Esther Dyson is currently writing a book called “Term Limits,” due out in 2026. It’s about the dynamic tension between finite, unique, non-fungible humans, and the culture of exponential growth, longevity/immortality and the relentless search for more… Humans are finite and unique, and therefore they can set priorities. Their (evolutionary) purpose is to pass things along by “training” or influencing their successors, vs. the exponential growth, eternity-seeking, fungible and replicable work that wants to quantify everything and knows the value of nothing (HT Oscar Wilde – the price of everything and the value of nothing). AI (whatever it becomes) should have no particular interest in destroying us, but without any conscious goals it is – as a mass of fungible and complexly interacting businesses and scientists and coders and investors and their AI creations—already acting as a fitness function for the world in some interesting way.
Separately, she is an active investor in a variety of AI-related startups, including Abridge.ai, BAMFHealth.com, Epistemic.ai, Ezra.com (recently acquired by Function Health), Pattern Computer, Prognos.ai, System.com, Syllable.ai, Turbine.ai, and more.
Dyson trained as a backup cosmonaut in Star City outside Moscow, Russia. While there she had the pleasure of spending time not only with the cosmonauts, but also with some of the US’s finest astronauts. Dyson began her career as a fact-checker for Forbes Magazine, and spent five years on Wall Street as a securities analyst. From 1983 to 2006, at EDventure Holdings, she produced the newsletter Release 1.0 and ran PC Forum, the computer industry’s leading annual conference. She sold EDventure to CNET in 2005, and left in 2007. In 1997 she published her first book, “Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age,” about the impact of the internet on individuals’ lives. She speaks English and Russian and a little French and German, and has a degree in economics from Harvard. Photo credit to Asa Mathat.
Separately, she is an active investor in a variety of AI-related startups, including Abridge.ai, BAMFHealth.com, Epistemic.ai, Ezra.com (recently acquired by Function Health), Pattern Computer, Prognos.ai, System.com, Syllable.ai, Turbine.ai, and more.
Dyson trained as a backup cosmonaut in Star City outside Moscow, Russia. While there she had the pleasure of spending time not only with the cosmonauts, but also with some of the US’s finest astronauts. Dyson began her career as a fact-checker for Forbes Magazine, and spent five years on Wall Street as a securities analyst. From 1983 to 2006, at EDventure Holdings, she produced the newsletter Release 1.0 and ran PC Forum, the computer industry’s leading annual conference. She sold EDventure to CNET in 2005, and left in 2007. In 1997 she published her first book, “Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age,” about the impact of the internet on individuals’ lives. She speaks English and Russian and a little French and German, and has a degree in economics from Harvard. Photo credit to Asa Mathat.
