Talk:Thiel Capital

Dispute over Michels wording

Hey Guys. I’m starting this section (as I have just been asked to do so) so we can resolve the wording dispute together. Below is the wording I am proposing, and the reasoning, and the supporting sources.

Current proposed wording: Jesse Michels is an investor and filmmaker who works at Thiel Capital. He also hosts the podcast and video series American Alchemy. In November 2025, Billionaires.Africa reported that Michels accompanied former Kalmyk president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov on a visit to Rome and Tirana, which included an interview for American Alchemy; the outlet described the trip as “a quiet diplomatic and spiritual initiative.”

Alternative wording that has been repeatedly reintroduced:

Jesse Michels is an investor and filmmaker who works at Thiel Capital. He has been noted for his diplomatic activities involving the politician and chess magnate Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Vatican, Kalmykia, Albania and Africa.

My concerns with this wording are:

This wording presents Michels as being “noted” for diplomatic activities, which is not supported by any sources at all. In reality, there is just a single article describing a single trip, framed by a single journalist, in which Michels interviewed Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in Rome, attended a Vatican concert (not a diplomatic event: please google the event mentioned in the article), and then traveled to Tirana for further interviews with Ilyumzhinov for his show. There is no confirmation from any official or independent institution — neither from the Vatican, nor the Italian government, nor the Albanian government — that this trip had any diplomatic character whatsoever. The proposed wording implies that Michels is recognized as engaging in diplomacy, or is widely known for such activities, when the sourcing consists of one journalist’s description of one trip. This generalizes a single reporter’s phrasing into a broader statement of fact and risks overstating the source and misrepresenting Michels’ role. It also says he is known for his activities involving Africa. There is not any source on the Internet that says anything about Michels ever doing anything in Africa. (Ilyumzhinov has done quite a bit apparently in Africa.)

The version I am proposing sticks strictly to what the source actually reports — one trip, one interview, and the journalist’s own phrasing — without implying a larger diplomatic identity or activity.

I welcome input from other editors on how best to summarize the source accurately and neutrally.

This is not LLM! :) InquireHere (talk) 23:05, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

User:Justwatchmee

User:Justwatchmee, if you want to change the article, make your case here first.

–The direct quote from Seibel is not promo. Basically German media thought that accepting the investment from Thiel was questionable/might lead to political troubles, so they asked Seibel (founder of Quantum-Systems and Stark) why he did so, and Seibel said that he knew Thiel was controversial politically but he was a successful investor. If showing this quote on Wikipedia is PROMO, are you saying that Deutsche Welle and others were trying to promote Thiel Capital in their investigation?

-The articles used to build the parts about the political activities of Thiel Capital's employees (listed below the sentence you deleted) do mention that these people's activities are controversial or their relationship with Thiel Capital is controversial.

-I think what Selby said about his firm and Thiel's relationship with people in Saudi or Tokyo is relevant, considering that we have few concrete details about how Thiel Capital operates in other countries.

We know that Thiel Capital and Thiel have some intimate relationships with entities named Octave in Japan, Hongkong, Singapore and India. These (notable) entities appear in many sources, often under the names of other people. But there are enough sources to show that Thiel founded or at least has a very large role in these organizations, and the thing is also related to Thiel Capital.

https://reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov/reports/ADV/138971/PDF/138971.pdf

https://www.superadrianme.com/travel/airasia-japan-returns/

https://archive.ph/20240715221430/https://www.kedglobal.com/upcoming-ipos/newsView/ked202312220013

https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXLRSP495780_V11C18A1000000/

https://www.hkgbusiness.com/en/company/Crescendo-Equity-Partners-Hk-Limited

https://web.archive.org/web/20201202170902/https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/inno/stories/roundups/2020/12/02/funding-for-austin-tech-startups-november-2020.html

https://okwave.co.jp/news/press/4663/

https://okwave.co.jp/news/press/6694/

See here for the related Crescendo and other aspects of Thiel Capital that involve Matt Danzeisen.

