Peter Thiel: We're in a Bubble and It's Not the Internet. It's Higher Education.

Sarah Lacy:

Fair warning: This article will piss off a lot of you.

I can say that with confidence because it's about Peter Thiel. And Thiel - the PayPal co-founder, hedge fund manager and venture capitalist - not only has a special talent for making money, he has a special talent for making people furious.

Some people are contrarian for the sake of getting headlines or outsmarting the markets. For Thiel, it's simply how he views the world. Of course a side benefit for the natural contrarian is it frequently leads to things like headlines and money.

Consider the 2000 Nasdaq crash. Thiel was one of the few who saw in coming. There's a famous story about PayPal's March 2000 venture capital round. The offer was "only" at a $500 million-or-so valuation. Nearly everyone on the board and the management team balked, except Thiel who calmly told the room that this was a bubble at its peak, and the company needed to take every dime it could right now. That's how close PayPal came to being dot com roadkill a la WebVan or Pets.com.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 14, 2011 2:39 AM
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