Gawker: valleywag, esther dyson

The Google-Cash-Swapping-Orgy Blimp

Ryan Tate — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:10:03 EDT

Google hasn't been shy about sharing its riches with select friends outside the company. And the number one rule of this tightly-knit group seems to be: spread the love. Which brings us to 23AndMe's new, very incestuous blimp.

23andMe, you'll recall, is the genetics-testing company founded by Anne Wojciki (left), wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Google is an investor in 23andMe and leases the company office space.

A tipster recently spotted a 23AndMe "blimp" flying around Cupertino and the rest of Silicon Valley. Some digging revealed the "blimp" is, in fact, a zeppelin, provided by a company called Airship Ventures.

Airship Ventures, in turn, is funded by Google, according to some strong evidence we wrote about previously. It's also funded by "futurist" Esther Dyson. Dyson, like Google, also invests in 23AndMe.

Dyson, as it turned out, is also funded by Google; "I have fed at its trough many times," she once wrote, citing speaking gigs and advisory board slots. She has, in turn, been something of an advocate, declaring publicly that Google actively fights evil and should be allowed to regulate itself (she disclosed her ties to the company when saying this).

So, here are some of the interlocking money flows:

Google has given money to its founder's wife's firm 23AndMe, which in turn has given money (or other consideration) to Airship Ventures, owned by Google itself (it would appear) and by Google vendor and public Google advocate Esther Dyson.
Google has given money and/or co-invested with "futurist" Dyson, who has in turn given money to 23AndMe, a Google investment co-founded by it's own co-founder's wife.
23AndMe gives money to Google, for office space, while Google gives money to 23AndMe as an investment; 23AndMe then hires Airship Ventures, whose profits then go to Google as an (apparent) owner, and to Google defender Dyson as another owner.
Dyson's investment 23AndMe hired Airship Ventures, another Dyson investment.

There are also some softer, stranger relationships:

Esther Wojcicki (left), mother-in-law to Google co-founder Sergey Brin and mother to 23AndMe founder Anne Wojcicki, has promoted both Airship Ventures and Google Docs in the Huffington Post. She once worked for Google as an educational consultant.
NASA allows Airship Ventures to dock at Moffet Field, saying its craft will be used for scientific investigations. It also allows Google's founders to park their party jets there, citing similar reasons.

It's hard to doubt this back-scratching, built as it is on cashflow originating at Google, benefits the search giant's friends; the real question is whether it does any good for shareholders.

(Second blimp pic by John Murphy on Facebook, submitted as part of a 23AndMe Facebook contest. Esther Dyson pic by Steve Jurvetson.)

Google founder's journalist mother-in-law writes blimp infomercial

Owen Thomas — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Esther Wojcicki, known as "Woj" at Palo Alto High School, where she teaches journalism, is a beloved figure on campus. She's also quite welcome at the Googleplex, as the mother of Anne Wojcicki, who's married to Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and Google executive Susan Wojcicki. I wonder if proximity to power and wealth has dulled Woj's reportorial instincts.She recently wrote a wide-eyed travelogue for the Huffington Post about the first flight of the Zeppelin NT, a blimp launched by startup Airship Ventures. Airship is backed by Esther Dyson, who is also an investor in her daughter Anne's startup, 23andMe. That, at the least, Woj ought to have disclosed. (I've asked Mario Ruiz, an executive at Huffington Post, if she violated any of the online publication's disclosure rules for writers; he has yet to reply. But if she really wanted to impress her students with her journalism chops, Woj might have asked questions about Amphitheatre LLC, the shadowy entity which has also invested in Airship Ventures. Amphitheatre shares a name with the street address of Google's headquarters — and possibly more. I would love to have known what Woj would have discovered, had she been less interested in promoting her daughter's investor's new startup.

Google secretly investing in zeppelins?

Owen Thomas — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:40:00 EDT

Zeppelins went out of style when the Hindenburg went down in flames over New Jersey. But Airship Ventures, a startup backed by quirky angel investor Esther Dyson, is trying to bring them back. With a little help from Dyson's friends. Airship's Zeppelin NT, the first to fly over the U.S. in 70 years, has just completed a transatlantic journey and is scheduled to touch down this afternoon at the Nasa-operated Moffett Field, where it will be permanently stationed, operating aerial tours of the Bay Area. Curious — a private enterprise making use of public lands. Nasa's excuse for hosting the zeppelin: It will be used for scientific investigations and other public-spirited purposes. Where have we heard that before?

