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.
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