Conspiracy
A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire's Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire
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Conspiracy
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Narrated by:
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Ryan Holiday
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Written by:
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Ryan Holiday
About this listen
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 AudioYou may also enjoy...
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Trust Me, I'm Lying
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- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
You’ve seen it all before. A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political sideshow derails the national news cycle and destroys a candidate. Some product or celebrity zooms from total obscurity to viral sensation. What you don’t know is that someone is responsible for all this. Usually, someone like me. I’m a media manipulator. In a world where blogs control and distort the news, my job is to control blogs - as much as any one person can.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A tad repetitive
- By Abdessalam A on 2024-12-12
Written by: Ryan Holiday
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Lives of the Stoics
- The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius
- Written by: Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
From the best-selling authors of The Daily Stoic comes an inspiring guide to the lives of the Stoics, and what the ancients can teach us about happiness, success, resilience, and virtue. In Lives of the Stoics, Holiday and Hanselman present the fascinating lives of the men and women who strove to live by the timeless Stoic virtues of Courage. Justice. Temperance. Wisdom. Organized in digestible, mini-biographies of all the well-known - and not so well-known - Stoics, this book vividly brings home what Stoicism was like for the people who loved it and lived it.
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1 out of 5 stars
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The narrator ruins this book for me
- By Amy on 2021-03-16
Written by: Ryan Holiday, and others
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Right Thing, Right Now
- Good Values. Good Character. Good Deeds.
- Written by: Ryan Holiday
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3 out of 5 stars 14
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 14
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Story3 out of 5 stars 14
For the ancients, everything worth pursuing in life flowed from a strong sense of justice—or one’s commitment to doing the right thing, no matter how difficult. In order to be courageous, wise, and self-disciplined, one must begin with justice. The influence of the modern world often tells us that acting justly is optional. Holiday argues that that’s simply untrue—and the fact that so few people today have the strength to stand by their convictions explains much about why we’re so unhappy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A very difficult book to write
- By Anonymous User on 2024-06-17
Written by: Ryan Holiday
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Stillness Is the Key
- Written by: Ryan Holiday
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 666
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 547
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 538
All great leaders, thinkers, artists, athletes, and visionaries share one indelible quality. It enables them to conquer their tempers. To avoid distraction and discover great insights. To achieve happiness and do the right thing. Ryan Holiday calls it stillness - to be steady while the world spins around you. In this book, he outlines a path for achieving this ancient, but urgently necessary way of living.
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3 out of 5 stars
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More of the same
- By Mark on 2020-04-07
Written by: Ryan Holiday
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Courage Is Calling
- Fortune Favors the Brave
- Written by: Ryan Holiday
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 252
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 215
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 214
Almost every religion, spiritual practice, philosophy and person grapples with fear. The most repeated phrase in the Bible is “Be not afraid.” The ancient Greeks spoke of phobos, panic and terror. It is natural to feel fear, the Stoics believed, but it cannot rule you. Courage, then, is the ability to rise above fear, to do what’s right, to do what’s needed, to do what is true. And so it rests at the heart of the works of Marcus Aurelius, Aristotle, and CS Lewis, alongside temperance, justice, and wisdom.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Stay in your lane, Ryan.
- By Cherokee199X on 2023-01-23
Written by: Ryan Holiday
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The Obstacle Is the Way
- The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
- Written by: Ryan Holiday
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
The book draws its inspiration from stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience. Stoics focus on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every new obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger, tougher. As Marcus Aurelius put it nearly 2000 years ago: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Good, but too American
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-06-01
Written by: Ryan Holiday
-
Trust Me, I'm Lying
- Confessions of a Media Manipulator
- Written by: Ryan Holiday
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
You’ve seen it all before. A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political sideshow derails the national news cycle and destroys a candidate. Some product or celebrity zooms from total obscurity to viral sensation. What you don’t know is that someone is responsible for all this. Usually, someone like me. I’m a media manipulator. In a world where blogs control and distort the news, my job is to control blogs - as much as any one person can.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A tad repetitive
- By Abdessalam A on 2024-12-12
Written by: Ryan Holiday
-
Lives of the Stoics
- The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius
- Written by: Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 72
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
From the best-selling authors of The Daily Stoic comes an inspiring guide to the lives of the Stoics, and what the ancients can teach us about happiness, success, resilience, and virtue. In Lives of the Stoics, Holiday and Hanselman present the fascinating lives of the men and women who strove to live by the timeless Stoic virtues of Courage. Justice. Temperance. Wisdom. Organized in digestible, mini-biographies of all the well-known - and not so well-known - Stoics, this book vividly brings home what Stoicism was like for the people who loved it and lived it.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
The narrator ruins this book for me
- By Amy on 2021-03-16
Written by: Ryan Holiday, and others
-
Right Thing, Right Now
- Good Values. Good Character. Good Deeds.
