{"product_id":"conspiracy-isbn-9780735217645","title":"Conspiracy","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn NPR Book Concierge Best Book of 2018!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA stunning story about how power works in the modern age--the book the New York Times called \"one helluva page-turner\" and The Sunday Times of London celebrated as \"riveting...an astonishing modern media conspiracy that is a fantastic read.\" Pick up the book everyone is talking about.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2007, a short blogpost on Valleywag, the Silicon Valley-vertical of Gawker Media, outed PayPal founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel as gay. Thiel's sexuality had been known to close friends and family, but he didn't consider himself a public figure, and believed the information was private. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis post would be the casus belli for a meticulously plotted conspiracy that would end nearly a decade later with a $140 million dollar judgment against Gawker, its bankruptcy and with Nick Denton, Gawker's CEO and founder, out of a job. Only later would the world learn that Gawker's demise was not incidental--it had been masterminded by Thiel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor years, Thiel had searched endlessly for a solution to what he'd come to call the \"Gawker Problem.\" When an unmarked envelope delivered an illegally recorded sex tape of Hogan with his best friend's wife, Gawker had seen the chance for millions of pageviews and to say the things that others were afraid to say. Thiel saw their publication of the tape as the opportunity he was looking for. He would come to pit Hogan against Gawker in a multi-year proxy war 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 late. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe verdict would stun the world and so would Peter's ultimate unmasking as the man who had set it all in motion. Why had he done this? How had no one discovered it? What would this mean--for the First Amendment? For privacy? For culture?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Holiday's masterful telling of this nearly unbelievable conspiracy, informed by interviews with all the key players, this case transcends the narrative of how one billionaire took down a media empire or the current state of the free press. It's a study in power, strategy, and one of the most wildly ambitious--and successful--secret plots in recent memory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome will cheer Gawker's destruction and others will lament it, but after reading these pages--and seeing the access the author was given--no one will deny that there is something ruthless and brilliant about Peter Thiel's shocking attempt to shake up the world.“...a profound masterwork by a talented young writer...one helluva page-turner\"—The \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “In this age when people compete to be contrarian, it’s rare to encounter a genuinely startling proposition. That’s what makes the premise of Ryan Holiday’s ‘Conspiracy’ such a delight...’” —The \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Brilliant and terrifying.” —Rich Cohen, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Fish That Ate the Whale\u003c\/i\u003e and contributing editor of \u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“A fantastic read.”—\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Startlingly deep cultural history of conspiracies, examined through the lens of the brutally effective Gawker takedown, with full access to the main players.\" --Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An artful examination of how true power really works and how it affects all of us.”—Michael Lombardi, host of \u003ci\u003eGM Street\u003c\/i\u003e on \u003ci\u003eThe Ringer \u003c\/i\u003eand former Cleveland Browns general manager\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Every one of Ryan Holiday’s books is appointment reading for me. If he writes it, I make the time to read it.”—Brian Koppelman,producer and creator of \u003ci\u003eBillions\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“CONSPIRACY will captivate you, terrify you, intrigue you, and piss you off. It’s a sizzling, can’t-put-down, read-it-in-one-sitting story. Ryan Holiday has crafted a hell of a book!”  -Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author o\u003ci\u003ef SPYMASTER\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Ryan Holiday is one of his generation’s finest thinkers.”—Steven Pressfield, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eGates of Fire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This book is the Art of War for any twenty-first century conspirator....A brilliant meditation on strategy, with numerous lessons.”—Robert Greene, author of \u003ci\u003eThe 48 Laws of Power\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMastery\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Riveting...an astonishing modern media conspiracy...that is a fantastic read. Holiday is a fine writer. He brilliantly elucidates... [with] a reporter's eye for detail.\" --The Sunday Times of London\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “More than mere business history, Holiday elevates the story into something far more lasting, casting Thiel's actions into the timeless mold of the conspirator: the man who, armed with patience and an indignant urge to reshape the world, co-opts allies, musters resources, lulls adversaries, and ultimately strikes when the time is right, changing everything. 