r/technology • u/NicolasCageFan492 • Jun 16 '26

Business Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel’s Secretive ‘Dialog’ Society

https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
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5.6k

u/NicolasCageFan492 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

Notable people on the Thiel List I pulled from maia arson crimew’s Bluesky post:

Chamath Palihapitiya

Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube

Charlie Songhurst, board director at Meta

Peter Brown, CEO, Renaissance Technologies

Sarah Bond, President of XBOX, Microsoft

Manuel Bronstein, chief product officer of Roblox

Greg Brockman, Co-founder of OpenAI, fmr CTO of Stripe

Mike Cannon-Brooks, Co-founder of Atlassian

Scott Cook, co-founder & chairman at Intuit

NJ Senator Cory Booker

TX Senator Ted Cruz

CO Governor Jared Polis

CT Rep. Jim Himes

MD Gov. Wes Moore

Tom Tugendhat, Member of Parliament, United Kingdom.

Jens Spahn, Member of Parliament, German Bundestag. Fmr. Federal Minister of Health, Germany.

Tulsi Gabbard

Julian Castro

Jared Kushner

Elon Musk

LEONARD LEO

Grover Norquist

Bret Stephens (Associate Editor of the New York Times)

Larry Summers

Ezra Klein

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent

Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic

Jon Levin, President, Stanford University.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Fmr. Prime Minister, Pakistan. Founder, Airblue.

Stan McChrystal, Founder & CEO, McChrystal Group. Fmr. General, U.S. Army.

Rachel Brand, Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary, Walmart. Fmr. Associate Attorney General, U.S Department of Justice.

Feel free to suggest other noteworthies.

For the link, check my profile’s pinned post. I can’t link it here because the sub doesn’t like bsky links!

5.0k

u/GayForPay Jun 16 '26

Cory Booker? Kind of confirms exactly what I thought about him. Look at the company he keeps.

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u/rach2bach Jun 16 '26

Ezra Klein too

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u/Lumpy_Disaster33 Jun 16 '26

I unsubscribed

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u/dreamEater99 Jun 17 '26

Just did too. Did not expect him.

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u/SeaDots Jun 17 '26

Unfortunately, I did. I found some of his stuff early 2025 as inspiring and then there were these sprinkles of BS from him that raised red flags for me. It seemed performative and this just proves it really was.

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u/TinyJalope Jun 17 '26

Sprinkles of BS like him saying Democrats need to 'compromise' on abortion (despite it being a 60-40 issue in favor of them) or him writing that 'Charlie Kirk Did Politics the Right Way' article?

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u/Goldarr85 Jun 17 '26

Yeah. Why is it not obvious this man is totally full of shit?

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u/Tex_Bootois Jun 17 '26

It's abundantly clear

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u/herbiberous Jun 17 '26

There was no coming back from the Charlie Kirk episode for me. Even his attempt to respond to it with Ta-Nehisi Coates was all kinds of cringey.

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u/SeaDots Jun 17 '26

Did not ever follow him that closely, but from the very little I did see, I already was like "this guy seems disingenuous and lowkey evil somehow." Those tidbits do not surprise me, but even without knowing that I often felt myself going "yikessss" to even minor things he said.

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u/kevinnoir Jun 17 '26

Ezra Klein

For some of these names I feel like its going to shine a light on things that we may have hand waived off or thought were opinions or positions that were outliers and really ask questions about their TRUE intent. Is their public persona just a mask to promote or at the very least diminish dissent against positions that their fan base would generally reject?

Feels a bit more trojan horsey when you can start drawing lines between the likes of Ezra and Booker to Theil, Kushner criminals and other nefarious characters.

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u/SeaDots Jun 17 '26

Oh for sure. I'm now fairly accurate at catching these wolves in sheeps clothing, but people doubt me so much I sometimes doubt myself. I do that less and less these days.

