Download Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue AudioBook Free
In the tradition of Janet Malcolm's The Journalist and the Murderer and Robert Greene's The 48 Laws and regulations of Electricity, writer Ryan Getaway examines the case that rocked the media world - and the billionaire mastermind behind it In 2007, a brief blogpost on Valleywag, the Silicon Valley vertical of Gawker Multimedia, outed PayPal founder and billionaire trader Peter Thiel as gay. Thiel's sexuality had been known to close friends and family, but he didn't consider himself a open public figure, and thought the info was private. This post would be the casus belli for a meticulously plotted conspiracy that could end nearly a decade later with a $140 million dollar judgment against Gawker, its personal bankruptcy and with Nick Denton, Gawker's CEO and founder, out of a job. Only later would the entire world learn that Gawker's demise was not incidental - it turned out masterminded by Thiel. For years, Thiel had looked endlessly for a remedy from what he'd come to call the "Gawker Problem". When an unmarked envelope shipped an illegally saved love-making tape of Hogan with his best friend's wife, Gawker acquired seen the opportunity for millions of page views and say things that others were frightened to state. Thiel found their publication of the tape as the chance he wanted. He would come to pit Hogan against Gawker in a multi-year proxy battle through the Florida legal system, while Gawker remained confidently convinced they would prevail as they had over so many other lawsuit - until it was too later. The verdict would stun the entire world and so would Peter's ultimate unmasking as the person who had set everything in movement. Why acquired he done this? How acquired no one found out it? What would this signify - for the First Amendment? For privateness? For culture? In Holiday's masterful telling of this practically unbelievable conspiracy, up to date by interviews with all the key players, this case transcends the narrative of how one billionaire had taken down a media empire or the existing talk about of the free press. It's a report in power, strategy, and one of the very most wildly ambitious - and successful - secret plots in recent memory. Some will cheer Gawker's destruction while others will lament it, but after listening to this audiobook - and finding the access the writer was given - no person will deny that there surely is something ruthless and brilliant about Peter Thiel's surprising attempt to shake up the entire world.