It is the opposite of PROMO, as in this case, Thiel Capital and the related entities want to make the relationships opaque. I would argue that making readers take notice of these relationships with Asian countries benefits the readers, if their purpose is to know more about Thiel and Thiel Capital. Considering that currently there is hardly any Anglo media that can show the structure/organization of these Asian entities in a clear way, I think adding Selby's quote, that say they have relationships with Asian countries, is reasonable. Deamonpen (talk) 21:11, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

If overweighted it can become promo. I made a copy edit here Special:Diff/1326403387/1326411961 so that it is focused on the point being made: they don't like his politics, but they put that aside because they like his financial success. The whole thing doesn't really need a quote at all, just say that. But I left the reduced quote because Deamonpen thinks it's important, though I suspect this quote will be a source of trouble with other editors for the same reason, it's unnecessarily fawning ("one of the most successful investors worldwide") because Selby is trying to counter-balance the strong negative reputation of Thiel with a strong positive position and he is overplaying it. BTW Wikipedia is not comparable to Deutsche Welle and the rest, it operates under different standards and purposes. -- GreenC 21:40, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

That is not Selby (Thiel Capital's personnel). That is Seibel, and at that time he was trying to make the point that Thiel was only a minority stake holder. I know that Wikipedia is different from Deutsche Welle, but if the point is this is PROMO, this is just not PROMO — and one can see it from the source materials. Mentioning only the negative part (creating the impression that "Seibel said that he knew the negative but he accepted it, because he was just so determined to get the investment anyway, or perhaps he was addicted to Thiel") does not make sense. If we want to balance between BLP logic (that leans towards prudence, when it comes to a living person's negative reputation) and PROMO logic (that cautions against advertising), we should include the good and the bad.

Also, there are many sources that mention Thiel's success, or how people flatter him (and not coming from one of his employees, but from authoritative sources) that I can choose to include somewhere on the main page if I want - I just don't do it. But if people try their best to remove Seibel's or Selby's words here, I might, for the sake of balance (Not that I even think that it is puffery - when authors say that Thiel is successful, powerful and people flatter him, it often also carries criticism).

"Silicon Valley's highest profile investor" (Vox)

"Other Silicon Valley personas may be better known to the general public, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and even a few who don’t regularly launch rockets into space. But Thiel is the Valley’s true idol — the single person whom tech’s young aspirants and millennial moguls most seek to flatter and to emulate, the cult leader of the cult of disruption." (Max Chafkin)

"He might be the most successful technology investor in the world." (The New Yorker)

The above, repeated with an approving tone, by the Wired

"Years before Palantir's rise, Israeli officials were jockeying for Thiel's attention and access to his company." (The San Francisco Standard)

"how Thiel sees his own massive role in the world—in politics, technology, and the fate of the species"

And not to mention all the sources that focus more on his political power.

(Although, personally, considering Seibel's rhetoric in other occasions, I do doubt his point about not sharing Thiel's politics. Perhaps not completely though. Not that he is completely satisfied with Thiel either, considering that Helsing is their great rival, and Thiel brings Helsing to Bilderberg, not Quantum-Systems or Stark. Seibel is known for making bitter comments about Helsing.) Deamonpen (talk) 22:15, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

First off I can't agree with those opinions see Masayoshi Son, Michael Moritz and Bill Gurley. Better off describing what he did rather than echoing trendy opinions from influencers and taste makers in the popular media. Billionaires are often like pop stars (or wrestling stars), it's in-universe to take on that role in Wikipedia. We can do better, write like an academic for a journal. Indeed this whole problem of billionaires as pop stars (cf. Trump, Bezos, Musk, etc.), is a good approach to take, there are many sources on this topic. In that light the quotes above are merely evidence of a deeper and more interesting subject about the rise of the ultra-wealthy, impoverishment of the middle class, and loss of democratic values. You should have no problem finding sources that discuss Thiel with substance vs. the sort of vapid click-bait "best investor in the world". -- GreenC 23:57, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

I know that there are sources that praise other people. My point is that Justwatchmee obviously wants to retain the negative (Seibel knew about Thiel's politics and did not agree with it) while deleting the other part, also said by Seibel, thus rendering the whole sentence to be very illogical. "I don't agree with Thiel's politics" per se has no substance either.

Regarding the best and the highest-profile, imho, it depends on what criteria one uses.

