who served as and intimidate, i will not play a part for popularity, if people want to reject me that is their prerogative. he had a medicineian view, alexander hamilton and others and john marshall, madison and hamilton believed only slowly and thoughtfully over time, so reason rather than passion could prevail and the system will slow popular passions so people can be governed in public interest rather than through faction. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q and a.

>> in "conspiracy: peter thiel, hulk hogan, gawker, and the anatomy of intrigue," rysn holiday talks about the legal battle that brought down gawker and the role played by peter thiel who sought revenge against the new site. mister holliday spoke to the press club in washington dc, this is just under an hour. [applause] >> good evening. welcome, ryan holiday, to the press club. i angela grieling keane, the 24th national press club president and editor at politico. this is the place where news happens and tonight we feature the fascinating and prolific author ryan holiday. we are here to talk about his latest book, "conspiracy: peter

thiel, hulk hogan, gawker, and the anatomy of intrigue". the book which just came out, the unlikely connection between peter thiel, billionaire entrepreneur and hulk hogan and aging superstar wrestler, a tale of sex, revenge, controversy, power, and the new york times called it one hell of a page turner. ryan holiday is an interesting figure like the people he writes about, reviews of the book focus more on you than the book. we have a conversation about where we would go with the audience. and the marketing strategist, and the media manipulator. you can read his previous books

about that, confessions of a media manipulator. we can talk about that at the national press club tonight. two of the three books you had written by age 30. >> it is the journal, i lost track. >> tonight we are talking about the confession, before we came on, and interesting place to do this. and october 31, 2016, he talked about the endorsement of donald trump and a media spectacle here and in the same room we screens nobody speaks which is the netflix original documentary about the gawker case in which

peter thiel is very much the villain. we have a lot of ground to cover tonight and looking forward to a lively discussion with ryan holiday. i will kick it off, how did this book come about? you spent a lot of time with peter thiel and nick denton. how did that happen? >> it was not a book i was planning to write or thought i would get to write. i watched these events happen like everyone else. i thought they were simply -- i thought a professional wrestler suing a gossip outlet over illegal recorded sex tapes was weird enough, the idea there might be something more going on didn't necessarily occur to me. so when peter thiel was unmasked i was in amsterdam. everyone sort of very shocked by it. to me it struck me as being almost the count of monte crisco

story, it changes the narrative very much. i wrote a few columns about it. i had written about gawker critically before as a -- i was never a fan of gawker. i thought they pioneered a lot of the toxic trends in today's media. ..

they are so similar and yet so different. part of what fueled the book probably would've been smarter for either of them to kill the involvement was that once again started it was hard to stop. >> at what point in these conversations did you realize it was a book? >> pretty early. i just didn't know what book it would be. there so many different ways you could do it. is this a larger book about media in general? is it a fact driven, you know, analysis of what happens? there's like 25,000 pages just the legal documents. you could write a whole second book.

i end up cutting out in the book, like pages and pages of just surreal story, this is hypothetical but one dj stealing the tape of a second dj. there's so many subplots in this thing. i kept it very wide-open and vague for a long time. my publisher which is, would refer to it as you would be, untitled media book. that's all that we knew it would be. this idea, i eventually settled on this idea of it being a conspiracy because i think it was a conspiracy. the idea this deliberate conspiracy in many ways embodies all conspiracies. that's the lens i decided take was that. it is obviously a book from the beginning, just so, it should be a novel, it should be a movie. it's so cinematic and insane, it

was just what angle was accorded take was the real question. >> you decided to use your own words to tell the story of a disinterested observer. why did you do that? it's a story people are very passionate on one thing or the other and you tell it from different points of views but from the site of the two different parties. >> what was so fascinating to me they get into all this was just like this is the story that the best reporters at the best media outlets have all taken a crack at it. every major outlet has had someone cover this story. so it was so surprising to me as i read it how much had not been reported. like, which was not they're both in talking to make and talking to peter and looking at the case file, and there was so much that had not been reported.

