Lowering the threshold of communication eliminates productivity-costing energy expenditures like “standing up and walking over to someone.” Problems can be dealt with more efficiently, questions can be answered more quickly, and gossip can flow much more freely than ever before. The rise of workplace chat software - Slack, HipChat, Campfire, and even Google Hangouts - has been a boon to many tech and media companies. This is a scary realization: Hulk Hogan’s lawyers have a better sense of many conversations I had in 2012 than I do. “Jokes I made to co-workers in 2012” is not a category I store prominently in my memory palace, though I love those co-workers and assure you that most of my jokes were much better. I can’t be much more specific than that, because I have no memory of making this joke. The joke, which was the subject of a rigorous back-and-forth between John and the opposing counsel, went something like this: Someone referred to the Hulk Hogan sex tape as “tender.” I wondered aloud if it also contained a leg drop (a famous pro-wrestling move) - a “tender leg drop.” And now the whole world knows how corny I am. But I did make jokes that involved Hogan in one way or another in our internal chat at the time. (If it isn’t obvious, the trial is taking place in Florida.) I worked at Gawker in 2012, but wasn’t involved in creating the story, so I’m not named in the lawsuit, nor was I deposed as a witness. Gawker Media, the company where I used to work, is being sued by the wrestler Terry Bollea (better known as Hulk Hogan) over a 2012 story in which Gawker published a short excerpt from a video showing Bollea having sex with Heather Clem, the wife of Bollea’s friend Bubba the Love Sponge Clem. My chat joke - and my co-worker John Cook’s noble attempt to explain it to a lawyer - are now a matter of public record. It wasn’t, necessarily, the strangest experience - except that it was occurring in a taped deposition that was being played in court, in the midst of a lawsuit that was being livestreamed on the internet to viewers across the world. I will offer my personal opinion in greater detail after I run it by Peter Thiel - I'm not scared or taking a cue from Wired, I just don't want to wait ten years to find out I'm on a target list.I spent part of yesterday afternoon watching a former co-worker explain a joke I’d once made in Campfire, the software we used for work chats. Now that his identity and involvement are confirmed, the question of whether or not it's ethical to personally finance an extended war against a media outlet (no matter how distasteful or even damaging its content is) hangs over the revelation. He also confirmed it's not the only case he's doing this for, so if it doesn't shut the network down, there's always another. Now, among other pursuits including the well-known Thiel Fellowship, he's focused on what he calls a "singularly terrible bully." What will happen to the case and the damage award remains to be seen, although Gawker just had a motion for a new trial denied earlier today. Since cofounding Paypal, Thiel has been an influential figure in the tech industry, funding companies from Facebook to Airbnb. Until now however, that was just speculation, before a report by Forbes named Thiel as the figure funding the suit - at an expense of around $10 million so far. He sued the site and won a $140 million award, which Gawker is appealing.Īs detailed by the Times and in earlier reports, Hogan first tipped the possibility of a backer when he avoided making a claim that would have let the news site's insurance company help out with its defense and any potential damages. Hogan's involvement comes after the site posted a video of the wrestler (real name: Terry Bollea) having sex with the wife of a friend, clipped from a tape with other interesting details. Its Gawker blog published an article in 2007 titled "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people" (before later publicizing the sexuality of Apple CEO Tim Cook, and a Conde Nast exec) which kicked off this whole revenge-by-proxy legal saga. Confirming rumors that had grown over the past few days, Paypal cofounder Peter Thiel admitted to the New York Times that he is financing Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker Media.
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