Chafkin and some other authors follow the route of "who combines ideology, wealth, success in key/influential realms of tech, networks...etc into the most obscene amount of power and influence in Silicon Valley, in the U.S.government and in the world's trajectory of development"? You might agree or disagree with them, but they absolutely don't say such things lightly. Chafkin writes a whole book (a critical work, and a reputable one) about it. And if you know authors who praise Son, Moritz and Gurley in this same way, please name them. One or two are OK too.

And my opinion is that, if one goes this route, they are absolutely right. I am Asian and I can read Chinese and I am familiar with Russian propaganda as well. I can absolutely guarantee you that Chinese and Russian propagandists don't throw this level of propaganda at Son or Moritz: 1, 2, 3. They see Thiel as dangerous for them as they try their best to heighten the sense that he is also dangerous for the West, period. And when they target the right wing audience, he is Zionist, WEF, Bilderberg, even Jew, but when the mouths known for representing the Kremlin target the left wing audience, he is an oligarch who will destroy liberal democracy (Note: Whitney Webb is a journalist from this org while Kayla Karman comes from this one. This is Brasil de Fato. Regarding the UNZ article, you probably can see for yourself.)

And what SFS said was just a fact. Also from them "In the emails, no tech company surfaces more often — or draws more interest from Israeli figures — than Palantir." "Palantir wasn't the only company to catch Israel's attention a decade ago. In the same leaked emails, a constellation of names — Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon — appear repeatedly as Israeli political figures sought audiences with the people shaping the world's digital infrastructure." Also, et's note that, as said above, this was "years before Palantir's rise."

And this one names Thiel and his gang (Karp, Schimpf)/"AI billionaires" as "the new rulers of the world" for the simple reason — they play a notable role in Bilderberg. The others you have mentioned, or Musk, or Gates, or whoever else in Silicon Valley bar Eric Schmidt, do not get to be present there, let alone having a dominant role (also see 1, 2). Deamonpen (talk) 00:47, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

There is no top down cabal running the world with public meetings at Davos and Bilderberg. Being at those meetings means very little in practice. -- GreenC 01:31, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

The source I cite does not say so, it says that "Some have said that Bilderberg is where politicians go to get their orders, but the truth may be more subtle than this. For politicians, however successful, to be invited to Bilderberg a new level of power opens up to them. A transatlantic, supra-national strata of power. A heady powerful space where AI billionaires are the new rulers of the world, working together across governments alongside defence and intelligence chiefs." It is a little more complex than "ruling in a top down manner from Bilderberg" (and Thiel does not do it that way with his organizations, or with the broader spheres, I would say it is about a type of power that is reminiscent of the Habsburg and HRE rulers, at least the strong ones), but leftwing/liberal publications like the Guardian would agree that these orgs are notable and being there does mean something too. If they "means very little", such a man like Musk would not need to beg to get inside Davos. Deamonpen (talk) 01:47, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

And also, Ulf Kristersson came to Bilderberg 2025 in secret (and met Thiel and Karp there in secret). If this thing "meant very little in real life", why would politicians risk their reputation to do that? Let's take note that Thiel has negative media coverage and intense debates among parties targeting him and his companies (especially Palantir) every single day in Europe.

Certainly, other important politicians like Boris Johnson meet Thiel in secret too. One who is willing to explain (instead of issuing a 99% redacted document like the other people), is Blue Labour's Glasman:

“This is just a conversation I’m having about people who are genuinely knowledgeable about AI. I’m not trying to normalise them. This is progressive thought: that if you speak to someone, you’re somehow contaminated.

“The world is changing, and it’s changing really fast, and if we’re not part of that conversation, we’re going to be like every other social democrat party in Europe, except for the Scandinavians – completely out of the game.” (source)

So the question is, if it is about being "knowledgeable" about AI, aren't people like Bill Gurley or Masayoshi Son or Marc Andreessen much more qualified, having been trained in computer science? But whether it was because of his "knowledge" or his power over AI companies or that military tech is valued more than consumer tech, that spoke in favour of Thiel's influence. Deamonpen (talk) 02:06, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Also, because you seem to want to argue along the line of personal reasoning, so I want to show this example too:

Who else is or was allowed to privately develop an uranium enriching process (not just producing, but developing)?