i realized part of it was a very strong, as soon as the involvement was revealed there was such an intense bias in such an intense narrative they got established. that this was an evil billionaire, vindictively destroyed helpless little guy. that got established very quickly. before that it was his chaos, like hilarious, a professional wrestler and a media outlet. so it was superficial on the level. as soon as peters involvement was revealed the narrative was no report was going to say hey, what iwhat if peter thiel was r? doth not a journalistic point of view the 20 happen. i wanted, to me being some outside the journalistic establishment this just read to me like epic history. this is the kalamata crystal, something that this is some

story come what many anecdotes from cornelius vanderbilt life with us almost a shakespeare play today. i wanted to tell it more as history, less as judgment i think the shame of the reporting on this has been that because it's a current event everyone has said the need of a very strong opinion about it at a i think that's missed a larger picture which this is just epic and almost unreal. >> did you find yourself sympathizing more with one or the other? >> i went into it not having a super great opinion about gawker. gawker. a bit about gawker a number of times. i watched the case unfold so i saw why the jury made the decision that it made. i thought i would in it at much less sympathetic to them that ultimately did. you can't talk to, like when i

visited nick at his house in late 2016, sort of interesting people about the future of journalism and conversation, cultural discourse, you can't step foot into someone's house that they were only recently able to move back into because they had been forced out of it in bankruptcy proceedings and not be somewhat softened. do you know what i mean? a.j., for instance,, to wake up one day and have $220 million home, $40 million, i don't know the exact number. >> the gawker editor who was responsible for the story about -- >> yeah. you wake up one day and there's a $20 $200 million hold on your checking account. that makes someone inherently sympathetic. even if you're not a good person that's like, you know.

i think seeing the human side of it softened it for me. and then just realizing that i think, i think a lot, i think there's some overly bad actors that worked for gawker over the years and think a lot of it was a culture the ran amok. it was interesting to talk to someone like nick who would admit like this machine, this beast he had created a become something like a frankenstein was monster. i was much more sympathetic to gawker that i thought i would be and then the trump element recast some of thiel's motivations and puts a different shade but i would look at it. i came away very easily being able to see both sides. >> you consider yourself a journalist? you touched on this but you've had a lot of different hats. >> no, i don't think so. i would see myself as an author

or writer. there's just different, for instance, in the book i am the first person reveal the existence of this character, mr. a period the person who basically comes up with the conspiracy that the ultimate end of engaging in. i'm the first one to talk to him. i think reporter would that significant different responsibilities or obligations, say revealing his identity or not revealing his identity. as an author i have different set, i think my obligations more towards the larger story, that the larger truth of what i'm trying to do as opposed to say a journalist at the "new york times" or at political, whatever. even how you cite things in books is very different than how

you'd have to cite things in a newspaper article or something. i see myself more as a writer, as a storyteller, and i believe in how i told this story i was not necessarily trying to produce a beat by beat factual detailing of what happened but to capture the larger essence and truth of what these events mean. >> one of the things i' i like o get into, even if you don't consider yourself a journalist, as a writer, any writer, first amendment, there's concerns especially among journalists, we here at the national press club about the president it was set with the gawker case silencing of the media outlet. what's your take now that you've picked apart all the pieces of

this on the precedent that was set by the board? >> the criticism is that what thiel has done is create at chilling effect. that a billionaire shutting down media outlet makes media outlets they notice about what they are or not going to publish. i personally experienced the chilling effect in two ways. one, i'm writing about a guy who just been $1 $10 million to stre someone. i've interviewed like, i interviewed charles thomas been a lot of time with charles. >> the attorney. >> sorry, the attorney that thiel hires. so one funny story is about two days after charles who now represents donald trump send the letter to the publisher, do not publish this book, this sort of famous letter. he sent me email and said hey, the book is coming out soon. i'd love to see a copy, right? that was a very nerve-racking --

