Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold

Ever wonder where Hulk Hogan got all that money to take on Gawker in court and win $140 million? It turns out that his defense was funded by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel to the tune of $10 million. Why would Thiel be so generous with his funds? Well, it turns out that about 10 years ago, Gawker outed Thiel, who cofounded Paypal, in an article with the headline, "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people." Thiel took Ivana Trump's advice to heart: Don't get mad, get everything! He recently spoke to the New York Times, here's what he had to say:

“It’s less about revenge and more about specific deterrence. I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest. [Gawker's articles were] very painful and paralyzing for people who were targeted. I thought it was worth fighting back.

I can defend myself. Most of the people they attack are not people in my category. They usually attack less prominent, far less wealthy people that simply can’t defend themselves...even someone like Terry Bollea who is a millionaire and famous and a successful person didn’t quite have the resources to do this alone.

I didn’t really want to do anything. I thought it would do more harm to me than good. One of my friends convinced me that if I didn’t do something, nobody would...I refuse to believe that journalism means massive privacy violations. I think much more highly of journalists than that. It’s precisely because I respect journalists that I do not believe they are endangered by fighting back against Gawker. It’s not like it is some sort of speaking truth to power or something going on here. The way I’ve thought about this is that Gawker has been a singularly terrible bully. In a way, if I didn’t think Gawker was unique, I wouldn’t have done any of this. If the entire media was more or less like this, this would be like trying to boil the ocean.”