Book of the week: The Contrarian by Max Chafkin

Biography challenges the image of Silicon Valley as a hotbed of idealism and progressive liberalism

Mike Pence, Donald Trump and Peter Thiel
Mike Pence, Donald Trump and Peter Thiel during a meeting with technology executives at Trump Tower, New York City, in December 2016
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

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.

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