>> what did you do? >> i said no. you can see when it comes out. he politely respected it and so far has not suit me. it's been interesting as we've been promoting the book you can tell the stories are taking a couple extra days because they are being double and triple checked by the various legal departments at all the publishers because the elephant in the room is that peter thiel factor. i think that, really, i think the precedent about what media can't and cannot publish, i think it's been vastly overblown. because thiel didn't do anything new. rich people have been funding lawsuits for many, many years. powerful people have been threatening to sue and suing media outlets all the time, and they very, very rarely win because there are so many strong first amendment protections

against what publishers will ultimately publish. the difference is that most media outlets don't run surreptitiously recorded sex tapes and don't ignore cease and desist letters and then don't sort of reckless with litigate the case for many, many years. and so i think one of the things i say in the book is, this is interesting to me as i stood in my research, right after the verdict before thiel's involvement, "new york times" does like a panel of experts about legal experts about the precedent of the case. two out of three say basically there's no real precedent being set here other than you can't run stolen celebrity sex tapes even like the former general counsel of the new times is like this is not a big deal. but it's only when thiel's

involvement is reveal too much later that i think a lot of what we might call hysterical coverage ensues, but the idea, so what has changed between the two events? the verdict is the same. the idea that some pay the legal bills doesn't change that much to me. in fact, when thiel was here he said as i guess only peter thiel could say, that hulk hogan was only a single digit millionaire and that as a single digit millionaire couldn't have litigated this case on his own. you could argue that the precedent might actually show that the plaintiffs have the uphill battle when it comes to these things. the precedent has been slightly overstated. >> speaking of hulk hogan, before i knew of this story started, arguably he was the a g name of these treatment we're talking about. he was very much a bit later today, a bit player in the book.

did you talk with them at all? >> i did. he texted me a few days ago. no, he called me and i missed the call and i think he said, he said holiday brother, hogan -- no. holiday brother, hogan mania, like give me a call. you know how your phone send you like a transcript of the thing? obviously this is just a garbled transcription of what occurred and that's exactly what he said. [laughing] so yeah, he was the most famous of all the characters, and i guess that's an interesting irony of thiel's actions. he is enraged at this violation of his privacy. he spends all this money and all the time attempting to protect his privacy, and ends up at the end of it being extraordinarily

famous, one of the most famous sort of wealthy american businessman of his time. and then hogan because of some of the comments, the racist comments that are leaked and such, sort of fades into the background as the maybe not such a good guy in that way. it's a whole story when i say it's shakespearean, it is shakespearean for that reason. the famous guys less famous at the end. one who is obsessed with privacy is now a public individual, and then the gossip merchant, nick, is sort of, is now the quiet, subdued, in some ways compassionate one of all the figures. it's just, it's really surreal on every level. >> where you see this going next? are there other targets out

there? does peter thiel care about media anymore? easy onto his investment investments and other things? if you're going to write a sequel, where does it go? >> this story is not even over. they are still litigating over who had the rights to the domain, gawker.com. thiel has bid on it. our right wing troll has bid on it. gawker has tried to launch a crowdfunding campaign. i think they raise something like 15% of the money needed. if, the wood is part -- weirdest part, if thiel buys it, 4050% of the sale go to hulk hogan because he's the main creditor to the congress did a gawker doesn't want to sell to thiel. it's strange in that it is still ongoing. i do think, i don't know if we will see more, you know, libel

or defamation privacy claims against media outlets but i do think this idea of silicon valley throwing its weight around and sort of flexing its muscles as a new class of powerful people, i think that's here to stay for sure. i don't know if you see a photo of jeff bezos recently but he is like jack. he's totally jacked and he's fit and dresses great and so to me i think that sort of the ark of the silicon valley. if you look at a picture of speedy and he owns the major media outlets. >> right. you look at him from early in the sundays and he's like an awkward nerd, not in great shape, just sort of messing with computers and step and you see now and use this power player and physically intimidating in that way. i think that's a pretty good metaphor for what we're going to see with the billionaires that

if come out of silicon valley. >> and what about the reaction from the principles to the book? you say you have been sued. that's one reaction. what have you heard from thiel and -- >> my agreement with -- denton never asked to see the book. thiel wouldn't get to see the book and i came off the printers for the first time. so when it was not -- when it was officially printed, like this version of the book. he saw that and again he has in sydney so that's nice. we are supposed to do a number of talks together that fell through, so i don't know if that means he's not happy with it or not. i think he's proud of it. like, he said in the new times, the article about it, that he saw this is one of the most philanthropic things that he's done. i think he's proud of it and i

