00:00Billionaire Peter Thiel is back in the news again after the Internet kind of went crazy when the tech news
00:06outlet Wired received and reported on leaked information about an elite private club that Thiel founded called Dialog.
00:15That's D-I-A-L-O-G. Conspiracy theorists jumped on Dialog right away. After all, many people consider Peter
00:24Thiel a dangerous extremist figure with an authoritarian or even fascist bent. At the very least, people consider him eccentric.
00:34His entire, I think, self-image is that of somebody who's, you know, has a contrarian vibe.
00:42That's Fritz Espenlaub, a German tech journalist with BR, Bavarian Broadcasting, part of the German national network ARD.
00:51Fritz has reported extensively on Peter Thiel. And in case you don't know who Peter Thiel is, and as you'll
00:58see, he's many things, but he accumulated his wealth as a co-founder of PayPal and the defense company Palantir
01:04and was an early investor in Meta, or Facebook, as it was known back in the day.
01:10Now, with Dialog, Fritz says this weekend retreat that has attracted politicians from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant to
01:18Germany's own senior member of parliament, Jens Spahn, plus celebrities such as Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Josh Brolin, and says
01:27that Thiel has always had an interest in big ideas.
01:32He's not afraid, so I'm, you know, paraphrasing what I think is Peter Thiel's self-image.
01:38He's not afraid to hold opinions that, to him, you know, he derives them from thinking, and that are shocking
01:44to others.
01:44To him, this is more a sign that these are maybe actually the correct opinions, because most of what he
01:49considers to be the mainstream opinions, in his view, are wrong or are not, you know, thought through.
01:55And so Thiel launches Dialog. Well-known people who would otherwise get mobbed if they showed up to a TED
02:02or South by Southwest conference as an audience member, not a panelist, can gather instead in an off-the-record
02:10setting.
02:11In my honest opinion, I don't see anything particularly problematic about it.
02:16I mean, there's obviously a lot of criticism right now in terms of, like, you know, what happens there?
02:24Is it weird that, you know, politicians are meeting these business people?
02:27But if you actually look at the world, there's lots of events where politicians and business people meet.
02:33And, you know, lots of also non-public events that we don't think are that controversial.
02:39But at the end of the day, it's kind of a regular convention.
02:42So there's, like, different speakers, different panels, different workshops.
02:48And the difference to, like, the regular convention is that it's a lot more exclusive.
02:53Still, the leaked information raised some eyebrows with the names of sample panel discussions, such as Bring Back Nuclear, Navigating
03:02World War III, or Build a Cult.
03:05Here is a space where you can speak about, you know, issues that you will not be able to speak
03:10about in mainstream venues because they're, like, too provocative or too contrarian.
03:17And here is where the real, you know, thought leaders of the sort of, like, you know, there's this term
03:23of the intellectual dark web, which was coined some years ago.
03:26Here's where you will find these voices that, you know, inspire you in some way that you haven't, that you
03:32won't get anywhere else.
03:33So what to a lot of people sounds like science fiction, like transhumanism, like how can we evolve as humanity
03:38beyond, you know, where we are right now?
03:41What kind of, what kind of moral changes could happen or will happen in the future?
03:47How does AI, how do, you know, body modifications change what it means to be human?
03:52Peter Thiel is known to be libertarian, which takes a politically maximalist position on personal freedoms and a minimalist position
04:01on the role of government.
04:02So the idea that he founded a conference premised on debate isn't that surprising.
04:08He's a very unusual person, you know, a lot of billionaires, Thiel has a lot of money now because a
04:15lot of his investments worked out quite well.
04:18And if you look around the world today, a lot of billionaires basically just, you know, hang out on their
04:24yacht and just, you know, maybe do some philanthropy and call it a day.
04:29Peter Thiel really, in a way, I guess she, she, she has this, this, this kind of main character energy,
04:39I think what would some people say.
04:41So somebody who, who, you know, considers himself to be some, something of a philosopher, he writes essays, he, he
04:49goes to conventions where he gives speeches on, on philosophy, on, you know, concepts that people find unusual.
04:58You know, he talks a lot about the Antichrist and about Armageddon and about like all these ideas that when
05:04you really look at them closely, maybe in not all cases are that controversial.
05:10You know, sometimes he just means that he's against regulation, but, you know, kind of like close it in some
05:15colourful language.
05:17But it is something that I think surprises a lot of people.
05:20And obviously there's a lot of people who also are very, um, um, sceptical when it comes to his political
05:26influence, you know, because he played such a role in, uh, getting the support of parts of Silicon Valley behind
05:34Donald Trump.
05:34So there's that.
05:36It's what makes some people suspicious of Thiel.
05:39He was an early supporter of Donald Trump.
05:42And while a libertarian, he's also considered conservative, even far right, given the Republican Party's base.
05:49And in the United States, billionaire money plays a role in politics.
05:54Still, Fritz says not so fast.