- Written by: Ryan Holiday
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars 14
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 14
-
Story3 out of 5 stars 14
For the ancients, everything worth pursuing in life flowed from a strong sense of justice—or one’s commitment to doing the right thing, no matter how difficult. In order to be courageous, wise, and self-disciplined, one must begin with justice. The influence of the modern world often tells us that acting justly is optional. Holiday argues that that’s simply untrue—and the fact that so few people today have the strength to stand by their convictions explains much about why we’re so unhappy.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A very difficult book to write
- By Anonymous User on 2024-06-17
Written by: Ryan Holiday
-
Stillness Is the Key
- Written by: Ryan Holiday
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 666
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 547
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 538
All great leaders, thinkers, artists, athletes, and visionaries share one indelible quality. It enables them to conquer their tempers. To avoid distraction and discover great insights. To achieve happiness and do the right thing. Ryan Holiday calls it stillness - to be steady while the world spins around you. In this book, he outlines a path for achieving this ancient, but urgently necessary way of living.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
More of the same
- By Mark on 2020-04-07
Written by: Ryan Holiday
-
Courage Is Calling
- Fortune Favors the Brave
- Written by: Ryan Holiday
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 252
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 215
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 214
Almost every religion, spiritual practice, philosophy and person grapples with fear. The most repeated phrase in the Bible is “Be not afraid.” The ancient Greeks spoke of phobos, panic and terror. It is natural to feel fear, the Stoics believed, but it cannot rule you. Courage, then, is the ability to rise above fear, to do what’s right, to do what’s needed, to do what is true. And so it rests at the heart of the works of Marcus Aurelius, Aristotle, and CS Lewis, alongside temperance, justice, and wisdom.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Stay in your lane, Ryan.
- By Cherokee199X on 2023-01-23
Written by: Ryan Holiday
-
The Obstacle Is the Way
- The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
- Written by: Ryan Holiday
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
The book draws its inspiration from stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience. Stoics focus on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every new obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger, tougher. As Marcus Aurelius put it nearly 2000 years ago: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Good, but too American
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-06-01
Written by: Ryan Holiday
What listeners say about Conspiracy
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Cory
- 2019-01-11
Narration was terrible.
Please consider a professional for future projects. Inflection after every second word made it a frustrating listening experience. Also recording with an obvious cold was torturous as well.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ovi
- 2021-06-22
Best book I’ve listened to in a long time
The plot kept me intrigued from the beginning until the very end. I love the deep analysis and philosophical commentary peppered throughout the story. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Carson
- 2019-03-12
Ryan. Talks. Like. This.
Very interesting book, really glad I bought it. I don’t usually make a comment on the narration but Ryan my man, keep it movin’ instead of halting each word. Other than that this book’s a banger. Thanks
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Ghislain Harbec
- 2019-10-21
Why use 3 words when 30 will do
The story is padded as all hell, with the author constantly repeating the point he just made over and over again. He'll state a point, then reword it, then go for some allegory illustrating it's point drawn from a famous point, then again rethread the same points again 3 more times. Repeat for each plot point. It turns a good story into a bit of a drag. It feels sometimes like the author didn't have enough material so he had to stretch to meet a page count.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Raymond Mookin
- 2020-04-25
amazing
whether you support Thiel or gawker, Ryan is a master Storyteller. four words: buy this goddamn book.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Andrew
- 2018-04-10
Great story, should have had someone else read
Title says it best. The book is in depth about conspiracies in general. Interesting side stories and I liked the way the author wove them all into the book.
Down side: it sounded like the guy had a stuffy nose during 3/4ths of his reading. It went from decent to worse in the second half of the book. In addition, he’d pause for effect, or slow to underscore parts of a sentence for no reason that helped the story telling.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Grub
- 2018-06-03
Buy the Book Instead
Very interesting, dude's cadence is annoying though. Perhaps it is a better read than listen.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Shane Beehler
- 2019-01-21
Most engaging book I’ve listened to
This is one of those books that I long for. Easy to follow but leaves me looking at the world through new lenses. Very thought provoking.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mary CS
- 2018-06-27
Best read this year
Listening to this intriguing story on Bluetooth in my car, I was happy for traffic delays.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Sam
- 2018-04-21
Good writing but poor narration.
A great story with good writing presented poorly by the author himself. Nasally sounding, inconsistent narration with poor sound quality. Background noises and very weird rhythm to his reading. I wish he had hired a professional reader.
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2 people found this helpful