Conspiracy

By: Ryan Holiday

Narrated by: Ryan Holiday

Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's Summary

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

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.

11 of 12 people found this review helpful

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.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

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.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

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.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Great book until the end.

Had he ended it after the trial the book would have been amazing. But then he had to tear into trump to make some sort of point.

8 of 10 people found this review helpful

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.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

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.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

One of his best

A book that literally only he could write. No one else could. A summation of his entire career.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

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.

6 of 8 people found this review helpful

Long Night in the Dorm?

Ryan Holiday narrates his tale of the takedown of Gawker like a college senior keeping his younger classmates awake with an all-night monologue in the dorm. He has a world-weary, slightly nasal, slightly condescending voice that sounds like he is keeping himself going with No-Doz (remember that?). He speaks with odd rhythms, pausing every couple of words midsentence, as if to let the listener absorb the points he is making. He casually drops in obscure factoids of history (the Spartans lost an important if forgotten battle through overconfidence), and he quotes repeatedly from smart conspiracy philosophers (Herodotus, Seneca and repeatedly Machiavelli).

I mention the dorm because there is something sophomoric about this entire story. Peter Thiel, the outed billionaire, goes on a vengeance quest that costs millions and smacks of an immature need to boost his self-image by destroying a company—and all the jobs that go with that—that did him wrong. Nick Denton, the arrogant and blinkered owner of Gawker, is stubborn, smug and seemingly incapable of empathizing with the victims of its often pointless gossip. Hulk Hogan, who comes off as a minor character in his own story, has dignity, but he is also the one who could not resist sleeping repeatedly with his best friend’s wife.

There is much to learn from this book. Holiday has a broad knowledge of philosophy, world history and literature, and he doesn’t mind showing it off. This gives his story a little more gravity and oomph than it may deserve. Much of the philosophy focuses on the methods and risks of conspiracies. Peter Thiel’s conspiracy to take down Gawker and Nick Denton is well-planned and well-executed, following a Machiavellian playbook. In light of the damage done by Gawker to so many celebrities, Thiel is almost sympathetic. But he ultimately loses that sympathy because of the implications of his secret vendetta. If Thiel can take down Gawker, will other billionaires with extreme political views use their wealth, secretly, to go after other, more responsible media outlets that may offend with their opinions? Can they destroy these voices merely by financing multiple questionable lawsuits and pursuing them relentlessly? Holiday raises these troubling issues but has no clear solutions.

So this was a thoughtful, surprising and challenging book. I only wish Holiday had engaged a professional narrator who would have focused the listener more on the story and less on his own quirky voice.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful