Cheap and highly left/anti-tech biased

Listen to the recent interview of the author on This Week In Startups and you will get a more accurate view of the character of the author. Cheap and slimy. There’s a good reason why a voice actor was needed.
This reads like a cheap tabloid.
The author attempts to ridicule Thiel for taking down Gawker, but fails to mention that their actions of outing him were illegal. Worth the read. Highly biased.

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Max Chafkin writes a novel

Regrettably, blinded by his own ideology, the author has failed to comprehend the driving motivations Peter Thiel. This book reads more like a reverse treatise on Max's ideology than an account of Peter's values, motivations and determination to make the world a better place.

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A politically motivated waste of time. Keep Away!

Towards the end, the toxic political motives of the author was sickening. I was expecting insights into one of the greatest tech entrepreneurs of this era. I expected the coverage of Thiel to be motivational to aspiring entrepreneurs.

Instead what I got was a very toxic and politically motivated attempt by the author at tarnishing Thiel and the opposing side of the author's politics.

Never will I buy another book from this author or the media company he works for.

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politically motivated conspiracy fueled hit piece.

I am not a huge fan of Thiel tho I find his counter narratives interesting. I am sure some of the criticisms aimed at Thiel in this book are accurate and or justified but this is more than just critical, it is an attempt to construct a specific narrative about Thiel, one that conforms to a political agenda. Reality doesn't conform to our political agendas. People and facts are complicated and often contradict our world view.

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1 person found this helpful

Guilt by Association: The Book

I am open to a story of a shadowy figure with Machiavellian motivations, who deals in backrooms to achieve right wing or libertarian goals. I am open to walking away from this biography with a totally negative sentiment towards Theil. But instead I'm walking away feeling like the author believes that Theil is a strange right-wing billionaire and that's enough of a sin to reduce the man to straight up villain stature. Even as a left-wing reader with no connection to Silicon Valley or tech, I find this totally unconvincing.

The book began by asserting that Theil had tentacles in everything, and was influencing institutions and individuals in unscrupulous ways. But then, nearly every chapter begins by establishing some loose connection to a friend or associate with "wrong think" characteristics. Sometimes, the accusation is a racist article published in the person's late teens. Sometimes, it's an unsubstantiated story from an unnamed source about vaguely bad behaviour at college or in an early start up. These chapter bizarrely submits these loose associates and their bad behaviour as an example of them following Theil's lead and ends up calling them his acolytes. Focusing in on Theil's own controversial works isn't enough, instead it turns into a major case of "guilt by association", whereby we get very little of Theil and too much of his loose connections.

This pattern of associate / bad behaviour / link to Theil, is repetitious and unconvincing. The author seems to have had virtually no access to Theil and no actual new accounts of interest. Instead we get side swipes from former associates or innuendo from the author himself. A constant downplay of Theil's intelligence and a constant emphasis on his weirdness.

One example of this is Theil's Fellowship program. The author remarks that the $100,000 no strings attached money wasn't enough money for kids to live on, and that one of the participants developed a drug problem. There's a myriad of other complaints about the program in the chapter, all of it negative. At no point did we really get a sense of what the program was trying to achieve. Theil had gone against advice and took no stake in any of the companies these fellows established with the money, but the author brushes over this and tries to establish misconduct or some kind. We never get a sympathetic or empathetic approach from the author, which isn't necessary in every biography, but it would have been good to feel like the conclusion hadn't been predetermined. Though I suspect it had been.

I suggest that the author was writing for left-wing audiences who would feel that Theil's support for Trump was all you needed to know. The guy's evil, end of story. If the author had successfully stepped back and tried to work out what was motivating Theil, he would have written a much better book. But we never get it, because the author doesn't really get it.

There's many examples of the author not trying to understand the people or quotes he's dealing with. At one point, he weirdly snubs Tyler Cowen, one of the most intelligent and successful economists and polymaths on the planet. Tyler complimented Theil, and the author immediately points out that Theil was an investor in Tyler's not-for-profit. It's not like this is irrelevant, but I wish there was more depth to this relationship rather than a "gotcha" with the money stuff.

Overall, very well written and a very easy to follow book. But it's a bad biography.

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Way too biased. Waste of time

Completely left bias. Constant snide comments to try create impressions without actually saying or giving proof. I would not waste your time.

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Hopelessly biased

The extreme negative bias of the author makes this book painful to listen to. Whatever happened to journalistic objectivity?

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Stopped listening.

Book is well read/performed but the actual content is junk. Sounds more like a hit piece than a biography. Seems like the author really wants you to believe Thiel is super awkward and sinister.

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