think he thinks people should do more things like this, right? not necessarily destroyed and media outlets but this idea of here's the status quo, the individual has the power to change the status quo. i think he sees the need for more things like that, and so i think is generally probably happy with the book. i've had some conversations with nick. nick has commented on some articles and stuff about it, but i don't know. i guess it's a question for them to answer. >> and what about you next? if you're writing a book a year or whatever it is. >> yeah, it was funny, so my son was born in november and sort of conversations about doing this book were happening right about the same time. the idea that come i remember telling my wife, hey, our kid is about to be born, what you think

of me sneaking a booking or the next few months? she didn't think that was the best idea some code to try to slow the pace down a little bit. you know, writing isn't this great profession you could do whole life but i'm not sure how long that life will be if you do a book to you. i might die of exhaustion so i will hopefully slow things down and think about the next thing. >> we have a large audience and we haven't a microphone somewhere. while that issuing up, when you ask your question, we will start over your first once we get the microphone, i would ask you to identify yourself and if you are with a particular employer, then please make it a question rather than a statement. right is our speaker tonight, despite my stalling the microphone has not appeared. why did you stand up and speak loudly. we are being recorded for c-span so we want the audience to be able to as well.

>> i'm a reporter with "congressional quarterly" but i'm more here in my capacity as i checked the press club leading committee. so we've been very electrocuted, i think, i don't know if that's too big of what is it with this because we see the potential, we see that what thiel highlighted the potential major vulnerability in her press culture that is the jerry system. if you can find the right jury, you can get a judge to allow this to go to jury and not outright, than is possible in today's highly politicized environment to find a jury perhaps any more conservative area where they would find in favor of a lawsuit over libel or something of the sort, another jury i and another might not. particularly when you have a trial where local races are becoming politicized.

it seems like this could become a much bigger concern for media companies. could you comment on that? >> i think that's a great question. to go further with what you're saying, where the case ultimately ended up, in florida, civil verdict is subject to a bond which basically says to appeal yet to post a bond equal to the verdict. in florida it is capped at $50 million. so cocker constitutional rights to appeal is there in theory but in practice it cost $50 million ticket to get on that ride. cocker feels like it would've been vindicated on appeal. i'm not sure that's the case but it is, it is somewhat alarming they hear you're basically getting a financial death penalty and you don't have right to appeal. i think that is an element of this that is probably under explored or not talked about.

i'm not sure thiel invented this. i don't think any of the conditions here have changed. i think what you had is a very specific outlet that he'd first specifically for long-term the cost the line. thiel sydney when this would start this, planning this conspiracy in april in 2000 when they lay all the options. first off, a billionaire has been limited resources. the idea of doing court cases is something they settled on later but they could've done any number of things. they could've bought the company and shut it down. they could have lobbied for a different longer led to this. a lot of things they could've done but they settle on this legal action. they think there's some violations. but thiel famously as a libertarian says he believes in the first amendment. so he doesn't want to look for libel or defamation cases which

is primarily where this sort of press has been threatened in the past, and look for a privacy violation. that was maybe a flaw in the strategy. they go into florida and arguing with the first amendment allows for doesn't allow. and i don't think it's that unreasonable for a jury or judge or anyone to go, the right to say what you want and publish truth as you see it is not unlimited but perhaps the line is consensual sex in a private bedroom. you can write about it but you can't actually show a video. i don't know if you want to live in the world where the media, because you talk about your sex life on howard stern show that the media is then entitled to publish an original recorded sex tape. doctor ruth talks about her sex

at all the time. does that mean the "new york times" can run a stolen doctor ruth sex tape and say you're a public figure, it's fair game. that sounds like a nightmare world to me. all the concerns are valid and assure that and the follow on about them. i'm just not sure the case actually involved them ruth the way perhaps some of the coverage has made it seem. if that makes sense. >> we do have a microphone now so we'll go here to the gentleman in the back. >> thank you. thank you for your talk so far, ryan. josh with saffron venture. just in the capacity as a fan and multi-your member of your reading list, my question was related to whether it felt like

