writer living in Boston. His work has previously appeared in the American Prospect Online, and he blogs at Sadly, No!.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PETER THIEL</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Thiel</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Net Worth: $1.2 billion</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donations to ASWF: $100,000</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Techno-Libertarian</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BACKGROUND: A self-described “staunch libertarian” who made his first millions as a co-founder of Pay Pal, 40-year-old Stanford-educated Peter Thiel has become a hedge fund billionaire by betting on rising oil prices and investing in dot-coms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. In the words of Wired journalist Alexis Madrigal, Thiel supports a “deep, crazy future, where you would be able to do whatever you want — radical freedom — the Internet as tool to absolutely transform both your body and the government.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">QUOTES:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In the culture, everything’s forced toward a shorter time horizon. As a libertarian, I tend to blame the government for a lot of this, because socialized welfare, socialized health care, and socialized retirement programs all encourage people not to think about the future.” [Reason Magazine, 5/1/08]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PayPal Mafia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jump to: navigation, search</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"PayPal Mafia" is an informal term for the community of American businesspeople and investors centered in Silicon Valley, who were founders or early employees of e-commerce service PayPal before founding a series of other technology companies.[1] The PayPal Mafia are often credited with inspiring Web 2.0, and for the re-emergence of consumer-focused Internet companies after the dot com bust of 2001.[2]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contents</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1 Background</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 The name</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 Membership</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4 Analysis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5 See also</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6 References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7 External links</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Background</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Max Levchin pitched his idea for a mobile device money transfer service to Peter Thiel at a breakfast meeting near Stanford University in 1998. Thiel invested and joined the company as co-founder. Later named PayPal after merging with an early competitor, the company grew to approximately 200 employees, hiring a number of people Levchin knew through the Computer Science department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as well as some contacts of Thiel from The Stanford Review, a conservative and libertarian oriented magazine that Thiel started at Stanford.[3][4] The company grew to serve the broader market of electronic currency, used in particular for online auctions. It went public in 2002 and was bought by eBay later that year for $1.5 billion, after eBay gave up on its own competing service, BillPoint. The original PayPal employees had difficulty adjusting to eBay's more traditional corporate culture, resulting in a mass departure: within four years approximately half of the original 200 employees, and all but 12 or fewer of the first 50 employees, had left.[5] They remained connected as social and business acquaintances.[5] A number of serial entrepreneurs from the group worked with each other in the following years to form new companies, venture funds, and to make private equity investment in each other's companies, particularly in the fields of social networking service and other Web 2.0 online software services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is not uncommon for a company's employees to leave and start successful new companies of their own after their old company is acquired. However, the PayPal alumni are considered singularly prolific.[3] PayPal's $1.5 billion acquisition price was relatively small compared to other technology company acquisitions, yet with less buyout money than other companies, PayPal's former employees launched more successful companies in a shorter time than almost any other company in history. Their success has been attributed to a number of factors: their youth (many had never been in unsuccessful companies before starting PayPal, and were not interested in retiring on their company stock gains); the physical, cultural, and economic infrastructure of Silicon Valley, which facilitates rapid company formation and expansion; and the diversity of skill-sets among the former employees (which ensured that the social group has a full range of financiers, engineers, designers, operations experts, marketers and others available to help each other start new companies).[3] By hiring mostly people they already knew, PayPal's founders encouraged tight social bonds among friends who continue to trust and support one another despite their relatively short time together at PayPal.[3] The phenomenon has been compared to the founding of Intel in the late 1960s by engineers who had earlier founded Fairchild Semiconductor after leaving Shockley Semiconductor, Silicon Valley's first successful computer device company.[3]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other aspects of PayPal's pre-eBay corporate culture were also unique. Company decisions were made according to reasoned arguments rather than executive experience. Low-level employees were allowed and even encouraged to criticize executive decisions and lobby for their own positions. All employees, not just managers, were made aware in detail of company finances and performance. Levchin and Thiel intentionally looked for a specific personality profile in their early hires. They hired workaholic engineers, often graduate school dropouts with anti-establishment leanings, and avoided hiring MBAs, consultants, or people they considered "frat boys" or "jocks". Many employees were multilingual. Recruited from the American Midwest, most were not initially interested in the San Francisco Bay Area's many social distractions. The company was male-dominated and nearly all employees were young men. An intensely competitive environment and a shared struggle to keep the company solvent despite many setbacks, contributed to a strong and lasting camaraderie.[3][6] All of these have been cited as contributing to the group work ethic that has led to success for so many of their newer start-up companies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The name</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group's name for itself, "PayPal Mafia",[4][7] was already a minor cultural meme, but gained wide exposure due to a 2007 article in Fortune Magazine that used the term in its headline and featured most of the members posed at San Francisco's Tosca Cafe in gangster outfits. Others who were not present at the shoot were later photographed separately in gangster attire.