Every little thing clicked when Peter Thiel gave the speech about God.
The event was a fortieth birthday celebration for Trae Stephens, who’s Mr. Thiel’s enterprise capital accomplice in addition to one of many founders of Anduril Industries, a maker of high-tech protection methods and weaponry. It was a multiday affair, held in 2023 at Mr. Stephens’s residence in New Mexico. It started with a night roasting the birthday boy, adopted by one other toasting him after which a brunch with caviar bumps, mimosas and breakfast pizza. On the brunch (the theme was the Holy Ghost), Mr. Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire and right-wing kingmaker, delivered a speak about miracles, forgiveness and Jesus Christ. The visitors had been enthralled.
“The room of over 220 folks, principally in know-how and enterprise capital, had been coming as much as us saying, ‘Oh, my goodness, I didn’t know Peter Thiel was a Christian,’” recalled Michelle Stephens, Mr. Stephens’s spouse. “‘He’s homosexual and a billionaire. How can he be Christian?’”
That response — eyebrows raised, curiosity real — gave Ms. Stephens an thought: Collect influential folks, together with in Silicon Valley, to speak about Christian perception. Final yr, she began a nonprofit known as ACTS 17 Collective, which holds occasions the place the bigwigs of the tech and leisure industries focus on their religion. For these in search of not simply spiritually but additionally professionally, it’s an opportunity to get near business demigods.
Mr. Thiel was the featured speaker on the first ACTS 17 occasion final Might, on the San Francisco residence of Garry Tan, the chief government of Y Combinator. He talked about how Christian theology informs his politics and which of the Ten Commandments he finds most significant. (The primary and final: Worship God, and don’t covet what others have.) A D.J. added atmosphere, mixing worship beats for the greater than 200 attendees.
In October, the nonprofit hosted one other speak at Mr. Tan’s residence, this time with Dr. Francis S. Collins, former director of the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, who has lengthy talked about how he reconciles science along with his Christian religion. Ms. Stephens is planning extra occasions in San Francisco, in addition to one in Los Angeles, and has reached out to potential audio system like Pat Gelsinger, the previous chief government of Intel, in addition to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an activist and Muslim turned critic of Islam who transformed to Christianity.
The title ACTS 17 is an acronym (Acknowledging Christ in Expertise and Society), however it additionally refers back to the biblical chapter wherein Paul the Apostle crisscrosses Athens and Thessaloniki to unfold the Gospel amongst Greek “kings and queens of tradition,” as Ms. Stephens places it, the eminent and prosperous demographic that she goals to minister to right now. It’s a considerably counterintuitive Christian calling, she acknowledged.
“We had been at all times taught as Christians to serve the meek, the lowly, the marginalized,” Ms. Stephens stated. “I believe we’ve realized that, if something, the wealthy, the rich, the highly effective want Jesus simply as a lot.”
Silicon Valley executives are accustomed to chasing the elusive — fortune, breakthroughs, energy — however God has not tended to rank excessive on the record. The Bay Space is likely one of the least churchgoing elements of America, the place folks have been extra apt to satisfy their religious longing with meditation, ayahuasca, intermittent fasting or chilly plunges. An episode of the HBO present “Silicon Valley” as soon as satirized this with a homosexual entrepreneur aghast at being “outed” as Christian. In a spot constructed on stretching human limitations, the place folks exert dominion over every part from fertility to outer house, even turning mortality right into a enterprise alternative, the divine has appeared, to some, out of date.
Mr. Thiel has lengthy been an exception to the atheism and agnosticism of his friends. He has stated his Christian religion is on the middle of his worldview, which he expounds upon with a heterodox method — fusing references to Scripture and conservative political concept, parsing historic indicators and wonders for his or her connection to tech wonders right now. In latest podcast interviews, he attracts on biblical prophesies to warn of an Antichrist who will promise security from existential threats like synthetic intelligence and nuclear conflict however convey one thing a lot worse: one-world authorities. (Mr. Thiel declined to be interviewed via Ms. Stephens; his spokesperson didn’t return an e-mail.)
