How David Sacks Became the Beating Heart of Silicon Valley's Anger

Politics and War, not Investing, Defined the Heterodox Billionaire's Early Career

If you were in the loop on American political news last year, you were probably aware of Ron DeSantis’ Twitter Spaces announcement that he was running to be the Republican nominee for president in 2024. You may have also heard a Twitter Spaces conversation hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a former Democratic primary longshot and current independent candidate. High profile in both of these conversations was Twitter CEO Elon Musk. But Musk was joined both times by another person, it was another South African born, PayPal launching, angel investing, Republican leaning, populist branding, woke despising, stock portfolio falling guy in his early fifties. This man is represented in the call by a profile picture showing him in a light wool coat against the background of a stock photo tropical beach. But instead of having the suave, if somewhat distant and unfocused demeanor of Musk, this was someone that clearly knew what he wanted, this was someone that had political ambitions extending much further back than Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter. This was David Sacks.

(This is a revamp of the first part of my reporting on David Sacks, everything from the original part one is still here, but the coverage is much more extensive).

Born in South Africa in 1972, David Oliver Sacks spent the first five years of his life in the country until moving with his family to Memphis, Tennessee. In high school, Sacks excelled academically. His yearbook includes a long list of extracurriculars such as debate, model UN, and “Tennis Manager”. He then went on to get an undergraduate degree in economics at Stanford. 

It was at Stanford that Sacks made his most important connection. You might think this person was Elon Musk, who claims he went to Stanford but dropped out after only two days. But, in reality, the person that shaped David Sacks’ more than anyone was Peter Thiel. 

This was because Sacks had picked up writing for the Stanford Review, a right wing libertarian school paper founded by Thiel, and eventually became Editor-in-Chief. Sacks characterized the review as being a group of “new campus radicals” in opposition to existing on campus left wing radicalism . 

One notable connection between Sacks and Thiel was the country of South Africa. Both of these men spent some time growing up in the Apartheid regime during the early to mid 70s. Thiel was not born in South Africa and only spent a few years there as an adolescent. But by the time Thiel had entered Stanford in 1985, the anti-apartheid movement was gaining steam in the United States. 

Sacks was not simply in lock-step with Thiel. The two may have found each other to be ideologically aligned, but Sacks was the one more willing to get his hands … dirty.

According to George Packer in his book The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, Thiel founded the newspaper as a vehicle for this fight against leftism. As Thiel graduated in 1989, he wrote one final column in the Review, vowing to fight at every turn the leftists trying to destroy Stanford. But the 80s were coming to a close and Thiel’s more esoteric concerns over western civilization weren’t going to leave campus on their own. Luckily for Thiel, David Sacks had a new approach. Sacks expanded the scope of the Review beyond criticisms of political correctness in the curriculum. He didn’t just talk about how ‘multiculturalism’ affects the curriculum changes, he made sure to tell you why you shouldn’t feel compelled to support the protests for Indigenous People’s Day. He ragged on how your tuition money was being wasted by hiring professors to teach ridiculously named classes. But most importantly, Sacks knew that sex and crime sell, and he could garner a lot of attention by combining those two things. “Under its new editor, Thiel's friend David Sacks, the Review moved on to speech codes, gay rights, and sex (in 1992 an entire issue was devoted to rape)” said George Packer. Max Chafkin describes it similarly.

Two days after Rabois screamed his slurs, the Review published "The Rape Issue." In it, David Sacks, another undergraduate conservative close to Thiel, wrote an impassioned defense of Stuart Thomas. He was a Stanford senior who'd recently pled no contest to the statutory rape of a first-year student and whose graduation was in doubt. Sacks argued that Thomas was deserving of sympathy and his diploma because statutory rape was a B.S. crime-"a moral directive left on the books by pre-sexual revolution crustaceans" — and also because, at least according to his account, the victim had not resisted. To make the point, Sacks included a graphic description of the encounter, noting that the seventeen-year-old victim "still had the physical coordination to perform oral sex," and "presumably could have uttered the word, 'no." " - (Chafkin 2023, Page 35)

Sacks’ didn’t just go through a dorm room libertarian phase in college that was partially reignited by a love of tax breaks once he became successful, he was fully committed to the political project. Already in college, Sacks was carving out a niche for himself alongside Thiel. The pair were becoming culture warriors for “The West”, with a particular focus on the college campus. 

In a 1998 C-SPAN segment, Sacks mentions that one of the semesters he did in 1993 was spent in Washington working for Robert Bork. I have yet to find any reference to this semester that Sacks spent in Washington outside of this sole mention on his one C-SPAN segment.