[4][8][9][10]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Membership</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The PayPal Mafia is not a formal organization, so there is no formal criterion for membership. Many of the group's members do acknowledge that it exists and use the name when referring to themselves. Some have formed various social networking service and other online community groups together.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Members include:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Founder and chief executive officer Peter Thiel, often called the "don" of the PayPal Mafia, earned approximately $68 million in the eBay buyout.[5] He made a $500,000 early investment in Facebook that was worth approximately $1 billion at the valuation established by Microsoft's investment in 2007.[4] He started The Founders Fund with fellow members Ken Howery and Luke Nosek in 2005. The Founders Fund and its principals collectively made early investments in SpaceX, Facebook, Geni.com, IronPort, Ooma, Quantcast, Rapleaf, slide.com, LinkedIn, Friendster, Yammer, Yelp, Inc., Powerset, Vator, Palantir Technologies, Joyent, and SmartDrive Systems, among others. He also founded Clarium Capital, a $2 billion hedge fund.[3] He was executive producer of Thank You for Smoking and co-wrote The Diversity Myth: 'Multiculturalism' and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Founder and Chief Technology Officer Max Levchin also invested in IronPort, a company founded by early PayPal investor Scott Banister, and made the founding $1 million investment in Yelp, Inc.[4]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Former Chief Operating Officer David O. Sacks later founded Geni.com and Yammer, and formed a movie production studio, Room 9 Entertainment, that produced Thank You for Smoking with funding from Thiel, Levchin, and Musk.[3]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chief Financial Officer Roelof Botha later joined as a partner of Sequoia Capital, a venture capital firm that has funded many PayPal Mafia companies. Botha personally invested in YouTube, Facebook, Joost, Tokbox, and Xoom.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Engineers Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, and web designer Chad Hurley founded YouTube, after investigating why it was so difficult at the time to share videos online.[9]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elon Musk, who was forced out after losing a fight to run the PayPal service on Microsoft servers, co-founded Tesla Motors, and also founded private space exploration company SpaceX[9] with $100 million of his own money.[3] He made a $10 million founding investment in SolarCity, where he served as chairman.[11] Proposer of the Hyperloop.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eric M. Jackson, later wrote The PayPal Wars and became Chief Executive Officer of WND Books, the publishing arm of World Net Daily. He then went on to co-found CapLinked, focused on linking companies and investors.[12]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Russel Simmons, one of the first engineers, and Jeremy Stoppelman, Vice President of Technology, founded Yelp, Inc. in 2004,[3][5][8] after a luncheon at the Slanted Door restaurant hosted by Levchin. The conversation turned to why it was so hard to find a good dentist. Levchin discussed the idea with Simmons and Stoppelman on the walk back to Levchin's business incubator office and agreed the next day to fund their company proposal for local business reviews.[3] Yelp has a number of other PayPal Mafia members among its employees, advisers, and investors.[13][14]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Product manager Premal Shah became founding president of Kiva.org.[4]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daniel Issen became Vice President of Engineering at AdBrite</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Keith Rabois was an early executive who later held positions at LinkedIn and Slide, and invested in Tokbox, Xoom, Slide, LinkedIn, Geni, Room 9 Entertainment, YouTube, and Yelp. He is currently a partner at Khosla Ventures. He was the COO of Jack Dorsey's payment company Square.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jared Kopf was an assistant to the PayPal CEO, helped found Slide, and later served as a Director of Clarium Capital before founding several other companies, including a behavioral targeting company, Adroll.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Former Executive Vice President Reid Hoffman founded LinkedIn in 2002, and was an early investor in Aviary,[15] Friendster, Six Apart, Zynga, IronPort, Flickr, Digg, Grockit, Ping.fm, Nanosolar, Care.com, Knewton, Kongregate, Last.fm, Ning, Technorati, Tagged[16] and a number of other Web 2.0 firms. When YouTube was first formed, Hoffman housed them in his LinkedIn office which had also been PayPal's office.[3] In 2009 he became a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners.[17]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Former Marketing Director Dave McClure has become a prominent super angel and created a startup accelerator called 500 Startups.[18]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yishan Wong was recruited to PayPal by Jawed Karim.[19] Yishan became an engineering manager at PayPal, and later became one of the first engineering managers at Facebook. Yishan is currently the CEO of reddit.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Co-founder and former Vice President of Marketing and Strategy Luke Nosek is a partner at The Founders Fund with fellow members Peter Thiel and Ken Howery.[20]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ken Howery was PayPal's first CFO and is a partner at The Founders Fund.[21]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Analysis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The PayPal Mafia were studied in considerable detail by journalist and writer Sarah Lacy in her book Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good. Lacy attempted to explain the anomalously high success rate in Silicon Valley of the PayPal Mafia. While she conceded that the selection effect and the technical learning at PayPal played a role, she argued that the main factor behind the success of the PayPal Mafia was simply that their success at PayPal had given them the confidence to try again, even while the rest of Silicon Valley around them was getting burnt by the bursting of the IT bubble.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See also</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Traitorous eight</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Duke Harris (2009-10-22). "PayPal finally poised to enter Web 2.0". San Jose Mercury News.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Marcus Banks (2008-05-16). "Nonfiction review: 'Once You're Lucky'". San Francisco Chronicle.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Miguel Helft (2006-10-17). "It Pays to Have Pals in Silicon Valley". New York Times.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ a b c d e f O'Brien, Jeffrey M. (November 26, 2007). "Meet the PayPal mafia". Fortune (CNN.com). Retrieved 2009-12-04.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ a b c d Rachel Rosmarin (2006-07-12). "The PayPal Exodus". Fortune Magazine.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Dylan Tweney (2007-11-15). "How PayPal Gave Rise to a Silicon Valley ‘Mafia’". Wired Magazine.