'Conspiracy' will be the last word, the veil-lifting exposé, on that Gawker\/Thiel war all of us read about, but none of use really understood, until now.” – Antonio Garcia Martinez, author of Chaos Monkeys\u003cb\u003eRyan Holiday\u003c\/b\u003e is one of the world’s bestselling living philosophers. His books, including \u003ci\u003eThe Obstacle Is the Way\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eEgo Is the Enemy\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Daily Stoic\u003c\/i\u003e, and the #1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestseller \u003ci\u003eStillness Is the Key\u003c\/i\u003e, appear in more than forty languages and have sold over 10 million copies. He lives outside Austin with his wife and two boys ... and a small herd of cows and donkeys and goats. His bookstore, The Painted Porch, sits on historic Main Street in Bastrop, Texas.\u003cb\u003eChapter 1: The Inciting Incident\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"The beginnings of all things are small,\" Cicero reminds us. What      becomes powerful or significant often begins inauspiciously, and      so, too, do the causes that eventually pit powerful forces against      one another.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The conflict at the heart of this story is no different. Its      genesis is a largely obvious, mostly unremarkable blog post-not      even four hundred words long-that outed a little-known technology      investor as homosexual. Written by a gossip blogger named Owen      Thomas, for a now-defunct tech news website owned by Gawker called      Valleywag, the piece was published at 7:05 p.m. on December 19,      2007, under a headline that would sear itself into the mind of its      subject:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Peter Thiel Is Totally Gay, People.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It wouldn't be fair to say, as some partisans have in the      intervening years, that Owen Thomas was some reckless blogger who      plucked some private citizen from nowhere for his story. He'd been      a reporter for over a decade, and Peter Thiel had a media profile      as an investor and an entrepreneur. Thiel had made a fortune as a      founder of PayPal and put the first $500,000 into Facebook. The      man had previously posed for photographers and agreed to be      interviewed by reporters who were covering him or his companies.      And it was not disputable that he was, in fact, gay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Peter admits that his sexuality was no revelation. \"I think      everyone already knew in 2007,\" he told me. By that he means that      his parents knew he was gay. His friends knew and so did his      colleagues. But it was not a fact he advertised. A friend would      say that Peter burned to be the best technology investor in the      world. To insert \"gay\" into that, to be seen as the best gay      technology investor, seemed artificially limiting. Like it was      cheating him of something he was desperate to earn. And so Peter      Thiel's sexuality stood as a kept but open secret in the      close-knit community of the Silicon Valley elite.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To the modern mind, this reticent gay identity seems like an      anachronism, but when you do the math, you quickly realize how      different the world was in 2007. The Democrat who would be elected      president in less than a year's time was still five years away      from announcing his support for same-sex marriage. The woman who      opposed him in the primary would take an additional year to come      around. 2007 was also much closer to the burst of the dot-com      bubble than it is to the present day. Facebook's IPO lay five      years in the future and most of the astonishing success of this      class of start-ups from Twitter to Netflix still lay ahead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e While Thiel was not no one in late 2007 when the story broke,      Peter Thiel was not then Peter Thiel. He was not the person he      would be at the end of this story, the idiosyncratic lion of      Silicon Valley venture capital or controversial political power      broker. Thiel was more like all the other technology investors      most people have never heard of. Do the names Max Levchin or      Roelof Botha sound familiar to the average person? They were      Thiel's partners in PayPal. Or the name Jim Breyer? He put a      million dollars in Facebook less than a year after Thiel put in      his half million. What about Maurice Werdegar, who put in money      with Thiel in that famous seed round? Few have even heard of these      people, let alone cared whom they slept with. They are, as far as      popular culture is concerned, as Thiel was then, barely notable.      And he was, above all, a quiet, private person.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When one considers Thiel's burning ambitions against this      backdrop, and the potential for this Valleywag story to be the      first thing to broadly define him outside the Valley, one might      better understand Thiel's reaction to Owen Thomas's small,      unexceptional story and the flippant headline that went with it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"It was like a full-on attack out of the blue. There was nothing I      had ever done to these people in any way whatsoever. On a      superficial level, the article was just about outing me,\" Peter      said. It wasn't the outing itself, however, that most got to him,      but the second narrative, that he has psychological problems      because he didn't want to be outed. \"It was never about the Owen      Thomas article,\" Thiel eventually admitted to me. \"It was the Nick      Denton comment.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the comments section at the bottom of Owen Thomas's story, Nick      Denton, Valleywag's editor and the founder of its parent company,      Gawker Media, had posted a few sentences in the form of an      accusation that seemed to respond to itself: \"The only thing      that's strange about Thiel's sexuality: why on earth was he so      paranoid about its discovery for so long?