Conspiracy

Rating: 6.6/10

This book was my first real attempt at audiobook consumption and it went surprisingly well. Approaching it in the same context as a podcast, the content fit right in with my typical listening queue. I definitely want to listen to more audiobooks, although I intend to stick with non-fiction for now.

Peter Thiel has always interested me as a Silicon Valley power broker and this book gave an extremely compelling insight into his most well-known conspiracy, the takedown of Gawker Media. Although I had heard about this story before, the amount of detail and exposition that Holiday gives really does bring the characters of Peter Thiel, Nick Denton, and Hulk Hogan alive. You feel their worries and anxieties as well as their thrill in victory or anguish in defeat. That being said, there is a definite bias here towards Peter Thiel. Obviously, this is not completely unfounded as it is hard to look at a rumor-mongering organization like Gawker with a neutral eye but it still taints the narrative. Additionally, Holiday frames this endeavor as a grand conspiracy to an almost sickening degree. When reading grandiose Napoleon quotes or talk of Machiavellian ethics, one almost forgets that this is a mere tale of a billionaire's revenge, albeit a very interesting one.

All in all, Holiday does the complete story justice. While he focuses a bit too much on the grandness of the “conspiracy” and Thiel's mastermind schemings, it was still a worthwhile read.

If you can hear the author on a podcast, do it; but as to his book, not so much. It was tedious. For every paragraph that contained information, there were three or four with navel gazing speculations on “what is conspiracy”. Moreover, he lost my respect when he revealed that he didn't understand what Ultra was in WWII and repeats the canard about bombing Coventry.

As someone who grew up in Pinellas County Florida, watching Hulk Hogan, spending a lot of time online during a time when Gawker Media sites were wildly popular and following Peter Thiel's career (and reading his book), every bit of this book was oddly familiar to me.

Conspiracy is a story about a lawsuit. That lawsuit is a claim by Hulk Hogan against Gawker media after they published a sex tape made without the wrestlers' permission. The lawsuit seemed like David vs Goliath, but in actuality, Hogan had the full backing by a billionaire to keep the lawsuit going.

I read Gawker back when it was running - usually when a scandalous story was linked to on Digg. This book turned that history on its head, causing me to realize just what I was supporting with those pageviews.

Although I don't back Thiel either. As a prominent Trump supporter, he lost all credibility with me as someone fighting against bullies.

Even with a cast of questionable characters, this story reads like a real-life version of The Count of Monte Cristo.