{"product_id":"the-contrarian-peter-thiel-and-the-rise-of-the-silicon-valley-oligarchs-paperback","title":"The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and the Rise of the Silicon Valley Oligarchs - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMax Chafkin\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003eNotable Book \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA shocking and assiduously reported biography of venture capitalist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel, the enigmatic, controversial, and hugely influential power broker whose techno-authoritarian worldview is coming to dominate our collective reality \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Max Chafkin's \u003ci\u003eThe Contrarian\u003c\/i\u003e is much more than a consistently shocking biography of Peter Thiel, the most important investor in tech and a key supporter of the Donald Trump presidency. It's also a disturbing history of Silicon Valley that will make you reconsider the ideological foundations of America's relentless engine of creative destruction.\"--\u003cb\u003eBrad Stone, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Everything Store \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Amazon Unbound\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSince the days of the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, no industry has made a greater impact on the world than Silicon Valley. And few individuals have done more to shape Silicon Valley than Peter Thiel. The billionaire venture capitalist and entrepreneur has been a behind-the-scenes operator influencing count-less aspects of contemporary life, from the technologies that mediate our daily existence to the rise of the far-right effort among some of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley and Washington to untether the U.S. government from the established constitutional order. But despite his being one of the most im-portant forces behind the tectonic shifts in America's sociopolitical landscape, no public figure is quite so mysterious. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the first major biography of Thiel, Max Chafkin traces the trajectory of the innovator's singular life and philosophy, from his upbringing as the child of immi-grant parents and years at Stanford as a burgeoning conservative thought leader to his founding of PayPal and Palantir, early investment in Facebook and SpaceX, and relationships with fellow tech titans Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Eric Schmidt. \u003ci\u003eThe Contrarian\u003c\/i\u003e illuminates the extent to which Thiel has sought to export his values to the corridors of power beyond Silicon Valley, including stren-uously backing outsider political candidates, notably a young Senate hopeful named JD Vance and the longshot 2016 presidential contender Donald Trump. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEssential reading for a post-2024 world, \u003ci\u003eThe Contrarian\u003c\/i\u003e is a revelatory biogra-phy of a one-of-a-kind leader and a deeply insightful portrait of a tech industry whose explosive growth and power is both thrilling and fraught with peril.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMax Chafkin\u003c\/b\u003e is a features editor and a tech reporter at \u003ci\u003eBloomberg Businessweek\u003c\/i\u003e. His work has also appeared in \u003ci\u003eFast Company\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eInc.\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in Queens, New York with his wife, the journalist Christine Lagorio-Chafkin, and their children.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 432\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.26 x 8.35 x 5.43 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e September 09, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47345150132409,"sku":"9781984878557","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0686\/4309\/4713\/files\/OQyoY_8rwT9781984878557.webp?v=1780516232","url":"https:\/\/thoobo.com\/products\/the-contrarian-peter-thiel-and-the-rise-of-the-silicon-valley-oligarchs-paperback","provider":"Thoobo","version":"1.0","type":"link"}