For all his obsession with innovation, Peter Thiel has some stone-age views
By Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian (originally posted five months ago)
The billionaire is bankrolling a pro-drugs version of the Olympics, but does he care about the whole women-having-rights thing? Nah
Get pumped for the Steroid Olympics
Have you ever dreamed up a completely deranged business idea but lacked the cash to execute it? Peter Thiel, the secretive tech billionaire who co-founded Paypal, doesn’t have that problem. He, along with a group of other venture capitalists, is currently deploying part of his vast fortune to help bankroll a pro-drugs version of the Olympics called the Enhanced Games. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a sporting competition in which participants are encouraged to take as many performance-enhancing substances as they can get their steroid-enlarged hands on. All in the name of science and innovation, naturally.
Honestly? It sounds amazing. I would 100% watch. It’s a real shame Thiel, who currently runs spy tech firm Palantir, doesn’t spend all his resources on reality TV ideas masquerading as science instead of his many other dystopian projects. Thiel, you see, isn’t just a guy who really likes the idea of bionic boxing: he’s a libertarian and ideologue who has an exerted an oversized and pernicious influence on American politics and culture. Max Chafkin, who has written a biography of Thiel, has said he thinks the billionaire is “secretly the most important person in Silicon Valley. He’s this behind the scenes player, who is behind so many of the really important things that have happened over the last two decades.” I wouldn’t disagree.
