„It is worth thinking about money as the bubble that never ends. There is this sort of potential that Bitcoin could become this new phenomenon.” – Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel co-founded PayPal in 1999, serving as chief executive officer until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. After the sale of PayPal, he founded Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund. He launched Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company, in 2004 and continues to serve as its chairman as of 2018. His Founders Fund, a venture capital firm, was launched in 2005 along with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. Earlier, Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor when he acquired a 10.2% stake for $500,000 in August 2004. He sold the majority of his shares in Facebook for over $1 billion in 2012, but remains on the board of directors. He also co-founded Valar Ventures in 2010 and operates as its chairman, and co-founded Mithril Capital, of which he is investment committee chair, in 2012.