Next Thursday, October 2, we host Peter Thiel in conversation with Peter Guber at the Moss Theatre in Santa Monica.  Ticket info here.   

Thiel is co-founder of PayPal, a technology entrepreneur and investor and is author of the just released,  Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future.  

We welcome back Peter Guber to Live Talks Los Angeles. Guber is Chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment Group, and an owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Previously, he interviewed Jerry West at Live Talks Los Angeles,  and Google’s Eric Schmidt and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey at our Live Talks Business Forum.  Watch videos of the interviews: Eric Schmidt, Jerry West, John Mackey.

Who is Peter Thiel?

Peter Thiel pursued a conventional path to success, studying philosophy and then law at Stanford, until he applied for a Supreme Court clerkship–and was turned down. He has ever since proudly worn the mantle of contrarian and maverick, and encouraged others to do the same. Thiel co-founded PayPal in 1998, sold the company to eBay just over three years later, and used his share of the proceeds to fashion a career as one of Silicon Valley’s most successful and outspoken venture capitalists. Zero to One distills his conviction that visionary start-ups, technological innovation and “good monopolies” are the keys to economic growth.

Peter Thiel in the news…
— Twitter is “horribly mismanaged,” Uber “ethically challenged.” Thiel doesn’t hold back in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
— So, a libertarian and an anarchist walk into a bar… Thiel and professor David Graeber debate technology, monopolies, and more… See story in The New York Times and in Inc. magazine on America’s Innovation Failures.
— In a wide-ranging interview in The Telegraph, Thiel discusses cryogenics, the so-called ‘PayPal Mafia,’ and how two of his businesses reference J.R.R. Tolkien.
— Thiel on flying cars, disruption, and paying students to drop out of school, in The Guradian.
— NPR’s Wade Goodwyn talks to Thiel about why capitalism and competition are antonyms and not synonyms, and how every moment in the history of business happens only once.
— Fortune chats with Thiel about “tech stagnation,” Seasteading, and the perils of imitation.
— What do the Unabomber and hipsters have in common? Thiel explains in a story in The Week.