He was the first outside investor in Facebook[2]...
And perhaps most well known for co-founding PayPal with Elon Musk and Max Levchin.
There's a ton of vids with him being interviewed on YouTube, if you want the gist of the guy.
I've bookmarked this one for later. A Conversation with Peter Thiel and Niall Ferguson[3]. (Niall Ferguson has done some fine work, as well)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Anti-aging_research [2] In the intro section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exfbmY7mg8s
Now he's claiming to know things about the economy again.
During and after the liquidity crunch of 2008 and the recession, Clarium reduced in capital dramatically primarily because people were withdrawing their capital, not due to losses. He did not lose $8 billion, instead, most of the capital under management was drawn down, as it was with many hedge funds.
The annual returns of Clarium were volatile, but overall, impressive. Here is a list for the returns pre 2011 (after which reporting was kept to the remaining investors -- rumor is that it has done well but this is not public).
2002: 29.4%
2003: 65.6%
2004: 5.6%
2005: 57.1%
2006: -7.8%
2007: 40.3%
2008: -4.5%
2009: -25%
2010: -23%
From:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-M95ijQ3Mq0/Sw0Tax_AoTI/AAAAAAAAAC...
http://www.hedgefundinsight.org/the-limits-to-fundamental-co...
and from:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-12/clarium-hedge-fund-...
Here is a good chart, for pre-2010 data.
http://www.marketfolly.com/2009/02/peter-thiels-clarium-capi...
Even despite the tough losses sustained through 2008, 2009 and 2010, the fund returned, net, from October 2002 (fund start date) to the end of 2010, 2.53x.
That's an 8.25 year, aggregated annual return of 11.9%.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%281.294+*+1.656+*+1.05...
For comparison, the S&P 500 over the same time period rose from a deep dip of about 800 to about 1260, a rise of 57%, for an aggregate annual return of about 5.6%.
It was volatile too, without the strong gains to buffer the losses. If you had your money in Clarium the entire time, you'd be well ahead, even net of fees -- you would have more than doubled your money (2.14x return net). Comparing the two cases, if you held Clarium vs S&P 500, you'd have 36% more capital.
Hardly a fund that's full of it, and has no idea what it's doing.
The tragedy of Clarium is that money flooded in in 2007 and early 2008, and then largely exited during 2009 and 2010, forcing a major unwind at the worst time. Macro-economically, Clarium was correct about the recovery being slow and drawn out. But the financial world, in particular their bets against the dollar, were not born out in that timeframe.
And I do know that Clarium is probably one of the better hedge funds by any measure. Peter Theil seems like an ethical and good person. That's so rare in that world it's probably the reason he was able to raise money without any expertise in trading.