“Peter Thiel is a contrarian. And you have to remember that contrarians are usually wrong.”— Jeff Bezos, businessinsider.com
“Gawker always said it was in the business of publishing true stories. Here is one last true story: You live in a country where a billionaire can put a publication out of business. A billionaire can pick off an individual writer and leave that person penniless and without legal protection. If you wan…”— Tom Scocca, gawker.com
“Still, the Times reporter asked, what were my own regrets? I told him, finally, that I had worked at Gawker Media for five years, and that all I could say was that nothing in that time was as shameful to me as a story the Times had put on its front page the month before, slanting the results of a st…”— Tom Scocca, gawker.com
“In one span of a little more than a year, not very long ago, the New York Times mistakenly accepted (and cheered for) a failed Venezuelan coup, printed falsehoods that helped carry the case for invading Iraq, and saw its top editors resign after a humiliating plagiarism scandal. No one suggested the…”— Tom Scocca, gawker.com
“Rather than fighting the material that he really objected to, Thiel went looking for pretexts. Over time, he came up with them.”— Tom Scocca, gawker.com
“The change begins with the post about Thiel’s sexual identity in a homophobic investor culture, the post Thiel now cites as the inspiration for his decision to destroy Gawker. It was solidly protected by media law and the First Amendment, as were the other posts that, as Thiel wrote, ‘attacked and m…”— Tom Scocca, gawker.com
“Having spent years on a secret scheme to punish Gawker’s parent company and writers for all manner of stories, Thiel has now cast himself as a billionaire privacy advocate, helping others whose intimate lives have been exposed by the press. It is canny positioning against a site that touted the salu…”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“Peter Thiel has gotten away with what would otherwise be viewed as an act of petty revenge by reframing the debate on his terms.”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“Peter Thiel has achieved his objectives. His proxy, Terry Bollea, also known as Hulk Hogan, has a claim on the company and my personal assets after winning a $140 million trial court judgment in his Florida privacy case. Even if that decision is reversed or reduced on appeal, it is too late for Gawk…”— Nick Denton, gawker.com
“Maybe it’s time for Silicon Valley to tone things down. To admit that, no, the Valley can’t solve all human problems -- not even close -- and never will.”— Keith Emmer, reuters.com
“More broadly, the righteousness with which Thiel acted, and with which many on Twitter reacted, combined with a seeming lack of obliviousness to how this might look to the outside world, very much reconfirmed fears I have voiced repeatedly that the tech industry is headed for a regulatory disaster o…”— Ben Thompson, stratechery.com