Esther Dyson Quotes

• I joined the board of the Santa Fe Institute.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self

• Part of the problem is when we bring in a new technology we expect it to be perfect in a way that we don’t expect the world that we’re familiar with to be perfect.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Technology

  Tags in Expect

• I think that the use of copyright is going to change dramatically. Part of it is economics. There is just going to be so much content out there – there’s a scarcity of attention. Information consumes attention, and there’s too much information.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Think, Attention, Economics

• Don’t leave hold of your common sense. Think about what you’re doing and how the technology can enhance it. Don’t think about technology first.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Technology

• Having seen a non-market economy, I suddenly understood much better what I liked about a market economy.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Economy

  Tags in Market

• But there is a corollary to freedom and that’s personal responsibility, and the real challenge is how you generate that personal responsibility without imposing it.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Freedom, Personal, Responsibility

• As long as a government can come and shoot you, you can’t jump on the Internet to freedom.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Government

• And the Russians certainly don’t have it. If a woman shows up in a fur coat, I just assume she’s a crook. And that’s me, the nice American. The assumption that you can’t make money honestly is a killer.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Russians, American, Woman

• I would much rather see responsibilities exercised by individuals than have them imposed by the government.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self Responsibility

• I think copyright is moral, proper. I think a creator has the right to control the disposition of his or her works – I actually believe that the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution, that kind of stuff.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Work

  Tags in Creator, Control

• I think I have the right to know what Steve Forbes paid in taxes – I don’t think there should be a law. I think there should be a presumption. I wouldn’t vote for a guy who wouldn’t reveal what he paid in taxes. That kind of thing.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Response, Person

• From the business point of view – not to overstate it – intellectual property is dead; long live intellectual process. Long live service; long live performance.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Business

  Tags in Concern

• I became a real free market fanatic. I’m probably less so now than even two or three years ago.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Market

• A worker’s paradise is a consumer’s hell.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Worker, Paradise

• In the sense that people who produce things and work get rewarded, statistically. You don’t get rewarded precisely for your effort, but in Russia you got rewarded for being alive, but not very well rewarded.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Work

  Tags in People, Rewarded

• I’ve seen disgusting excess in business, and I’ve seen disgusting excess in Washington. But at the same time, I’ve certainly learned that Washington matters and that you can’t ignore it, especially when you get into telecom.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Business

  Tags in Self, Disgusting, Washington

• In the space of three weeks, I met a fair bunch of the guys who were just starting those little programmers’ co-ops, and everybody was talking about starting businesses.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Business

  Tags in Everybody, Starting

• Oh, that all the things my father had told me about how disgusting Washington is are true. And again it’s the system – there are lots of nice, well-meaning people there. But it’s a sleazy place. And politics is all about doing favors.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Politics

  Tags in Washington

• There’s almost no way of doing importing honestly, because if you do you’re at such a disadvantage competitively. So people spend huge amounts of effort getting around stupid laws and not paying taxes.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Effort

  Tags in People

• Well, take the evolution of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It began as hackers’ rights. Then it became general civil liberties of everybody – government stay away.

  Esther Dyson

  Topics in Evolution

  Tags in Civil Liberties

Esther Dyson (24)

Birth:	14th July, 1951
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Businesswoman, Investor, Journalist, Philanthropist

About

Esther Dyson was born in Zürich, Switzerland. She is a Swiss-born American journalist, businesswoman, investor, and philanthropist. She is a leading angel investor focused on breakthrough efficacy in healthcare, government transparency, digital technology, biotechnology, and space. She is the founder of HICCup. She graduated with a BA in economics in 1972. She joined Forbes as a fact-checker and quickly rose to reporter. From 1998 to 2000, she was the founding chairman of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. In January 2000, she started writing a syndicated twice-weekly column, Release 3.0, for The New York Times.

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