During a discussion published on March 12, 2022, the billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Peter Thiel discussed how he built Paypal with fellow co-founders Max Levchin, David Sacks, and Luke Nosek. Toward the end of the hour-long conversation, the topic quickly turned to cryptocurrencies and Thiel stressed that his “biggest mistake” during the last ten years “was getting too late and too little into bitcoin.”
Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel reveals the biggest mistake he’s made in the past decade
Last week, the new book entitled “The Founders” written by Jimmy Soni was discussed at length during a roundtable with the co-founders of Paypal. The book, titled “The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley,” was released last month and the story chronicles the origins of Paypal.
The callin.com broadcast published on March 12, features the Paypal co-founders Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, David Sacks, and Luke Nosek. While most of the conversation touches on the Paypal origins topic, at the 55:30 mark, the discussion turned to cryptocurrencies. The host of the discussion managed to squeeze in one more question, as he said “it would not be a tech conversation without a little bit of wild-eyed forward-looking statements.”
The chat host explained that amid Paypal’s rise, “a whole crypto thing is going on” and he pointed out how Peter Thiel has “written and spoken a lot about it.” When asked what the group thinks about “payment systems now and crypto”, Thiel replied. The Paypal co-founder remarked:
The biggest mistake I made in the last decade was getting too late and too little into bitcoin.
While Thiel was very interested in Bitcoin, he “was kind of programmed not to see it”
Thiel explained further: “You know, we invested in 2014 in Founders Fund and did reasonably well, but that was on my radar in 2010 and 2011 – We had seen all these cryptocurrency crazies, at the It was one of the things that really interested me a lot and got me motivated, but none of the models really worked.
With bitcoin, I was somehow programmed to not to see it as much as I should have.
The Paypal co-founder’s statements last week are similar to statements he made in October. Speaking at a cryptocurrency event in Miami last year, Thiel told attendees he felt like he was “underinvested in [bitcoin].” Speaking further on the benefits of bitcoin in Miami, Thiel pointed out that bitcoin was “the canary in the coal mine – It’s the most honest market we have in the country.”
