For the mathematician and Tamil activist see C.J. Eliezer; for the AI researcher and writer on rationality see Eliezer Yudkowsky; for the Levite priest of the Hebrew Bible, see Eleazar. For the great rabbi from the Second Commonwealth period, see Eliezer ben Hurcanus.

Eliezer (Hebrew: אֱלִיעֶזֶר, Modern Eli'ezer Tiberian ʼĔlîʻézer, "Help/Court of my God") was the name of at least three different individuals in the Bible.

The son of Moses[link]

Eliezer was Moses and Zipporah's second son. His name means "God is help" in Hebrew.

The verse in the Book of Exodus (18:4) states:

Both Gershom and Eliezer were born during the time Moses had taken refuge in Midian and had married Jethro's daughter Zipporah.

Isaac's servant trying the bracelet on Rebecca's arm by Benjamin West. The servant in question was possibly Eliezer of Damascus.

Eliezer of Damascus[link]

There is also an Eliezer known as Eliezer of Damascus (Hebrew: דַּמֶּשֶׂק אֱלִיעֶזֶר, Modern Damméseq Eliʿézer Tiberian Damméśeq ʾĔlîʿézer), son of Nimrod,^[1] and head of the patriarch Abraham's household mentioned in the Book of Genesis (15:2).

There is an interpretation in Bereshit Rabbah (43:2), cited by Rashi, that Eliezer went alone with Abraham to rescue Lot, with the reference to "his initiates" stated to be 318 in number (Lech-Lecha 14:14) being the numerical value of Eliezer's name in Hebrew, interpreted in tractate Nedarim (32a) as Abraham not wishing to rely on a miracle by taking only one individual.^[3] According to most interpretations, the unnamed "...slave, the elder of the household, who controlled all that was his" in Chayei Sarah 24:2 who acted as a marriage broker (sharchan) for Isaac was this Eliezer.

Eliezer, prophet[link]

A prophet called Eliezer, son of Dodavah, rebuked King Jehosophat for aligning himself with Ahaziah, the King of Israel. He and Ahaziah built ships in Ezion Geber which were to sail to Tarshish for trade. According to 2 Chronicles (20:37), the ships sank due to his not relying on the Lord:

Eliezer at Yale[link]

Eliezer is the name of the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which supports the activities of the Yale student club at Yale University.

References[link]

1. ^ Targum Jonathan Bereishit, 14:14
2. ^ Scherman, Nosson, TANACH, the Stone Edition, Mesorah Publications, New York, 1996, p.31
3. ^ Herczeg, Y.I.Z, The Torah: with Rashi's commentary, Vol.1, Mesorah Publications, New York, 2000, p.138

Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky at the 2006 Stanford Singularity Summit
Born	(1979-09-11) September 11, 1979 (age 32)
Citizenship	American
Nationality	American
Fields	Artificial intelligence
Institutions	Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Known for	Seed AI, Friendly AI, Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality
Influences	Judea Pearl, Vernor Vinge, E.T. Jaynes, I. J. Good

Eliezer Shlomo Yudkowsky (born September 11, 1979^[1]) is an American artificial intelligence researcher concerned with the singularity and an advocate of friendly artificial intelligence,^[2] living in Redwood City, California.^[3]

Biography[link]

Yudkowsky did not attend high school and is an autodidact, having no formal education in computer science or artificial intelligence.^[4] He co-founded the nonprofit Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI) in 2000 and continues to be employed as a full-time Research Fellow there.^[5]

Work[link]

Yudkowsky's research focuses on Artificial Intelligence theory for self-understanding, self-modification, and recursive self-improvement (seed AI); and also on artificial-intelligence architectures and decision theories for stably benevolent motivational structures (Friendly AI, and Coherent Extrapolated Volition in particular).^[6] Apart from his research work, Yudkowsky has written explanations of various philosophical topics in non-academic language, particularly on rationality, such as "An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes' Theorem".^[7]

Publications[link]

Yudkowsky was, along with Robin Hanson, one of the principal contributors to the blog Overcoming Bias^[8] sponsored by the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. In early 2009, he helped to found Less Wrong, a "community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality".^[9] The Sequences^[10] on Less Wrong, comprising over two years of blog posts on epistemology, Artificial Intelligence, and metaethics, form the single largest bulk of Yudkowsky's writing.

He contributed two chapters to Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom's and Milan Ćirković's edited volume Global Catastrophic Risks,^[11] and "Complex Value Systems are Required to Realize Valuable Futures"^[12] to the conference AGI-11.

