![]() ![]() By then, friends and others in Thiel’s circle had known he was gay for years. I’m sure he would have rather seen less coverage of his failures.Īnd then there’s the much-cited 2007 post I wrote about the puzzling reaction of Silicon Valley’s elite to any discussion of Peter Thiel’s sexuality. Facebook - and some bad - Clarium’s assets shrank by 90 percent and Thiel quietly moved away from the hedge fund business. Likewise our reporting from deep inside Facebook, where Thiel wielded great influence on a small board of directors, and whose fluctuating valuation as a private company likewise drove the perception of Thiel’s success. Our reporting on Clarium’s internal turmoil, including detailed accounts of disputes between Thiel and top executives, had to have been inconvenient for Thiel. ![]() That Midas myth was highly marketable, helping him raise funds for Clarium Capital. His success at PayPal and early investment in Facebook gave him demigod status among other venture capitalists and company founders. Thiel was a frequent subject of our coverage. The blowback was intense: At one point, insiders told me, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg paused her views on gun control long enough to declare to confidantes that she wanted to shoot me. It turns out that they did want to read Valleywag - closely and furiously. So you won't want to read a tech gossip rag,” we told readers. “You people in Silicon Valley are far too busy changing the world to care about sex, greed and hypocrisy. And then bewildered by the thought that Thiel - the tech entrepreneur and investor I met 16 years ago when he was a co-founder of PayPal - had been so enraged by something I wrote that he reportedly spent $10 million fueling lawsuits like Hogan’s in a bid to put a stop to Gawker’s reporting.įrom 2007 to 2009, I was the managing editor of Gawker Media’s Valleywag, where I pursued, let’s say, disruptive innovations in reporting about the tech industry. With the subsequent revelation that Thiel was indeed financially backing the lawyers pursuing Hogan’s invasion of privacy suit, I felt foolish indeed - not the first time a conversation with the whip-smart Denton left me feeling that way. I have more to lose than to gain by putting my name on this.I called back a couple of days later with a theory: “Nick, have you considered the Scientologists?” ![]() A single email from any of these guys could torpedo my next round of funding. Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, 1 unfollowed me after I tweeted in support of Gawker. They have funded or built massive institutions of social change without much scrutiny, and now that the scrutiny is coming they don’t know how to handle it. And I want to make it clear that many of those I know in Silicon Valley are thoughtful, intelligent, interesting people. Now, let me say that I am hesitant to even write this dissenting view. The next Gawker will be decentralized and it may follow the Wikileaks model or even publish on the dark web. This is a terrible outcome for freedom of the press, for society, and, I argue, for Silicon Valley, which may have just ensured that the next Gawker operates in the shadows, where tech billionaires can never sue it. Although the case is unresolved, it was enough to bleed and bankrupt the company. Peter Thiel, who sits on the Facebook board and is a Donald Trump delegate, took it down in a proxy lawsuit. ![]()
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