Fred Thiel

Thiel was born in France in a European-American household and moved to the United States when he was a one year old. Thiel attended classes at the Stockholm School of Economics and executive classes at Harvard Business School. Thiel is also fluent in English, Spanish, Swedish and French.^[4] Thiel is a frequent speaker on digital trends, IT,^[5] and the transformation of industries by the "internet of things".^[6]

Thiel was vice president and general manager of the business storage unit of CMD Technology in 1997.^[7] From 1998 to 2002 Thiel was the CEO of Lantronix,^[8] Thiel was the CEO of GameSpy from 2003 to 2004 before GameSpy merged with IGN.^{[citation needed]} Thiel was the managing partner of the software group at Triton Pacific Capital Partners from 2007 to 2012.^[9]

Thiel met Heath Clark, founder and CEO of Local Corporation through the Young Presidents' Organization,^[10] and joined Local Corporation's board of directors in January 2013.^[11] He became the chairman of the board of Local Corporation in January 2014, and CEO in May 2014 following Clark's resignation for health reasons.^[12] Thiel was CEO until 2015, and was responsible for Local Corporation's partnership with FraudLogix to prevent advertising fraud.^[13]

Thiel has headed Thiel Advisors, an advisory firm, since 2013.^[6] Through Thiel Advisors, Thiel advises organizations such as EQT AB and Graham Partners, their portfolio companies, and various mid-sized companies on value creation strategies. Thiel was appointed to the board of directors of Marathon Patent Group in April 2018^[14] and became CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings in April 2021^[15]