Yudkowsky is the author of the Singularity Institute publications "Creating Friendly AI"^[13] (2001), "Levels of Organization in General Intelligence"^[14] (2002), "Coherent Extrapolated Volition"^[15] (2004), and "Timeless Decision Theory"^[16] (2010).^[17]

Yudkowsky has also written several works^[18] of science fiction and other fiction. His Harry Potter fan fiction story Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality illustrates topics in cognitive science and rationality (The New Yorker described it as "a thousand-page online 'fanfic' text called 'Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality', which recasts the original story in an attempt to explain Harry's wizardry through the scientific method"^[19]), and has been favorably reviewed by authors David Brin^[20][21][22] & Rachel Aaron,^[23][24] Robin Hanson,^[25] Aaron Swartz,^[26] and by programmer Eric S. Raymond.^[27]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Our Molecular Future: How Nanotechnology, Robotics, Genetics and Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Our World by Douglas Mulhall, 2002, p. 321.
• The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed By Rapidly Advancing Technologies by Damien Broderick, 2001, pp. 236, 265-272, 289, 321, 324, 326, 337-339, 345, 353, 370.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Eliezer Yudkowsky

• Personal web site
• Less Wrong - "A community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality" co-founded by Yudkowsky.
• Biography page at KurzweilAI.net
• Biography page at the Singularity Institute
• Downloadable papers and bibliography
• Predicting The Future :: Eliezer Yudkowsky, NYTA Keynote Address - Feb 2003
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - The Podcast

Rabbi Eliezer Papo (1785–1828) was the rabbi of the community of Selestria in Bulgaria. He is famous for writing the Pele Yoetz, a work of musar (ethical) literature which gives advice on how to behave as a Jew in many aspects of life.

He was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia. He moved at the age of 27 to Bulgaria, where he died in 1828.^[1]

He authored the Pele Yoetz, his most famous work, as well as Eleph Hamogein, Oros Eilim, Chesed L'Alophim (on the Orach Chaim), Yaalzu Chasidim (on Sefer Chasidim), and Chodesh HaAviv.^[2]

One of his noted works is Beit Tefillah, which is filled with many different prayers for specific situations, including one for the welfare of the Jewish people. A Ladino edition was published in the 1860s, and a Hebrew version was printed in Jerusalem in 1968 (There were some additional, newer printings since).

His grave is up to the present day a focus of pilgrimage by observant Jews, some of whom fly especially from Israel and even from Latin America to Bulgaria for that purpose.^[3]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The OU Biography on Rabbi Eliezer Papo
• Rabbi Papo's grave

This biographical article about a rabbi is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This Bulgarian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Peter Thiel
Born	(1967-10-11) October 11, 1967 (age 44)[1] Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Alma mater	Stanford University (B.A.) Stanford Law School (J.D.)
Occupation	Managing partner in The Founders Fund President of Clarium Capital Former CEO and Co-founder of PayPal Financial backer in Facebook
Net worth	$1.5 billion (2011)[2][3]

Peter Andreas Thiel (born October 11, 1967)^[1] is a German-born American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager. With Elon Musk and Max Levchin, Thiel co-founded PayPal and was its CEO. He currently serves as president of Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund with under $700 million in assets under management, and a managing partner in The Founders Fund, a $275M venture capital fund that he launched with Ken Howery and Luke Nosek in 2005. He was an early investor in Facebook, the popular social-networking site, and sits on the company’s board of directors. Thiel was ranked #293 on the Forbes 400 in 2010, with a net worth of US$1.5 billion.^[2] However, this number now underestimates his wealth as his Facebook share alone, at a 2010 valuation, is worth US$1.7bn.^[3] Peter Thiel lives in San Francisco, California.^[4]

Life and career[link]

Born to German parents in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, moved to America with his parents when he was a toddler, and raised in Foster City, California.^[5] Thiel was a US-rated Chess Master and one of the highest ranked under-21 players in the country. He studied 20th century philosophy as an undergraduate at Stanford University. An avowed libertarian, he founded The Stanford Review, now the university's main conservative/libertarian newspaper. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Stanford in 1989 and acquired a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1992.^[6]

