Conspiracy
by Ryan Holiday · first published 2018
67% recommend22% neutral11% critical
Why HN recommends it
A detailed, well-written account of the Gawker and Hulk Hogan legal case, full of intrigue and tracing the story from its origins to its conclusion.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"In 2007, a short blog post 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. For years, Thiel searched for a solution to what he'd come to call the 'Gawker Problem.' When an unmarked envelope delivered an illegally recorded sex tape of Hulk Hogan with his best friend's wife, Gawker had seen the chance for millions of page views and to say the things that others were afr
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Really enjoyed: - 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy - Hamilton Helmer - American Wolf - Nate Blakeslee - Atomic Habits - James Clear - But What If We're Wrong - Chuck Klosterman - Conspiracy - Ryan Holiday - The Courage To Be Disliked - Ichiro Kishimi - Elements of Fiction: Characters & Viewpoint - Orson Scott Card - The Elephant In The Brain - Robin Hanson & Kevin Simler - Good Strategy…
on “Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?” ↗In no particular order: - Factfulness by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund - How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt - The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis - Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday - X by Chuck Klosterman
on “Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?” ↗The blog post doesn't quite do justice as much as the book "Conspiracy" by Ryan Holiday does. Do read it to understand how it died. [0]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36681909-conspiracy
on “Gawker Is Dead and Deserved to Die (2017)” ↗Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday is the definitive account of this story. It's very well written and full of intrigue. A great book, one of the best I've read in years. The only part of the book that seems out of place…
on “I've been targeted with a vicious corporate counterattack (2021)” ↗+1 on that book, as well as the author Ryan Holiday's more recent book Conspiracy on the Hulk Hogan / Gawker trial.
on “Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?” ↗The book "Conspiracy: A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire's Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire" by Ryan Holiday was very interesting, and it´s a detailed look into this whole case.
on “Apple TV Was Making a Show About Gawker. Then Tim Cook Found Out” ↗…Books I'm getting this info from: Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger by Peter Bevelin Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard Zero to One by Peter Thiel Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone
on “Bezos: A CEO Who Can Write” ↗I just started reading a book that got me thinking about this - Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue [0] If you can remove just a couple of the worst actors from the internet, does it have an outsized benefit? Are those people defining "acceptable…
on “Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet” ↗Non-fiction: 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy - Hamilton Helmer American Wolf - Nate Blakeslee Atomic Habits - James Clear Conspiracy - Ryan Holiday Courage To Be Disliked - Ichiro Kishimi How To Change Your Mind - Michael Pollan Open - Andre Agassi Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker World After Capital - Albert Wenger Fiction: Chocky…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗…me wonder what else I wasn't seeing or able to see. There was a page in there about secrets in plain sight and it bothered me for years because I couldn't understand what he meant until I finally read Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday.
on “Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?” ↗…majority of recent non-fiction books are basically filler added around an idea which could have better been an essay. I would definitely speed-read those. My latest example would be https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Peter-Gawker-Anatomy-Intri.... Not to mention the numerous pop-sci books which are a detailed history of science in disguise. I'm actually abandoning those. I'm tired of reading about the personality…
on “The speed reading fallacy: the case for slow reading” ↗