“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.
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An open letter from Apple co-founder Woz, other techies on Donald Trump’s candidacy for U.S. President – July 14, 2016