Thiel clerked for Judge J.L. Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.^{[citation needed]} From 1993 to 1996, he traded derivatives for Credit Suisse Group.^[7] He founded Thiel Capital Management, a multistrategy fund, in 1996. After co-founding PayPal, Thiel took the company public on February 15, 2002, and sold it to eBay for $1.5bn later that year.^[8] His 3.7 percent stake in PayPal was worth approximately $55M at the time of the acquisition.^[9] Immediately after the sale, Thiel launched a global macro hedge fund, Clarium, pursuing a global macro strategy. In 2005, Clarium was honored as global macro fund of the year by both MarHedge and Absolute Return, two trade magazines. Thiel’s approach to investing became the subject of a chapter in Steve Drobny’s book, Inside the House of Money. Thiel successfully bet that the US dollar would weaken in 2003, and gained significant returns betting that the dollar and energy would rally in 2005. After significant losses starting in 2009, Clarium dropped from $7bn dollars in assets in 2008 to around $350M in 2011.^[10]

In 2004, well before the financial crisis of 2007–2010 bore him out in general terms, Thiel spoke of the dot-com bubble of 2000 having migrated, in effect, into a growing bubble in the financial sector. He specified General Electric, with its large financing arm, and WalMart as vulnerable. At the same time, he was "always talking about a real estate bubble." To illustrate, in 2004, he reported having backed away from buying Martha Stewart's Manhattan duplex for $7M in the winter of 2003-2004.^[7] While the apartment did sell in 2004 for $6.65M to another buyer, it was on the market but unsold in early 2010 at $15.9M,^[11] and later at the reduced price of $13.9M.^[12]

In late 2004, Thiel made a $500,000 angel investment in Facebook for 10.2% of the company.^[3][13] In addition to Facebook, Thiel has made early-stage investments in numerous startups (personally or through his venture capital fund), including Booktrack, Slide, LinkedIn, Friendster, Rapleaf, Geni.com, Yammer, Yelp, Inc., Powerset, Practice Fusion, Vator, Palantir Technologies, IronPort, and Votizen. Slide, LinkedIn, Yelp, Geni.com, and Yammer were founded by Thiel's former colleagues at PayPal: Slide by Levchin, Linkedin by Reid Hoffman, Yelp by Jeremy Stoppelman, Geni.com, Yammer by David Sacks and Xero by Rod Drury. Fortune magazine reports that PayPal alumni have founded or invested in dozens of startups with an aggregate value of around $30bn. In Silicon Valley circles, Thiel is colloquially referred to as the "Don of the PayPal Mafia", as noted in the Fortune magazine article.^[14] Thiel's views on management are highly regarded, especially his famous observation that start-up success is highly correlated with low CEO pay.

Thiel is an occasional commentator on CNBC, having appeared numerous times on both Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo, and Squawk Box with Becky Quick.^[15] He has been interviewed twice by Charlie Rose on PBS.^[16] In 2006, he won the Herman Lay Award for Entrepreneurship.^[17] In 2007, he was honored as a Young Global leader by the World Economic Forum as one of the 250 most distinguished leaders age 40 and under.^[18] On November 7, 2009, Thiel was awarded an honorary degree from Universidad Francisco Marroquin^[19]

Thiel's cultural pursuits have included executive production of “Thank You for Smoking”, a 2005 feature film based on Christopher Buckley's 1994 novel of the same name. Thiel is the co-author (with David O. Sacks, who produced TYFS) of the 1995 book The Diversity Myth: 'Multiculturalism' and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford, which "drew a sharp rebuttal from then-Stanford Provost (and later President George W. Bush's National Security Advisor) Condoleezza Rice."^[3] He has contributed articles to The Wall Street Journal, First Things, Forbes, and Policy Review, the journal published by the Hoover Institution, on whose board he sits.

Philanthropy[link]

In February 2006, Thiel provided $100,000 of matching funds to back the Singularity Challenge donation drive of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Additionally, he joined the Institute's advisory board and participated in the May 2006 Singularity Summit at Stanford as well as at the 2011 Summit held in New York City.

In September 2006, Thiel announced that he would donate $3.5M to foster anti-aging research through the Methuselah Mouse Prize foundation.^[20] He gave the following reasons for his pledge: "Rapid advances in biological science foretell of a treasure trove of discoveries this century, including dramatically improved health and longevity for all. I’m backing Dr. [Aubrey] de Grey, because I believe that his revolutionary approach to aging research will accelerate this process, allowing many people alive today to enjoy radically longer and healthier lives for themselves and their loved ones."

In May 2007, Thiel provided half of the $400,000 matching funds for the annual Singularity Challenge donation drive.