in aspect of this book was bringing your writing full circle in terms of start out with something like trust me, online, which is very much telling a somewhat personal story and has a lot of segments of e-mails you have clipped out, and in writing several books on historic philosophy lessons for entrepreneurs, sports teams and that type of thing. did if you like déjà vu to some extent and you enjoy the process, or it was exhausting to the extent you never want to do this again? >> it was definitely exhausting because it was my personal experience, writing to leadership is nice because, first of all, the people are basically dead i'm not having to tell him a chronological fashion. this definitely stretched me, be forced to write a narrative was very difficult and being forced

to capture full ignorance of what happened. i felt like i grew a lot as a writer. i don't know if i could've written a story, this overlap was with some expertise. i researched a lot of the stuff before. i don't if i could've written a book about some other scandal that didn't involve cocker and peter. in some ways it felt like this was, like the stars aligned to allow this to happen and the very grateful for the opportunity. i feel like i'v i emerged a betr writer for it. >> questions? there we go. over here. >> a big fan of your book, the enemy. kind of off but how do you view

donald trump in the prison of ego and historic philosophy? >> when i wrote ego people say what's your definition of ego? my answer was this, i'm not sure the text, freud has his definition, psychotherapist, there's a medical definition obviously. i felt like it till trump came iteration of trump, like he would be, like his picture would be next to the work in the dictionary i guess my point. sort of personified ego in every conceivable way, some of it is upside in the sense that he clearly thought he could be president like an egotistical person would've saw the odds, and getting that to be very dangerous as well. i think he personifies ego in a way and almost every day gives

us a helpful lesson and the perils of ego, right? the president is probably already the hardest job in the world, and we see out ego makes it even harder. i guess my book was in ego in the freudian sense. it was ego in the trumpian sense, you know? >> if i can take moderate prerogative and follow up on that and then we'll get to you next. you mentioned trump in the context of peter thiel. obviously he was a very public, the only public silicon valley support of trump and we've clearly seen attacks on the media by trump as president. how do you think these two things? >> it was interesting when i was writing the book i interviewed peter in his offices in san francisco, sort of at one point

right after the hacked "access hollywood" tape that broke. coincidentally which side note, billy bush has become a fan of mine. another person seen or experienced the reversal of fortune and so that's been interesting. so i talked to peter at probably the lowest moment of the campaign. i remember leaving the interview thinking there's no, he is obviously walking away, it is all downside and you walk away. a few days later he announced the large donation. and then i remember jeff bezos had said peter thiel is a contrarian. remember, contrarians are almost always wrong. and so i e-mailed peter the day of election and the said i was just trees what you thought about that comment now, and he said it's true, contrarians almost always are wrong, but when they are right there really

right. i think that captures his, in some ways it's the reason he made -- the first time i think it's related to the case and he saw a different side, he learned something different about america that maybe he had not known living in san francisco, seeing these events in florida and seeing the sort of disconnect between media and the population. i think he, i think he, it was a lesson to him, i think is reminder to him that these bets of what actually is. so i think he saw it as a risk if it paid off it would pay off in huge way to him. it would cost for sure but i think he saw the trump thing maybe as a matter of odds.

if trump doesn't win, the support will be forgotten. if trump does when, the influence and access that you get as a result of that support is an enormous return on investment, and i think that was part of it. >> will because building in that space where there's no law. for the first time he was the one having his privacy breached, so i wonder in his discussions

with him how did he internalized it, and him actually working through lawsuits? was that in the way his normalization? in the sense of becoming a normal citizen. >> that's an interesting point. >> where entrepreneurs put it outside of his comfort zone rather than the other way around. >> one of the things he said to me was his opinion at the outset or sorted before he got involved in any of this, that is a pain was that we had, the legal system was to present and allies. there are too many lawsuits. and then he started pursuing this one. one of the pivotal moments in the conspiracy comes run the deposition phase. they realize that this isn't the first time anyone at gawker had been deposed in a serious legal matter. this sort of rebellious media outlet that ensued a number of times and have gotten many, many

suits, had never really been taken to court. so he realizes, oh, this status quo is an untested status quo. and so he says at the end when he gets the verdict, he thinks maybe we don't have it. maybe there are more untested sort of norms or status quo that could be tested legally. he has invested in the company that is looking for different lawsuits to fund. he always takes this, a different perspective on things, i can trigon would typically, but i think he changed his mind that he thought maybe all the work that was to be done was outside the system as you were saying and actually maybe this explains part of his trump involvement, is that maybe there's a lot of things that could be done inside the system, and maybe that's where he's going now. >> right here in front.

