thiel

Billionaire investor and philanthropist Peter Thiel plans to announce Thursday the next group of 20 young men and women who will receive $100,000 each to work as tech entrepreneurs instead of spending that time on a college campus.

The group, dubbed the "20 Under 20" Thiel Fellows, is the third group of entrepreneurs the Thiel Foundation has funded. It includes Christopher Walker, who dropped out of college to form a software company, and Zach Hamed, a junior at Harvard who's leaving to work on education software.

Jonathan Cain, president of the Thiel Foundation, said in a … Read more

Investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel is in talks with Airbnb about putting $150 million into the online room- and house-rental service, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

According to the Journal (subscription required), Thiel's Founders Fund and current Airbnb investors Andreessen Horowiz and Sequoia Capital are all expected to participate in the round, which would give Airbnb a valuation of about $2.5 billion.

"The talks represent a new milestone for Airbnb, a high-profile startup and one of the young technology companies that investors widely considered [to be] on deck to go public in the next year … Read more

While this doesn't look great for those hoping that Facebook's stock starts rebounding, it's hard to accuse Facebook investor Peter Thiel of not being a Facebook believer.

Thiel, who in 2004 put in $500,000 to become Facebook's first outside investor, today revealed in an SEC filing that he sold about 20 million shares on Thursday and Friday at prices between $19.69 to $20.70. That comes to about $400 million -- an impressive return even if he did sell at a price almost half Facebook's IPO price of $38 a share. Thiel already … Read more

3D printing has been used to create running shoes, medical implants, and, to the delight of firearm enthusiasts, a .22 caliber handgun. So why not a 3D-printed steak for the grill?

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel's philanthropic foundation plans to announce today a six-figure grant for bioprinted meat, part of an ambitious plan to bring to the world's dinner tables a set of technologies originally developed for creating medical-grade tissues.

The recipient of the Thiel Foundation's grant, a Columbia, Mo.-based startup named Modern Meadow, is pitching bioprinted meat as a more environmentally-friendly way to satisfy a natural … Read more

ASPEN, Colo. -- Two titans of industry took to the stage at a dinner and debate event here attended by a few hundred entrepreneurs and techie types, but the sparks that flew were more befitting of a program with a title beginning with "Real Housewives of..."

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and super-investor Peter Thiel took aim at each other over the seemingly benign topic of the role of technology in society on the opening night of the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, with moderator Adam Lashinsky of Fortune attempting to moderate, often in vain.… Read more

"Mithril" is a metal in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," said to be stronger than steel but much lighter in weight. It's malleable, doesn't tarnish and extremely rare.

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel hopes some of the invented metal's properties are imbued on his new venture capital firm of the same name, announcing this morning that the San Francisco-based company is seeking growth-stage technology companies in which to invest.

"Technology holds solutions to most of the world's most pressing challenges, from resource scarcity to disease," Thiel … Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Some of Silicon Valley's greatest minds used an interesting piece of hardware to vote on which trends will rule the tech world: ping pong paddles.

The Churchill Club, a business and technology forum, hosted discussion here Tuesday night, along with Forbes magazine, to pick the brains of Kevin Efrusy, Bing Gordon, Reid Hoffman, Steve Jurvetson, and Peter Thiel.

With a few hundred people seated in the grand ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara, each investor presented his case for two ideas for what he thought would be a dominating tech trend for the next five … Read more

Peter Thiel's plan to pay college students to develop their promising concepts instead of attending school is attracting students as well as critics.

Best known as a co-founder of PayPal, the Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur has also made early-stage investments in companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Yelp. Now he's investing in college students, awarding fellowships of $100,000 each to youth under 20 years old, essentially encouraging them to drop out of college to become entrepreneurs.

In an interview for tonight's "60 Minutes," Thiel tells Morley Safer that his program is a viable … Read more

When Facebook goes public in a deal that could value the company at $100 billion, small fortunes will be made.

Here are some of the individuals and firms that stand to make the most from Facebook's IPO.

Mark Zuckerberg: He can now officially change his surname to Zuckerbucks. With his 28.2 percent ownership in Facebook, the paper wealth of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg now serves as an eternal rejoinder to the legion of armchair critics--and where are they now?--who thought that the then-22-year-old was bull goose loony for rejecting Yahoo's $1 billion buyout offer in 2006. … Read more