PayPal co-founder and former CEO Peter Thiel addressed a variety of topics during an appearance at the National Press Club Monday, including if he has any plans to become the media world’s conservative Jeff Bezos.
Thiel, when asked if someone like himself, “with the resources and the ability to help fund good journalism,” would ever do so, he responded that he “wouldn’t want to compete with Jeff Bezos ever.”
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“He’s the toughest person in the world to compete with at this point,” Thiel said of the Amazon founder and Washington Post owner. “Just to be very clear, I have no plans to buy the Washington Times.”
Thiel added that he does “think it’s possible that that’s a direction that media will change in, where it becomes almost a sort of non-profit undertaking.”
“I’m not sure that’s the healthiest way for the media industry to develop because I think a lot of non-profit organizations are not that effective,” he conceded. “They’re sort of weirdly distorted. They do good, but it’s actually often not managed all that well.”
“I’m not sure that’s the solution to the problem.”