Let's not forget why Thiel was upset at Gawker. They outed him as gay, putting his life in danger because he did business in places where the penalty for homosexuality is death.

No, a billionaire is not in danger of death because he does business somewhere that has such a penalty.

A billionaire can afford security or not go in person.

Does not going in person harm his ability to make deals? Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn't even resemble "life in danger".

This is an outrageous position to take. You’re basically acknowledging that Thiel could come to face physical violence due to Gawker’s irresponsible actions but that he could just change his actions and choices to avoid this. That is, it reads like “No his life isn’t in danger if he goes out of his way to avoid the danger”.

Going to a very small list of countries purely to make more money, when you already have a billion dollars, is not at all a necessary or important life activity. The inability to do so is a very trivial inconvenience.

Running a tabloid news story is not a necessary or important life activity either, especially when it actively harms someone else (regardless of their wealth or connections).

Yep, entirely accurate. There was no need to run that story, even though the harm done wasn't life-changing.

Maybe the claim is exaggerated but having money doesn’t make you invincible, especially to larger organizations.

Regardless nobody should have such personal details revealed as news without their own doing, no matter how rich or famous they are.

Money doesn't make you invincible to everything.

But when it comes to "I need to visit this country for business", money easily solves that.

> Regardless nobody should have such personal details revealed as news without their own doing, no matter how rich or famous they are.

Yeah, sure. Though I'd say that the existence of billionaires is a significantly larger problem...

No, money doesn’t easily solve anything, and it can actually bring attention (like tabloids that want to expose your sex life). And existence of billionaires? Envy of other people’s wealth and taking it away by force is at the forefront of every catastrophic economic outcome.

> No, money doesn’t easily solve anything

Anyone who has ever had an unreliable car begs to differ. Among a million other examples. Not being able to just solve unexpected problems is the worst part of being poor.

> Envy of other people’s wealth and taking it away by force is at the forefront of every catastrophic economic outcome.

I didn't say 'taking it away', it's more a comment on how taxes should be more progressive.

But if you did knock every billionaire down to 100M... nothing bad would happen. It's less than one percent of one percent of people going from "filthy rich" down to "still filthy rich".