The End of the Future with Peter Thiel

Notes

• Introduction Foreign, my name is Russell Berman. I'm the faculty at Stanford, and uh, I'm uh, I've been asked to introduce Peter. It's a privilege to introduce Peter Thiel, a privilege but also a considerable challenge to introduce someone as well known as Peter, a leading entrepreneur with a high public and political profile. He's surely familiar to very many of you: PayPal, Palantir, Facebook, Founders Fund. Suffice it to say that Peter Thiel is one of the leaders of the private sector in the United States today. In another era, one might have said a captain of industry. I wish the academic world would have more dialogue with the private sector. • Peter Thiel's Background Born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1967, he moved with his family to Ohio, then to South Africa, and then Southwest Africa, and then to California. He graduated valedictorian near here from San Mateo High School in 1985 and proceeded to Stanford, where he majored in philosophy. That was the era of the controversy over the Western culture curriculum, in response to which Peter co-founded the conservative student newspaper, the Stanford Review, which still thrives. And you heard from the current editor, Mimi...