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Thiel, Levchin And The PayPal Mafia". Fortune Magazine. 2007-11-15.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ a b "More PayPal Mafia Mugshots". ValleyWag.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ a b c "Why Elon Musk isn't in Fortune's PayPal Mafia picture". Valleywag.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "The Paypal Mafia Personified". Valleywag.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Ari Levy (February 21, 2012). "'PayPal Mafia' Gets Richer: Yelp and Facebook's IPOs will give another boost to Silicon Valley's influential PayPal alumni". BusinessWeek.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Secure.caplinked.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Dan Fost (2008-05-21). "‘The Coffee Was Lousy. The Wait Was Long.’". New York Times.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Sarah Lacy (2008-04-07). "Something to Yelp About". BusinessWeek.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ J.J. Colao (2012-03-02). "Aviary is Quietly Cornering a Billion-Dollar Market". Forbes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Tagged.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Scott Duke Harris (2009-11-02). "Greylock raises $575M fund, adds LinkedIn's Hoffman as partner". San Jose Mercury News.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Where Are They Now? The PayPal "Mafia" Is More Powerful Than Ever". BusinessInsider.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "'How did Yishan Wong get recruited to PayPal?'". Quora.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ http://www.foundersfund.com/team/luke-nosek</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ http://www.foundersfund.com/team/ken-howery</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">External links</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">note: links to other company websites and personal home pages may be found on the articles linked to above.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Room 9 Entertainment - Room 9 Entertainment official site</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">forbes:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For a FORBES magazine story I recently wrote on cyber-security software-maker Palantir Technologies, I spoke with billionaire Facebook investor Peter Thiel, who said that Palantir is “tracking like the really great tech companies, like Facebook or Google.” Thiel thinks the company is the “most undervalued company in Silicon Valley” and will be worth around tens of billions of dollars in a few years’ time. Of course, Thiel is Palantir’s largest stakeholder, and his venture capital firm The Founders Fund has bankrolled much of the startup’s initial costs. But beyond the hype is a company that has accidentally stepped into the middle of controversy, is attracting some of the brightest engineers from top schools, and is making more money than anyone suspects.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Let’s start with the controversy. Up until a few weeks ago, only “Lord of the Rings” nerds knew what a “palantir” was (a seeing stone the company is named after). But recently, Palantir has found itself in headlines for putting together a proposal, along with HBGary and Berico Technologies, to launch cyber-attacks and other “dirty tricks” against Wikileaks and its supporters, on behalf of Bank of America, and against website ThinkProgress on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Pro-Wikileaks hacker collective Anonymous found the proposal and emails by hacking into the account of HBGary’s chief executive.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir responded by issuing an apology and severing ties with HBGary. It has also put the 27-year-old engineer Matthew Steckman — who may have been responsible for putting the offensive tactics on the proposal (according to the emails) — on leave and launched an internal investigation. Some have implied that Palantir’s senior staff must have known about the proposal, given the importance of the clients. But Palantir chief Alex Karp says that’s not how the company works: “The idea that a 27-year-old wouldn’t have the ability to make a decision about our proposal is very foreign to how we work. It would go further up the chain if it was a proposal, but it wasn’t.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, the 330-person company is largely comprised of 27-year-old “forward deployed engineers” who are given a lot of free rein to make decisions. But in an industry like cyber-security, young engineers may not have the experience to make the best judgment calls. Even Karp concedes, “There was an oversight breakdown on the proposal phase of our work and we regret that.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir will need to do some PR clean-up, especially among its applicant pool. The company competes with the Googles and the Facebooks for top talent. Palantir’s Co-director of Engineering Bob McGrew, a third-year Stanford Ph.D. candidate in computational game theory, turned down a job at YouTube offered by co-founder Jawed Karim to go to Palantir. McGrew says the company’s save-the-world “mission” sets it apart. Stanford computer science student Jake Becker says Palantir’s exclusivity in hiring the best of the best makes the company an attractive employer. But Becker also says that the Wikileaks flap “is seriously damaging their reputation on campus.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, competitors sniff and say that Palantir isn’t doing anything particularly new in the industry. “They are taking a different approach which is trying to bring the Silicon Valley-esque to the beltway,” says i2 CEO Bob Griffin. A primary competitor to Palantir, i2 is a 20-year-old company whose cyber-intelligence software is known as the Microsoft Word of the industry. “The reality is at the end of the day there is no different approach. It’s all the same: it is what is the tool that allows customers to do what they do best.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recently, i2 and Palantir settled a lawsuit, in which i2 accused its competitor of corporate espionage. Griffin says only that he was “very satisfied” with the settlement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But these controversies will likely wash over in time. Some investors have been betting big on Palantir. The company’s last round of funding of $90 million last June, led by an unnamed private equity firm, valued the six-year-old company at a whopping $735 million. Dave Kellogg, former CEO of business intelligence software maker MarkLogic, speculates in a blog postthat “dumb money” might be involved here. “I think it means that… The company is trying to build and/or sustain a hype bubble and wants to be seen as hot. Most VC-backed companies do not disclose valuations,” he wrote. Kellogg also thinks Palantir is executing a “go big or go home” type strategy like PayPal did in its early days (Palantir was founded and backed by PayPal Mafia members), but he says he doesn’t see the same “landgrab market opportunity” here.