Peter Thiel, Author of Book “Zero to One” and Co-Founder of PayPal, Visited Tsinghua SEM

On May 28th, Peter Thiel, author of book “Zero to One” and Co-Founder of PayPal, visited Tsinghua SEM. Dean QIAN Yingyi met with Thiel. Senior Associate Dean GAO Jian attended the meeting.

In the meeting, Dean QIAN welcomed Thiel’s visit and introduced the current status and development of the School. Thiel and Dean QIAN had a deep discussion on topics of China’s economy development, environment for entrepreneurship and innovation, education on economics and management, etc.

Peter Thiel is known as “the thinker of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley”. In 1998, Thiel co-founded PayPal and served as its CEO. In 2002, he sold Paypal to eBay for $1.5 billion. In 2004, He became the first outside investor in Facebook, and sits on the company's board of directors. In the same year, he founded Palantir which specializing in data analysis on defense and security, and global finance industry. He also co-founded Founders Fund, providing venture capital fund for a dozen of technology innovation companies like LinkedIn, SpaceX and Yelp. Many of these companies were founded by former Paypal employees (known as “PayPal Mafia”). Peter Thiel established the Thiel Fellowship to encourage young people to study and start business outside campus. He also set up the Thiel Foundation to enhance the technology development and thinking for long-term social development. In his book “Zero to One: Notes of Startups, or How to Build the Future”, Peter Thiel explained his insights on entrepreneurship, elaborated world’s trend by perspectives of philology, history and economy, and shared his views on the future of business development.