Latest Esther Dyson Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• We invented our computers in the '80s. We networked them together in the '90s. Now we're giving them eyes, ears and sensory organs. And we're asking them to observe and manipulate the world on our behalf.

  Esther Dyson

  Eye, Giving, Together

• It's not that you have jobs on the Internet, but the Internet makes it possible for more people to build their own jobs. What it does is, it erodes the power of institutions. It used to be you needed an institution to have a job. But, if you look at the three of us on this show, I don't think any of us is really employed by an institution. We run our own lives.

  Esther Dyson

  Running, Jobs, Thinking

  "After Banner Decade, Peering in on the Future of Technology". "PBS NewsHour" with Judy Woodruff, www.pbs.org. January 3, 2010.

• The great thing is, Internet allows you to create your own job, not just look for jobs other people are going to give you. And that, combined with the American spirit, I think, is going to help us come out of the recession faster than other countries. And I think it's going to help Africa come out of, you know, a century of slump.

  Esther Dyson

  Country, Jobs, Thinking

• The Internet is an incredible business tool. First of all, the Internet/the cell phone - the cell phone is just another way to get at it - I think is having a huge impact in Africa most particularly, where it enables people - suddenly, they know crop prices. They can communicate. It makes their lives more efficient.

  Esther Dyson

  Thinking, Impact, Phones

  "After Banner Decade, Peering in on the Future of Technology". "PBS NewsHour" with Judy Woodruff, www.pbs.org. January 03, 2010.

• We had made a - sort of a national decision that we wanted to be this intellectual property country, where we would have things manufactured in China, but we would do the design, we would do the creative stuff.And now what we have done is, we have forgotten that that's what we wanted, and we're making the intellectual stuff more and more free. And, so, we're sort of left with less and less.

  Esther Dyson

  Country, Design, Creative

• I would like to see us shake-in, instead of a shakeout, in the sense that it's true that there's a lot of junk online, and we have to filter it and so forth.

  Esther Dyson

  Junk, Filters, Online

• I think we really made a mistake in separating the Internet from capitalism in a certain way that is bad for our country.

  Esther Dyson

  Country, Mistake, Thinking

• New landscape of personal media has given us a vaster wasteland of cyberspace. But, luckily for us, there's some really wonderful stuff in it. And if history is any guide, as the media matures, the quality will continue to go up.

  Esther Dyson

  Media, Quality, Cyberspace

• People have to understand that they can reject technology. They can turn off their cell phone. They can stop looking at their e-mail. It's there if they want it. It's not being forced on them.

  Esther Dyson

  Technology, Phones, Cells

• What's really going on here is, this is a media shift. It's comparable to what happened in the 1950s and the birth of electronic mass media back then.This is the birth of a new kind of personal media, where, instead of we're all watching one program, we're all watching each other. And the history of media makes it really clear. Whenever we have a big innovation, the first wave of stuff we do is pretty crummy. The printing press gave us pornography, cheap thrillers, and how-to books. Television gave us Newt Minow's vast wasteland.

  Esther Dyson

  Book, Media, Innovation

• People still have a choice, but, if they find it all too confusing, or they just want someone else to make a choice for them, there's a default that works pretty well. That's this concept of libertarian paternalism. And it's handy.

  Esther Dyson

  People, Choices, Confusing

  "After Banner Decade, Peering in on the Future of Technology". "PBS NewsHour" with Judy Woodruff, www.pbs.org. January 3, 2010.

• People need to understand that the technology is for them. It's not to them. It's not over them. People still sometimes want to be led a little too much.

  Esther Dyson

  Technology, People, Needs

  "After Banner Decade, Peering in on the Future of Technology". "PBS NewsHour", www.pbs.org. January 3, 2010.

• The inner sort of consumer identity got the best of people. And everybody just wants things for free. And that's created this strange kind of cheapness to everything, where everything becomes throwaway. And people, I think, have started to undervalue things, maybe because there's too much, maybe because it's too easy to make, but I think mostly just because, somehow, that's the pattern that got set. And I think that's regrettable.

  Esther Dyson

  Thinking, People, Identity

• If the past decade was the decade of searching and finding and looking for stuff, this coming decade is going to be the decade of filtering and going to your friends for recommendations.

  Esther Dyson

  Past, Stuff, Recommendations

  "After Banner Decade, Peering in on the Future of Technology". "PBS NewsHour" with Judy Woodruff, www.pbs.org. January 3, 2010.

• Internet becoming accessible everywhere, whether it was Wi-Fi at work, on your cell phone as you traveled. People had it at home with broadband. There was a big change.It used to be people used the Internet primarily at work, because that's where they had a good connection. Now they're using it at home. And the second big change is, they used it not just to get information, but to communicate with one another. And, so, it became not simply an information exchange, but a personal exchange, a communication mechanism.

  Esther Dyson

  Communication, Home, Phones

  "After Banner Decade, Peering in on the Future of Technology". "PBS NewsHour" with Judy Woodruff, www.pbs.org. January 3, 2010.