Sean Parker, bad boy serial entrepreneur, is to join the Founders Fund, the venture capital firm started by Peter Thiel. The release has been taken off the Founders Fund website, because they're waiting for the San Francisco Chronicle to run a story, but we managed to grab a screenshot, shown after the jump. Parker and Thiel are two of the Valley's most successful mavericks: Parker with Napster, Plaxo and Facebook to his credit; Thiel co-founded Paypal, invested in Facebook, and now runs one of the West Coast's most rapidly-growing hedge funds. But they have one other thing in common: both are victims of Mike Moritz, the Sequoia Capital partner who has attained godlike status in Silicon Valley venture capital since investing in both Yahoo and Google. Parker, a cocky and hard-partying 27-year-old, was thrown out of Plaxo in mysterious circumstances; Moritz was the power on the board. And the reclusive British-born VC also persuaded Thiel to merge Paypal with a worthless Sequoia portfolio company, diluting his share of the online payments company. That merger, which limited the founders' gain from the eventual sale of Paypal to eBay, is a blot on Thiel's otherwise immaculate business record.

Contact information for this author is not available.