Which company's software watches over the U.S.bombs? (and this was from the Biden era)

Whose company creates the IAEA's Mosaic (in case someone hopes that international orgs will intervene in case something abnormal happens...)

The same company is also developing the nuclear operating system which will be used on new facilities in the upcoming years.

Not to mention half of the most notable nuclear startups working with DoD and DoE (for years, namely Helion Energy, Oklo Inc., Radiant Industries, Avalanche) have Founders Fund or Mithril Capital as their major backers, with an important part being played by known Thiel ally Sam Altman.

Sorry, one might argue about Thiel's good or bad qualities. The way some people on Wikipedia doubt that his power is immense, is just unbelievable to me. Deamonpen (talk) 03:21, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't think his power is any more "immense" then many other billionaires who are less egotistical in the media. He's in the spotlight right now, he is a pop-culture icon. I keep coming back to this, pop-culture has taken over everything including business and politics. Some billionaires understand this, why Bezos remodeled his body, wife and life into a rap star persona. They are on board with the pop-star culture, Hollywood+SiliconValley+WallStreet+WashingtonDC .. it's all merged. The same way genres of art like rap or country or rock have nothing new, only rehashing old beats and mixing genres. So I don't get too excited by the press mentions, they are part of the same in-universe pop-culture milieu. You need to be conscious of this and not let the BS get the upper hand. -- GreenC 19:42, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

You might as well blame Napoleon's reputation and power on pop culture. The Thiel thing is because of many things, but particularly because the intelligence communities report that China might attack Taiwan in 2027 and Russia might attack the EU/Eastern flank of NATO in 2029 (or sooner). Basically Thiel became internationally known (outside tech circles) like last year. But the reason the satellite company Rivada Space Networks relied above all on Thiel's reputation (checked this, or Declan Ganley's tweets for that matter]] despite having this kind of line-up for their board (they have recently added Joseph Maguire and Tony Abbott) certainly has nothing do do with what the NYT publishes about Thiel. Same with why Israeli officials strategizing with their family about how to get a job in a Thiel company in 2014 and Dialog borrowed his reputation to gather top businessman and officials even before that (because it seemed he did not even bother to participate directly at the time). And Chinese and Russian propaganda about Thiel has been cooked by them for years.

Palantir is the central nervous system of NATO through MAVEN. But it is beyond that.

Take Denmark for example, certainly their press has an opinion about Thiel, with the whole Praxis controversy in Greenland and Ken Howery being appointed ambassador there (and he has never rejected the plan to take over Greenland).

But at the same time (moreso this year) their government has decided to rely more on Palantir for the military, intelligence and police. And more, the two partners Denmark chooses for their national quantum project are Microsoft and Atom Computing, of which 1517 is an early backer, and you know quantum is the great hope of national security and development these days. Thiel also backs organizations like Fogh Rasmussen's Alliance of Democracies Foundation. Why would they need "popular" media to tell them that this is a matter to think about, when Thiel is everywhere? Thiel does not completely take over any place, but he is everywhere, and he has an essential stake in every place that matters.

Same with Germany (beyond the fact that Thiel is German, so it touches some cultural nerve). Thiel matters because Rivada, Mynaric, Quantum-Systems, Stark and Helsing (I don't know whether he invests through Prima Materia or not, but it is considered a Thiel ecosystem company and he brings it with him to Bilderberg) matter. And Palantir, as always.

Same with Asian Pacific countries. In the US there was/is lot of propaganda about Koch brothers or whomever, but it has resonated in Asia Pacific because people and governments do not feel that it is a geostrategical problem for them. Deamonpen (talk) 00:34, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Comparing Napoleon (!) with modern pop culture informed by the Internet etc doesn't make sense. Look I'm not making this up there are books and schools of study on this, you are probably not familiar with media and culture studies. Statements like Palantir is the central nervous system of NATO sounds like the sort of bombastic fear-mongering FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) statements one might read in the popular press, which appears to be your main source of information. You should try academic sources that are more dedicated to the truth, and not entertainment or pushing a POV. In fact, NATO has its own C4ISR Systems: NATO maintains its own complex, dedicated command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems developed by many different global defense contractors (such as Lockheed Martin, Airbus, Leonardo, etc.). Palantir does hold specific contracts with NATO and NATO member countries, but it is one of many technology suppliers. Its systems are used to augment and modernize existing infrastructure, not replace the entire structure. NATO's long-term goal is to move toward a more open, interoperable digital architecture, which would mean avoiding dependence on any single, proprietary vendor's platform. -- GreenC 17:44, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

