Esther Dyson (born 14 July 1951) is a Swiss-born American investor, journalist, author, commentator and philanthropist. She is the executive founder of Wellville, a nonprofit project focused on improving equitable wellbeing. Dyson is also an

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

focused on

health care Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...

open government Open government is the governing doctrine which sustain that citizens have the right to access the documents and proceedings of the government to allow for effective public oversight. In its broadest construction, it opposes reason of state and ...

, digital technology,

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

, and

outer space Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...

.George, Don (4 November 1997)
"Road Warrior: Esther Dyson"
. Salon Wanderlust. Retrieved 12 October 2008. "Esther Dyson, one of the preeminent visionaries of the digital age – and a quintessential road warrior .She also invests in and sits on the boards of several U.S. start-ups. In addition, Dyson is chairwoman of the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...

, a nonprofit civil liberties organization" Dyson's career now focuses on health and she continues to invest in health and technology

startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

Education and early life

Esther Dyson's father was English-born, American-naturalized physicist

Freeman Dyson Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was an English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum m ...

, and her mother was mathematician

Verena Huber-Dyson Verena Esther Huber-Dyson (May 6, 1923 – March 12, 2016) was a Swiss-American mathematician, known for her work on group theory and formal logic. She has been described as a "brilliant mathematician", and did research on the interface betw ...

, of Swiss parentage; her brother is science historian George Dyson. She was educated at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

where she studied economics and wrote for ''

The Harvard Crimson ''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...

''.

Career

After graduating she joined

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

as a fact-checker and quickly rose to reporter. In 1977, she joined New Court Securities following

Federal Express FedEx Corporation, formerly Federal Express Corporation and later FDX Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "Fe ...

and other start-ups. After a stint at

Oppenheimer Holdings Oppenheimer Holdings is an American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company offering investment banking, financial advisory services, capital markets services, asset management, wealth management, and related produ ...

covering software companies, she moved to Rosen Research in 1982. In 1983, when she bought the company from her employer Ben Rosen, Dyson renamed the company EDventure Holdings and his ''Rosen Electronic Letter'' newsletter ''Release 1.0''. She and business partner Daphne Kis sold EDventure Holdings to CNET Networks in 2004 and left CNET in January 2007. On 7 October 2008,

Space Adventures Space Adventures, Inc. is an American space tourism company founded in 1998 by Eric C. Anderson. Its offerings include zero-gravity atmospheric flights, orbital spaceflights (with the option to participate in a spacewalk), and other spacefl ...

announced that Dyson had paid to train as a back-up

spaceflight participant Spaceflight participant (russian: участник космического полета, translit=uchastnik kosmicheskogo polyota) is the term used by NASA, Roscosmos, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for people who travel into space, ...

for

Charles Simonyi Charles Simonyi (; hu, Simonyi Károly, ; born September 10, 1948) is a Hungarian-American software architect. He started and led Microsoft's applications group, where he built the first versions of Microsoft Office. He co-founded and led In ...

's trip to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

aboard the

Soyuz TMA-14 The Soyuz TMA-14 (russian: Союз ТМА-14, ''Union TMA-14'') was a Soyuz programme, Soyuz flight to the International Space Station, which launched on 26 March 2009. It transported two members of the Expedition 19 crew as well as spaceflight ...

mission which took place in 2009. In 1997, Dyson wrote that as of that time she had never voted. The

tagline In entertainment, a tagline (alternatively spelled tag line) is a short text which serves to clarify a thought for, or is designed with a form of, dramatic effect. Many tagline slogans are reiterated phrases associated with an individual, so ...

of her email

signature block A signature block (often abbreviated as signature, sig block, sig file, .sig, dot sig, siggy, or just sig) is a personalized block of text automatically appended at the bottom of an email message, Usenet article, or forum post. Email and Usenet ...

reads “Always make new mistakes”.

Publications and business ventures

Currently, Dyson is a board member and active investor in a variety of start-ups, mostly in online services, health care, logistics, artificial intelligence, emerging markets, and space travel.Esther Dyson's Board Seats & Investments
EDventure. Previously, Dyson and her company EDventure Holdings specialized in analyzing the effect of emerging technologies and markets on economies and societies. She produced the following publications on technology: * Release 1.0, her monthly technology-industry newsletter (started by Ben Rosen), published by EDventure Holdings. Until 2006, Dyson wrote most issues herself and edited the others. When she left CNET, the newsletter was picked up by

O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of an ...

, which appointed Jimmy Guterman to edit it and renamed the newsletter Release 2.0. * Rel-EAST, a sister newsletter focused on the technology industry in Eastern Europe. * Release 2.0, her 1997 book on how the Internet affects individuals' lives. Its full title is ''Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age''. The revision ''Release 2.1'' was published in 1998.

Philanthropy

Dyson is an active member of a number of non-profit and advisory organizations. From 1998 to 2000, she was the founding chairman of ICANN, the

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...

. As of 2004, she sat on its "reform" committee (the At-Large Advisory Committee), dedicated to defining a role for individuals in ICANN's decision-making and governance structures. She opposed ICANN's 2012 expansion of generic top-level domains (

gTLDs Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of eve ...

). She has followed closely the post-Soviet transition of Eastern Europe, from 2002 to 2012 was a member of the Bulgarian President's IT Advisory Council, along with

Vint Cerf Vinton Gray Cerf (; born June 23, 1943) is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of " the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Bob Kahn. He has received honorary degrees and awards that include t ...

George Sadowsky George Sadowsky (born September 30, 1936) is an American computer scientist who has worked in a number of entities related to promotion of the Internet worldwide. He is known through his decades of work with developing countries. In many of t ...

, and

Veni Markovski Veni Milanov Markovski is a Bulgarian Internet entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO (until 2002) of the Bulgarian ISP bol.bg. He is currently ICANN's Vice-President for UN engagement, based in New York. Biography Markovski is a graduate of the La ...

, among others. She has served as a trustee of, and helped fund, emerging organizations such as Glasses for Humanity, Bridges.org, the

National Endowment for Democracy The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is an organization in the United States that was founded in 1983 for promoting democracy in other countries by promoting political and economic institutions such as political groups, trade unions, ...

, the Eurasia Foundation,

StopBadware StopBadware was an anti-malware nonprofit organization focused on making the Web safer through the prevention, mitigation, and remediation of badware websites. It is the successor to StopBadware.org, a project started in 2006 at the Berkman Cente ...

, and the

Sunlight Foundation The Sunlight Foundation was an American 501(c)(3) nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advocated for open government. The organization was founded in April 2006 with the goal of increasing transparency and accountability in the United States ...

. Currently, she is a trustee of

Charity Navigator Charity Navigator is a charity assessment organization that evaluates hundreds of thousands of charitable organizations based in the United States, operating as a free 501(c)(3) organization. It provides insights into a nonprofit’s financial s ...

, ExpandED Schools (outside-of-class services for kids), the

Long Now Foundation The Long Now Foundation, established in 1996, is an American non-profit organization based in San Francisco that seeks to start and promote a long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today's "faster ...

Open Corporates OpenCorporates is a website that shares data on corporations under the copyleft Open Database License. The company was launched on 20 December 2010, by Chris Taggart and Rob McKinnon. Recognition In 2011, the site won third place in the Op ...

, and The Commons Project, where she chairs the comp and culture committee.

Other pursuits

Dyson was one of the first ten volunteers for George Church’s

Personal Genome Project The Personal Genome Project (PGP) is a long term, large cohort study which aims to sequence and publicize the complete genomes and medical records of 100,000 volunteers, in order to enable research into personal genomics and personalized medicine. ...

where you can find her complete genome. Dyson has served as a judge for Mayor

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...

NYC BigApps NYC BigApps is an annual competition sponsored by the New York City Economic Development Corporation. It provides programmers, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs with access to municipal data sets to build technological products that address c ...

competition in New York.

References

External links

EDventure.com
''official website''
Column archive
at

Project Syndicate Project Syndicate is an international media organization that publishes and syndicates commentary and analysis on a variety of global topics. All opinion pieces are published on the ''Project Syndicate'' website, but are also distributed to a wi ...

* * * * * * by

Allan Gregg Allan Gregg is a Canadian pollster, political advisor, television interviewer and pundit. Early life Gregg was born in Edmonton, Alberta. He was the eldest child in his family which consisted of four boys and one girl. Gregg graduated from Harr ...

for

TVOntario TVO Media Education Group (often abbreviated as TVO and stylized on-air as tvo) is a publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It is operated by the Ontario ...

(1997) (See als
programme information
*
Esther Dyson
profile at Space Angels Network * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dyson, Esther 1951 births Living people American expatriates in Switzerland American financial commentators American investors American people of English descent American philanthropists American reporters and correspondents American technology chief executives American technology journalists American technology writers American venture capitalists American women chief executives American women journalists Freeman Dyson Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Naturalized citizens of the United States Writers from Zürich Swiss emigrants to the United States Wired (magazine) people Women business and financial journalists The Harvard Crimson people