Peter Thiel Is Building An Empire Based On Lord Of The Rings

0:00 Did you know that J.D. Vance had a VC firm or has a VC firm that was funded pretty much by Peter Thiel? I'm going to read this thing here because I started noticing something few months ago while researching all of this stuff, the surveillance state and everything like that. I haven't been really keeping up with it, but when I was younger I was a big fan of Lord of the Rings. I remember when those I saw those movies in theaters. Do you know where the name Palantir comes from? It comes from Lord of the Rings. It's derived from the palantiri or the

0:46 seeing the seeing stones, okay? They let you watch far away places and talk to whoever holds another stone. That's a fitting name for a data analytics and surveillance company. In the books, the stones were also dangerous because Sauron controlled one and used it to deceive Saruman and Denethor. People have pointed out that irony many times. So, Palantir, the seeing stones. Hm. Okay, but it doesn't stop there. Because Anduril comes from Anduril, the flame of the West, which is Aragorn's sword. Yeah. Reinforced from

1:31 the shards of Narsil, a fitting name for a defense company. Yeah, Thiel is a big Lord of the Rings fan. And I hate that he is because I am, too. Fantastic. But guess what? There are more because Peter Thiel has multiple companies that are all named after Lord of the Rings things, which makes me wonder how much of Anduril is really controlled by Peter Thiel? Because Peter Thiel has Mithril Capital, a late-stage VC firm named after the rare metal used for Elven armor. J.D. Vance worked there. It's true. Valar Ventures, you know,

2:16 the one that got funded by Jeffrey Epstein? $40 million give or take. Give or take. Yeah, VC firm named after the Valar, the god-like powers in Tolkien's mythology. Rivendell One LLC, a holding vehicle named after the Elven refuge. Thiel uses it to manage his investments and Facebook shares. Lembas LLC, another investment vehicle named after Elven waybread. Arda Capital. Arda is Tolkien's name for the world. It's listed among Thiel's token-named firms. Now, there are also people within his circle, Thiel's twinks, who also have Lord of the Rings-named

3:02 businesses. Like Narya Capital, which is J.D. Vance's VC firm named after one of the three Elven rings. Thiel and his network funded it, and it's sitting in about a hundred million dollars. Yeah, did you know that J.D. Vance had a VC firm or has a VC firm that was funded pretty much by Peter Thiel? Yeah. That's not weird at all. Erebor is Palmer Luckey's digital bank for startups and crypto companies named after the Lonely Mountain from The Hobbit. Founders Fund backed it. It's Luckey's company, not Thiel's. Okay. I was kind of turned on to something else today I did not ever hear about before,

3:48 and I bet you haven't, either. It's not named after Lord of the Rings or anything like that, but it is a very interesting company. Now, this company only lasted about 3 months and it's called GloriFi, the anti-woke bank. Texas-based GloriFi was a was was was a fintech startup that aimed to be the anti-woke, anti-ESG banking alternative for American conservatives to put their money where their values are. Founder Toby Neugebauer and his wife raised 50 million from 84 conservative backers, including billionaires Peter Thiel, of

4:34 course, Ken Griffin from Citadel, Vivek Ramaswamy, who you know from politics, Sprecher, Continental Exchange, Daily Wire talk show host Candace Owens, because this is back when she was on Candy on Daily Wire, and consultant to Mike Pence, Nick Ayers. Products and services designed to match member lifestyle and value, including credit cards manufactured out of bullet shell casings, homeowners insurance discounts for reasonable gun owners, and legal expense coverage if a member shot someone in self-defense. GloriFi was due to go public in spring of 2023 via a merger with the SPAC

5:20 company DHC Acquisition Corp, but within months it folded. The company claimed that the failure was due to financial challenges after startup mistakes, the failing US economy, reputational attacks, bad press, etc. I think it was just a bad concept. But yeah, Candace Owens and Peter Thiel were part of the the the investing group that created GloriFi that went nowhere, wasted $50 and everybody forgot about it. I just found out about this today and I thought it was crazy. I thought it was crazy. Candace Owens and Peter Thiel. See, Peter Thiel always rubs always rubs

6:07 elbows with everybody important. Everybody with power, everybody with a platform. Now, I'm certainly not suggesting that Candace Owens is some sort of she's not one of Thiel's twinks. She's not I'm pretty sure of that, but she certainly has run investments with him. And now she may to be fair, she may never have known who the other investors were and you know, that's completely normal. It's completely normal, you know, so but it's a fun little it's a it's a fun little piece of history.