The Vanguard, the conservative answer to the netroots organizers of Move On, is run, it appears, by yet another graduate of Paypal: Rod Martin, the company's former counsel. It's unusual to see Republicans of that generation in Silicon Valley, which never much took to the strand of social conservatism which dominated the party during the George Bush years. But Martin's unorthodox political career does beg a question: why so many weirdos out of Paypal?

In providing a fertile seedbed for new ventures — Silicon Valley startups as Youtube, Yelp and Slide were founded by alumni — the online payment service is not that unusual. Other Valley companies such as Netscape, like exploding supernovae spawning new stars, have given rise to a new batch of startups.

What's more interesting is the range of projects: other startups, in the case of execs such as Max Levchin; critical and commercial success in Hollywood for David Sacks, the company's former chief operating officer; a so-far-successful career in macro and venture investing for Peter Thiel, Paypal's driving force; and online political organization for Rod Martin.

There's a relatively simple explanation. Peter Thiel has attracted around himself a collection of interesting misfits ever since he, David Sacks and Keith Rabois, another Paypal graduate, now VP of marketing at Linked In, challenged political correctness while studying at Stanford University in the 1980s. His most recent addition: Sean Parker, the hard-partying maven who spotted Napster and Facebook, but fell foul of Silicon Valley venture capitalists.

Rod Martin, in bringing Silicon Valley skills to a cause, political conservatism, that is increasingly unpopular in the area, is just another of Thiel's brilliant non-conformists. From the Human Events profile of Martin: "He grew up poor in small-town Arkansas, but even as a small child he stood out. He could read at the age of three; he had consumed the entire World Book Encyclopedia and most of the town library by the time he was eight."

And then he co-authored a book called Thank You, President Bush.