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other analysts and companies in the space agree, saying that Palantir’s revenues were probably around $25 million to $50 million last year. Gartner analyst John Pescatore says the market for “situational awareness tools” like Palantir’s is in the tens of millions of dollars, a fraction of the overall security intelligence services’ budgets, which are dominated by the likes of Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Karp says that he sees a “clear path” to $1 billion in revenue within the next five years. How close is he to that? Palantir’s 2010 revenue was “significantly north of $80 million”, said a highly reputable source familiar with the company who did not wish to be named. Karp says that Palantir’s revenues have been tripling every year since 2008 and that it became cash-flow positive in 2010.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still $80 million or so is a long way from $1 billion. A lot will depend on how Palantir expands beyond its cyber-security niche. The signs could point either way here. It would not be a surprise if Bank of America did not end up using Palantir’s services anytime soon, given recent happenings. On the other hand, Palantir has already been able to line up a number of other top banks and hedge funds. One of these is JPMorgan Chase. Palantir signed a multi-year contract with the bank in December 2009 in the $5 million to $20 million range, and JPMorgan Chase Chief Information Officer Guy Chiarello gushes about the company, calling Palantir “the best bet I’ve made in quite a while.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s no doubt that Palantir has a lot of bright young engineers working for them, but to really kick it up to the level of a Facebook or a Google, the company may need to start growing up.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-----</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/07/1214494/-Palantir-s-PRISM-Software-casts-a-very-wide-Net</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FRI JUN 07, 2013 AT 12:38 PM PDT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir's PRISM Software casts a very wide Net</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">byjamessFollow</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under the guise of National Security, the Tech wizards at Palantir appear to be raking-in Billions -- turning your online life into easy to consume McNews Nuggents.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How much are you willing to bet they are getting it right? (Have you read your own comments page lately? &nbsp;No worries the CIA will do it you, free of charge.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PRISM Is Also The Name Of A Product From Palantir, A $5 Billion Tech Startup Funded By The CIA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by Nicholas Carlson, businessinsider.com -- Jun. 7, 2013,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to documents obtained by the Post, PRISM allows the NSA to tap directly into the central servers of 9 big Internet companies: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A source told the Post that with PRISM, the NSA can "quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One company that would be able to provide such tools is Silicon Valley tech firm called Palantir.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not a lot is known about Palantir, a private company that does not say much about who it works with.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[U-h .. o-h. &nbsp;W-a-i-t .. W-h-a-t !?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[larger image -- Team Themis-Palantir Proposal for the Chamber of Commerce.]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s Software is so Good its First Client Was the CIA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by Sam Volkering, Technology Analyst, Money Morning -- May 26, 2013</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir sprung from an idea by Dr. Alex Karp, a Stanford graduate with a PHD in Social Philosophy. His idea, to create software that can ‘make sense of massive amounts of disparate data.‘</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Teaming up with his friend (and PayPal founder) Peter Theil, they started Palantir.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s first client was the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). They now provide their software to a range of industries. Financial, Medical, Government and Not-For-Profit.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp; ‘Palantir software represents the intersection of data, technology and human expertise. Our data fusion platforms sit above traditional data systems and enable people to ask the questions they need answered in a language they understand.‘ – Palantir</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Well are least with our personal Credit Ratings assigned to us by faceless remote monoliths, at least with them we can demand copies, we can try to correct the record -- when they get it wrong.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How about with our personal PRISM security ratings assigned to us by super-secret data-sniffing monoliths, where does one go to correct the record THEN? -- just in case they happen to get it wrong miss your ironic wit or sardonic satire?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Does PRISM Software have a built-in, automatic Snark-detector too? &nbsp;Twittering minds should really want to know.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oh yes, now I remember, there was a strange espionage episode a few years ago, involving theChamber of Commerce and likely the Koch Brothers too, where the Palantir super-snooping claims were front and center:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary, Themis, bloggers, and traditional media: What a tangled Web</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by Joan McCarter for Daily Kos -- Feb 15, 2011</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...] it's a fascinating story, and not just a little disquieting. The Chamber of Commerce, of course, denies any involvement in the scheme, claiming "that HBGary's proposal 'was never discussed with anyone at the Chamber' and that 'the Chamber was not aware of these proposals until HBGary's e-mails leaked.'"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Themis leaked emails ... documenting their COC project proposal ...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And this is just from a small portion of the e-mails that have been read so far. The possibility of the damaging revelations to still come as the e-mails are sifted through seem limitless. But one important revelation to come out so far isn't necessarily that damaging to either the Chamber or BOA or Hunton Williams as much as it is to traditional media. This is revealed in the PowerPoint one of Team Themis -- Palantir -- created referencing Glenn Greenwald [...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Are YOU remotely linked somehow within that Glenn Greenwald blurry web of influence? &nbsp;(How would you know? &nbsp;and/or &nbsp;Why should you care?)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here's another PowerPoint explaining "the technology capabilities" that Team Themis was promising to deliver, not so many years ago:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[ Slide Presentation ]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(pdf)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Team Themis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Purpose:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Develop a corporate information reconnaissance service to aid legal investigations through the open source collection of information on target groups and individuals that appear organized to extort specific concessions through online slander campaigns.