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By normal, journalistic standards, this commentary would be      extraordinary. For a founder and publisher to editorialize and      speculate from the peanut gallery of his publication's own      comments section? Yet by 2007, this kind of combative, adversarial      approach to the news and its subjects was standard operating      procedure for the somber, perpetually scruffy Englishman with      cherubic cheeks, a love of technology, and a passion for gossip.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Even those who hate Nick Denton would describe him as brilliant.      Born Nicholas Guido Anthony Denton to a British economist father      and psychotherapist mother of Jewish-Hungarian descent, Denton      attended Oxford University. He sold his first company, a      networking group for people in the tech industry, for millions.      When he started his online media company in 2002, his love for      tech was at the forefront of his mission: Gizmodo, the first of      the many sites that would comprise his publishing empire, was a      \"vertical blog devoted to superskinny laptops, spy cameras,      wireless wizardry, and all manner of other toys for overgrown      boys. All gadgets, all the time.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Roughly four months later, he launched a new site dedicated to his      other, more primal passion: secrets and gossip. He named it      Gawker. Technology may have been Denton's first love, but many      would say this-his lust to expose, to reveal, to lob bombs-was      Denton's true love, a side of him that ran parallel to his urge to      build. He would name his celebrity site Defamer (one blogger      joked, \"Why not go all the way and call it 'Defendant'!\"), and he      would name his porn site Fleshbot, but it was Gawker that would      stick as the name of the parent company, since it so well      described the editorial ethos of Denton's online empire and      captured the pathos of its founder perfectly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Gawker's first editor, Elizabeth Spiers, was paid $2,000 per month      for twelve posts a day, seven days a week. Her job was to mock the      club of New York elites she had never been invited to join. Her      job was to, with a kind of humorous contempt that's come to be      called snark, dismiss people and institutions as laughably      unimportant, even as, in writing about them, she was in fact      admitting how important they actually were (and that perhaps, deep      down, she'd like to join them some day). Denton had a knack for      recruiting talent like her, and for cultivating their voices as he      did with Spiers and, eventually, Owen Thomas. He liked young      writers with drive and wit, and a gift for pointing at hypocrisy      and vulnerabilities that brought audiences quickly and cheaply.      Within six months, Denton's sites were pulling in more than      500,000 page views a month. Within a year, the blogs were making      more than $2,000 per month each; within three years they were      estimated to be generating at least $120,000 in advertising      revenue per month. A little over ten years into Gawker's run, its      revenues would be nearly $40 million a year and the sites would      have more than 40 million readers a month. Denton had struck a      rich and dark vein. He had harnessed a modern, digital take on the      old tabloid sensibility that, George W. S. Trow once observed,      requires a sort of \"back and forth of loathe and love of old      authority.\" This pinging between self-pity and self-importance      would be Gawker's secret formula.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"As a publishing entrepreneur who built an operation out of      nothing, I had to go where the energy was,\" Denton would say. That      energy was mostly the energy of disillusioned youth, of outsiders      criticizing insiders. In being anti this and that, and rarely for      something else instead. Mankind has always crucified and burned, a      great playwright once said. We take a secret pleasure in the      misfortune of our friends, said another wise man. For Gawker it      was no secret pleasure but a conspicuous one and to it they added      the power of blogging. Nick's instincts were captured and      compounded by the economics of his instruments: twenty-something      writers with school debt and little income. Overeducated children      of Boomers, the children of parents whose idealism became      materialism, the writers believed they had something to say      because those same parents had told them they were special and      important and talented.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Previous generations of writers came to New York City with a      dream. This generation came with a bone to pick-for the broken      economy, for the collapse of old industries, for the hypocrisy and      fakeness that had finally become acute. They wanted a seat at the      Algonquin and ended up sharing a bedroom in Bushwick, writing      twenty articles a week (nineteen of which no one would read) for      $12 apiece. Of course they were pissed. A New York Times writer      would later dub this ethos the \"rage of the creative underclass.\"      A Gawker headline captures it better: \"It's OK to Be a Hater      Because Everything Is Bad.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The existentialists spoke of ressentiment, or the way that      resentment creates frustration which fuels more resentment.      Philosophers might have said this feeling was pointless, but they      knew it was a fearful force. Gawker would revel in ressentiment,      of its writers and readers. Like most movements that harness the      power of an underappreciated class, the environment was      temperamental and volatile, but you could not argue that the      results were not also entertaining and forceful. Especially when      combined with financial incentives.