The Life of Information - An Interview with Esther Dyson

Interviewed by: Tim Devaney and Tom Stein

Esther Dyson clearly knows how to handle large amounts of information. Her resume shows she is adept at multi-tasking. She serves on the boards of nearly 20 foundations, corporations and associations. She is a limited partner of the Mayfield Software Foundation and chairman of EDventure Holdings, a company she founded. Recently, she has become interested in personal space flight.

Dyson has also been one of the leading providers of analysis of information technology and its impact. We spoke with Dyson in her New York office.

·When did you first realize the power of information?

--My brother and I were always trying to one-up each other, and I felt most proud of the fact that I already knew some of the things he was going to tell me.

·You were early to realize the information explosion. So will the importance of information continue to increase so rapidly?

--It's like asking whether energy will continue to grow in importance. This is simply a fact and does not require such a statement.

·What role does information play in the economy? Will information become more commoditized in the future?

--Some information will. But value always exists in uncommodified information. This is the economy of flow: things always lose value and new things gain value, so you need to keep creating new things with new information. The period of value decline will become shorter and shorter.

·Do you think people feel defeated by information?

--This is not only true for information, but also for the choices people need to make. You used to spend your life living in the city where you were born, marrying three people, and having two careers. Your life may be great or it may be terrible, but you have to live it. Now, anything is possible. If you don't find the perfect match in real life, you can choose from hundreds or thousands of people online. Then it must be your fault if you choose the wrong person. And when all the job opportunities are open to you and you don't find your ideal career, that's your fault too. People have a greater responsibility, and they feel it: if their lives aren't perfect, they feel it's their fault. This is a heavy burden.

·How do you manage information?

--I use my computer and my phone, which can now receive emails. I don't have a phone at home. I stopped using a landline phone in my house twenty years ago, not because it was replaced by cell phones, but because I didn’t want to have to answer the phone at home. This means: Don’t let these things control you. You can always unplug your phone cord. But there are things we don’t want to miss. And even more things may be missed now. People are trying to make you feel like you're missing out on something. This is called marketing.

·Where do you mainly get information?

--Emails and conversations with people. And most of the information I want to know hasn't been released yet.

·Who is your information hero?

--Larry Lessig is one, although I don't agree with everything he says. So did George Orwell. I'm more concerned with the belief that information will set you free. But information will only set you free if you have the courage to use and act on it.

·Do you have any information you would like to receive?

--I am one of the subjects of the Personal Genome Project conducted by geneticist George Church. There were 10 of us a***. Our genome has been sequenced, and we are preparing to put our genome and all of our medical records on the Internet. There is value in making this information available to others. This information can be studied to produce better medicines and understand genetic trends. Of course it also raises many legal, ethical and political issues, but these issues also require attention. So the information I really want to get right now are all of my medical records that fall under the scope of medical testing. These medical records circulated around the world in written form, but those who owned them would not send them to me for fear of violating privacy regulations.

·It is said that you have been involved in space exploration?

--Yes. Space exploration and space tourism have privatized and decentralized aerospace and aviation, and will generate a large amount of commercial energy and innovation. Entrepreneurs investing in venture capital will make space tourism develop faster, which will also increase the likelihood that I will roam space in my lifetime.