Why, with the Google founders' fleet of party planes, which are also parked at Moffett Field, with the excuse that they sometimes fly scientific missions. (In fact, the Google founders' jets proved impractical for Nasa's science needs; Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt bought a fighter jet to fly those missions instead.)

One of Airship Ventures' backers is an entity called Amphitheatre Holdings. Amphitheatre is incorporated in Delaware under the address of INV Tax Group, which Google may have purchased in a real-estate transaction two years ago. Google's headquarters is at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, Calif.

This hardly seems like coincidence. Dyson is an investor in 23andMe, the Google-backed startup of Anne Wojcicki, wife of founder Sergey Brin. Has Dyson taken Google's shareholders for a ride, by having them take a hidden stake in a blimp startup?

Esther Dyson fails to factcheck her startups

Owen Thomas — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:00:00 EDT

The Valley's pundits believe that partisan bias is damage, and that the Internet can route around it. That's the conclusion I arrived at after hearing about Ameritocracy.com, a new startup aiming to have Internet users factcheck soundbites for free. Esther Dyson, the writer and startup investor, has joined it as an advisor, just in time for the vice-presidential debate Thursday night. "It bothers me to see people's random statements spread around the world with no quality control — and I like Ameritocracy's decentralized approach to providing that quality control," Dyson says in a press release. So that's what's plaguing politics — a lack of quality control! Dyson, who also invested in Flickr, is deluded to think crowdsourcing will work with opinions as well as it does with photographs. Anyone who's spent time on Wikipedia knows that a decentralized approach doesn't lead to the elimination of bias — it just guarantees that whoever has the most time to waste wins.

23andMe advisor bidding for Google-backed prize with Google's help

Owen Thomas — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:40:00 EDT

Genetics researcher George Church is a great believer in openness, according to a profile of him in Wired. So he shouldn't mind a bit if we disclose some facts about his business dealings that we find fascinating. To wit:

He is an advisor to 23andMe, a Google-backed genetic-testing startup. Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe's cofounder, is married to Google cofounder Sergey Brin. Google has backed Church's Personal Genome Project, an effort to tie the human genome with personal health information, with an unrestricted grant. Church is an entrant in the Archon X Prize for Genomics, a $10 million genetics-research competition. Anne Wojcicki has donated money to the Archon X Prize at a Google-hosted gala. She and husband Brin, along with other Google executives, are also members of the X Prize's Vision Circle, a group of high-powered fundraising supporters. Oh, and just to complete things, 23andMe board member Esther Dyson is one of Church's test subjects.

Nothing really amiss here, but it all seems quite cozy. If Church's team wins the X Prize, Brin and Wojcicki can be quite content that their donations didn't end up too far from home. (Photo by Lloyd Ziff/Wired)

Esther Dyson: Online advertising will "turn good people into prostitutes"

Melissa Gira Grant — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:20:00 EDT

Esther Dyson, one of the 28 women counted at today's Supernova conference, responding to Bob Iannucci of Nokia in a conversation on the challenges of making money off of emerging networks of users, urged businesses to "appeal to people's pride rather than their avarice" or else they risk "turning good people into prostitutes." When Iannucci replied that "a market is just a language," Dyson extended her metaphor to herself, and to Dopplr, a trip-sharing social network. "I give up my travel information for free on Dopplr," she explained. Dyson is an investor in Dopplr. Does that make her a pimp who gives out freebies? (Photo via esthr)

Who's going to TechTalk Menorca, the Balearic boondoggle?

Owen Thomas — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:20:00 EDT

Martin Varsavsky, the founder of Wi-Fi startup Fon, has concocted another excuse for Web 2.0's jet set to rack up frequent-flier miles and buy carbon offsets: It's called Menorca TechTalk, held on Varsavsky's ranch on the Mediterranean island this weekend. The website is password-protected, but Valleywag got a list of who's going. It's a curious mix of professional conference attendees, like Rapleaf's Auren Hoffman, Loïc Le Meur of Seesmic, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, and David Sifry of Technorati, mixed in with a few people who have day jobs. There are even Googlers on the list — and when have you known those lot to leave the protective bubble of Mountain View? Oddly, Jimmy Wales did not seem to make the cut, though his New York patroness, Louise Blouin MacBain, is listed. In the comments, sort the TechTalkers into your preferred categories.

