The Thiel Foundation

The Foundation focuses on three programs: Imitatio, Breakout Labs, and The Thiel Fellowship. ³ The organization promotes expanded freedom around the world and increased scientific research. ⁴

Background

The Thiel Foundation is a private foundation in West Hollywood, California founded in 2006 by tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook. The foundation has spent $100 million on business startups, and $70 million to help college students and advance science and technology. ^{1 2}

The Foundation focuses on three programs: Imitatio, Breakout Labs, and The Thiel Fellowship. ³

Peter Thiel’s “tech stagnation thesis” contends advances in computer science and communications masked disappointing progress in energy, transportation, biotechnology, disease prevention, and space travel. Thiel argues this accounts for what he says has been near-stagnation in real incomes and wages since 1973, and for widening inequality in wealth distribution. ⁵

The Thiel Foundation contends that freedom is under siege from authoritarian regimes around the world and that even elected governments burden citizens with unnecessary laws and regulations. The Thiel Foundation says it defends and promotes freedom through supporting scientific research, new technologies, championing organizations and individuals that expose human rights abuses, and encouraging the exploration of new ideas. ⁴

Programs

Starting in 2011, the foundation began sponsoring the Thiel Fellowship as a two-year program that gives $100,000 to young people under the age of 23 who want to skip college and go start their own businesses. ^{6 2} The Thiel Foundation contends that the cost of college education had outpaced inflation and created a student loan crisis. The fellowship connects fellows to prospective co-founders, helps them learn about building a start-up, and provides them with the resources. ⁷

The Thiel Foundation launched Breakout Labs to reshape how early-stage science is funded, attempting to bridge the gap between initial funding from venture capital firms and government or other major funding for small labs. ⁸ Breakout Labs provided companies with up to $350,000 and two years of mentorship, helping develop a growth strategy and attract funders. ⁷ Breakout Labs has a portfolio of 50 science companies that raised over $1 billion in follow-on funding. It professes those recipients have grown artificial leather, developed therapeutics to alter the course of Alzheimer’s disease, and transformed industrial carbon dioxide emissions into useful products. ⁹ Breakout Labs also provided seed funding for SciBac, a company developing medicines for patients who are antibiotic resistant. ¹⁰

The Thiel Foundation also funds a program known as Imitatio that “supports research, education, and publications building on Rene Girard’s mimetic theory,” the basic premise of which is that imitation is the fundamental mechanism of human behavior. ⁸ Rene Girard was a professor in the French and Italian departments at Stanford University, who influenced Thiel when he was in college. ⁷ Imitatio is a program that supports research, education, and publications building on Girard’s mimetic theory. It says it is committed to the ongoing development of Girard’s thought. ¹¹