>> i'm gail trotter, an attorney and a writer with the hill, and my question is you brought up the deposition and you mentioned in the book that a.j. talks about, he's question, you know i'm going with this, right? he's question of where do you draw the line? what is the medias responsibility? he makes a comment back, age format, when not go to publish sex tapes of four-year-olds. you say in the book that's clearly a joke or it's taken too far, it's taken out of context. i didn't read it that way. so what is your evidence for that? >> what she is referring to is, in the deposition he's the one who ran the whole hogan sexting. he's been deposed and the attorney asks, is there a celebrity sex tape that you wouldn't run, that you wouldn't think was newsworthy? and a.j. sort of, well, he's

exhausted, long deposition, he doesn't want to be there. he says i don't know, of a child. then the attorney says okay, how old? he said i don't know, four? is this dismissive, it's not, i don't think he explicitly saying hey, i would run a celebrity sex tape of a four and half-year-old. and knowing a.j. pretty sure he wouldn't. i'm pretty sure he wouldn't. but what i do think was revealing and this does come up in the course of the count is that although journalism is a bit of a moving target, i wasn't really a set of editorial standards at gawker. gawker would try to say over and over again in the trial and in documents and in the media, we are a series news organization. we handle serious stories. and so they are sort of repeatedly pressed, what are your editorial standards? what is the line?

why we should judgment that the whole hogan sexting was on the right side of the line? there were not able to come up with an answer because i think the truth was they got sensational material and their only editorial standard was run it if you get it. i gawker editor would say gawker does not hold back story. a.j. committed the biggest senator cochran and he was editor-in-chief so this is coming from the top down. the biggest thing you could run was -- the bigots and you could have is not running the story. the reason gawker crossed the line at least a vast majority of people in this case when it outed the executive, the reason they would cross the lines often is that they deliberately didn't the fine line so they were constrained by. i think that definition isn't

asked him if we think that they line here. >> right here. >> my name is mike. i've been a fan for a long time. i heard you say your favorite book is a biography. as a writer do you see us of entering into that writing a biography? and if you are who would you want to write about? >> i do love biographies. i don't know, i've written a fair amount about -- there is no great biography of marcus rebellious. the wonderful biography about seneca. maybe would be him at some point but my style, i think i'm much more, i think, faster writer. i think i sort of enjoy editorializing and trying to make points, you know?

i'm not sure i could do like, you know, work on book for six years answer just like all out there. i'm not sure, i respect that and i'd might. i'm not sure i have what it takes. >> over here. >> i'm not a writer but i just recently read your book, and for marketing you should just give all your money away. do you think the music video took that advice? >> of course. he did and got a lot of press. although i remember everyone freaking out about it. maybe this was like the first of i'm old. i remember like when i was in middle school, i remember blink 182 did the same thing in the music video. when i saw the drake think i didn't get why it's such a big deal. the same publicity stunts tend to work over and over can because the media as a little

bit of amnesia about them. not wha where i thought this conversation was going. >> i read that and then a month later it just gets i was like, he must have read your book. [laughing] >> second think is right now the big topic in the news is stormy daniels and president trump. it feels like there are similarities between your book speedy that are not similarities. a lawyer who at one point attempts to broker the sale of the remaining whole coking sex tapes to hogan, there's an fbi sting, a chapter in "conspiracy" right at the beginning of part two is the same lawyer who negotiates the first payout and deal with trump's people. that this has not been reported on, is mind blowing to me and a little bit frustrating because, like i mean, one crazy, trump