Alan Levy (BlogTalkRadio)
Alec Oxenford (OLX, DineroMail)
Alejandro Estrada (DineroMail)
Alexis Bonte (Erepublik.com)
Andrew McLaughlin (Google)
Anil de Mello (Mobuzz)
Arturo J. Paniagua (Hipertextual)
Auren Hoffman (Rapleaf)
Axel Schmiegelow (Sevenload, Denkwerk Group)
Benjamí Villoslada (Menèame)
Brent Hoberman (Mydeco)
Carlos Martìn (IG Expansiòn)
Cedric Maloux
Christophe F. Maire (Nokia gate5, investor)
Claudia Gisiger-Gonzalez (UNHCR)
Dan Dubno (Blowing Things Up)
David Sifry (Technorati)
Demian M. Bellumio (Cyloop)
Eduardo Arcos (Hipertextual)
Efe Cakarel (The Auteurs)
Ehssan Dariani (studiVZ)
Esteban Sosnik
Esther Dyson (EDventure)
Felix Petersen (Plazes)
Hans Peter Brøndmo (Plum)
Ibrahim Evsan (Sevenload)
Ivan Communod (Vpod.tv)
Jacob Hsu (Symbio)
James Gutierrez (Progress Financial)
Jennifer L. Schenker (BusinessWeek)
John Markoff (The New York Times)
Joichi Ito (Creative Commons, Six Apart Japan, investor)
Jon Berrojalbiz (Trading Motion)
Jonas Birgersson (Labs2)
Jörg Rohleder (Vanity Fair)
José María Figueres (Grupo Felipe IV)
Jose Marin (IG Expansion)
Julio Alonso (Weblogs SL)
Lars Hinrichs (XING)
Loïc Le Meur (Seesmic)
Louise T Blouin MacBain (Louise Blouin Media)
Lukasz Gadowski (Spreadshirt.com, investor)
Lukasz Wejchert (Onet.pl)
Marc Samwer (European Founders Fund)
Marcelo Claure (Brightstar Corp.)
Marko Ahtisaari (Blyk, Dopplr, FON)
Mathias Entenmann (Betfair)
Matt Biddulph (Dopplr)
Megan Smith (Google)
Michael Arrington (Techcrunch)
Michael Jackson (Mangrove Capital Partners)
Michael Wolf (Farallon Point)
Nikesh Arora (Google)
Ola Ahlvarsson (Result, FON)
Om Malik (Giga Omni Media)
R.J. Friedlander (Grupo Planeta)
Ricardo Galli (Menéame)
Rodrigo Sepúlveda Schulz (Vpod.tv)
Rupert Schäfer (DLD, Hubert Burda Media)
Scott Rafer (Lookery, Mashery, Winksite)
Tariq Krim (Netvibes)
Thomas Crampton (Next Media)

$8 million for blimp rides from Google HQ to Napa Valley

Jackson West — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:00:00 EDT

With a parking space at the giant hangar on Moffett Field run by NASA, Airship Ventures plans to buy a blimp and run pleasure cruises from the Googleplex's back yard to Napa Valley's wine country. To that end, the startup has secured $8 million in funding from wealthy sorts, including lead investor Esther Dyson. Airship Ventures can surely count on the legions of local steampunk fetishists to keep the waiting list for seats well padded, not to mention corporate-expensed junkets from Valley tech companies. After the jump, video of a Tokyo flyover in one of the Zeppelin NT airships the startup will use. (Illustration by Martin Luechinger)

When Joi met Esther

Owen Thomas — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:00:00 EDT

Hyperglobal adventure capitalists Joi Ito and Esther Dyson met by coincidence at London Heathrow's just-opened Terminal 5, and raced to post photos of each other to Flickr. Before Yahoo bought the photo site, Dyson was an investor in Flickr. Suggest a caption in the comments. (Photos by Esther Dyson and Joi Ito)

Esther Dyson not interested in Arrington's imperial blog ambitions

Jackson West — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:40:00 EDT

Venture capitalist and "futurist" Esther Dyson has no interest in investing in any tech-blog empire aggregated by Michael Arrington. "The beauty of blogs is that they're decentralized," Dyson tells Big Think. She's more interested in colonizing space, which seems about as likely to come true as the TechCrunch editor's fantasies of heading up a rollup of other tech blogs.

