Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue

by Ryan Holiday

The historian E. P. Thompson said that history never happens as the actors suspect, that history is instead the “record of unintended consequences.” The assassination of Julius Caesar does not restore the Roman Republic, it leads to a brutal civil war and, at the end, another emperor. The Allied powers destroy Hitler and Germany but empower Russia and Stalin and create a new Cold War to follow the conclusion of the hot one. There is always something you didn’t expect, always some second- or third-order consequence. Peter Thiel’s conspiracy had achieved its intended outcome. A negotiated peace had been found. Gawker.com would cease to publish. A new leader was in charge of the rest of the sites, some of the offending articles would be removed. But what would the consequences, intended and otherwise, of it all be? What had this brilliant, independent mind neglected to see? What, if anything, would come as a surprise? His own power and strength for one.