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Denton experimented with different forms of compensation in the      early years, but his most important shift was away from a raw      number of posts per day (how many things can you make fun of      today) toward page views (how many people agree with what you're      making fun of). Denton's mind gravitates toward small publishing      innovations like these. His sites were some of the first to post      the view count at the top of the article. He notices that his      writers obsess over this number, refreshing the stat counter over      and over, and begins to pay them accordingly. He puts up a large      screen in the office that ranks the writers and the articles based      on traffic. He calls it the \"NASDAQ of Content,\" but it's closer      to the millennial id. If the untapped energy of young people was      his first great breakthrough, this is his second. The first offers      the power of being heard, the second provides the power of reach      and then of quantification-turning blogging into something you can      win. How? By getting the most readers. With what? That's for you      to decide.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What Denton did, in effect, was turn writing, social commentary,      and journalism into a video game. Writing wasn't a craft you      mastered. It was a delivery mechanism. The people and companies      you wrote about, like Peter Thiel, weren't people, they were      characters on a screen-fodder for your weekly churn. And the      people you got to read this writing? They were points. The score      was right there next to your byline. Views: 1,000. 10,000.      100,000. 1,000,000. The highest prize, the best ticket to traffic?      Scandalum magnatum-going after great men and women. But in a bind,      and with so many posts to get out each day, ordinary people would      do just as well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Gawker Stalker: Elijah Wood Emphatically Not a Gay\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Joe Dolce: Portrait of an Asshat\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Danyelle Freeman Sucks: The Marrow Out of Life, in General\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Which NYC Food Critic Is an Idiot? (Hint: Danyelle Freeman!)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Morley Safer Is a Huge Asshole\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Stubborn Jew Rolled by More Stubborn Jewier Jew\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Nightmare Online Dater John Fitzgerald Page Is the Worst Person in             the World\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Andy Dick Gets the Beat-Down We've All Craved\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It's Not That Adam Carolla Isn't Funny, It's That Adam Carolla        Is a Dumbfuck\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Peaches Geldof's Heroin-Fueled One-Night Stand at Hollywood's      Scientology Center-with Pictures\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When Gawker creates \"Gawker Stalker,\" a feature that lets      anonymous users write in with sightings of celebrities so their      locations could be tracked online in real time, or when a Gawker      writer in 2007 wrote a piece that began, \"When is it okay to hate      a 4-year-old? Maybe when the kid's name is Elijah Pollack,\" and      tagged it \"The Sins of Their Fathers,\" they were practicing      journalism by tomahawk. And it isn't scoops that the sites were      looking for, it was scalps: who can we get, who did something      stupid, what are other people afraid to say, and who are they      afraid to say it about?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e If a piece didn't go hard enough, if there were rumors the      reporter wanted to talk about but couldn't justify even with      Gawker's thin standards, there was always the comments section to      push the story from behind-or the bottom, as it were-and drum up      tips and speculation and titillation that might lead to more      attention. It had always been Nick's nature to push deeper, to      speculate, to needle, to drill down to the interesting stuff-and      there was no deeper well of ressentiment than the endless scroll      of the comments section.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It was all great fun for him, for his writers. Why wouldn't it be?      Especially when the old guard yells at you, and you are the type      who takes that as a sign you're doing everything right.      Journalists, competitors, and leaders alike criticized this      editorial style that Nick had invented. Watchdogs were on the      lookout for the first Gawker victim suicide. Some inside Gawker      even shared these concerns. But it cannot be said that readers      didn't love Gawker. There was a unique freeness to what Gawker      wrote, a kind of raw unfiltered honesty, an exaggerated way of      telling the truth. Peter Thiel is totally gay, people! If      something was true, if they thought something was true, they      published it. The writers said the things that people thought in      private-they fulfilled their wishes. They gave their readers-the      people who made up those numbers at the top of each post-what      their own bitterness and ressentiment had always craved but no one      had seen fit to give them before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A movie executive once described the \"honeyed sting\" of the      notorious twentieth-century gossip Hedda Hopper as a black widow      spider crossed with a scorpion, weaned on prussic acid and      treacle. In a way, that was Gawker, too. The perfect conduit for      the envy and schadenfreude and jockeying for power that goes on in      this world. It's why their tip lines were never dry.","brand":"Portfolio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301123084517,"sku":"NP9780735217645","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780735217645.jpg?v=1767724064","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/conspiracy-isbn-9780735217645","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}