Book of the week: The Contrarian by Max Chafkin
Biography challenges the image of Silicon Valley as a hotbed of idealism and progressive liberalism

Peter Thiel – the subject of this meticulous biography – is “Big Tech’s leading conservative”, said James Ball in The Spectator. The multibillionaire co-founded PayPal in the late 1990s, and has since invested in a string of “internet giants”, including Facebook, Spotify and the surveillance company Palantir.
A vociferous opponent of liberal culture, Thiel was a prominent Trump backer, and has been linked to some of Silicon Valley’s wackier concepts – including a drive to build autonomous sea-based communities, and the anti-ageing therapy parabiosis (“transfusions of blood from young people to older ones”).
Max Chafkin, a Bloomberg journalist, was not able to interview Thiel, and doesn’t entirely get to grips with his eccentric personality. Where The Contrarian excels, however, is as a “revisionist history of Silicon Valley”, one that challenges the popular image of the tech heartland as a hotbed of idealism and progressive liberalism.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
I’ve read lots of “origin stories” of Silicon Valley overlords, and in some ways Thiel’s upbringing perfectly fits the mould, said Hugo Rifkind in The Times. The son of German immigrants, he was a geeky child who excelled at chess, but his story soon “veers off” – most crucially in the fact that he “never seems into computers”.
At Stanford University, instead of spending his time coding, he founded a “magazine of right-wing provocation, which railed against what we would now call wokeism”. And though he presents himself as a “techno-evangelist”, his big successes have “essentially been ones of venture capitalism”: the early investments that he made in the likes of PayPal, Facebook, Airbnb and Spotify.
As presented by Chafkin, Thiel’s most striking trait is his “nihilistic desire to take down others”, said William Davies in the New Statesman. His business strategy is to drive “all competitors to the wall”, and he famously pursued a vendetta against the gossip website Gawker, which had outed him as gay. By covertly funding various lawsuits against the company – including one launched by the former wrestler Hulk Hogan – he drove it to ruin.
Chafkin is a brilliant chronicler of the “Thielverse” – the “weird personality cult” that surrounds Thiel, composed almost exclusively of young, right-wing men, said John Naughton in The Observer. Although his followers ascribe to him a “godlike prescience”, Chafkin’s account suggests that he isn’t a visionary at all, but someone defined only by what he’s against – notably liberal elites and multiculturalism. There’s only one thing that he has been consistently in favour of: “he’s for Peter Thiel”.
Bloomsbury 400pp £25; The Week Bookshop £19.99
The Week Bookshop
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
The Coldplay kiss cam affair: a cautionary tale
In the Spotlight The pair became 'the most googled people on the planet' after getting caught having an affair at a Coldplay concert
-
Connie Francis: superstar of the early 1960s pop scene
In the Spotlight The 'Pretty Little Baby' and 'Stupid Cupid' singer has died aged 87
-
Friendship: 'bromance' comedy starring Paul Rudd and Tim Robinson
The Week Recommends 'Lampooning and embracing' middle-aged male loneliness, this film is 'enjoyable and funny'
-
6 head-turning homes for town house living
Feature Featuring a roof deck with city views in South Carolina and a renovated Harlem brownstone in New York City
-
Bookish: delightful period detective drama from Mark Gatiss
The Week Recommends 'Cosy crime' series is a 'standout pleasure' in an Agatha Christie-style formula
-
Music Reviews: Justin Bieber, Wet Leg, and Clipse
Feature "Swag," "Moisturizer," and "Let God Sort Em Out"
-
Film reviews: Eddington and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
Feature A New Mexico border town goes berserk and civil war through a child's eyes
-
Art Review: Hilma af Klint's What Stands Behind the Flowers
Feature Museum of Modern Art, New York City, through Sept. 27