In any era, leaders, even those who are relatively low-key in style such as Thiel, rely on *being known* (by the right people or by the majority) on a certain degree. Populists existed long before the internet - the tools change but the essence of politics does not. But Elon Musk being a pop icon long long before Thiel (and to a much higher degree) did not help him to get into WEF even when he begged. C4ISR is basically an umbrella term for many systems produced by many entities and now they are trying to link all of those, mainly with Palantir. And again, please, at least name some of your sources (saying that the investors you have named are more powerful politically, or Palantir is nothing special, just one of many etc.).

"Maven is the very top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It is the apex, and we often forget about that foundational layer that enables things like Maven Smart Systems to provide a common operating picture to the alliance."

Source

Yes, Palantir helps to modernize NATO, and it helps in this manner:

NATO allies agreed to a sole-source procurement of Palantir's Maven Smart System NATO (MSS NATO) software, a representative of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) told Janes .

"Maven is designed to connect multiple command, control, and communications (C3) systems so that the “data collected from older systems" , third-party apps, and even custom solutions can be shared and leveraged in ways that were previously off-limits".

The context is the modernization of data management within large organizations, such as military alliances, where data is often trapped in legacy or siloed systems and needs to be integrated for improved analysis and decision-making. The goal of such integration is to make historical data accessible and usable across the enterprise.

Source

Developed, delivered and implemented by Palantir Technologies Inc., the software is NATO’s first AI-enabled warfighting command and control system. It modernizes NATO’s warfighting capabilities by providing a common data-enabled warfighting functionality using a wide range of artificial intelligence applications.

Source

What kind of scholarly sources do you expect? Are the words of even NATO channels and experts not reliable? The MAVEN contract just happened months ago. Palantir reached its mature phase maybe 2 years ago.

Yes, the internet or whatever modern phenomenon of digitalization or AI, also does not replace books. They just modernize. They modernize by integrating and reproducing things, by adding an overarching layer over old materials.

It is ridiculous to suggest that I am trying to induce fear, while I am doing as much as I can to reduce such fearmongering misconceptions on Palantir Technologies page. What is fear-mongering about saying that Washington D.C is the central node of the U.S. political system? Oh yes, "that is fear mongering, actually the multistate system is the backbone of the U.S. political system...." It is a whole different thing, and they just don't mutually negate each other. Fear is when it is about coercive power. Here it's simply about necessity. But necessity is also the most natural kind of power and influence. Politicians wanting to hear from Thiel is not because Palantir magically controls them. NATO counting on Palantir for its AI-enabled command system is not because Lockheed and co lack lobbying power. But when it comes to a certain level of systematic cooperation, like in the case of nuclear-related entities mentioned above, things are a bit complicated because the agencies responsible for monitoring rely on the same company that plays an essential role in building new tech and watching over bombs. So the thing is that the U.S government trusts Thiel and his system and others have to accept that.

And also, there are other signs that the people who work with the military side of tech are becoming much more essential in the current political climate. Russia targeted Rheinmetall boss Armin Papperger, certainly not because he was a pop star (I suspect that was a trial, to see how society would react; and actually after the assassination, Rheinmetall and the defense industry have become more popular, because in Western societies, big people tend to become bigger in death and things might take an unpredictable turn that nobody wants). Right before the Ukrainian invasion, Putin tried to make Thiel talk to him directly. It might be because Putin wanted to deceive Thiel that he would not invade Ukraine like Thiel said, or whatever. But the fact governments on both sides focus on the military tech leaders certainly can not explained by "they are pop icons."Deamonpen (talk) 02:34, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

OK thanks for the thoughtful, in-depth and good-faith response and conversation - hard to find on the Internet these days. You and I could probably go on like this for a long time, it is interesting. We have definitely strayed outside the bounds of WP:NOTAFORUM. I'm going to call it a day. Anyone else is of course free to respond. -- GreenC 20:00, 11 December 2025 (UTC)