Daily: Supervillain Billionaire – Peter Thiel wants to reshape the world

<p>Enigmatic Californian tech investor and libertarian <strong>Peter Thiel</strong> is best known for his controversial ‘spy tech’ company Palantir and for enabling Hulk Hogan to sue gossip site Gawker out of business. But as new book <a href="https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Max-Chafkin/The-Contrarian--Peter-Thiel-and-Silicon-Valleys-Pursuit-of-Power/25699451 " rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>The Contrarian</strong></a> shows, Thiel has always had bigger ambitions to use tech to sideline government itself. Author <strong>Max Chafkin</strong> tells Andrew Harrison about the Randian ideas that propelled Thiel from the “Paypal Mafia” to Trump’s White House – and why we should worry about ‘Thielism’.</p><ul><li><em>“Thiel is both a superhero and supervillain, like Ayn Rand crossed with… Ayn Rand.” </em></li><li><em>“Thiel is the one person aside from Mark Zuckerberg who is responsible for Facebook’s success.”</em></li><li><em>“He named Palantir after this all-seeing orb from Lord of the Rings. And Sauron is not the good guy.”</em></li></ul><p>Presented and produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. <strong>THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production</strong></p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for privacy and opt-out information.</p>