The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power

Inaccurate and Biased The basis of a biography should be facts, and not narrative. Facts cannot be changed for the narrative. (a) The book portrays Nick Denton and Gawker as heroes, and victims of Peter's lawsuit. The book fails to clarify that Gawker published the sex tape of a famous wrestler without his consent. The wrestler didn't have the funds to sue and protect his rights himself. Peter agreed to fund him. May be he did it out of vengeance, but that was the right thing to do. The world is better of without a company that publishes sex tapes without consent.. This is not a free speech-first amendment issue. For a more balanced take, please read Ryan Holiday's book Conspiracies. (b) If Mussolini says that 2 +2 =4, and I agree with him, on that specific proposition, does that make me a fascist? Max appears to think so. It is surprising how such philisophers with such wide ranging, and ecletic works are classified as racists, and Nazis. Maybe, and thats a big maybe, some of their works might establish some support for right wing causes, but their majority, central works have nothing to do with racism. Girard's main thesis is the mimetic theory, which has nothing to do with racism or Nazis. Strauss' main argument is that due to societal censorship, philisophers are never explicit about their true meaning, and that there is always a hidden meaning to be understood. Peter merely agreed with these specific propositions, not with everything else. Does that make a him a racist? Refer back to the 2 +2 example. (c) As Paul Graham rightly says, the book failed to understand Peter's basis of being contrarian. In fact, as the atlantic rightly points out in its book review, its Peter contrarian philosophy which made him successful in his venture capital investments. Look at Stripe, AIRBNB. There is no mention of these invesments, because it goes against Chafkin's narrative. He only mentions investments which are attributable to Peter's friends, such as SpaceX (it was Luke Nosek who insisted that the Fund invest), to drive home his narrative that it is Peter's friends/colleguess who made the right decisions and not him. He fails to understand that maintaining contact, and listening to the advice of such colleagues is also an admirable quality. (d) The biggest factual inaccuracy is to blame Peter for Mark's handling of right wing views/propaganda on Facebook. Some say that Mark has a responsibility to censor/remove such information. Others say, that it affects free speech, and is censorship. I am not entering that debate. My point is merely this, that Mark's actions or inactions on this point cannot be attributed to Peter. As many sources, books, former employees of Mark will tell you, he is too independent to OBEY peter. Take Yahoo for example. Peter wanted Mark to sell, Mark strongly disagreed. (e) Or take the example of ageing. Peter's central thesis is that we should, unlike the stoics, not consider death as inevitable, and not adopt a defeatist attitude towards it. There is an entire subreddit - longevity" which espouses that ideology. Why should somebody be demonized for holding such a view? You can disagree, but them bring out substantial reasons as to why such views are harmful. (f) He interviews everyone who has a negative view about Peter, but no one who has a positive or balanced view about him (Paul Graham, Paypal Mafia such as Reid Hoffman, Keith Rabois, or even liberal venture capitalists, such as Brian Singerman, or several others. The only people interviewed are the ones who definitely dislike him. This is not called detailed research. The point I am making is that there are aspects about Peter that could be criticised. But the problem of today's Left (and I am Left wing myself), is that we don't research or understand the other/right wing person's views before debating (or rather name calling them). Max should have researched about him more. His analysis is too simplistic and narrative driven, and does