Peter Thiel's Book Recommendations

"The great French thinker René Girard’s classic study of Fyodor Dostoevsky."

"It can sometimes seem as if one must learn everything old before one can try anything new. Adam Grant does a masterful job showing that is not the case; we are lucky to have him as a guide."

"It can sometimes seem as if one must learn everything old before one can try anything new. [The author] does a masterful job showing that is not the case; we are lucky to have him as a guide."

"I like the genre of past books written about the future."

"Tells how the Nazis and the Soviets drove each other to ever more murderous atrocities as they fought to dominate Eastern Europe."

"I like the genre of past books written about the future."

"Its message is evergreen: how scientists are directly attacking the problem of aging and death and why we should fight for life instead of accepting decay as inevitable."

"We [followers of Girard], had sort of a sense that we had figured out the truth about the world in a way that nobody else did."

"For a fresh application of Mr. Girard’s insights into power politics, that great international theater of irrationality."

"Peter [Thiel] would, at one point, pass me a copy of The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, the book he had read as he’d mulled his options over."

"When I first read [Ayn Rand's books] in the late 80s, it felt pretty crazy. And in the last decades, it's in many ways felt much more correct."

"The devil shows up in Stalinist Russia, [...] and gives everybody what they want, and everything goes haywire."

"I like the genre of past books written about the future."

"Something in these pages planted itself deep into [Peter Thiel]’s mind when he first read it long ago."

"The early PayPal team worked well together because we were all the same kind of nerd. We all loved science fiction: Cryptonomicon was required reading."

"Ben Horowitz has written the first true guide for protecting a startup from self-sabotage."

"Sets the stakes for the most urgent public debate of the 2020s: How do we get back to the future?"

"One of the books that tremendously influenced me when I started PayPal."

"Peter Thiel says The New Testament has influenced him more than The Old Testament."

"If you don't use your freedom of speech, one day you might find that it's gone. Buy this book while it's legal."

"The future depends on human action."

"[The author] understands that strategy starts with invention. He can't tell you what to invent, but he can and does show what it takes for a new invention to become a valuable business."

"One of [Peter Thiel's] favorite novels."

"Accurately describes inequality in the past and present of countries like the United States."

"Peter Thiel quoted this book to the author."

"The mind is its own place and of itself can make a hell of heaven, and a heaven of hell."

"All happy families are alike, and all unhappy families are unhappy in their own special way."

"The classic [series] I always give."

"[The author's] best book."

"Said that Christ obviously had to mislead people, since if he had not done so, the authorities might have tried to kill him."