05:57I think his influence on politics, uh, is maybe a little bit overestimated sometimes at this point.
06:06So we, um, clearly he has tried to influence politics, especially during the first Trump administration, where he actually, you
06:14know, was part of the first Trump transition team.
06:17Uh, he made a lot of suggestions, uh, where to place people in different, um, uh, government agencies.
06:25He is, uh, in some ways he, you know, um, espoused some of the ideas that Doge later did with
06:33way more radicalism, but he wasn't very successful with that.
06:36So, so he, he wasn't able to really affect, you know, the actual politics of the first Trump administration in,
06:43in a major way.
06:45And, uh, one has to actually say that after that, he, he kind of pulled back from politics a little
06:50bit.
06:50Yes, he did fund J.D. Vance.
06:52Yes, he did introduce J.D. Vance and Donald Trump to each other, kind of, you know, a broker and
06:58some kind of peace between them.
07:00But in terms of like actual policies, if you look at the way the Trump administration is behaving, it's not
07:07really that much, like Silicon Valley is not actually that happy about it or can't be that happy about it.
07:14One thing about the list of participants or speakers at Dialogue is that while it leans more libertarian, they do
07:21come from across the political spectrum.
07:24If you look at the list of speakers, there's like such a variety.
07:27There's people like, you know, Steven Pinker, um, who's totally, uh, opposed to Donald Trump.
07:33There's people like Ezra Klein, you know, well-known, uh, liberal left-wing journalist.
07:38Um, uh, uh, there's all kinds of people that are, you know, on the ideological spectrum located somewhere completely different
07:46than Peter Thiel and some other, other speakers.
07:50So, so I think if this really was some kind of grand conspiracy, it just wouldn't work with this list
07:56of people.
07:56Like for, for, for, for, for, for a conspiracy to kind of like, uh, you know, for, to, to, to,
08:02to unify for some nefarious purpose, you need a basis of trust.
08:05You need to work together in some way.
08:08And, and I don't, I don't think that this would be the case if you look at this cast of
08:13characters.
08:14So Fritz has really put this dialogue conference in context,
08:17but it's been interesting to see the global coverage over these leaked documents, including here in Germany.
08:24Fritz's take on this is that at least in the German context,
08:28there's both a fascination and a competitive fear of Silicon Valley and American dominance in the international tech world.
08:37There's a huge interest in Germany, uh, when it comes to the tech right, when it comes to pure teal,
08:43when it comes to American tech companies.
08:45Um, and a big reason for that is because, uh, Europe and Germany in particular is very dependent on these
08:53tech companies.
08:54So we don't have probably, we don't have our own big tech corporations that are able to, you know,
09:01stand up and, and compete on the same ground with, you know, something like Google or Facebook or Palantir.
09:06Uh, we, we, we, we, we don't have European social networks.
09:10We don't have a frontier AI labs.
09:13So in some way, you know, our strengths are, uh, uh, maybe different areas, maybe in robotics.
09:18I'm not saying we don't have any high tech at all, but, uh, in, in particular, when it comes to
09:25these tech companies,
09:26these big tech companies out of Silicon Valley, um, we do know in Germany and in Europe that we are,
09:34uh, that we rely on them a lot.
09:36Uh, also when it comes to critical infrastructure, right?
09:39So there's a reason to be, um, very skeptical when there's any suspicion that these companies might not, might not
09:47have our best interests in mind.
09:48And I think this is quite obvious that these are companies, especially under the second Trump administration that are, you
09:54know, not really concerned with Europe.
09:57Peter Thiel himself often says that, you know, he doesn't really think about Europe.
10:01I mean, he was born in Germany, but, you know, obviously he's an, he's an American investor and he's part
10:05of the, he's more on the right side of the political spectrum.
10:08So he's a lot more willing to, uh, say that his, his, his prior, his main priority is, um, the
10:15flourishing of the United States.
10:17And now we have a president that, you know, very clearly, very obviously puts the United States above Europe and
10:23even, you know, uh, seeks, uh, confrontation with Europe.
10:26Um, so, so we're very aware in Germany that we have some vulnerability there, which explains, uh, uh, heightened sense
10:33of, and I think that's appropriate to have this heightened sense of suspicion.
10:37When it comes to the tech right and their power that they have over us.
10:40And there you have it, this unease about us, big tech and billionaire influence on governments.
10:47An event like dialogue underscores Thiel's interest in intellectual pursuits, sure, but he's not someone who's retreated into a mansion
10:56to become a philosopher king.
10:57He's out there making money, talking utopia while investing in and profiting from what many consider dystopia.
11:07Some food for thought.
11:08So what's your take on Peter Thiel?
11:10Is he an admirable unconventional thinker or someone whose ideas pose a threat to democracy?
11:17I hope you liked this video.
11:19Subscribe to our channel if you want to see more deep dives like this one.
11:23I'm Melissa Chan.
11:24Until next time.
11:28I'll see you next time.
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