Esther Dyson

Summer is conference season - a critical time for building brands, making connections, and shaping industries.

That's really why I want to go to space - I want to be weightless for so long that it gets boring.

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.

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.

Since I became chairman, I've tried to turn EFF into civil liberties and responsibilities.

The challenge of email is that people send you stuff for free, and it becomes items on your to-do list.

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.

In this the age of concern over privacy invasion and surveillance and manipulation, people will start to realize that there is no way to avoid being manipulated by other people, governments, marketers, and the like.

My parents are both scientists. They like order.

The best entrepreneurs have a sense of purpose that drives them.

I enjoy it; my experiences abroad have taught me the importance of an open mind and have given me a willingness to wander off the beaten path - not only to keep life interesting, but also to understand in a meaningful way that things do not look the same from every vantage point.

My life is like a series of comic strips, which is why I like investing: I really like new stuff.