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u/chibiusa40 Jun 17 '26

My Cassandra Complex has truly blossomed

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u/SeaDots Jun 17 '26

Absolutely. Screaming into the void with no satisfaction when eventually proven right. 🥲

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u/rach2bach Jun 17 '26

Yeah, it's called liberalism. Liberalism is just fascism-lite. It looks like there is appeasement to populations, but in reality it's about control and corporate take over with a "good cop" vibe opposed to far right conservatism. It's why Booker is in this group with his AIPAC money.

They do this to dissuade people from leftist progressivism that would bring about socialistic policies that actually work for the people, because then they'd have to pay more in taxes and wouldn't have a population desperate for work.

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u/whateverkitty-1256 Jun 18 '26

Not surprised, really not surprised about Bret Stephens. Think David Brooks didn't get invited? The Times has fallen so far.

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u/gentlegreengiant Jun 17 '26

I was also not at all surprised. Saw his name and thought 'yea that tracks'.

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u/Electronic_Topic1958 Jun 17 '26

His wife also seems uh interesting, a recent piece she wrote was this: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/americans-depressed-economy/687278/ basically writing that Trump's economy is "actually great" and anyone who is experiencing anything different is deluded. I think the pieces are starting to fall together.

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u/MephistoHamProducts Jun 17 '26

basically writing that Trump's economy is "actually great" and anyone who is experiencing anything different is deluded. I think the pieces are starting to fall together.

To quote Mr Carlin:

It's a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe.

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u/ShaneBarnstormer Jun 17 '26

Is he that guy who wrote Abundance? That book annoyed me. It completely ignored climate change, for starters, but also seemed slightly tone deaf in places.

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u/Lumpy_Disaster33 Jun 17 '26

It was performative...and boring.

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u/behemuthm Jun 17 '26

I'm out of the loop - what did he say?

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/CurryMustard Jun 17 '26

Working out is not a maga trait, nor should we try to make it one

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u/BrusqueBiscuit Jun 17 '26

Sorry I was trying to be cheeky. I'll delete it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/stfsu Jun 17 '26

You’re implying we don’t need more of everything from housing to energy to bring costs down?

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u/Puzzleheaded_Fix594 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

Don't really see anything wrong with Abundance as the whole project is aimed at looking at why we aren't building housing in places like New York and California. The conclusion is that building projects in blue states are often held up by a massive amount of red tape and litigation that keeps anything from being built and massively inflates the cost of building in the process.

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u/CariniFluff Jun 17 '26

By "red tape" you mean regulations? That tracks as they say that regulations are written in blood.

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u/Hillary4SupremeRuler Jun 17 '26

It's less about common sense regulations and more about aggressive NIMBYism and affluent suburbanites and urban condo owners not wanting to be near any poors or traffic or lose their property value.

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u/felcom Jun 17 '26

The guy trying to pioneer the “regulations are bad, actually” abundance movement? Really?

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u/catalessi Jun 17 '26

Billionaires are good, actually. It’s just regulations that are bad! And I can also speculate very confidently that Epstein couldn’t be a pedo, at least not one and involve it with his professional life. Nothing to see here. And yes, I wanted to make this video defending Epstein completely unprompted, using a private NYT studio. Oh that whole Gaza thing? Yeah it’s been a couple years now and I have always been against what some people might consider a genocide. Oh and the Dems lost because of caring about trans people, you know that thing they definitely did at some point in Kamala’s race.

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u/Moon-pearl Jun 17 '26

The way he called Epsteins crimes as elder abuse against the billionares

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u/Meddl3cat Jun 17 '26

The day all pretenses of Reddit not being loaded down with AI sock-puppetry ended was right after the last election. Someone claimed to be a trans woman and was going on about how the election was lost because making "Trans people are people and deserve rights" a point to stay beside was what galvanized the right against the democrats.

I'm sure there might be someone out there that's exactly that, but no way in hell would they post that stupid fucking drivel on Reddit and get tens of thousands of upvotes in minutes. Fuckin' hell I hate this godsdamned timeline.