Different tech and leisure gurus additionally appear to be embracing faith. Final yr, Joe Rogan talked in regards to the significance of religion in a number of podcast episodes, saying he had at occasions been “fairly atheist” however grew to become extra religious after the dying of his grandfather. “As time rolls on, individuals are going to know the necessity to have some type of divine construction,” Mr. Rogan stated in an episode final February. “Plenty of very clever folks, they dismiss all of the constructive elements of faith.”
Elon Musk, in a latest interview with Jordan Peterson, a psychologist who has change into a type of manosphere guru, stated he was a “huge believer within the rules of Christianity.” Mr. Musk summed this up in a ditty on X: “Atheism left an empty house, secular faith took its place,” he wrote. “Possibly faith’s not so unhealthy to maintain you from being unhappy.”
ACTS 17, which is nondenominational, goals to offer folks a simple, approachable introduction to non secular perception. Its web site deploys the hallmarks of millennial direct-to-consumer branding, that includes fairly folks in puffy jackets speaking and smiling alongside floating sans serif guarantees about “redefining success for individuals who outline tradition.”
If spiritual rituals provide up outdated methods of muddling via newly tumultuous occasions, it’s unsurprising that they’re resurging now in Silicon Valley, which appears to be going via its personal cycle of rebirth. Satisfaction-themed trivia nights and Black Historical past Month playlists have given technique to tech moguls feting President Trump, decrying the snowflakery of their younger staff and crusading for a return to a bygone period of upper birthrates.
This political flip has prompted some skepticism in regards to the new religiosity within the tech group, with even some Christian thinkers questioning whether or not a few of it could be extra self-serving than honest. “Whenever you have a look at the Bible, it’s all about supporting the poor, serving to the opposite, inviting the stranger in,” stated Anne Foerst, a theologian and laptop scientist at St. Bonaventure College in New York and the writer of the e-book “God within the Machine.”
“There’s a sure perspective with some evangelicals that if you settle for Jesus as your savior you might be saved,” she continued. “Then you definately don’t have to fret — about drone constructing, rejecting foreigners, rejecting wokeness, all that type of stuff.”
However many Bay Space clergy make the case that theology and Scripture provide one thing important to folks whose technological work touches on white-hot moral and existential questions.
“We actually really feel a burden to assist folks take into account how the mannequin of Christ may assist them take into consideration how they modify know-how,” stated Paul Taylor, an Oracle worker turned pastor who leads the Bay Space Heart for Religion, Work & Tech, one other group serving to to convey faith to technologists. “How do they consider know-how for the sake of the great of the world, for the sake of people that won’t have a voice?”
With ACTS 17, Ms. Stephens’s mission appears extra tactical, much less pointed. Begin-up and tech staff are used to kneeling earlier than the powers of enterprise capital and Huge Tech. Why not get them bowing additionally to God?
Token Christians
If an A.I. mannequin had been to conjure a picture of a Silicon Valley energy couple, it would resemble Mr. and Ms. Stephens. They stay in a scenic nook of San Francisco the place they take pleasure in gathering the “kings and queens” of native tradition; each took matters that had consumed them and spun them into start-up endeavors, in Ms. Stephens’s case that being spiritual perception.
Mr. Stephens grew up because the grandson of a Southern Baptist pastor in a small Ohio city. Ms. Stephens was raised in a Roman Catholic household within the suburbs of Philadelphia, with a father who restored and renovated church buildings.
The 2 met at Georgetown College and bonded over the position that religion performed of their lives. They took lengthy walks throughout which they talked in regards to the Bible and the variations of their spiritual apply — why Ms. Stephens prayed to the Virgin Mary, for example, and Mr. Stephens on to God.
After school, Mr. Stephens labored as a computational linguist for U.S. intelligence providers and Ms. Stephens as a pediatric intensive care unit nurse. In 2008, Mr. Stephens bought a proposal to hitch Palantir, now an information analytics behemoth.
Mr. Stephens ascended into the ranks of the tech elite. In 2013, he was invited by Mr. Thiel, who financed Palantir, to change into a principal at his enterprise agency, Founders Fund, and moved along with his household to San Francisco. He helped begin Anduril, which makes autonomous drones and underwater vessels and is ready to obtain a spherical of funding valuing it at $28 billion. (Founders Fund has backed Anduril since its begin.) Ms. Stephens began a digital well being care firm. Alongside the best way, that they had two sons, “the munchkins,” as Mr. Stephens known as them.