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Solution:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Develop collection solutions for information on individuals and groups of interest</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;-- Standardize and store information in common DB for structured analysis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;-- Analyze digital artifacts and social links within common visual framework</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;-- Report correlated information in individual and organizational profiles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[larger image -- Themis-Palantir system Intelligence Architecture.]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here's the Sales Pitch that 'Team Themis' gave to its Corporate clients, before landing that killer gig with the CIA. &nbsp;It's the same "Information Reconnaissance" Plan, which as the leakedemails confirm, the Chamber of Commerce was in the midst of implementing, when the "ChamberLeaks Scandal" broke -- forcing the Chamber's many adamant denials. &nbsp;In which they insisted for weeks that: &nbsp;"We know NOTHING! &nbsp;Come on, Just trust us."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SOOO, "Pay no attention, to those Social Media 'infiltrators' behind those Internet Application windows, people ..." &nbsp;Afterall our data is just free for the taking. &nbsp;(Except for the astronomicContractor Collection Fees of course.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell &nbsp;(pdf)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 3, 2010</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berico Technologies, LLC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary Federal, LLC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir Technologies, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Submitted to:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hunton and Williams, LLP &nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berico Technologies -- Be Smarter. Be Faster.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hunton & Williams, LLP</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Pg 2]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Background</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Internet based communications, most predominately the growing spectrum of social media platforms, allow people to coordinate and communicate in a highly efficient and collaborative manner, even when vastly geographically distributed. These same services and technologies can also make it difficult to attribute information to specific entities. Anonymizing and misattribution technologies used to mask location and identity have become commonplace. In many cases, people and/or organizations use the inherent insecurity in Internet communications to conduct criminal or unethical activities. This represents a paradigm shift in the capability of individuals and small groups to conduct effective planning and execution of asymmetric operations and campaigns that can have major impacts on large organizations or corporations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Pg 5]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Data Collection</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Team Themis consistently uses a combination of open source tools and data subscriptions combined with custom data collectors and pre-processors. Our unique methodology for collection is tailored for the social media environment; an iterative process of traditional data collection and social media link and artifact collection and analysis that allows us to link information correlations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Primary information resources:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. Background Checks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. LexisNexis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3. LinkedIn</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4. Facebook</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5. Twitter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7. Other social media and location services</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6. Subject specific sites, blogs, and forums</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7. Well crafted search queries to search for digital artifacts</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8. Other digital information discovered or given access to during the investigation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Social media encompasses vast amounts of information, much of it potentially ambiguous, so comparative analysis between information sources is key to derive accurate intelligence. The key to successful open source Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) is to iterate that would not otherwise be apparent. through the lifecycle quickly and accurately for as much complete data collection as possible. We have significant experience in this type of analysis and our methodology has proven out in real operations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If/when Hunston & Williams LLP needs or desires web-content production, Team Themis will create realistic, useable web content to engage specific audiences for the purpose of gathering relevant, in-depth information. Direct target engagement can provide valuable information that cannot be acquired through other means: the detailed, focused task encompasses persona creation, [...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Pg 6]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Data Integration</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Team Themis developers and engineers will leverage their extensive knowledge of Palantir's development and data integration environments to integrate all relevant data in one single, robust analytics layer. All of the data collected will be integrated seamlessly into the Palantir analysis framework to enhance link and artifact analysis. The platform's powerful approach to data integration will enable enterprises to unify data schemas, thus allowing analysts to depict and query otherwise disparate pieces of information in a secure and collaborative environment. Thanks to Palantir's sophisticated data integration capabilities, analysts within the CIRC will also be able to ingest both structured and unstructured data and perform real-time entity resolution against user-defined criteria on the fly, culminating with the fusion of multiple data sources and enrichment of single-source data feeds.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir's open and dynamic ontology capability will provide Hunton & Williams LLP theflexibility to store and contextualize all types of data for analysis. Team Themis will work closely with the customer to conceptualize and implement a tailored ontology thatconsiders the specific problem set and maps data into human-oriented models – this approach will drive effective decisionmaking grounded in deep understanding.