---
product_id: 367999719
title: "The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power"
price: "283626₫"
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reviews_count: 9
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---

# The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power

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desertcart.com: The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power (Audible Audio Edition): Max Chafkin, Will Damron, Penguin Audio: Books

Review: Peter Thiel bio excellent read - Excellent look into Peter Thiel and the influence of the new breed of oligarchs on our society and government.
Review: Interesting book... - I haven't completed the book yet. It is written in a fluent style, although some facts about Thiel were already well known, including the interview by Weltwoche. Down to the detail, including his perfect SAT scores and junior chess achievements, the author describes Thiel's rise to power as a child of German immigrants. A few historical inaccuracies, however, are also part of this book. Germany is described as a country without critical, political movements in the 60's, but by 1968 the German left and other groups had put together an opposition movement. The author writes critically about Thiel but at the same time, he seems to be a secret admirer, which I find psychologically interesting. Finally, it is notable that Germany and many countries in Europe, with less monopolistic industries (and no Thiel) are doing far better when it comes to health care, education and equal opportunities at work...

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Peter Thiel bio excellent read
*by R***T on December 3, 2025*

Excellent look into Peter Thiel and the influence of the new breed of oligarchs on our society and government.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Interesting book...
*by A***R on October 6, 2021*

I haven't completed the book yet. It is written in a fluent style, although some facts about Thiel were already well known, including the interview by Weltwoche. Down to the detail, including his perfect SAT scores and junior chess achievements, the author describes Thiel's rise to power as a child of German immigrants. A few historical inaccuracies, however, are also part of this book. Germany is described as a country without critical, political movements in the 60's, but by 1968 the German left and other groups had put together an opposition movement. The author writes critically about Thiel but at the same time, he seems to be a secret admirer, which I find psychologically interesting. Finally, it is notable that Germany and many countries in Europe, with less monopolistic industries (and no Thiel) are doing far better when it comes to health care, education and equal opportunities at work...

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Successful sociopath
*by J***G on September 30, 2021*

A week ago, I attended a bookstore event entitled "Thiel's Pursuit of Power," an interview of Max Chafkin by fellow Bloomberg reporter Emily Chang. One of the last questions she asked was about Peter Thiel's propensity to exact revenge on anyone who opposes him. Was Max worried? "Well, I am not selling any sex tapes," he said, an allusion to Thiel's destruction of Gawker via Hulk Hogan. Nervous laughter ensued. The one-star reviews here have Peter Thiel's fingerprints all over them, especially the 3,500 word diatribe that had hundreds of likes within a day of the book's release. (I suspect he wrote it; if he didn't, he provided most of the content.) I hope it doesn't get any worse than one-star reviews for Max Chafkin, as he's written a fascinating tale of a diabolical plotter who's achieved inordinate success -- partly because he has few scruples and seems to care about no one other than Peter Thiel. As a resident of the local area, I could not have been happier to hear that Palantir was leaving for Colorado. For years, the Palantir minions had dominated downtown Palo Alto, driving out dozens of businesses in their insatiable need for additional office space, the glassy-eyed millennials roaming the sidewalks. Were they spying on us? They didn't even seem to see us. It's entirely amusing that Palantir's farewell statement to Silicon Valley made snarky comments about Google and Facebook spying on people and selling their information. Sure they do, but they also offer other services. Palantir is only about spying, and its presence here made many residents uncomfortable. So I was fascinated to read that Palantir had been something of a bust -- its software didn't work that well -- and if not for the small investment that Thiel made in a former president's campaign, one that brought in billions of dollars in contracts, the company might not have survived. Similarly, PayPal had been a poorly-run enterprise under Thiel: the more customers it acquired, the more money it lost. Who knew? Meanwhile, Thiel has socked away billions of untaxable dollars thanks to major loopholes in the Roth IRA -- loopholes that most of us could never exploit -- and bought citizenship in New Zealand, a favorite doomsteader haven. My favorite part of the book describes Thiel's efforts to exert influence over the 45th president after backing his candidacy. In this situation, Thiel was out-manipulated, and by that point of the book, I was ready to root for anyone who managed to get the better of him. Thiel's style is domination through fear, and the former guy simply wasn't afraid. The Contrarian is far from perfect: it could have used better editing. At least twice, the author repeats the same story in a slightly different way. There are a few inaccuracies -- the school's legal name is in fact Leland Stanford Junior University (rarely used day-to-day, probably because the school got tired of explaining that it was not a "junior university"). Names are misspelled. That was offputting at times, but not enough to detract from the tales that made this book a riveting read.

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*Product available on Desertcart Vietnam*
*Store origin: VN*
*Last updated: 2026-02-16*