On April 15, 2008, Thiel pledged $500,000 to the new Seasteading Institute, directed by Patri Friedman, whose mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems".^[21] This was followed in February 2010 by a subsequent grant of $250,000, and an additional $100,000 in matching funds.^[22]

On September 29, 2010, Thiel said he had created a new fellowship called the Thiel Fellowship, which will award $100,000 each to 20 people under 20 years old,^[23] in order to spur them to quit college and create their own ventures.^[24]

Thiel is a supporter of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which promotes the right of journalists to report the news freely without fear of reprisal.^[25]

Bilderberg Group[link]

Thiel is listed as a member of the Steering Committee of The Bilderberg Group, a controversial group of influential business and government leaders who meet annually behind closed doors under a media blackout to discuss world issues.^[26]

Politics[link]

In 2004, it was reported that Thiel, "a libertarian, advise[d] several free-market think tanks, including the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. 'He believes in open markets and that self-interest can be harnessed in useful and productive ways,' sa[id] Sonia Arrison, the institute's director of technology studies."^[3]

When asked about his political beliefs in a 2006 United Press International interview, Thiel stated, "Well, I was pretty libertarian when I started [in business]. I'm way libertarian now."^[27][28] In December 2007, he endorsed Ron Paul for President.^[29]

In a two-part article for the Cato Institute, Thiel wrote: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."^[30] Thiel later clarified several of his initial statements in a follow-up essay, stating that, "While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better."^[31]

Thiel founded Palantir Technologies funded by the CIA's venture capital arm In-Q-Tel.^[32]

Peter Thiel professes that he is unable to engage in what he terms “unacceptable compromise politics," further spelling out his views in a piece for the Oslo Freedom Forum: "We tend to like a government very much when we believe we’re among its net winners. That makes it very hard to think clearly about whether any of its laws are just or unjust. And because power corrupts, any state unchecked by vigorous public scrutiny and a free press will attempt to become the judge in its own cause and the intermediary of all human interaction."^[33]

Thiel met René Girard at Stanford and embraces mimetic theory. In an interview, Thiel said that his first impression of Girard mimetics was that it "is crazy... that it can't be true that imitation is this important and drives this many different things."^[34]

In 2009, it was reported that Thiel helped fund college student James O'Keefe's "Taxpayers Clearing House" video - a satirical look at the politics behind the Wall Street bailout.^[35] O'Keefe went on to produce the ACORN undercover sting videos.^[36]

Thiel, who is openly gay, has also supported gay-rights causes such as the American Foundation for Equal Rights and GOProud.^[37]

In 2009, Thiel wrote that "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."^[38]

In 2010, Thiel supported Meg Whitman, who as CEO of eBay had purchased PayPal from Thiel and his co-founders and investors, in her unsuccessful bid for the governorship of California. He contributed the maximum allowable $25,900 to the Whitman campaign.^[39]

In 2011, Thiel was reported as having given $1.25M to the Seasteading Institute, a group seeking to build sovereign nations on artificial islands in international waters ("seasteading"). He previously gained attention when he gave the group $500,000 in 2008.^[40]

In a December 2011 interview Thiel encouraged his '20 under 20' applicants to consider the list of "biotech, genomics, synthetic biology; robotics; information & communication technology; aerospace; artificial intelligence; neurotech; nanotech; and medical devices".

In 2012, Thiel, along with PayPal co-founder Luke Nosek and Scott Banister, an early adviser and board member, put their support behind the Endorse Liberty Super PAC, alongside Internet advertising veteran Stephen Oskoui and entrepreneur Jeffrey Harmon, who founded Endorse Liberty in November 2011. Collectively Thiel et al. gave $3.9 million to Endorse Liberty, whose purpose was to promote Texas congressman Ron Paul for president in 2012. As of January 31, 2012 (2012 -01-31)^[update], Endorse Liberty reported spending about $3.3 million promoting Paul by setting up two YouTube channels, buying ads from Google and Facebook and StumbleUpon, and building a presence on the Web.^[41]

Depictions in media[link]

In the film The Social Network, Peter Thiel is played by actor Wallace Langham. The film depicts him making the $500,000 angel investment in Facebook.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Drobny, Steven (2006). Inside the House of Money. The Dot-Commer: Wiley. ISBN 0-471-79447-3. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0471794473. 

External links[link]

• Thiel Foundation profile
• The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance on Campus book by David O. Sacks and Peter A. Thiel, published by The Independent Institute
• Honorary Doctoral Degrees, Universidad Francisco Marroquín
• Peter Thiel compares Silicon Valley bloggers to Al Qaeda
• Virtual Money on ITConversations.com - November 2004
• The Optimistic Thought Experiment essay by Peter Thiel published in Policy Review
• Bloomberg Markets profile of Thiel
• Audiovisual Media, NewMedia Universidad Francisco Marroquín
• Can Entrepreneurs change the world?: Peter Thiel interviewed Luis Figueroa
• Crunchbase profile of Peter Thiel