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By providing high-value context and data enrichment, analysts will be empowered to develop robust link analysis between people, organizations, and/or other digital artifacts that will begin to form trends and allow statistical analysis. Team Themis will also develop specific helpers to further automate some data ingestion from commercial data sources as well as social media services and Google queries. [...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Pg 7]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leverage the leading analytical platform. Team Themis will utilize the powerful Palantir platform as the centerpiece of the CIRC – empowering our collector/analysts with a cutting-edge analytical capability that enables rapid search and discovery, effective &nbsp;collaboration, and intuitive knowledge management.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir is recognized as the market-leading analytical platform for counter-intelligence(CI), counter-terrorism (CT), counter-narcotics (CN), and counter-proliferation (CP), currently deployed across elements of the intelligence, defense, and law enforcement communities that include SOCOM, DIA, CIA, and JIEDDO. The platform's proven record of success is grounded in the Palantir philosophy of augmenting and empowering analysts with a flexible, intuitive set of tools and capabilities that allow for analysis of data across relational, temporal, and geospatial domains.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It's a Brave New World out there people ... well on second-thought really NOT so "Brave."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Palantir-Themis way is really kind of despicable when to stop to think about it. &nbsp;It's like the grand implementation of so many Big Brother decider-type dreams. &nbsp;On auto-pilot.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is Big-Data simply the trap-door to Big-Brother? &nbsp; And who's really bothering to watch the watchers?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And where do these Personal-Profile fishing expeditions ever end? &nbsp; Whenever; &nbsp;If ever. &nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Where is the Palantir opt-out button? &nbsp;... or the Palantir Complaint Window?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Source</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unfortunately, Nowhere to be seen. &nbsp;Not in our brave new Themis-Palantir behind-the-scenes world ... &nbsp;SO for now, I'll just wish us all .. G-o-o-d .. L-u-c-k !</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TAGS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AOLAppleBig Brotherbig dataChamber of CommerceChamberleaksCIACredit Scoresfacebookfree marketGlenn GreenwaldgoogleinternetMicrosoftNational InsecurityNo ComplaintsNSAPalantirPaltalkPersonal EffectsPersonal ProfilesPRISMskypesocial mediaSuper SnoopersTeam ThemisVirtual FootprintsYahooYouTube</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SUN JUN 23, 2013 AT 11:19 AM PDT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary, Palantir, Prism, Facebook & The Industrial Surveillance Complex</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">byLieparDestinFollow</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Part 1 of several to come:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lets begin a couple years back with the release of the hacked e-mails of defense contractor HBGary by Anonymous. Many readers will be familiar with these events as it was covered extensively on this site as well as many others. The Nation offers a refresher:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions and political organizations. The plans— one concocted in concert with lawyers for the US Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to “combat” WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America— fell apart after reports of their existence were published online. But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed cyber-tools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think we need to highlight people like Glenn Greenwald. Glenn was critical in the Amazon to OVH [data center] transition and helped WikiLeaks provide access to information during the transition. It is this level of support we need to attack. These are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause, such is the mentality of most business professionals. Without the support of people like Glenn WikiLeaks would fold.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary was to be tasked with creating an army of sock-puppets to spread propaganda or infiltrate groups:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary was part of a consortia that submitted a proposal to develop a “persona management” system for the United States Air Force, that would allow one user to control multiple online identities for commenting in social media spaces, thus giving the appearance of grassroots support or opposition to certain policies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the HBGary fiasco, the sock-puppet contracts where awarded to a firm called &nbsp;Ntrepid</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ntrepid Corporation, registered out of Los Angeles, bills itself as a privacy and identity protection firm in some job postings, and a national security contractor in others, but its official website was amazingly just one page deep and free of even a single word of description.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In spite of their thin online presence, Speaks said the firm was awarded $2,760,000 to carry out the “persona management” contract</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ntrepid also owns a product called Tartan. Those familiar with the Occupy crackdown may have heard of it:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In another document on Ntrepid letterhead, titled “Tartan Influence Model: Anarchist Groups,” Tartan is positioned as a software tool that can help combat domestic protestors who operate in “an amorphous network of anarchist and protest groups” and suggests that these groups are prone to violence. They name Occupy Wall Street and Occupy D.C. as part of the problem, and have “built Occupy networks through online communication with anarchists.” By identifying the threat of anarchistic, supposedly violent protestors, Tartan sells its services by saying their software “identifies the hidden relationships among organizers of seemingly unrelated movements… To mitigate the ability of anarchists to incite violence… Law enforcement must identify the complex network of relationships among anarchist leaders</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HBGary later went on to be sold to ManTech International(itself a corruption hotbed with the Rick Renzi scandal in arizona). ManTech also owns MSM Security Services who do the background checks, etc for security clearances allowing people like Snowden to gain access to classified information. ManTech employees are now facing charges :</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A federal contractor pleaded guilty to lying about conducting background checks on government employees - a crime that prosecutors say is becoming increasingly common.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The U.S. government had indicted Ramon Davila in 2011 for 24 separate offenses related to his work at ManTech MSM Security Services; Systems Application & Technologies; and USIS, which was formerly known as U.S. Investigations Services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This means that a contractor like ManTech was able to issue its own security clearances to itself.