
Esther Dyson
Journalist, Author, Businesswoman, Investor, Commentator and Philanthropist
Esther Dyson is an active angel investor in a variety of start-ups, for-profit and otherwise, around the world. She also operates as the Internet’s court jester, a person of no institutional importance who somehow manages to speak the truth and to be heard when and where it matters. She does business as EDventure, the reclaimed…
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Full Bio
Esther Dyson is an active angel investor in a variety of start-ups, for-profit and otherwise, around the world. She also operates as the Internet’s court jester, a person of no institutional importance who somehow manages to speak the truth and to be heard when and where it matters. She does business as EDventure, the reclaimed name of the company she owned for 20-odd years before selling it to CNET Networks in 2004.
Her primary activity is investing in start-ups and guiding many of them as a board member. Her board seats include 23andMe, Airship Ventures, Boxbe, Voxiva, Eventful, Evernote, IBS Group (Russia, advisory board), Meetup, Midentity (UK), NewspaperDirect, Yandex (Russia)…and WPP Group (not a start-up). Some of her other direct IT investments include Flickr and Del.icio.us (sold to Yahoo!), BrightMail (sold to Symantec), Orbitz (sold to Cendant), Medstory and Powerset (both sold to Microsoft), Plazes (sold to Nokia), Tacit (sold to Oracle), BlogAds, BrightHouse, ChoiceStream, Dopplr, Dotomi, Linkstorm, Mashery, Organized Wisdom, Ovusoft, PatientsLikeMe, Resilient,Technorati, ThingD, Vizu.com and Zedo. Indirectly, she is an investor in Amee.cc and Wesabe.
As a two-time weightless flyer, she is also active in the commercial space/airline start-up world, with investments in Icon Aircraft, Space Adventures/Zero-G, XCOR Aerospace and Zero-G.
She also blogs occasionally for the Huffington Post, as Release 0.9. She posts photos with captions at Flickr.
On the non-profit side, Dyson sits on the boards of the Eurasia Foundation, the Long Now Foundation, the Santa Fe Institute and the Sunlight Foundation.
For more than 20 years Dyson wrote the newsletter Release 1.0 and ran PC Forum, the IT market’s leading executive conference. She sold them to CNET Networks in 2004, and left CNET at the end of 2006. (The Forum was discontinued under CNET Networks’ ownership, while O’Reilly Media now produces Release 1.0 under the new name of Release 2.0, with Dyson’s blessing.)
Dyson was the founding chairman of ICANN (policy-setter for the DNS) from 1998-2000, and was also chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the 90s. In 1997, she wrote her (so far) only book, “Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age,” which appeared in paperback a year later as “Release 2.1.” In 1994, she wrote a seminal essay on intellectual property for WIRED magazine.
In both her investments and her nonprofit activities, she has always been concerned with the impact of information (technology) on business and society.
Testimonials
Ernie was perfect for our Elders Conference at Little River Casino Resort in Manistee, Michigan. We will definitely be using PDA again!

LITTLE RIVER BAND OF OTTAWA INDIANS
Our speaker was great and the crowd enjoyed her! She was very engaging. Thank you again PDA for the great list of suggestions!

MEDTRONIC
Everything went great! and our speaker was wonderful! Thank you so much for all your help PDA! Looking forward to the next one.

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI – KANSAS CITY
I hope that this message finds you well. We had a phenomenal time with Atsuko this past Thursday. We wanted to just let you know how amazing she was. All those that were in attendance thoroughly enjoyed her and had nothing but amazing things to say about her. Thank you for working with us to make sure this happened!

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY CAMPUS
We had a fantastic day with Inge! She was very engaging with all those that attended. Her personal stories about the holocaust were very special and we were moved that she was willing to share them with everyone. Thank you again, PDA for all your hard work and dedication to make this program such a success!

SALT LAKE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Dear PDA Group, Thank you so much for your hard work in scheduling our speaker! From the moment we reached out to you the first time, you worked with us on all details and logistics and kept us up-to-date on the progress. Thank you for all your hard work on making our event such a success! We couldn't have done it without you and your team!

SAP COMPANY
Thank you again, Dr. Kimbrough, for a great presentation, our attendees are still talking about it!

CAMPUS LABS
Dr. Henry Lee's presentation was entertaining, insightful and wise. I, and everyone at Pfizer, especially appreciate the remarks you directed about following your passion and preparing yourself to excel. Thank you, everyone, at PDA for helping to make this happen!

PFIZER
The event was successful! I received many messages expressing how awesome, outstanding and inspiring Ms. Webb-Christburg's speech was."

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. MEMORIAL BREAKFAST, BOSTON, MLK SPEAKER
Everything went well. Atsuko was very easy to work with and the students enjoyed her performance! Thank you again for your recommendation and I hope to work with you again in the future!

CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY
Dr. Novello left this morning after a very successful event on our campus! Thank you PDA Group for your help from the first phone to the last you were with us every step of the way.

GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY
Jordan Carlos was very very entertaining! A majority of students who answered the event survey indicated they really enjoyed Jordan and definitely will bring him back!

WESTERN CAROLINA UNIVERSITY
On behalf of myself and my organization Entertainment Unlimited the Campus Programming Board of Ferris State University, we thank you PDA and Dan for a successful event!! Dan was magnificent! Students really enjoyed the presentation. I know I did. Can't wait to bring in more programs with PDA Group.

FERRIS STATE UNIVERSITY
It was a great pleasure to work with PDA Group! The communication was always prompt, friendly and helpful. We loved the speakers and events we booked through Mr. Peter Walker (PDA Group).

WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY
Thank you, Peter, for all your help, you'll be happy to know that the event went incredibly well! Aneesa Ferreira was by far one of the best speakers we've ever had!

FURMAN UNIVERSITY
Topics
- The Future of High Technology
- A Design for Living in the Digital Age
- The Role of Intellectual Property
- Electronic Commerce
- U.S. & Foreign Government Policy on Information Technology
- The Future of the Internet
- The Future of Health and IT
Videos
The Way to Wellville and Other Places
Lviv IT Arena 2016: Esther Dyson
Books
News
Testimonials
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