Genetics research + online health profiles = burgers

Jordan Golson — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:40:00 EST

With the launch of Google's health data service, we're going to set aside our skepticism for a moment and think about what this could potentially mean for society. Nah, screw society — for me personally. Google cofounder Sergey Brin invested in his wife's genetics research startup. 23andMe takes cheek swabs from customers and spits out their genetic history. Board member Esther Dyson writes:

a second goal of 23andMe [is] to collect a large database of genetic information and then come back to you over time with invitations to provide specific health data and participate in research.

Combining these data sets — health histories and extensive genetics information — could lead to significant breakthroughs in predicting future health issues. I think this means I can eat all the Yahoo burgers I want without worrying!

Esther Dyson sells Release 1.0 to Tim O'Reilly

Nick Douglas — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 14:31:49 EST

Futurist and serial entrepreneur-investor Esther Dyson chilled at this week's Web 2.0 Summit, held by Tim O'Reilly's company O'Reilly Media. A reader says:

Overheard at Web 2.0 today - she just sold the venerable Release 1.0 to Tim O'Reilly and it is going to be renamed Release 2.0 to help promote the Web 2.0 meme.

1. "Release 2.0." Ugh.
2. Release 1.0 is Dyson's monthly report and conference.
3. Release 2.0 is her book.
4. Both have her face on them, and that personal branding skeeves me out.

Earlier: Dyson's PC Forum is over forever [Valleywag]

Loose Wires: Oh foo

Nick Douglas — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:50:38 EDT

A compelling play-by-play of the goings-on at FOO Camp '06. We don't know about you, but starting the day watching Kevin Rose popping a zit at an Addictive Users seminar and ending with Moshe Cohen entertaining the masses with his zany clownish antics is well worth the privilege of being a Friend of O'Reilly. [Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog]
Pictured: Esther Dyson, who hangs with more bigwigs than the Pope, talks to the men who own about 2.7% of all Lithuanian lifetimes. [Flickr]
A once-rumored Oracle deal did not happen. Columnist John C. Dvorak now predicts a Sun-Apple deal. Ergo, Dvorak is a nutjob. [Wired]
Limelight Networks is on the prowl for a new CEO. Apparently, they too missed the FOO Camp '06 invite, perhaps shunned because of that big ol' ugly lawsuit. [GigaOM]
Don't fuck cell phone providers. Or carry on illicit affairs that are heavily documented by email exchanges. It's tacky, not to mention it'll cost you. [CNN.com]

Co-written with Beth Gottfried

Scoop: PC Forum is over forever

Nick Douglas — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 17:47:56 EDT

PC Forum, the long-running tech conference, is shutting down, according to inside sources.

In its 29-year history, the conference became an ultimate schmoozefest, with higher-level attendees than other conferences like Supernova. Organizer Esther Dyson (pictured) moderated discussions between bigwigs ("more of a 'show and tell,' not highfalutin' thinkin'," says one tech exec).

Hacker and painter Maciej Ceglowski wrote a clever account of one PC Forum event, satirizing the high schmooze factor and low real-information level in the panels.

PC Forum [Official site]

Internet Millionaires to African AIDS Babies: Drop dead!

Nick Douglas — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 10:30:00 EDT

Marketer and pro-blogger advocate Curt Hopkins is a good and reasonable man. Good because he's running the Blogswana project, in which students will help those affected by AIDS in Africa tell the world about their plight. Reasonable because when he asked the following Valley people — people known as good souls with a passion for world-changing technology — for financial support, he expected a few yeses and a few nos.

But from all but Blogger co-founder Evan Williams, Curt didn't get so much as a "screw you." Not all of the non-responders are worth millions, but one suspects they're all better off than the average Central African farmer.

Decent People
Evan Williams (Blogger, Odeo)

People Who Would Rather Buy a Fourth Lexus Than Give a Dime to Keep African AIDS Babies From Going Tits Up
Chris Anderson (Wired)
Ted Leonsis (AOL)
~~Steve~~ Scott Johnson (Ookles, Feedster)
Craig Newmark (Craigslist)
Craig Mundie (Microsoft)
Esther Dyson (I have no idea)
Joi Ito (goes to lots of Blogger conferences, other than that...visits diaper hookers in Kabukicho?)
Michael Arrington (Techcrunch)
Steve Wozniak (Apple)
Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media)
Kevin Kelly (Wired)
Jason Calacanis (Weblogsinc/AOL)
Nick Denton (Gawker)
James Hong (Hot or Not)
Max Levchin (Slide, Paypal)

The Blogswana Project [Official site]
Donation page [Blogswana Project]

Rumormonger: Facebook turned down Yahoo's $1.4 billion

Nick Douglas — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:56:17 EDT

Yahoo recently offered Facebook a $1.4 billion buyout, according to a crazy rumor heard at SloshCon. Tipster says Facebook rejected Yahoo (they're waiting for a $2 billion offer, remember?). Now that takes balls bigger than Stephen Colbert's.

