Day: May 29, 2016

Susia Cagle looks at the big problem with the story of Peter Thiel’s secret day in court and how the 0.1% are redefining the rules.

Last week Mr. Thiel revealed that he had funneled “in the ballpark” of $10 million to legal support for plaintiffs suing Gawker Media, most notably Terry Bollea, a.k.a. Hulk Hogan, who recently won a $140 million judgment against the company for defamation. Mr. Thiel made no secret of his grudge against Gawker, since the company’s Valleywag blog revealed his homosexuality in a 2007 post that lampooned the straight male culture of Silicon Valley more than Mr. Thiel himself. (Mr. Thiel is, notably, an investor in the tech site Pando, a media property that regularly insults him in more direct terms.) ... Portraying a $10 million investment in crushing one’s enemy as a charitable act of justice that will make the world a better place is galling. But students of history can hardly be shocked. Tech’s elite, lauded for their originality, are influencing media, politics and society at large with a kind of venture philanthropy, much as their industrial predecessors did more than 100 years ago.