Esther Dyson

Esther Dyson is a journalist, author, commentator, and investor. She is the founder of Wellville and the founding chairman of ICANN from 1998 to 2000. Dyson's investments are centered on health care, open government, digital technology, biotechnology, and outer space. She is the author of the bestselling book Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age.

Esther Dyson graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1972. She wrote for Forbes Magazine from 1974-77, after which she became a Wall Street securities analyst specializing in electronics and technology. Dyson worked for New Court Securities from 1977-80 and Oppenheimer & Co. from 1980-82.

In 1980 Dyson founded EDventure Holdings, an information technology and new media company. She began writing for Rosen's Electronic News, an industry newsletter, in 1982. She purchased the newsletter the following year and renamed it Release 1.0. Dyson began investing in the late 1980s. In her 1997 book Release 2.0 she explored issues concerning the evolution of the internet. She wrote for The New York Times on similar topics in her column, Release 3.0, beginning in January 2000.

Dyson later sold EDventure Holdings to CNet Networks in 2004. She founded the non-profit Wellville in 2013. Wellville is a ten-year national nonprofit project to achieve "equitable wellbeing".