What does this teach us? That Esther Dyson knows all. The conference socialite wondered what two Yahoo and Facebook execs were up to, chatting at a party (pictured). Guess Yahoo's Toby Coppel was one roofie away from making the deal.

Earlier: Yahoo and Facebook execs chat it up [Valleywag]
And: News Corp to Facebook: Talk to the hand [Valleywag]

Geek out: Al Gore lunges and Martha befriends a topless boy at D Conference

Nick Douglas — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 22:59:01 EDT

Wrap up the Powerbook cord and follow Esther Dyson to the next con — the D Conference winds down today. For actual news from people who are there, check out the Wall Street Journal's blog. (Favorite post: Turning the schmaltz up to 11.) For trumped-up news filtered through the snark machine, look no further. Photos by ZDNet reporter Dan Farber.

It's every boy's wet dream: get topless with Martha Stewart. At any rate, that guy in the shades looks jealous.

Al Gore, confused by the scenery, spent the whole time asking when the shuttle would blast off.

"I never attend a conference without my Wubby."

J. Peterman: "Elaine, you may call it Myanmar, but it will always be Burma to me."

"Ahahahaha, ahaha, aha...yes, yes, I am the love child of Steve Rubel and Tucker Carlson."

After host Kara Swisher was pried out from under the statesman's body, Mossberg wrote, "Lesson Learned: Don't offer Al Gore cake."

My god, Blodgett, you don't have to say yes to every conference invite.

Sandwiched between Al Gore and a big techie journalisty guy, Esther Dyson can't help but make an "I am cute and tiny!" face.

A moment of silence for the Guy Who Forgot to Bring Collared Shirts. (Don't be that guy.)

"No," says blog publisher Arianna Huffington, "I don't have any spare change. Now move away, you're standing in front of my Prius."

Walt Mossberg: "Whatever you do, let's please not make Marissa Mayer giggle."

Photos: D Conference [Dan Farber on Flickr]

Are conference hags a plague or pleasure?

Nick Douglas — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 10:30:00 EDT

A reader just can't take it any more, seeing the same faces in the D Conference photo series as they saw in all the other conference shots.

Please do us all a favor and write an expose of the dreaded Conference Hags. There they were in your latest entry. Esther Dyson [pictured], Mitch Kapor. I'm sure Stewart Alsop was there as well.

A study of Flickr photos from conferences each week will reveal these knuckleheads as the Zeligs of the Web/Techie/CoolNewHipNow conference scene.

I don't go to that many conferences each year, but these three Conference Hags are ALWAYS there.

Do they have nothing better to do? Worse, they bust in on conversations and comment like they are the only ones that have a correct opinion. Shut up, already. And find something better to do.

But isn't it better to think of these "conference hags" as jetsetting cool-hunters whose presence validates a conference?

Yahoo and Facebook execs chat it up

Nick Douglas — Mon, 22 May 2006 18:41:51 EDT

Futurist Esther Dyson catches Yahoo senior veep Toby Coppel chatting with Facebook veep and general counsel Chris Kelly. "What are they cooking up now," she asks. Oh Esther, you mischevious darling, why must you tease us so?

Let's see — Toby's holding the water, while Chris seems to be holding a plastic cup — beer or iced tea? Therein lies the secret, folks. Beer means somebody's re-thinking that $2 billion figure.

Note to Esther: Bounce flash or ambient lighting will make those indoor shots more flattering. No one wants to make Toby Coppel look pasty.

what are they cooking up now? [Esther Dyson on Flickr]

Esther Dyson addicted to Zero G

Nick Douglas — Thu, 11 May 2006 16:10:43 EDT

Having run out of trendy locales to visit on Earth's surface, philosopher-futurist Esther Dyson takes a zero-grav trip in G-Force One:

"Don't you wish your morning commute was this cool?"

She went with Google AdSense director Kim Malone and Hot or Not founder James Hong — no weightless pics of them yet — and returned exhilarated, gushing in her comments, "I need more! It's addictive."

Photo: Found in Zero Gravity [Esther Dyson on Flickr]