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We will get back to more of this later but lets talk about Palantir Technologies for a moment. Palantir is another silicon valley defense contractor that started literally across the street from Facebook. Funny enough two key players in Facebook are now heavily involved with Palantir. Billionaire investor Peter Thiel and Sean Parker.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir says it sells "software that allows organizations to make sense of massive amounts of disparate data," for purposes including "combating terrorism," and offers to bring "Silicon Valley to your doorstep." It's enjoyed early investments from the CIA, which might have something to do with its current napkin-valuation of around $5 billion, and now employs former top spooks like Michael Leiter. Palantir also happens to sell software called "Prism," which shares its namesake with an NSA spy program that also aims to bring Silicon Valley to snoop doorsteps around the Beltway. Palantir's Prism, according to a handy user manual published on TPM, "is a software component that lets you quickly integrate external databases"—exactly the kind of action that the NSA allegedly makes use of to suck up your Facebook browsing, Gmail inbox, and Google searches in realtime.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir’s rise to prominence, now reportedly valued at $8 billion, came from initial investment from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA, and close consultation with officials from the intelligence-gathering community, including disgraced retired admiral John Poindexter and Bryan Cunningham, a former adviser to Condoleezza Rice.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the HBGary events Palantir issued an 'apology':</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palantir CEO Karp ended all ties to HBGary and issued a statement apologizing to “progressive organizations… and Greenwald … for any involvement that we may have had in these matters." Palantir placed an employee on leave pending a review by a third-party law firm. The employee was later reinstated</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Laying the blame on a 27 year old engineer:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The idea that a 27-year-old wouldn’t have the ability to make a decision about our proposal is very foreign to how we work. It would go further up the chain if it was a proposal, but it wasn’t.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, the 330-person company is largely comprised of 27-year-old “forward deployed engineers” who are given a lot of free rein to make decisions. But in an industry like cyber-security, young engineers may not have the experience to make the best judgment calls. Even Karp concedes, “There was an oversight breakdown on the proposal phase of our work and we regret that.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Makes you wonder what other oversight breakdowns have taken place. Regardless, Palantir escaped scrutiny and continues to be praised by those in charge:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vice President Joe Biden and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag held a press conference at the White House announcing the success of fighting fraud in the stimulus by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB). Biden credited the success to the software, Palantir, being deployed by the federal government.[13] He announced that the capability will be deployed at other government agencies, starting with Medicare and Medicaid</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the HBGary hack journalist and satirist Barrett Brown began going through the document dump and writing about all that he found. Not much further down the road Anonymous spinoff AntiSec hacked security firm Strafor Global Intelligence and Barrett Brown immediately jumped on the story combing through the documents:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s obvious by looking at the most recent posts on Barrett Brown’s blog that while he is highly interested in Stratfor, it wasn’t the credit card information that motivated him. When those five million emails leaked, a product called TrapWire, which was created by a company called Abraxas, was revealed to the public at large. And it caused a media shitstorm. In 2005, the founder of Abraxas and former head of the CIA’s European division, Richard Helms, described TrapWire as software that is installed inside of surveillance camera systems that is, “more accurate than facial recognition” with the ability to “draw patterns, and do threat assessments of areas that may be under observation from terrorists.” As Russia Today reported, one of the leaked emails, allegedly written by Stratfor’s VP of Intelligence, Fred Burton, stated that TrapWire was at “high-value targets” in “the UK, Canada, Vegas, Los Angeles, NYC.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barrett Brown was doing some very serious investigating into a company called Cubic from San Diego, that was alleged to own TrapWire as a subsidiary of their firm. This is an allegation that they officially denied. However, these tax filings from 2010 that Barrett uncovered clearly state that Cubic had in fact merged with Abraxas Corporation. If you click through and take a look, you can see that Richard Helms’s name is right there on the top of the first page.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On those same tax-returns... a company called Ntrepid.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brown also became especially interested in the firm Endgame Systems who was not happy about the HBGary leak:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Please let HBGary know we don’t ever want to see our name in a press release"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of its products, available for a $2.5 million annual subscription, gave customers access to “zero-day exploits”—security vulnerabilities unknown to software companies—for computer systems all over the world. Business Week published a story on Endgame in 2011, reporting that “Endgame executives will bring up maps of airports, parliament buildings, and corporate offices. The executives then create a list of the computers running inside the facilities, including what software the computers run, and a menu of attacks that could work against those particular systems.” For Brown, this raised the question of whether Endgame was selling these exploits to foreign actors and whether they would be used against computer systems in the United States.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These zero-day exploits where the exact thing planned to be used against Unions, Glenn Greenwald and whomever else may have sparked their ire. This also of course ties in directly with what Snowden was saying about hack attacks on universities and other civilian targets.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Defense News has more on Endgame and their program 'Bonesaw':</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Endgame’s Bonesaw is marketed to U.S. intelligence agencies and large companies. It doesn’t hide its offensive capabilities as a tool for launching cyber weapons.