Thank you.
Thiel was an early backer of SI and attendee of the Singularity Summits that ran from 2006-2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_Summit
Soon after that, awareness of AI and superintelligence went mainstream, and we got FHI, FLI, etc.
I don't know if Thiel backs MIRI as he did SI. Arguably, he doesn't need to. He made his money on DeepMind and helped trigger a larger movement, and other institutions with a lot more resources, like Alphabet and MSFT, carry forward the torch.
Thiel wasn't an attendee, he was one of the people running the conference
https://intelligence.org/2013/01/30/we-are-now-the-machine-i...