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What stood out for me was the assessments of Peter Thiel's involvement in politics by Steve Bannon and the author of this piece. They both seem way off in those assessments to me, given both the success of Palantir and Anduril and his ongoing ties to the conservative establishment - e.g. his recent appearance at The Nixon Seminar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVOHakxXbMw)

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> As a political disrupter, Thiel was a flop. Steve Bannon considered him too flaky for the serious graft of government, which is saying something. But this wasn’t really the game Thiel was in. Mainly it was just for show. What he wanted was to get close to government contracts.

[emphasis mine]

Surely the success of Palantir is a data point in favor of the thesis of the piece?

Perhaps, but his reception at that talk I linked suggests there is more to his involvement than that to me. (I am not American though, so might be reading too much into it)

I don’t think that shows any aptitude for “the graft of government” or goes a ways to disproving the characterization of him as an ideologue whose focus is to assist fiscal conservatism (reduce costs) and to have a cosy relationship with the military industrial complex (increase revenue).

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