{"id":94801,"date":"2018-06-07T16:44:01","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T21:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=94801"},"modified":"2026-10-05T08:48:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T13:48:40","slug":"podcast-412-the-power-of-conspiracy-and-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-412-the-power-of-conspiracy-and-secrets\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #412: The Power of Conspiracy and Secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"m_2975020199820080808gmail-m_-2431613988180274402bloop_customfont\">Back in 2016, a bizarre story emerged in pop culture. Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan won a $115 million dollar lawsuit against the gossip website Gawker for publishing a sex tape that had been made without his consent. The victory was somewhat surprising but the real surprise was who was actually behind the lawsuit; it wasn&#8217;t Hogan himself, but the billionaire founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div id=\"m_2975020199820080808gmail-m_-2431613988180274402bloop_customfont\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div id=\"m_2975020199820080808gmail-m_-2431613988180274402bloop_customfont\">Thiel had his own axe to grind against Gawker, and he had been honing it since 2007. He had been plotting to take down Gawker for almost a decade.<\/div>\n<div id=\"m_2975020199820080808gmail-m_-2431613988180274402bloop_customfont\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div id=\"m_2975020199820080808gmail-m_-2431613988180274402bloop_customfont\">What may sound like a tawdry story of celebrity and scandal, actually contains surprisingly potent lessons on revenge, Stoicism, strategy, perseverance, hubris, privacy, and the underrated power of secrets.<\/div>\n<div id=\"m_2975020199820080808gmail-m_-2431613988180274402bloop_customfont\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div id=\"m_2975020199820080808gmail-m_-2431613988180274402bloop_customfont\">My guest&nbsp;today&nbsp;dug into this story and its insights in his new book,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B07637TDJJ\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B07637TDJJ&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=stucosuccess&amp;linkId=FSXA3GZUT5SFDAZ4&amp;th=1\"><i>Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue<\/i><\/a>. His name is <a href=\"https:\/\/ryanholiday.net\/\">Ryan&nbsp;Holiday<\/a>, and he&#8217;s also the author of&nbsp;<i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00INIXL3O\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00INIXL3O&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=stucosuccess&amp;linkId=FSXA3GZUT5SFDAZ4\">Growth Hacker Marketing<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00G3L1B8K\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00G3L1B8K&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=stucosuccess&amp;linkId=FSXA3GZUT5SFDAZ4\">The Obstacle Is the Way<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B015NTIXWE\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B015NTIXWE&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=stucosuccess&amp;linkId=FSXA3GZUT5SFDAZ4\">Ego Is the Enemy<\/a>, <\/i>and<i> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B01HNJIJB2\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B01HNJIJB2&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=stucosuccess&amp;linkId=FSXA3GZUT5SFDAZ4\">The Daily Stoic<\/a><\/i>.&nbsp;Today&nbsp;on the show Ryan and I discuss his latest book, and the lessons we can take from a story that reads much like a modern-day <em>Count of Monte Cristo.<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in 2016, a bizarre story emerged in pop culture. Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan won a $115 million dollar lawsuit against the gossip website Gawker for publishing a sex tape that had been made without his consent. The victory was somewhat surprising but the real surprise was who was actually behind the lawsuit; it wasn&#8217;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":195494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,156,42388],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-podcast","category-self-improvement"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/412-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/412-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/412-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/412-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/412-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO v28.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Podcast #412: The Power of Conspiracy and Secrets | The Art of Manliness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-412-the-power-of-conspiracy-and-secrets\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Podcast #412: The Power of Conspiracy and Secrets | The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Back in 2016, a bizarre story emerged in pop culture. Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan won a $115 million dollar lawsuit against the gossip website Gawker for publishing a sex tape that had been made without his consent. The victory was somewhat surprising but the real surprise was who was actually behind the lawsuit; it wasn&#8217;t [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-412-the-power-of-conspiracy-and-secrets\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-06-07T21:44:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-05T13:48:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/412.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" 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