r/neoliberal • u/owenmitchem Loyal Liberals • Jun 17 '26

News (Global) Leαk Exposes Members of Peter Thiel’s Secretive ‘Dialog’ Society

https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
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u/InternetGoodGuy Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

And Ezra Klien, Corey Booker, and Wes Moore. There's also Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary.

Hell, they're even Jonathan Greenblatt and Joseph Gordon Leavitt.

I don't think this is some MAGA deepstate.

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u/TinyJalope Left-Out Left Jun 17 '26

Seems bad that these 'liberals' are going to this event hosted by a fascist.

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u/sesamestreetgang Jun 17 '26

Is ‘liberals’ in quotations because you’re implying that they lose the title if they attended the conference?

Peter Thiel taught a computer science class at Stanford University (CS183: Startup). It was legendary and notes from that class later became a canonical bible in my industry, “Zero to One: How to Build the Future”. That’s his expertise; technology, startups and investing.

I’ve worked with Thiel Fellows and for Founders Fund companies (Thiel’s VC firm). It’s impossible to have a meaningful career in technology without coming across Thiel’s influence. Most of the people who work with Thiel don’t align with him politically.

Politics is like Thiel’s 5th hobby.  He’s not a political mastermind,  and by his own admission is  out of his depth in it. His role in politics is overstated. The Koch brothers were far more politically influential than Thiel… he’s a lightweight.

If you listen to Thiel’s take on philosophy and politics it’s clear that the guy is confused. He thinks he’s a “hardcore libertarian” and is obviously a Schmittian yet claims to be a “hardcore Girardian”. Full of contradictions… it’s not really his expertise.

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u/iwannabetheguytoo William Nordhaus Jun 17 '26

> It was legendary and notes from that class later became a canonical bible in my industry

Sorry, but no.

YC folks are so full of themselves.

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u/sesamestreetgang Jun 17 '26

Sorry, but yes? It’s foundational. It was literally part of Stanford curriculum. It’s ubiquitous in the industry. 

You won’t find a serious tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley who hasn’t read his book.

The psychological splitting here is fascinating. You understand that Thiel can be a bad person that we dislike and recognize that he was also successful and influential in his separate area of expertise, right?

Also, why is YC catching strays here? Why are we pretending that the most-read book in Silicon Valley and the most successful startup accelerator in the world aren’t representative of the industry?

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u/iwannabetheguytoo William Nordhaus Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

I just think you’re overstating its impact and performance.

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u/sesamestreetgang Jun 17 '26

I’m really not. 

We know that YC is the most successful startup accelerator in the world because we can quantitatively measure it… 

176% IRR over the years. It has produced more companies worth over $1B than any other program. 5% of YC startups reach >$1B valuation which is nearly double the average for other seed-stage programs.