In May 2003 , Thiel incorporated Palantir Technologies , a big data analysis company named after the Tolkien artifact , and continues to serve as its chairman as of 2018 . Thiel stated that the idea for the company was based on the realization that " the approaches that PayPal had used to fight fraud could be extended into other contexts , like fighting terrorism . " He also stated that , after the September 11 attacks , the debate in the United States was " will we have more security with less privacy or less security with more privacy ? " and saw Palantir as being able to provide data mining services to government intelligence agencies which were maximally unintrusive and traceable
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Peter Thiel