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Marketing documents say “the Bonesaw platform provides a complete environment for intelligence analysts and mission planners to take a holistic approach to target discovery, reducing the time to create actionable intelligence and operational plans from days to minutes.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Bonesaw is the ability to map, basically every device connected to the Internet and what hardware and software it is,” says a company official who requested anonymity.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It of course does not end with Bonesaw:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Endgame’s next product is more advanced than Bonesaw. The application, called Velocity, is to provide access to this mapped-out Internet in real time as hardware is added and deleted, making cyber targeting more immediate, and increasingly laying bare the Internet.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Browns journalism and activism brough the ire of the federal government, and they came down hard. Extremely hard. Brown is facing:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">facing up to 100 years in jail for three separate indictments. Two of the indictments—the threatening of an FBI officer in a YouTube video and the concealing of evidence—do not seem worthy of such a harsh sentence, considering a man in Houston recieved only 42 months for threatening to blow up an FBI building, and a former dentist got 18 months for threatening to kill an FBI agent. The third, however, pertains to Barrett Brown's pasting of a link in an Anonymous IRC chat room to a document full of credit card numbers and their authentication codes that was stolen from the security company Stratfor, in the midst of a hack that released over five million internal emails. Those emails were published to Wikileaks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This came through a convoluted series of events and intense pressure:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The FBI acquired a warrant for Brown’s laptop, gaining the authority to seize any information related to HBGary, Endgame Systems, Anonymous and, most ominously, “email, email contacts, ‘chat’, instant messaging logs, photographs, and correspondence.” In other words, the FBI wanted his sources.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the FBI went to serve Brown, he was at his mother’s house. Agents returned with a warrant to search his mother’s house, retrieving his laptop. To turn up the heat on Brown, the FBI initiated charges against his mother for obstruction of justice for concealing his laptop computer in her house. (Facing criminal charges, on March 22, 2013, his mother, Karen McCutchin, pled guilty to one count of obstructing the execution of a search warrant. She faces up to twelve months in jail. Brown maintains that she did not know the laptop was in her home.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By his own admission, the FBI’s targeting of his mother made Brown snap. In September 2012, he uploaded an incoherent YouTube video, in which he explained that he had been in treatment for an addiction to heroin, taking the medication Suboxone, but had gone off his meds and now was in withdrawal. He threatened the FBI agent that was harassing his mother, by name, warning:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I know what’s legal, I know what’s been done to me.… And if it’s legal when it’s done to me, it’s going to be legal when it’s done to FBI Agent Robert Smith—who is a criminal.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“That’s why [FBI special agent] Robert Smith’s life is over. And when I say his life is over, I’m not saying I’m going to kill him, but I am going to ruin his life and look into his fucking kids…. How do you like them apples?”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We have seen this kind of intense pressure on Aaron Swartz, 'the anthrax killer' (yeah right), and so many other government 'enemies'. The 'threat' clearly was not smart, but also clearly said it was not a death threat. However immediately the story was no longer about government surveillance and potential crimes but about 'crazy ol' Brown'.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All told, Brown is looking at century of jail time: 105 years in federal prison if served sequentially. He has been denied bail.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brown has been sitting in jail ever since and the story was dropped until Snowden came along. And Michael Hastings.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">About 15 hours before dying in a fiery car crash at about 4:30 a.m. in L.A. on June 17, journalist Michael Hastings sent an email to several colleagues that said the FBI was investigating him and he was "onto a big story."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hey [words blurred out] — the Feds are interviewing my "close friends and associates." Perhaps if the authorities arrive "BuzzFeed GQ", er HQ, may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news-gathering practices or related journalism issues.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also: I'm onto a big story, and need to go off the [radar] for a bit.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All the best, and hope to see you all soon.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Buzzfeed editor Ben Smith has said that Hastings was working on a story on Barrett Brown. &nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This of course opens up all kinds of CT that I won't get into but at the same time wouldnt blame anyone else for diving right in.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So what does it all mean? Peter Ludlow at The Nation has some thoughts:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the media and much of the world have been understandably outraged by the revelation of the NSA’s spying programs, Barrett Brown’s work was pointing to a much deeper problem. It isn’t the sort of problem that can be fixed by trying to tweak a few laws or by removing a few prosecutors. The problem is not with bad laws or bad prosecutors. What the case of Barrett Brown has exposed is that we confronting a different problem altogether. It is a systemic problem. It is the failure of the rule of law.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12:05 PM PT: Thanks to Lisa Lockwood for the link to Browns Project PM which details these firms/projects much more extensively.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also this detail from the HBGary Hack is also relevant to Snowden:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At one point during the discussions about how to use their technologies to attack activists, Barr had met with Booz Allen Hamilton senior vice president Bill Wansley</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ORIGINALLY POSTED TO LIEPARDESTIN ON SUN JUN 23, 2013 AT 11:19 AM PDT.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALSO REPUBLISHED BY ANONYMOUS DKOS AND THE REBEL ALLIANCE.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TAGS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">anonymousAntiSecBarrett BrownDODEndgamefacebookHBGarylulzsecMichael HastingsNSAPalantirPRISMRecommendedSnowdenSockpuppetssurveillance state</font></div></div><div>
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