He didn't do anything about it for at least 3-4 years after the outing, and was personally content to live and let live.
He only took action after being persuaded by someone else that he had a responsibility to fight back in defence of the countless people, most of whom were vastly less powerful than Thiel, that Gawker's business was built on attacking.
Full story: https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Peter-Gawker-Anatomy-Intri...
Not to mention the numerous pop-sci books which are a detailed history of science in disguise. I'm actually abandoning those. I'm tired of reading about the personality quirks or life stories of Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, Schrödinger whenever I pick up a book about quantum mechanics.
Life's too short to invest your time (slow read) in filler material.
If you can remove just a couple of the worst actors from the internet, does it have an outsized benefit? Are those people defining "acceptable behavior" and by example giving more reasonable people permission to behave that way? Interesting questions regardless of the specifics of the Thiel/Gawker case.
[0 affiliate]: https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Ryan-Holiday/dp/0735217645... [0 non-affiliate]: https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Ryan-Holiday/dp/0735217645
The only part of the book that seems out of place is near the end, where you see Holiday's speculation on Thiel's (who Holiday clearly admires) association with Trump (who Holiday clearly despises.) He simply can't understand why Thiel would associate with Trump at all.
https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Peter-Gawker-Anatomy-Intri...