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Thiel Makes a Bid for Gawker.com, a Site He Helped Bankrupt
Peter Thiel, the technology billionaire, submitted a bid this week to purchase Gawker.com, the remaining unsold property from the Gawker Media gossip empire that was nearly destroyed in 2016 by a lawsuit largely bankrolled by Mr. Thiel.
If approved, the acquisition could be the last step in a yearslong effort by Mr. Thiel to finish an independent journalism outfit that angered him in 2007 when it reported, without his permission, that he is gay, a fact widely known at the time in Silicon Valley.
Gawker.com has received other offers, and it is not clear if Mr. Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, will prevail. A winning bid is expected to be announced in the coming weeks, if representatives of Gawker.com do not take the site off the market.
Previously: Hulk Hogan's Sex Tape and a Tech Billionaire's Revenge on Gawker
Gawker Files for Chapter 11; Won't Pay Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel Wants to Buy Gawker!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Apparition on Monday January 15 2018, @03:59AM (2 children)
A few weeks, Kickstarter recommended the Save Gawker Kickstarter campaign [kickstarter.com] to me. After laughing out loud for a good couple of minutes, I looked into it. Apparently, a group of a bunch of former Gawker Media employees got together to attempt to crowdfund a bid to "save" Gawker. Thankfully, the Kickstarter campaign failed with flying colors. Less than one-fifth of the posted initial goal was raised, and many of those that did contribute only contributed $1 just to trash talk Gawker in the Kickstarter campaign's comments section.
Here's hoping that Mr. Peter Thiel manages to finish the job.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Monday January 15 2018, @04:12AM
They should have launched it on Indiegogo. You can select a "flexible funding" option where Indiegogo takes a larger cut, but you get to keep all the money raised even if your campaign is unsuccessful, so you can blow it at the bar. Such as Raines Law Room at 48 W 17th St, New York, NY 10011, a 2 minute walk from Gawker's HQ.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @05:26PM
you really belong to your shithole country
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday January 15 2018, @04:08AM (4 children)
In a non homosexual way this is how do you say... GAY ...
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday January 15 2018, @05:46AM (3 children)
Lame submission! Where is the cutting sarcasm? The mention of meetings with the "Donald", the sucking in of the blood of youth, you know, all the good stuff? Hey, SoylentNews could out Thiel as a Girardian new Age hoax! And then he could buy out us! Profit?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday January 15 2018, @06:33AM (2 children)
Don't worry. I think Thiel can't help himself from clashing with regulators over his biomedical pursuits. In fact, his tendencies will probably get worse as senescence looms (he's only 50 today).
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday January 15 2018, @06:46AM (1 child)
In which case, my dear and particular takyon, what can you think of my submissions, now that I am coming up on 2400 years old? Remember, it is not craziness that is correlated with age, nor is it age that is correlated with craziness, but it is craziness that is correlation with conservative political positions, like climate change denial, or vaxxers, or chem-trails and Rene Girard's mimetic craziness. And we are back to the fundamental question: if you are so rich, why aren't you smart? Those whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad. (George Fox, Bro!)
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Monday January 15 2018, @06:50AM
You should get your τ protein count checked out, as well as your midi-chlorians.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @05:52AM (5 children)
They are out of business?, he is the one that funded the hulk hogan thing, or I mis remembering?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 15 2018, @06:35AM (4 children)
Pretty much:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gawker [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @06:39AM (2 children)
So this is definitely nothing to do with getting a well known brand for pennies on the dollar...
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @06:42AM
Ha! sorry to respond to myself but
sucked them dry them bring them back as a slave! Ha! no vampire jokes there...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Monday January 15 2018, @06:48AM
It was brand built on its "journalists", who have already scattered into the wind and who will react very negatively to Thiel taking over.
Sure, he'll get a site near the bottom of the top 10,000 Alexa ranks, but I doubt Thiel would try to make it profitable or build a new platform of journalists there. Maybe use it to aggregate some stories that Gawker would have never run or otherwise dance/piss on its grave by using it as a personal blog.
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @10:45AM
IIRC, Thiel also funded a bunch of other people suing Gawker, no matter how questionable the lawsuit. His goal was to destroy Gawker, and that's what he did. In the process, he invented a strategy that anyone rich enough can use against any publication.
This is not an imaginary or theoretical danger either---multiple important stories have already been almost buried [techdirt.com] because of fear of reprisal, and there's no way to tell how many of them were actually buried.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Monday January 15 2018, @11:56PM
Misogyny strikes again. Donate to Patreon's Kickstarter campaign to give every college-educated, debt-laden, iPhone-having oppressed American woman $1/day.