Peter Thiel's Hush-Hush Palantir Technologies to Raise More Capital

Peter Thiel

Silicon Valley-based and venture capital darling Palantir Technologies provides an interesting case study of today's military-tech complex. The firm, founded by PayPal and Facebook zillionaire Peter Thiel, "sells software for data mining and data visualization," according to reporter Heather Somerville's recent story posted in siliconvalley.com. That bland definition gains color and form when one learns more about the enterprise's hush-hush client list. A story appearing earlier this year on techcrunch.com cited internal Palantir documents from 2013 noting the company's contractual relationships with the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, portions of the Armed Services, and the Los Angeles Police Department.

In this context, Thiel is marching in step with Amazon's notoriously secretive Jeff Bezos. As you may recall, Amazon controversially won a CIA data management contract, as well as a similar deal with NASA. Big Data's coziness and opaque contracts with the military and especially the intelligence communities should give one pause. As the Snowden revelations made clear, it's a very short step from dodgy data collection to unacknowledged data sharing.

Meanwhile, federal contracts, such as those obtained by Palantir and Amazon, are money magnets. That's why Palantir was able to land a half-billion dollars from VC investors in 2014. The siliconvalley.com story notes that Thiel's data gold mine is looking for more money, and is very likely to get it. Palantir's ability to easily obtain venture capital suggests the company may generate a financial windfall. The bet is that the firm's lucrative connections with the "military" side of the military-tech complex will become entrenched and, ironically, insulated from partisan politics.

Venture Capital Firm High on Its Legal Marijuana Investment

Pot
(Image: dea.gov)

One of America's few growth industries is the legit pot business. As more states legalize marijuana sales and use, most would assume there's money to be made. While you don't need to be a financial wizard to understand the opportunity, the smarter money realizes that a strategic business approach requires deep pockets.

One such example of "smart money" is PayPal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel. According to a story in today's Los Angeles Times, Founders Fund, an enterprise partly run by Thiel, is "making a multimillion-dollar investment in a cannabis-focused private equity firm called Privateer Holdings."

How does the "smart money" appraise Privateer Holding's business prospects? "(W)e believe it will be a massive industry within the next decade," observed Founders Fund partner Geoff Lewis. Clearly, they're not envisioning that their investment will go up in smoke.

What Do Pay Pal Founder Peter Thiel and Baseball Star A-Rod Have in Common?

Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel is something of a self-made zillionaire, thanks to his early investments in Pay Pal and Facebook. He's outspoken, as only an openly gay, openly Libertarian billionaire can be. Among his concepts is the creation of a republic on a yet-to-be-made man-made island, a sort of Atlantis in the Pacific. More recently, Thiel shared with Bloomberg's Silicon Valley talking head Emily Chang his quest to extend his life expectancy beyond normal actuarial standards. (The interview was presented in a boiled down version by siliconvalley.com's Michelle Quinn.) The magic ingredient is none other than HGH, or human growth hormone. Thiel noted its ability to help one maintain muscle mass.

HGH made its reputation, for better or worse, through its association with Major League Baseball players. They knew or believed the hormome had the potential to enhance their ability to perform and extend their careers. A number of stars took HGH, none brighter than Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod eventually became MLB's sacrificial lamb to demonstrate it didn't want players gaining advantage via the use of biochemical aids. Maybe Alex Rodriguez should have played the markets instead of hardball.

Promoters of Seasteading Meet in San Francisco

They're called "Seasteaders," a 21st Century twist on the 19th Century Homestead concept. Their ambition is to build freestanding political entities in the Pacific Ocean off the San Francisco coastline. Among the enthusiasts are ex-Pay Pay zillionaire Peter Thiel, and Patri Friedman, nephew of free-market theorist Milton Friedman.

"Seasteaders" are currently meeting in San Francisco to discuss and celebrate their ideas for creating these artificial island oases. The San Jose Mercury News has covered the story, noting some of the Silicon Valley wizards and financiers involved in the event.

What's so striking about the participants' goals and ambitions is their reasoning for embarking on such a project. Their stated (pardon the pun) common denominator is a concept of freedom hatched in libertarian philosophy. The world, in their view, has become a hopelessly restrictive arena. Their proposed, man-made islands would presumably create the libertarian paradise these partisans to the cause so devoutly desire.

There's something profoundly sad about this phenomemon. These disaffected libertarians often possess considerable wealth. They're largely free to do whatever they want. Yet, the messy, demanding world continues, in their view, to be inconvenient, even obstreperous. The inability of these libertarians to reconcile themselves to those that do not share their political and philosophical perspective creates a sense of melancholy, combined with a craving for release from the coarse, gross everyday world. The subsequent desire to a more "pure" environment leads to schemes for the realization of utopian ideals.

The Swimming City
an example of a seastead

History shows this drive for a utopian state tends to breed intolerant regimes. The development of philosophically "pure," isolationist-style political entities is also entirely in the American vein (the Puritans and the Mormons come to mind). Ironically, the desire to live on artificially created Pacific islands hugging the California coastline continues the westward movement of restless American expansion partly generated by this lust for political freedom.

The Seasiders, over time, might make a different, unwanted contribution to the American story. It's entirely possible the "Big One" Californians have dreaded may shake San Francisco right into the Pacific. Then the island Seasteaders can reinvent the Atlantis myth for their island-born grandchildren.

Peter Thiel Returns To Stanford University As Star Lecturer

Peter Thiel (photo from vator.tv
and The Founders Fund)

Silicon Valley icon Peter Thiel, who made his first zillion with PayPal, has agreed to offer a lecture course at his alma mater, Stanford University. His course, to be held in the school's largest lecture hall, is fully booked at 250 paying customers. The story, as reported by Reuters, appeared in today's siliconvalley.com.

Thiel's decision struck some observers as a curious one, given the Bay Area investor's assertion that, for many, a college education is a waste of money and time. However, Stanford students who have the entrepreneurial fever are clearly flocking to listen to Thiel's ideas. Hopefully, some of them will quiz Thiel on his unabashed financial support for fellow libertarian Ron Paul.

One glamorous aspect of Thiel's class is the unannounced roster of guests he will include in his course. Speculation has centered on Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, quite possibly the world's richest college dropout, and Sean Parker, Silicon Valley's Prince of Darkness, for whom a sheepskin was something to cover his very active schwanz.

SEC Docs Reveal Zynga Deals with Facebook, Investments by Google and Peter Thiel

Zynga, an 800-pound gorilla in the online gaming room, recently submitted a revised SEC filing for its planned IPO. While Zynga's relationship with Facebook has been common knowledge, the SEC documents reveal the depth of the corporate coziness with Mark Zuckerberg's firm, as well as with other major Silicon Valley players. The San Jose Mercury News covered the story, and the article is a good one.

Why would one care? Well, Zynga, according to Peter Delevett's Mercury News piece, is "the largest maker of games played on Facebook," among them the popular "FarmVille" and "Mafia Wars."

What adds spice to the Delevett's article are the other VIPs at the Zynga ownership party. The SEC documents confirm rumors (such as those reported on Tech Crunch earlier this month) that Google has a piece of Zynga's action. So does former Pay Pal and current venture capital zillionaire Peter Thiel, whose depiction in The Social Network took some tarnish off his well-burnished, calculated public image.

The Zynga IPO story is a little complicated, and one should take the time to read Delevett's piece.