Based on the original article: Peter Thiel: Capitalism Isn’t Working for Young People by Sean Fischer, published in The Free Press.
In a recent interview with The Free Press, billionaire investor Peter Thiel revisited his prescient 2020 email to Facebook executives, which has resurfaced amid the surprising victory of self-proclaimed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race. Thiel, known for co-founding PayPal and Palantir, argues that the growing appeal of socialism among millennials isn’t mere entitlement—it’s a rational response to a broken economic system stacked against them. As of November 2025, with student debt surpassing $2 trillion and housing prices out of reach in major cities, Thiel’s insights feel more urgent than ever.
The 2020 Email That Saw the Future
Thiel’s email, sent in January 2020 to figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, urged tech leaders to stop dismissing young people’s pro-socialist leanings as ignorance. “When 70% of Millennials say they are pro-socialist,” he wrote, “we need to do better than simply dismiss them by saying that they are stupid or entitled or brainwashed; we should try and understand why.” This message, now viral, was inspired by Thiel’s long-standing concerns, dating back to his Thiel Fellowship program in 2010, which encouraged students to skip college amid skyrocketing tuition costs.
In the interview, conducted by Sean Fischer on November 7, 2025, Thiel ties this generational discontent to core economic issues. He points to student debt as a “generational conflict,” noting how graduates from the 1970s left college debt-free, while today’s millennials face burdensome loans after often unfulfilling educations. National student debt has ballooned from $300 billion in 2000 to over $2 trillion today, creating a system that proletarianizes the young and pushes them toward radical alternatives.
Thiel extends this critique to housing, which he sees as central to 80% of economic debates and culture wars. Strict zoning laws and building restrictions inflate property values for boomers while locking millennials out of homeownership. “If you proletarianize the young people, you shouldn’t be surprised if they eventually become communist,” Thiel quips, framing the issue as a ruptured “generational compact”—the promise that following the same path as previous generations will yield similar success.
Mamdani’s Win: A Symptom of Systemic Failure
Mamdani’s landslide in the NYC mayoral election, driven by voters under 30 burdened by high rents and student debt, validates Thiel’s thesis. Exit polls showed his support from college-educated renters and city transplants, groups alienated by unaffordable living. Thiel, while biased against socialism, credits Mamdani for at least addressing these problems head-on, unlike establishment figures who tinker at the margins.
Thiel doesn’t endorse Mamdani’s policies—rent controls, he argues, could worsen housing shortages—but sees the victory as a wake-up call. “Capitalism doesn’t work for me,” he says, capturing the sentiment of disillusioned youth who view the system as a “racket.” This shift isn’t absolute pro-socialism but a relative rejection of capitalism’s failures. Thiel warns that ignoring these issues invites solutions “outside the Overton Window,” the acceptable range of political discourse.
Parallels to Trump and the Intensification of Politics
Drawing comparisons to Donald Trump, Thiel notes both leaders ran “vibes-based” campaigns fueled by grievance and charisma, attracting unlikely allies. Trump’s 2016 rise stemmed from economic despair in the Midwest, ravaged by globalization, much like Mamdani’s appeal in Brooklyn amid urban inequality. Both expose the “fakeness” of establishment politicians—figures like Jeb Bush or Andrew Cuomo, whom Thiel criticizes for lacking authenticity.
This points to a broader trend: politics as class warfare in a zero-sum economy. Thiel laments a “multi-decade political bull market” where engagement intensifies because stakes feel existential. He provocatively suggests lower voter turnout would signal a healthier society, where government matters less because prosperity is widespread. High turnout, as in NYC, reflects desperation when growth is uneven and problems fester.
Thiel traces this back to post-1988 complacency under presidents from George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama, who overlooked rust belt decline and urban affordability crises. Today, with millennials facing dashed expectations—projected by boomer parents onto a harsher reality—the gap between generations is unprecedented.
Revolution or Gerontocracy? Thiel’s Outlook
Thiel draws historical parallels to revolutions led by frustrated elites, like Robespierre or Lenin, seeing echoes in downwardly mobile millennials. Yet he doubts a full-blown uprising, citing demographics: fewer young people due to declining birth rates mean any “socialism” might resemble “old people’s socialism,” focused on healthcare rather than youthful upheaval.
If America surprises positively in a decade, Thiel says, it would mean leaders finally tackle these issues—solving student debt and housing without endless media cycles. Ironically, the interview itself signals ongoing dysfunction: “The reason we’re having this conversation is that we both suspect that this is going to be the first of many.”
Thiel’s message is clear: Dismiss young socialists at your peril. Capitalism’s flaws—unaffordable education, inaccessible housing, and unequal growth—are breeding discontent. Whether through reform or radicalism, change is coming. As Thiel puts it, if the establishment’s best retort is name-calling, “you are going to keep losing.”