hates the fbi for some illegitimate reasons, but one legitimate reason is that they arrested six years ago the person who within come to -- four years previous the fbi had the man who would later attempt to extort him on the eve of the election. they had him in custody and they didn't charge of such think it's pretty incredible. >> right here in front, next. >> i would just identify myself as a fan, a huge fan of yours. i'm curious about your writing process. you said for this book you knew that it was something that you need to write, and so i'm curious about the sensation or the realization that comes to you that you know you need to get this out to everyone else. with that being said, your of

the books have been successful and so you bent on a roll of sorts. with that being said, adding of the book that you want to write will have success as well? >> those are great questions. i mean, i did feel some urgency on this one. i felt like it was timely, i felt like it was current and surreal and no one had written about it. i felt like it was a book that may be i was in a unique position to write. it's like a hard right turn in terms of subject matter, style. i could even tell, i appreciate you being here but some of my fans are little skeptical. look, we like the big picture sort of self-improvement style books. what am i going to learn from this case? i do think there's a lot of things to learn from this. it is different but i think in some sense the job as a writer if you sell book.

that gives you the chance to do the next one but also feel as a person who practices this as a craft my job is to push myself into get better at it. the reason i tackled the book is it wasn't a concern that sales more what it be a better writer on the other side. >> a quick comeback. so then when you think of another book, do you have a list of ideas? >> i i did know the next book in the next book, you know, maybe one of the things i learned from thiel is you keep the project secret until it's far enough along, but i know where i'm going next. >> my question is, basically about how deep your reading recommendation list goes to the esoteric fantastic books. we live in a thought bubble problem where we ar all read the same books, so how are you finding these unique the really interesting books?

>> i don't know how i find it exactly. i like to ask people what's the book that changed your life, what is your favorite book? in this book i asked robert, my mentor and advisor to me as a writer, and he was like, there's it's great chapter on conspiracies, which i'd read in college but forgot about. so i read it and then it at thiel's house, the book is on the shelf that was a big one. robert also recommended this book bodyguard of lies which is this book from the '60s about sort of intelligence and counterintelligence that going to the invasion of normandy which ended up being super helpful in this book. as i get a lot of recommendations from other people that i've been passed along to you guys. and then i would say probably 50 or 60% of of the books i read i found inside books that i was

reading. i've always had this thing, i look at the bibliography when an author, like now an author i know, i'm only siding, i will put the type of the book and when my books if it's really good. i tend to take that endorsement pretty highly when i sit in at the books. i just read widely and tivoli. i know you talk about a new book out i tend to -- i want to let time filter two. if the book has endured a year or 50 years that's a better sign that pre-ordering before comes out and turns out it's not very good. >> i have two questions. >> all right. >> one is how would one define status quo in a consistent manner? and the signal it is, if thiel wants to what pieces of the status quo where we can find him, what does he want to put there? a desert? a statue of himself?

maybe you talk to them enough to give him some insight about th that. >> i think in this specific instance the status quo he was defining was come and might've been here he defines doctor as a singular sociopathic bully. the status quo was a media outlet that regularly crossed the line that went after nonpublic individuals. in his case, you know, i don't know the sexual orientation of any of these other early investors and a not sure it's anyone's business, right? his definition of the status quo of gawker was a wildly out-of-control outlet that regulate hurt people. his other definition is that it sort of has this homogenization of culture and that it tended to make fun of anyone that was weird or outside the normal or did something missing. he felt it was this form of political correctness which is

like the main thing he dislikes. he dislikes political correctness more than he likes being outed. and then as far as what comes in its place, one of the points you make it was he thought gawker was the source of a unique set of conditions, the early sort of evolution of blogging. 20042004, or 2002 gawker is sorf sprouting up. it starts at a dining room table, could you start it today? i think the failure of the crowdfunding campaign where gawker tried to buy back the domain is validation of that idea that we might have liked to god, while it was here, how much would we actually pay to resuscitate it, and maybe the answer is that as much as gawker

