Conspiracy

A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire's Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire

By: Ryan Holiday

Narrated by: Ryan Holiday

Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's Summary

An NPR Book Concierge best book of 2018! 

A 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.

In 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. 

This 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. 

For 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 page views 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. 

The 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? 

In 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. 

Some will cheer Gawker's destruction and others will lament it, but after listening to this audiobook - 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. 

©2018 Ryan Holiday (P)2018 Penguin Audio

I almost couldn’t make it through...

Although I liked the content, the delivery by the author reading the book was terrible. His breathy cadence really annoyed me and many times I found myself thinking, just stop the madness now. This is a book that I would definitely need to listen to again simply because I am sure that I missed a lot due to the reader....but I will more than likely never listen to again because I just do not think I could stand to listen to the author reading it again.

Ryan, if you want to narrate your books - please take some lessons, get a coach, have someone help you edit the audio....something...but my main advice would be to stick to writing and let a professional narrator do the narration.

Captivating account of one of media’s strangest sagas

I was an avid Gawker reader who was horrified to learn that billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel had secretly bankrolled the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that brought down the website with a shocking $140 million verdict in 2016. I considered myself reasonably well informed about the ins and outs of the affair, as well as my opinion on the subject and its players. Nevertheless, Ryan Holiday's insanely good Conspiracy had me gasping at the audacity and intricacies of Thiel's plot -- from the ambitious young businessman who cooked up the scheme to the astonishing patience, calculated cunning, and ruthlessness required to pull it off. Holiday also reexamines Gawker from a 2018 lens, deconstructing its problematic approach and how errantly it drove the nail into its own coffin. Hubris plays a part in both sides, it turns out, and in Holiday’s hands the story takes on the outsize dimensions of Greek tragedy. With the Machiavellian concept of conspiracy as his foundation, he combines anecdotes from history and literature with lucid analysis and fascinating character studies of Thiel, Hogan, and Gawker founder Nick Denton to craft a riveting narrative of one of modern media's most explosive episodes. Holiday narrates his own work, and while at times I found his delivery somewhat heavy-handed, I believe this is uniquely his story to tell. Highly recommended.

good story, bad narration

it was a compelling story but I found it hard to follow at times due to the way it was read.

Rambling and political

The storyline is fascinating but the performance is terrible. It seems like Holiday repeats himself often while trying to make a point. In a bizarre twist he tries to tie Trump's presidency to Thiel's conspiracy. It is a stretch at best.

Too long for the amount of material presented

What would have made Conspiracy better?

This book is way too long, and the story of Peter Thiel and Gawker is way too diluted with philosophical detours on conspiracies in general. I have a suspicion that Mr Thiel's conspiracy, an exciting story, would probably take two or three hours to tell, but the book is 11 hours... It almost feels like Mr Holiday tries to imitate the broad scope of Robert Greene books or Lawrence Freedman's Strategy. The problem is, Mr Greene and Dr Freedman discuss general principles with plenty of specific examples (Thiel's story would make a one-page example there), while Mr Holiday uses one major story to venture broadly in the matters of the strategy of conspiracy. The first such venture seems interesting, then it gets repetitive. Moreover, most of those ventures don't present anything paradigm changing; oftentimes, they reiterate common sense.
So to answer the question on what would make the story better - a good editor.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Mr Holiday found an interesting and relevant story, and presented a good collection of facts on it, interviewing both sides, etc. This is what's good about this book.

INCREDIBLE STORY

intriguing and full of twists. ryan is a GREAT narrator and I look forward to reading the rest of his books!!

Worst audio book ever

I was really excited to read the story, it is a fascinating conspiracy to avenge a wrong. The author wrote what is EASILY the worst book possible, and then to make it just a bit worse still, he narrates it in a monotone slow deliberate voice. Every sentence has a parenthetical to some obscure reference in ancient history.

A career 'Meander' may become a career 'Definer'

I was introduced to Ryan's work with his 2015 "The Obstacle is the Way" which was so impressive that I immediately read his past works and have since read each of his new books upon his release. What I mean to say is: I really like his writing.

I was concerned that I wouldn't like this book as much, but I was sorely mistaken, as this book is my favorite of his, and perhaps a favorite of all time. It's intricate, it's detailed, and it has so much depth for a book about what many people would consider (or would HAVE considered) popular culture. I assure you that this book and this story is about so much more than an upset billionaire and a wrestler's sex tape.

Beyond the actual story, this audiobook performs very well. I've now listened to five of Ryan's audibooks, and his pacing and tone continue to improve with each one (though he wasn't bad in his first "Trust me, I'm Lying").

I recommend this book for anyone and have already recommended it to friends this week. It's so different from other books right now. It's a delight to listen to, and I wish that the situation would allow for some sort of podcast to be "spun-off" the topic! I truly believe that you will not be disappointed by this book!

The last hour should have been dropped

This was a very interesting look at the Hogan, Thirl, Denton, Gawker story. I really don't know why the author went off on a Trump tangent in the last hour. Unnecessary to the story and came across as an excuse for him to virtue signal how he finds the "Alt Right", which apparently includes everyone to the right of Hillary Clinton is, appalling. That's fine, I really don't care what his opinions on that group are, I just found it attenuated to what is otherwise a very good book.

Windy, Fancy Quotes, & A Contradictory Conclusion

A windy rendition, spiced up by throwing in quotes by famous people, about the back story of the Hulk Hogan case. It has many “stream of consciousness” passages about what people might be thinking and then about what other people may think about that, etc. It tries to be philosophic but contradicts its principles in a scree against President Trump criticizing him for advocating actions against NFL players who disrespected the National Anthem. However, he approves of the NFL ruling that would suspend players for having the flag on their cleats during 911 and for wearing blue ribbons on their helmets for the police who were slaughtered in Texas. Of course, Hillary lost the election because of an invisible right wing conspiracy. Obama, who authorized wiretapping of a political opponent, is said to always “go high”. He really has to follow the media ideology because, as he knows from the Gawker case, they would crush him without much effort.

He reads like he is drinking water out of a canteen. After every phrase, he stops to take a swig leaving the reader waiting for him to swallow and begin again.