Max Chafkin
Features Editor, Bloomberg Businessweek. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
journalistauthorhost@chafkin ↗maxchafkin.com ↗
Max Chafkin is a technology and business journalist at Bloomberg Businessweek who has written for The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and Inc. He is the author of The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power, an investigative biography detailing the venture capitalist's career and political influence.
1shows
1appearances
27statements
11resolved
10supported
0contradicted
91%fully supported
Everything Max Chafkin said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Peter Thiel's rule-breaking ethos dominates Facebook and major tech companies
“That ethos, Thielism, if you want to call it that, is Basically the main ethos of Facebook, of, you know, of most of the bigger companies in Silicon Valley. This idea that the rules yeah, just aren't that important and maybe it's best to cast them aside from t…”
Silicon Valley's disruption culture roots in 1980s right-wing campus activism
“I think a lot of the kind of some of this kind of cult of disruption stuff that we see in, in, in Silicon Valley, probably best epitomized by like Uber or something, I think kind of has its roots in right wing activist politics, the right wing activist politic…”
Peter Thiel designed the Thiel Fellowship to troll his liberal critics
“It was totally designed to like, to you know, for lack of a better word, like troll the libs, right? Like they slate did a slate, you know, did like a hit piece on On the, I'm using the builder language here... They use it in their marketing. They loved it. Yo…”
Chafkin: Mark Zuckerberg's politics prioritize Facebook's growth over authorities and rules
“I think he's a libertarian and I think, which I think, you know, a hundred percent influenced by Thiel there. But I also think to some extent he has no left right politics. His politics are Whatever is going to be required to allow Facebook to grow as big as p…”
Peter Thiel is positioning himself as the patron of radical populism
“Peter Thiel's attempting to be the inheritor of that movement and to be the patron of that movement, to be the person who is behind the scenes for the 20 to 30% of the country that wants the guy who says the craziest shit in the room.”
Peter Thiel acted as patron to pro-dictatorship blogger Curtis Yarvin
“He's, you know, been a patron to this guy, Curtis Yarvin, who is you know better known as a mold bug, but you know, this blogger who is whose big idea basically is, is a dictatorship.”
Peter Thiel has had more cultural impact on tech than anyone
“I would argue that Teal has had a bigger cultural impact on, on the tech industry than any single person.”
Founder worship in Silicon Valley originated from Thiel's Founders Fund
“This idea that founders, that the class of the founder is this kind of special person who has a privileged access to kind of like what the company is supposed to do and who's right. Who's just knows what's best. That came from Peter Thiel. I mean, that, that c…”
PayPal built its early business by ignoring banking regulations
“Some of the things that, that PayPal did because PayPal totally just ignored every banking regulation. They, you know, it wasn't just that they were ideologically opposed to, you know, like the normal model of regulating currencies. They were just actively jus…”
The tech industry learned to win via regulatory arbitrage from PayPal
“And I think you know, the rest of the tech industry you know, kind of learned a valuable lesson from that experience, which is that you can you know, you can succeed by pursuing this sort of regulatory arbitrage by attacking a regulated industry and by making …”
Thiel designed the stock structure that drove Zuckerberg and Saverin apart
“It was Teal who sort of set in motion this stock structure that creates the conflict between Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg, which is the, you know, whatever the basis of the social network.”
Chafkin: Peter Thiel heavily influenced Mark Zuckerberg's corporate control and anti-institutional ideology
“I think that Teal has had, yeah, just an enormous impact on Mark Zuckerberg. Both in terms of like how the company is structured, like the literal way that Zuckerberg you know, got control of Facebook and maintain control of Facebook. And then, but also Yeah, …”
Thiel invested $10M each in former employees JD Vance and Blake Masters
“Putting ten million dollars into this guy, Blake Masters, running for Senate in Arizona, ten million dollars into JD Vance Both of them either former or current, you know, Teal employees”
Peter Thiel attempted to make Balaji Srinivasan FDA commissioner under Trump
“Teal attempted to get Balaji Srinivasan made FDA commissioner.”
Thiel pushed climate deniers as Trump's top presidential science advisors
“Thiel also had the opportunity to suggest all these chief, candidates for chief scientists, the top scientific advisor to the to the president and his two main choices were climate change deniers. Who, you know, one of whom William Happer... The other, his oth…”
Thiel's meeting with Trump drove Palantir's success under CEO Alex Karp
“He set up this meeting this big meeting with all the tech CEOs, gets Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir, in a room with Donald Trump, which I think was very important for Palantir, and has helped, one of, is one of the reasons Palantir has been so successful over the …”
Chafkin: Thiel Sheltered Investment Income Tax-Free in Roth IRA
“Teal has been pursuing his whole career, this very, very, very aggressive strategy to pay. It's legal, but just exceedingly aggressive strategy to pay almost nothing in taxes on his on most of his income. It's his investment income. Because it's all in a Roth …”
Chafkin: Silicon Valley originated as defense contracting, not counterculture
“But it's kind of a weird way of looking at an industry that literally started as an extension of the U.S. Military. And like, you know, there's nothing, there is, there are countercultural things about Silicon Valley. But to see the tech industry as just this …”
Chafkin: Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital failed and lost billions of dollars
“And as a result, his hedge fund completely failed. And you know, he had to basically, it was reformed as a, you know, family office, like the outside capital it w w went away. And he lost billions of dollars.”
Chafkin: Luke Nosek pushed Founders Fund to back SpaceX over Thiel's hesitation
“As I understand it, you know, there was a lot of back and forth within Founders Fund over that investment where Luke Nosek was pushing really hard to do that investment. Teal wasn't so sure because Teal doesn't, you know, it's not his You know, like taking tha…”
Chafkin: Gawker destruction created a chilling effect on reporting about Peter Thiel
“It definitely, I think that case definitely created an environment where it was harder for people, harder for journalists to really think critically or write critically or talk to sources about Peter Thiel. It hangs over every conversation you have, every conv…”
Chafkin: Musk and Thiel have opposite temperaments regarding risk and emotions
“I think that Elon and Peter are basically just almost complete opposites, like, temperamentally. You know, Musk is this kind of very emotional, all, you know, he, if he's gonna bet on something, he's going all in. He, you know, wears his heart on his sleeve. H…”
Elon Musk was more respected than Peter Thiel during PayPal's coup
“Oh, this coup happened, but at the time, you know, Elon was a much more better respected, more famous entrepreneur than Peter Thiel. Elon had already sold a company at, he had Mike Moritz, who is the, you know, most respected venture capitalist in Silicon Vall…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Max's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 BIG TECHNOLOGYLEDGER | Features Editor, Bloomberg Businessweek | 1 | 27 | 91% 10/11 | full record on Big Technology → |