Born in 1927 and passing away in 2012, Robert Bork was a conservative lawyer and judge that specialized in antitrust law while subscribing to an Originalist view of the Constitution. He also had a brief stint in the Nixon White House as Attorney General, during which he was instrumental in Nixon’s failed attempt to quash the Watergate investigation by firing special investigator Archibald Cox. Bork reached the zenith of his career President Ronald Regan nominated him as a Supreme Court Justice. Dressed in a suit 

Unfortunately for Bork, it would only be a nomination. An unprecedented mobilization by Democrats in the Senate held up Bork’s nomination in a series of hearings. During this time, more and more of Bork’s history was dredged up as it was made clear to the public the implications of his deeply conservative and originalist worldview. Spearheading this effort to stop Bork in his tracks was an ambitious but down on his luck senator: Joe Biden.

Swords were sharpened on the Democratic side as a stand against Bork was prepared. With a slim senate majority, it was a battle that the Democrats could afford to fight. While Senator Ted Kennedy delivered a speech condemning Bork’s reactionary views towards abortion and civil rights, Biden put in the leg work, producing the so-called “Biden Report” on Bork’s past and presiding over the hearings personally. Marked by credible plagiarism accusations, Biden’s then stagnating run for Democratic nominee was in free-fall. But instead of bowing out after lackluster results or money drying up, Bork gave Biden a golden opportunity.  “I have to choose between running for president and doing my job to keep the Supreme Court from moving in a direction that I believe to be truly harmful” Biden said as he ended his campaign to focus fully on the Bork hearings. In terms of saving face, you couldn’t ask for a better exit opportunity. Before the hearings even ended, it was clear that Robert Bork became one of the most important (and unwilling) figures on Joe Biden’s long path to political ascendancy.

These hearings went on for 12 days, long enough for progressive groups to mobilize and for ads, including one narrated by Gregory Peck, that opposed Bork to hit the airwaves. While he continued to fight viciously during those 12 days, it was of no use for Robert Bork: the hooks were in. Defeated, abandoned, and flayed on television sets across the nation, Robert Bork could only watch as his dream was crushed by the sheer weight of his past.

Bitterly defeated in an unprecedented vote by the Senate, Robert Bork was effectively exiled and the more moderate Anthony Kennedy was instead chosen by Reagan. What was meant to be his exile to Elba quickly became St. Helena. It was on this cold rock of despair that Bork received a visitor in 1993: David Sacks, still a student at Stanford looking to prove himself politically.

David Sacks became a research assistant on Bork’s new book: Slouching Towards Gomorrah. It was fairly standard right wing slop about cultural liberalism that wouldn’t be out of place with Steven Crowder or Ben Shapiro’s face slapped on the jacket. “The West Has Fallen”, etc, etc, etc. What proved vital to Sacks was the experience he would gain and later use when writing his own book with Peter Thiel.

A year after graduating from Stanford in 1995, Sacks co-authored his first book with now formal associate Peter Thiel, titled The Diversity Myth. The book is an attack on academia’s diversity oriented curriculums, with Stanford in particular used as a frequent example. It later expands to a critique of multiculturalism as a whole, warning against its influence on broader society. It was published by the Bay Area based libertarian Independent Institute. It became Sacks and Thiel’s first major political success, but not one that they would like you to remember.

In 2016, the pair were forced to disavow statements made in the book a few weeks after then candidate Donald Trump’s “Grab ‘em by the pussy” Access Hollywood tape surfaced. Thiel was an early supporter of Trump, and even pledged an additional $1.2 million to his campaign after the tape was made public. Even though Sacks himself donated almost $40,000 to the Clinton campaign, and an additional $28,000 to the DNC itself (according to FEC filings), he still had to deal with the obvious backlash of being the co-author of these statements. As for what the pair actually wrote, much of it could charitably be described as having not aged well. In a section on campus sexual assault, Sacks and Thiel wrote: 

“a woman might ‘realize’ that she had been ‘raped’ the next day or even many days later. Under these circumstances, it is unclear who should be held responsible. If the alcohol made both of them do it, then why should the woman’s consent be obviated any more than the man’s? Why is all blame placed on the man?” - David Sacks

Given that the book is heavily based on The Stanford Review, based on how Thiel and Sacks clearly had different areas of interest as editors-in-chief, and the fact that Peter Thiel is gay, some inferences could possibly be made on which of the pair was more responsible for that particular passage.

