King of the Week - Peter Thiel

The Prince — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:41:40 +0000

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, is red hot and enormously talented. At least his track record would suggest he is enormously talented. He first achieved notoriety when he sold PayPal to E-Bay in the middle of the downturn for $1.5bn. Then he turned around and started the enormously successful Clarium Capital to invest his own money, the money of other PayPal founders, and some investor capital. PayPal alums have been prolific in their post-Paypal pursuits so we can imagine that assets have grown steadily at Clarium. Witness the success of Youtube, Yelp and LinkedIn, all founded by PayPal alums (See NYT Story). The results at his hedge fund have been stellar. He told the NYT in 2006 that Clarium had assets of $2.3Bn. I know from some contacts that they have had stellar returns since then so we can expect that number to be closer to $3bn. In 2006 Thiel told Bloomberg that his fund had returned 230% over its four year life. For a global macro fund predominately trading futures, currencies, and commodities that is a great track record. Especially, considering that Thiel has no investing pedigree and most of his team had no pedigree prior to Clarium. Many current investors and investors that passed on the fund say that most of those returns are a result of leverage that far exceeds other funds in Clarium’s global macro niche.

Somehow, Thiel, amid all his success, has also managed to become an innovator in the VC realm. His innovative early-stage VC fund, The Founders Fund, emphasizes that it is owned by business founders for business founders. His partners in The Founders Fund are no less impressive. They include Ken Howery and Luke Nosek, who were involved in PayPal, and Sean Parker, co-founder of online-music service Napster and online-contacts company Plaxo Inc. The fund just raised $220mn and was one of the first investors in Facebook. Stanford’s Endowment even invested in the The Founders Fund. The Founder Fund was incredibly innovative when they created Series FF stock for the entrepreneurs they have invested withe (see Valley Wag for more info)

I’m also immensely jealous of the real estate that Clarium and the Founders Fund occupy, the top floor of the BofA building in San Francisco and the beautiful Presidio office building funded by Lukas Arts. Thiel has been on the board of directors for Facebook for over 3 Years. He has been an investor in LinkedIn and Thiel managed to produce the movie "Thank You for Smoking".

Thiel has a silicon valley pedigree. He graduated in 1989 from Stanford in 1989 with B.A. in philosophy (great choice, that’s my major) and finished a J.D. at Stanford in 1992. He stated a Libertarian Magazine at Stanford called The Stanford Review. Many of the magazines contributors would join him at PayPal. He now sits on the board of directors for the Pacific Research Institute and the Visitors of Stanford Law School.

He has collected numerous awards as an entrepreneur and as a hedge fund manager. He won the Herman Lay Award for Entrepreneurship, The Global Macro Fund of the Year award in 2005 from MarHedge and the Global Macro Fund of the Year award in 2005 from Absolute Return. Congratulations on another accomplishment Peter, being named the first King of Wall Street by Prince of Wall Street.

lets go caroling.

Howery, Thiel, and Parker

If you want some insight into how Clarium Capital sees the macroeconomic picture go this commentary, titled "The Long Goodbye, from Clarium that Howard Lindzon posted.

Stay Tuned for Next Weeks King of the Week - T. Boone Pickens "The King of Oil"

Upcoming Kings of the Week - James Simons, Gary Cohn, John Mack, Nelson Peltz, Eric Mindich, and Henry Kravis

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King of the Week - Peter Thiel