Big data controls our lives like never before, and few people are more responsible than Peter Thiel, the billionaire cofounder of Palantir who made the bulk of his fortune by investing early in Facebook. But it turns out that beyond his obsession with data, Thiel is equally fixated on the end times, the rise of the Antichrist, and the recent trend of declining birth rates in the West. This week, Josh and June try to figure out why Peter Thiel has the worldview he does and how it bears out in his investments in natalist technology.

CHECK OUT OUR RECENT PODCAST GUEST APPEARANCES!

June on A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein talking with Ashley St. Clair about her history with, and regrets about, the right-wing propaganda machine
Josh on Have You Seen This? talking about the movie Catch My Soul
Josh on Reserved Recommendations talking about the Christian musical group Newsboys

***REMINDER: WE HAVE A PATREON! Every other week, we release B-side supplements to the main episodes where we read your e-mail responses and discuss things further. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Peter Thiel in a 2016 address to the Republican National Convention. Born in Germany, Thiel spent the bulk of his childhood in an apartheid settlement in South West Africa. After graduating from Stanford and briefly attempting a career in law, Thiel co-founded PayPal, Palantir and numerous venture capital funds, also making a critical early investment in Facebook that now represents the core of his fortune.

AUDIO CLIPS:

59:59 – Peter Thiel talks about the Antichrist in a Mercatus Center interview about political theology
1:24:12 – Peter Thiel talks about demographic collapse in an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience

Peter Thiel

Ill Conceived

Flop Era: Law to Finance Pivot

The AI-powered Podcast Player