All through this era, they held on to their religion, which generally set them aside within the Bay Space social scene. It was their first time dwelling someplace the place churchgoing wasn’t the norm, Ms. Stephens recalled, and the place they often felt just like the token Christians within the room.
That need to share their beliefs planted the seed for ACTS 17. Every occasion the nonprofit holds will function a dialog with some high-profile particular person whom the viewers won’t know as a Christian. The talks to date have drawn devoted, lapsed and non-Christian audiences. Tickets go for $50, and attendees are recruited by phrase of mouth and on social media.
“After an ACTS 17 occasion, all we wish is for folk in attendance to take a subsequent step of their religion journey,” Ms. Stephens stated. “Possibly they’d by no means heard of Jesus, and a subsequent step is studying the Bible.”
It’s a light introduction to Jesus, with out the Styrofoam espresso cups and humdrum sermons that some nonbelievers affiliate with church. In October, the speak with Dr. Collins was themed “Code & Cosmos,” and aptly named cocktails (Mango-Orange Cosmos) had been supplied. There have been selfies. There have been title tags. There was the echo of bygone buoyant tech pleased hours, when the frosé was on faucet and the cheese boards had been bountiful. And for the 20-somethings and 30-somethings in attendance, the potential for development in addition to enlightenment. Because the ACTS 17 web site promised in pitch deck-ese: “These intimate gatherings promote participating discussions and helpful connections that may improve your profession.”
The concept folks go to ACTS 17 jostling for connection to its audio system and founders doesn’t fear Ms. Stephens. “Possibly they present as much as initially hear from a speaker and community,” she stated. “Then the shock and delight is — ‘Oh, I additionally, on this surroundings, get to discover issues of religion.’”
In November, ACTS 17 hosted two occasions within the United Arab Emirates. Ms. Stephens defined that after her San Francisco occasions, she had acquired invites to take ACTS 17 to different American cities, however she stated entrepreneurs within the Emirates had been extra persistent (and Mr. Stephens had a longstanding skilled curiosity within the Center East). So the couple flew to Abu Dhabi and Dubai and gave two talks: one on how Christian religion can steer profession planning, one other on how God shapes their views of synthetic intelligence and protection.
In Abu Dhabi, a member of the viewers requested Mr. Stephens after the occasion what he thought in regards to the social stigma round working in protection know-how. As just lately as 2018, Google confronted protests from 1000’s of staff over its efforts to make use of synthetic intelligence to assist the Pentagon goal drone assaults.
“There are a whole lot of simpler methods to construct start-ups than what we’re doing at Anduril,” Mr. Stephens stated throughout a Zoom follow-up dialog with individuals who had participated within the occasion. “We’re doing it as a result of we consider it’s simply and ethical.”
He drew a parallel between his work and that of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who oversaw the creation of the atomic bomb and who famously recalled that after the primary nuclear check, the phrases of scripture from the Bhagavad Gita got here to him: “Now I’m change into dying, the destroyer of worlds.”
“That was accepting the destiny of the divine within the execution of justice,” Mr. Stephens added. “There’s no love of violence.”
Mr. Stephens advised the Zoom viewers that entrepreneurs usually got here to him for profession recommendation once they felt they had been “wandering within the desert,” lonely and spiritually unfulfilled. He suggests they undertake a matrix he created, which places jobs into 4 classes: unhealthy and simple (making senseless iPhone video games), unhealthy and laborious (creating a brand new e-cigarette), straightforward and good (constructing encrypted messaging providers), laborious and good (“Colony on Mars”).
Anduril, in accordance with Mr. Stephens, falls into that latter class: work that’s complicated and good, located the place God is pointing him, he stated. (The corporate is forming a consortium with different know-how teams to bid for protection contracts, and Mr. Stephens was beforehand into account for a task in Mr. Trump’s Pentagon.)
Ms. Stephens is fast to say ACTS 17 has “no political affiliation.” “There’s no agenda,” she stated. “There’s no particular motion occurring right here. We’re simply creating an area for folks to discover these huge questions that they simply aren’t discovering options to within the present world, within the present social and societal order.”
