Peter Thiel is a Silicon Valley founder and investor, and quite a successful one at that: he co-founded PayPal, was an early investor in Facebook, and started and serves as the chair of Palantir. Lately, Thiel has become more active in politics. He supported President Trump in the 2016 election and has been a force in several House and Senate races in the 2020 cycle.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Thiel discusses his politics, his campaign, and the scourge of totalitarian conformism in the United States and abroad; the problem with “following the science”; where President Biden deserved blame and where he does now; and why cryptocurrency may just save the world.

Recorded on December 7, 2021