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

by Ryan Holiday

I have heard Peter Thiel say over and over again that in the trial, Gawker argued the law while Hogan’s case argued the facts. “You argue the law to show how much you know about the law,” he would say, “but it’s not how you win a case in front of a jury.” Thiel the nonpracticing attorney grasped this instinctively in a way that the professional lawyers for the defense clearly missed. Facts are stubborn things, and no amount of legal maneuvering could blunt them fully, not in court anyway. The person who wins the jury is the one who tells the most compelling story. Whoever is most human and personable wins. The fact of what Gawker did—running that tape that Hogan was believably claiming he never wanted to be public—was ever present in the courtroom. Who they did it to was real and indisputable, too. Gawker’s strategy was to insist that it was allowed to do what it did, and leave the implication to hang there.