She added that the group didn’t intend to debate political points, although she realizes they will’t be totally averted. “There’s nothing we information the moderator to ask or not ask — every part is truthful recreation,” she stated. “We ask God to information the moderators and audio system.”
Nonetheless politics, or no less than a whiff of it, can’t be ignored when Mr. Thiel is a part of the group’s origin story. An outspoken libertarian, Mr. Thiel was an early supporter of Mr. Trump in 2016, and Vice President JD Vance is amongst his acolytes. He appears additionally to acknowledge the power that comes from an alliance between political and spiritual conservatives.
“The Reagan coalition was one way or the other the free market libertarians, the protection hawks and the social conservatives,” he advised the economist Tyler Cowan in a latest interview. “What does the millionaire, and the final and the priest — what do they really have in frequent?”
He continued: “But the coalition labored extremely properly, and the reply I submit that they’ve in frequent is that they’re anti-communist, they usually have a standard enemy.”
Imitation as a type of religion
It was the primary Sunday of 2025 and Epic Church, in downtown San Francisco, was jammed. Mr. Stephens went downstairs to drop the couple’s 9- and 11-year-old sons at a youngsters’s service. Ms. Stephens doled out hugs to different churchgoers. Then the 2 took their seats within the second row of the transformed industrial house the place Epic holds providers.
Epic Church is nondenominational and bought assist from an evangelical Dallas-based community that locations church buildings in “spiritually laborious to succeed in” elements of the USA. Because it started weekly providers in San Francisco in 2011, Epic has ballooned, drawing roughly 1,000 folks — together with a few of the metropolis’s poorest together with its tech wealth — each Sunday. It now has its personal constructing: $12 million of workplace house.
Ben Pilgreen, Epic’s pastor, preaches a message that has resonated with San Francisco locals: He believes that any job somebody does — advert gross sales, software program engineering, H.R. — may be sacred. It’s not simply clergy doing the Lord’s work. That is an interesting notion to these members of his congregation who wish to consider the time they’re pouring into their careers has a better objective.
“When you’ve been known as to be a graphic designer,” Mr. Pilgreen stated, “that’s a sacred vocation.”
Mr. Stephens and Ms. Stephens grew to become members of the church shortly after transferring to San Francisco. It was within the Epic group that they sharpened their very own considering of how Christian religion ought to inform their Silicon Valley endeavors. For 4 years, till the top of 2021, they hosted a Religion and Work group, which met Tuesday mornings and mentioned methods faith was related to their skilled lives. Mr. Thiel and Mr. Tan had been a few of the high-profile visitors who dropped in. (The group is beginning up once more this yr.)
This Stephens-led small group generally studied the work of René Girard, a literary theorist who has change into Silicon Valley’s favourite theologian. Mr. Girard’s title is invoked by Mr. Thiel in podcast interviews, by Mr. Stephens at ACTS 17 occasions and by Mr. Vance.
Mr. Girard, who died in 2015, was additionally a mentor to Mr. Thiel at Stanford. Mr. Girard’s books provide a view of faith that matches tidily into the idea methods of Silicon Valley. He theorized that every one need is mimetic — we would like what different folks need — and one one that broke that cycle of rivalry was Jesus Christ. Deciphering his work, readers conclude {that a} technique to transcend petty needs is to transform to Christianity and attempt to imitate Christ.
A few of his readers and critics, just like the historian John Ganz, say Mr. Girard frames faith as an antidote to the kinds of vices that at the moment are exacerbated by social media: Is Instagram making you jealous of different folks? No downside; maintain scrolling, however bear in mind it’s best to solely wish to be like Christ.
One other clarification for Mr. Girard’s rising affect is mimesis itself. Folks wish to mimic Mr. Thiel. As Augustus Doricko, a Christian start-up founder, put it: “Peter Thiel may crown a circus clown his favourite thinker and everybody would journey over themselves making an attempt to get face time with the circus clown.”
After the primary ACTS 17 occasion, an attendee approached Ms. Stephens and stated he was shaken by the occupation of religion from Mr. Thiel, whom he known as an expert “idol”: If Mr. Thiel was worshiping Jesus, maybe he ought to be doing the identical.