The book also includes a special dedication to Keith Rabois, a Stanford student and ‘victim of multiculturalism’. Rabois was subjected to brutal attacks by multiculturalism and its apostles, simply because he chose to voice his heterodox conservative ideas. Now, granted, those ideas were being shouted at the house of a lecturer at Stanford, and yes, those ideas were just “Faggot! Hope you die of AIDS!” and “Can't wait until you die, faggot”. But Keith was treated horribly in the eyes of fellow law student Peter Thiel. Fast-forward ten years, and Rabois is an executive at PayPal. Fast-forward another ten years, and Rabois is stepping down as COO of Square after sexual harassment allegations were made against him by a male coworker. At least Sacks and Thiel were vindicated on one thing: Keith Rabois had the pass to use that slur.

In an act of unintentional foreshadowing or direct inspiration, Sacks and Thiel had written this book for a publication that went on to assist big tech companies using ethically ambiguous methods. The Independent Institute is notorious when it comes to discussing tech entrepreneurs in the 1990s. In 1999, the institute found itself in hot water for advertising a letter in the New York Times and Washington Post signed by 240 economists opposing anti-trust legislation being proposed by the Clinton administration. What these economists were not aware of was the fact that the Independent Institute was being funded by Microsoft to the tune of over $200,000. The institute also published a book around the same time that they received this donation. The book was called: “Winners, Losers and Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology”, which argued that Microsoft’s success was due to superior products and not the monopolization of its market.

In 1998, David Sacks went on CSPAN for a now infamous interview where he voiced his support for military operations against Iraq if weapons inspections were not complied with. What is notable about this is that Sacks was cutting against the opinions of the Independent Institute, which opposed the war. To be honest, I’m only including this because it became news for me when Sacks replied to my quote tweet of him highlighting that he in fact did not oppose the Iraq War like he said he did. Ain’t I a stinker?

His time spent at the Stanford Review and Independent Institute managed to land Sacks a job a few years later. After a short stint at McKinsey, Sacks was eventually lured back into the orbit of his old friend Peter Thiel for a job at his company: Cofinity. You probably don’t recognize Cofinity, but you do recognize their flagship product: PayPal.

David Sacks joined the small ranks of Cofinity with many other alumni of the Stanford Review. I note this because writing for this paper clearly got Sacks the job at the company. What this means, by extension, is that David Sacks’ entire career is essentially predicated on what he published in The Stanford Review and who he knew while working there. There would be no David Sacks as we know him today without what he wrote in that paper

If David Sacks did not mock his fellow students for caring about multiculturalism, he would not be a billionaire. If David Sacks did not bitch and moan in a newspaper column about women being too uptight to date him as an undergrad, he would not be a billionaire. If David Sacks had not taken to his paper to graphically describe the rape of a 17 year old girl in order to discredit and humiliate her in front of the entire Stanford campus, he would not be a billionaire.

Anyway, the best source I have for Sacks’ early days at PayPal is the book The PayPal Wars by Eric M. Jackson, who was one of the very early hires at the company. The book is very flattering for certain people like Thiel and Max Levchin, but, fortunately, leaves in some of the more humanizing anecdotes about people like Elon Musk, and especially David Sacks. 

“Sacks, on the other hand, exuded focus. A lot of focus. Everyone in the company knew of his tendency to descend on a colleague out of nowhere and initiate an in-depth conversation. With short, dark hair, wire glasses, and a habit of making sweeping gestures, Sacks came across as intense, especially in Confinity’s informal office. He certainly didn’t seem as interested in socializing as Luke. Though an avid movie buff, this law graduate spent jaw-dropping amounts of time at work. He seldom left the office before three o’clock in the morning and generally found his way back by eleven” - (Jackson 2004, 31)

The first time Jackson talked to Sacks was after being informally hired by Peter Thiel. Sacks was known to everyone there by his last name (possibly due to the fact the CFO of PayPal at the time was named David Jaques) and had an attitude to match. Specifically, Sacks had a reputation for being intensely dedicated to his work and being in contact with as many employees as possible by phone. 

Jackson was then moved into the so-called ‘ping-pong room’, the rec room, essentially, to set up his office. When it was time to move the ping-pong table out, the first location was apparently ‘David Sacks’ cube’, where some engineers hung a magazine story about their company having such amenities as a ping-pong table. Sacks was never seen in the room, so these engineers wanted to bring the game to him. 

After getting settled in at the company, Jackson describes Sacks’ first big idea: an ad featuring actor James Doohan. For the unaware, Doohan played Scotty on the original series of Star Trek, who was often asked by Captain Kirk to “beam me up, Scotty”.