partisans would speculate that people would be willing to pay. >> you quote peter thiel amos question can what you believe that most people don't agree with? some wondering what are the most interesting answers to the question that you found, and that is peter approach the question? >> so thiel likes to ask what is an important truth that very few people agree with you on? he loves sort of talking things through that way. the premise of this book was that although you would disagree or agree whether gawker deserves the financial death penalty that it can't, i think what happened, i think this sort of coordinated secret, deliberate, disruptive action is actually a kind of a

green sprout. maybe we could use fewer petitions and fewer changing of facebook photos and protests, maybe less marching and more sort of deliberate coordinated action to enact changes that people want. now, i'm not talking about assassinations or terrorism or anything like that, but what thiel did was very much within the bounds of the law. the only thing, you know, i think of us about is he didn't tell people he was doing it while he's doing it. and maybe that is actually an element of producing change your you tell people you're coming for them, they can defend against it easy. if you telegrapher punches, so

that's the premise of the book. that's one truth for me. >> we have time for one last audience questions. >> i'm a fan of your book. i think if everyone is the obstacle in the way. my name is eric. i want to you talk about the anatomy of intrigue a little bit. i think that's what draws me in that made me want to come here. >> yeah, so intrigue is synonym of conspiracy or secret operation or whatever. a superficial non-traumatic answer is also is looking for another way to describe the title, another way. i also wanted to make my agent and his wife were talking about the book, and she said, you know, her name is julia, she said this book is like an anatomy textbook for conspiracy.

and i was like oh, that's a very interesting way of describing it. part of the premise of the book was not just detail this one conspiracy, which we might not care about in three or four years, and to make it bigger and larger and more time was talking about how this teaches us about conspiracies as a whole. there is jammed can -- very few confirmed and spear sees. what's extraordinary about this case is thiel going to go it was a conspiracy and here's what it did from start to finish pics i tried to document that in the book, and again to your question earlier about some of the media coverage, i feel like it was so extraordinary to me that people, they wanted space to judge what happened and i wanted to

dedicate that space to actually getting the facts down first. then we can have a discussion whether it's true or not. >> great, thank you. you've been a good audience. i'm impressed with the questions your fans bring so thank you all for being intimate at the national press club. for those of you are members of the press club thank you for being members. those of you would like to learn more about the club we are at press.org and we have a few upcoming events and wanted to highlight. we would see bakula march 20 will have a book wrap with christopher scalia like as if his father, the late supreme court justice antonin scalia. march 26 headliner luncheon with gold medal olympian swimmer. i marched when i will have news anchor and discussion on the centennial commemoration of world war i and fine on april 4 the will be a book event with sheila tate on a new biography of first lady nancy reagan. we can't conclude the night

without presenting our guest ryan with the famous national press club coffee mug. peter thiel also as one. it is our traditional gift so thank you so much for being tonight. let's give ryan a hand. [applause] >> for those of you who bought books to make, ryan will be signing books at this table right over here. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> coming up like to see the senate foreign relations committee will get an update on the u.s. relationship with russia. at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span. in the afternoon official testified on cyber threats before a senate judiciary subcommittee at 2:30 p.m.

on c-span2 the senate will continue work on 2019 federal spending bills. on c-span3 the treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes will take questions on u.s. sanctions against russia from members of the senate banking committee starting at 10 a.m. eastern. on american history tv a look at the presidency and legacy of andrew jackson. >> on the net on q&a national constitution center president el jeffrey rosen talk about his biography of william howard taft. >> he never learned politics. he told his aid archie but who served both roosevelt and taft as an intimate aid, i will not play a part of popularity. the point reject me that's their prerogative. he had this madisonian view, his heroes are james madison, i was in hamilton, the authors of those papers and john marshall reconsiders the grace american

ever. madison hampton believe the majority should rule but only slowly and thoughtfully over time so that reason rather than passion could prevail. taft believes entire system is set up to slow the direct expression of popular passion so that the people can be governed in the public interest rather than through action, mobs that favor the self interest rather than the public good. >> sunday night at eight eastern on c-span's q&a. >> next, remarks by frank cissna, head of the immigration services at the homeland security department. he talks about challenges, his agency faces including the processing of credible asylum claims and the lack of access to state criminal databases. he was interviewed at a forum hosted by the center for immigration studies. this is just over one hour.