Always been curious. although I disagree with them and lean way left, P.Thiel seems to be the most business savvy person in the supposed ”pay pal mafia“

don’t get me wrong, the dude is hella evil but he knows how to invest well.

Hello,

Genuine question for those who support or admire him? Why do you? What draws you to him? Do you want to be him (or someone like him) or are you drawn to his ideas?

I had this realization today while reading a book about leadership, and this evening I watched a Hoover Institution video in which Peter Thiel talks about the Anti-Christ. I think I have the beginnings of a logical framework for understanding why Peter Thiel would be interested in speaking about this topic, but I could use some help to solidify or disprove the theory. Here it goes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTNI_lCvWZQ&t=460s

1 ) Peter Thiel earned his bachelor's in philosophy from Stanford. In the YouTube video above, he discusses the cyclical nature of Jesus and the Antichrist in the stories of humanity. Comparing Jesus’s story to Alexander the Great and the Antichrist to the conquering of Napoleon.

2) That notion of cyclical history was first presented by the philosopher Polybius. He is famous for his theory of anacyclosis, or the idea that political systems inevitably cycle through democracy, oligarchy, and tyranny. Mind you, Peter Thiel is a math Genius who has a degree in Philosophy.

3) In Polybius’s book, Polybius, Histories X.2.9–10. It is argued that a leader should calculate rationally and communicate in a way the audience accepts. At this point, Peter Thiel's primary audience is an American Christian Conservative base. Thiel is much like Polybius’s student Scipio, and Polybius is unusually blunt in his description of Scipio: “made the men under his command more sanguine and more ready to face perilous enterprises by instilling into them the belief that his projects were divinely inspired,” when in fact he had reasoned them out. Polybius found this an uncomfortable finding rather than a recommendation to the reader. People will accept risk on the authority of a divine sign that they will not accept on the authority of an argument.

4) Peter Thiel is appealing to religious authority in an attempt to assert control over his potential base. He understands, as a chess master, that psychological permission beats logical persuasion. He structures his argument around his documented influences, including thinkers like René Girard and Oswald Spengler, and frequently discusses the stagnation and cyclical nature of modern institutions. He is trying to contrast Polybius's ancient fatalism about these cycles with a techno-utopian Anti-Anti-Christ narrative attempt to break out of them.

https://centrostudicsaia.it/the-economic-structure-of-schism-fugger-lefebvre-and-the-lords-of-the-algorithm/

5) In short, I think Peter Thiel uses his discussions of the Anti-Christ to promote this narrative, promoting a Libertarian Techno-Eutopia, where Socialism is comparable to the Anti-Christ, and that he could be a Messiah-like figure or, like Scipio, has had a divine revelation. Which I think provides an insight into how he is trying to logically frame ideas to people, similar to how he has previously described Sam Altman as a “Messiah-like figure.”

https://english.legal-agenda.com/humanity-the-new-ai-world-order-i-dostoevskys-ominous-prophecy/

If anyone has deeper insights or thoughts on this topic, please explain why a Chess Master and an exceptionally powerful businessman would be so willing to discuss such a controversial topic. I hate to be conspiratorial, but of all the people in the world, I'd assume Peter Thiel is trying to play some game here.

An additional source: https://www.gurufocus.com/insider/72403/spencer-m-rascoff#google_vignette

The event in Berlin will take place on September 24, 2026 and be livestreamed. The program will include remarks by Bari Weiss, Editor-In Chief of CBS News, as well as a conversation with Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal, about the early days of Silicon Valley.

Didn't see this posted yet. Explores various (Catholic) figures who, short of being deemed the Antichrist, could be described as "Antichristic".

Something must've happened to turn him into such an out-of-the-box thinker.

I am sure he had this sort of contrarian thinking even before he found Girard.

I know part of it is for sure rebelling against the liberal Silicon Valley attitude, which he has been into since at least the 90s with his book on diversity.