Based on the rest of the article, I get the feeling Thiel is trolling because he can, and I wouldn't take his stories at face value: that said, making up stories involving other people isn't usually advisable. It may very well be exaggerated, though?
Edit: I didn't know the story had been mentioned previously, I take back my skepticism regarding that.
That's a kind of a strange road to go down, isn't it? I think usually the whole argue-in-good-faith thing, together with the principle of charity, require you to assume people mean what they say.
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/01/bor...
' If you would like a “left wing example,” had the fiscal stimulus been twice as large, corruption in government probably would have been higher too (pointing out “the stimulus wasn’t very corrupt” is missing the point and in fact is a sign that you are a rampant mood affiliator, determined to restore the mood you feel is just, rather than tracing the analytic point at hand). In other words, Peter’s point is entirely defensible and probably correct. He’s not saying that “corruption is good.”'