Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
At first blush, the secret support that the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel provided for Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker is a salacious yarn about money, power, gossip and revenge. But it is also about something more important: an aggressive bid by the very wealthy to control the American news media at a time when…
Peter Thiel, Nearly a decade ago, after you had opened up to friends and colleagues, a gay writer for Gawker shared an item with the readers of Valleywag, a section for news and gossip about the rich and powerful of Silicon Valley. “Peter Thiel, the smartest VC in the world, is gay,” wrote Owen Thomas….
SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley likes to keep the media on a tight leash. Tech executives expect obedience, if not reverence, from reporters. They dole out information as grudgingly as possible. Sometimes they simply buy a chunk of a publication, a time-honored method of influencing what is deemed fit to write about. Valleywag declined to play…
Funding Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker? That’s not cool. Actively going out to find potential plaintiffs who might have cases against Gawker and then giving them the money to bring those cases? Even that’s not cool. You know what’s cool? Reinventing the concept of philanthropy so as to include weapons-grade attacks on America’s free press,…
If you’re gonna try to roast the Spelling Bee for being soft, the worst sin you can commit is bringing that weak shit (noun: substandard effort or soft response, e.g. “Kevin liked the Warriors, but they lost because they brought that weak shit.”). Uh oh, good thing the Spelling Bee account was too busy tweeting…
‘; if (google_ads[0].bidtype == ‘CPC’) { /* insert this snippet for each ad call */ google_adnum = google_adnum + google_ads.length; } document.write(s); } } google_ad_client = ‘ca-pub-0457527031304647’; google_ad_output = ‘js’; google_max_num_ads = ‘1’; google_ad_type = ‘text’; google_feedback = ‘on’; google_skip = google_adnum; google_ad_channel = ‘1102379497’;How is that possible? Well, it’s not exactly a new idea….
Peter Thiel! Love that guy. Who wouldn’t? What a fine, fine fella. Just look at those eyes—talk about a chilling effect! If you don’t know who Peter Thiel is, set your swoon-sockets to Stun, because Peter Thiel is the best—just an awesome, handsome, awesome guy—and we would never want to give the impression that we…
The credo of Thiel’s venture-capital firm: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” Credit Photograph by Robert Maxwell Barrier Status: ‘none’ Peter Thiel pulled an iPhone out of his jeans pocket and held it up. “I don’t consider this to be a technological breakthrough,” he said. “Compare this with the Apollo space…
Photo Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, at a forum in China last year. Mr. Thiel is said to have financed the wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media. Credit Visual China Group, via Getty Images A billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur was outed as being gay by a media organization. His friends suffered at the hands…
Start Article Post Content Marissa Mayer has sat behind the wheel at Yahoo for nearly four years. She has had the luxury of running one of the world’s most recognized internet brands, with a surging digital ad market, a cooperative board, a truckload of cash and 1 billion monthly visitors. And still she has failed…