Three years ago, Peter Thiel, who runs a small venture-capital concern called Founders Fund, plowed $500,000 into a little-known social-networking Web site called Facebook Inc. Most traditional VC companies want to invest larger sums, several million dollars, say, for large stakes in start-ups and then exert control over the companies’ operations. Thiel to be one of Slide’s first investors, meaning bigger venture companies such as Mayfield Fund and Khosla Ventures could only invest later, for more money. Significantly, the fund often buys only a 5% or 10% stake in a company and sets up a special class of stock that start-up founders can sell while they are building their companies — and before venture-capital investors see profits. Thiel acknowledges his company faced resistance from blue-chip investors when it set out to raise money for its latest, $220 million venture-capital fund. read more