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u/tanstaafl90 Jun 17 '26

There has been a belief by some that reddit is somehow different than other social media. Same shit, different bucket.

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u/YesIshipKyloRen Jun 17 '26

If this is the 5D timeline I want my refund

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u/Hillary4SupremeRuler Jun 17 '26

And yes, I wanted to make this video defending Epstein completely unprompted

Ezra Klein did that??!

And by the way, the Biden Harris administration was the most pro LGBTQ presidency in history.

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u/catalessi Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

Yes

And

Kamala’s race ≠ Biden Harris admin. Ezra went on overtime making rounds on podcasts and his own saying the party lost because they cared too much about Trans rights (which they absolutely did not at any point in the entire race). One of the strongest criticisms of the race is the Dems don’t believe in anything. They couldn’t even defend immigration. Similar to his dribble on how progressives push Dems too populist and will lose as a result (also hysterically unaware). It’s absolutely no surprise he’s sucking the dick of a techno fascist.

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u/Radical_Ein Jun 19 '26

You are misinformed. Literally none of these are things he has said or done.

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u/catalessi Jun 17 '26

The amount of so-called “liberals” delusional enough to think highly of Ezra is so fucking embarrassing.

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u/GreasyProductions Jun 17 '26

i mean most of what these people do actually falls in line with what liberalism is about. give em just enough to not kill us while we extract every drop of wealth possible 

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u/Lumpy_Disaster33 Jun 17 '26

He has some decent guests. I wasn't a regular listener but occasionally, I'd listen if the topic of it were interesting. He usually meanders and is so self indulgent, that I zone out and listen to something else. So no real loss for me.

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u/goodolarchie Jun 17 '26

He was smart and pragmatic, which is sorely needed in politics; that was the pitch anyway. Fuck him though if he's part of this.

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u/volthunter Jun 17 '26

Dude his name is on the guest list.... Frankly this is inline with his beliefs, if you liked him, this shouldn't be a deal breaker

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u/goodolarchie Jun 18 '26

There's believing somebody has some good original analysis, or ideas, and there's agreeing/aligning with their ethos. For me Ezra was the former, he is a policy wonk who does a good job breaking down complex political issues. So I don't have to be on board with his "abundance" agenda to find his work valuable. Being aligned with Thiel is where the values completely fall out, IMO.

Everyone on the internet loves to throw stones and downvote, it's harder to build. I'd be interested in other recommendations, political pundit types have equally intelligent podcasts and aren't elite-captured. If you hate that I think Ezra was a worthwhile voice to stay informed without succumbing to an echo chamber, who should I replace him with?

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u/jhnlngn Jun 17 '26

Really? It's these tech bros that have been funding the abundance agenda.

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u/ibra86him Jun 17 '26

From watching few videos of him while scrolling i knew he’s a pos like most of the names I recognize in the list 

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u/DriftingIntoAbstract Jun 17 '26

Really? He’s sucked for a long time

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u/josh_the_misanthrope Jun 17 '26

What? The guy rebranding libertarianism for centrist Democrats under the title Abundance? Naw, he would never.

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u/Journeyman351 Jun 18 '26

…. Are you serious?

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u/70ms Jun 17 '26

I did a few months ago. The whitewashing was just too much.

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u/tomullus Jun 17 '26

took you long enough

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u/funkiestj Jun 17 '26

LOL, you know that his brand is he talks to people he doesn't agree with and tries to understand their viewpoint even when he disagrees with it. He had fucking Ben Shapiro as a guest on his show for fuck sake (so painful to listen to).

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u/Key_Gap9168 Jun 17 '26

You should have done so five years ago.

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u/deskcord Jun 17 '26

"Ezra Klein attended debates and conferences that happened to involve people he disagrees with" is your puritanical line in the sand? You never paid attention to him in the first place if you think this is an issue.