“When the technology investor Peter Thiel takes the stage just before Donald J. Trump at the Republican convention this week, he will become the most prominent public face of a species so endangered it might as well be called extinct: the Silicon Valley Trump supporter,” Farhad Manjoo reports for The New York Times.
“Nobody knows what Mr. Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, will say (he declined an interview), but in the tech industry, his appearance at the convention is being greeted with more apprehension than excitement,” Manjoo reports. “Venture capitalists have a special term for investment opportunities that offer the potential for a big return but also carry a great deal of risk: high beta. For Silicon Valley’s political aspirations, Mr. Thiel’s speech is the ultimate high-beta performance.”
“In 2004, Mr. Thiel made a $500,000 investment in Facebook, the earliest big bet on what was then one of many social networks. Facebook succeeded beyond anyone’s guess, and Mr. Thiel’s half million turned into close to half billion; he now sits on the company’s board,” Manjoo reports. “In some ways, the bet on Mr. Trump is a similar long-shot play that could pay off ‘big league,’ as the Republican nominee might say.”
Read more in the full article here.
SEE ALSO:
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel funded Hulk Hogan lawsuit to take down Gawker which outed him, Tim Cook, and others – May 27, 2016
An open letter from Apple co-founder Woz, other techies on Donald Trump’s candidacy for U.S. President – July 14, 2016
Whatever your politics, you have the freedom to pick and support your side in this country. So Peter Thiel likes Trump. That’s his right.
In other countries, individuals and companies pledge their support for one party or another and hardly anybody cares about it. I very much doubt that anybody converts to that party solely because somebody rich and famous endorses that party.
That’s the funny thing about politics. Try as people do, making converts to your way of thinking is Mission Impossible. But it still doesn’t seem to stop most. Of course everyone else is an idiot making terrible choices compared to your own. 🙂
Considering the fact that Thiel is gay, my question to him would be whether and how much he likes Trump’s VP pick Michael Pence, who is blatantly and consistently anti-LGBT, and pro-government regulations in terms of limiting personal freedoms of people in that way.
The interesting part is that even if Trump (who is not homophone himself at all) would win there is a chance that there would be a coup in the Republican party and he will be impeached for one reason or another to make his Michael Pence, who is in general way more controllable by the establishment, to be President. Both Democrats and Republicans would vote for such impeachment if their owners, the oligarchs, will press them.
Okay, sure. Whatever you say.
Most other countries have shorter election cycles by far ie…the UK.
In the UK we have a five year fixed term parliament. How is that so different from the US?
Indeed he has the right to be stupid! 😉
As I said everyone thinks everyone else’s choices are the stupid ones. Voting for Hillary is not the brightest choice either frankly. We deserve way better than another controversial Clinton as well.
we deserve better than both Trump and Clinton
Hillary is Corporate, those at the top are taken care no matter who wins, but the middle can’t seen to see that. The 1% is set.
Sadly, I think we’re getting exactly what we deserve in Trump and Clinton.
Plus there’s that birds of a feather things, too. (Using the court system and money to seek retribution for perceived wrongs)
Trump’s plan is to strip away those freedoms whenever inconvenient to his narcissism. People who support Trump have signed onto an American brand of fascism.
Disclaimer: I think Clinton is terrible, too, but in the more mundane, status quo sense.
So we want a mundane status quo President, again?
Nobody said it wasn’t.
Nobody said it was.
Dump Trump. He does not have the Autistic community’s best interest at heart. He is anti-vax, which means he supports not giving autistic kids the health they need because…who knows what goes on in their minds. Not to mention that he insulted an Autistic journalist, and supports Autism Speaks, a group that advocates for the abortion of autistic kids. Trump is like Hitler in that he supports the genocide of autistic people. #FeelTheBern!
Good for Thiel. In spite of the furor over not supporting Trump, the rest of the ubrr .1% will all cozy up when it comes to scraps from his table.
Companies that produce their own value don’t need “scraps” from the government’s (or whoever highjacks the government’s) table.
But it seems like more and more, money and connections are required to buy justice, and inevitably injustice.
The government is getting more and more corrupt as the two parties realize they don’t even need good candidates because citizens are trapped between them.
But the Phone, Oil, Gas, Banking/Finance and the rest of the old school companies do.
Meaningless.
What are they squirming on?