I’m delighted to announce Peter Thiel is joining YC as one of the (now 10!) part-time partners. 

In addition to founding PayPal and Palantir and being the first investor in Facebook, Peter has been involved with many of the most important technology companies of the last 15 years, both personally and through Founders Fund, and the founders of those companies will generally tell you he has been their best source of strategic advice.  He already works with a number of YC companies, and we’re very happy he’ll be working with more.

We generally won’t bring on people that are involved with other investing firms given the obvious conflict, but Peter is so good we felt like we had to make an exception.  Peter won’t invest in any companies while they’re in YC or for 3 months after they present at Demo Day (this will apply to Peter’s investment entities as well), which should eliminate any unfair advantage.  We’re pretty paranoid about potential conflicts, and we’ll continually evaluate this and change it if it’s not working.

On a personal note, Peter is one of the two people (along with PG) who has taught me the most about how to invest in startups.  I am confident that Peter joining will be great for YC.