Using an army of young, hungry writers with a gift for witty yet contemptuous writing, Denton encouraged his bloggers to expose and ridicule public people and institutions they felt were hypocritical or hiding something. Whose secrets? Particularly those of the rich, powerful or famous. Specifically, exposing other people’s secrets via his websites, in the name of entertainment and transparency. Though it was billed as a tech-news site, Valleywag took its editorial direction from its parent company, the notorious gossip website, Gawker.īoth the Gawker and Valleywag websites were owned by an Englishman named Nick Denton.ĭenton’s background may have been in the tech industry, but his true interests were secrets and gossip. Now let’s examine the website that published the blog post. Indeed, when it came to any aspect of his personal life, Thiel was intensely private.

Despite coming out to his friends, family and colleagues, Thiel was still discreet about his sexuality in 2007, preferring to keep it a somewhat open secret in Silicon Valley. Having made his fortune as a founder of the online payments system PayPal, Thiel had also gained recognition as Facebook’s first major investor. In 2007, Thiel was already a wildly successful entrepreneur. To understand why this post was so significant, we must first learn a little more about both its subject, Peter Thiel, and its publisher, Gawker Media. Just 400 words long, this post is the genesis of a conspiracy that cost millions of dollars and lasted over nine years. That small beginning was a blog post published by a gossip website in 2007, which outed a tech investor named Peter Thiel as gay. So it was with the conspiracy at the heart of this story. “The beginnings of all things are small,” the Roman politician Cicero once said. how a few determined people plotted to destroy a powerful company.what a celebrity sex tape had to do with this conspiracy and.In this summary of CONSPIRACY by Ryan Holiday, you’ll learn

We’ll also hear arguments for and against Thiel’s involvement in Hogan’s case, and explore how Gawker found itself on the stand in the first place.

We’ll examine the origins of Thiel’s hatred of Gawker, and learn how his covert actions ultimately shut down the controversial media outlet. In this book summary, we’ll take a look at how billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel shocked the world with his behind-the-scenes plot to destroy Gawker Media. You might know that Hogan won and that Gawker declared bankruptcy, but what’s the story behind the story? How did one of America’s most respected and feared publications sleepwalk into its own financial ruin? If you followed the news in 2016, you probably read about ex-wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against the notorious gossip website Gawker.

Conspiracy ryan holiday review