Esther Dyson Quotes
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.
Having seen a non-market economy, I suddenly understood much better what I liked about a market economy.
The Internet is like alcohol in some sense. It accentuates what you would do anyway. If you want to be a loner, you can be more alone. If you want to connect, it makes it easier to connect.
It may not always be profitable at first for businesses to be online, but it is certainly going to be unprofitable not to be online.
When I was a young student, I thought grow-ups would come and make things work. Now I realize that grown-ups are just kids with wrinkles.
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.
Since I became chairman, I've tried to turn EFF into civil liberties and responsibilities.
Don't leave hold of your common sense. Think about what you're doing and how the technology can enhance it. Don't think about technology first.
As an investor in small companies, I don't care how rich Microsoft is. I care about what my opportunities are.
Owning the intellectual property is like owning land: You need to keep investing in it again and again to get a payoff; you can't simply sit back and collect rent.
Part of the problem is when we bring in a new technology we expect it to be perfect in a way that we don't expect the world that we're familiar with to be perfect.
As long as a government can come and shoot you, you can't jump on the Internet to freedom.
I would much rather see responsibilities exercised by individuals than have them imposed by the government.
Listening to other companies' customers is the best way to gain market share, while listening to the visionaries is the best way to create new markets.
The nature of business and government has been to build a surplus and self-perpetuate, but the Internet fosters and rewards smaller, more fluid organizations.
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.
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.
The Net is not a single home. Rather, it's an environment where thousands of small homes and communities can form and define and design themselves.
I think we really made a mistake in separating the Internet from capitalism in a certain way that is bad for our country.
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.
I believe in markets doing what they do well, which is to develop technology, and letting citizens do what they ideally do well, which is to set policy.
From the business point of view—not to overstate it—intellectual property is dead; long live intellectual process. Long live service; long live performance.
I became a real free market fanatic. I'm probably less so now than even two or three years ago.
No system in the world is so well-designed that it can't grow stale, rigid, or corrupted by those who benefit most from it.
But there is a corollary to freedom and that's personal responsibility, and the real challenge is how you generate that personal responsibility without imposing it.
The definition of the problem, rather than its solution, will be the scarce resource in the future.
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.
The Internet Is Like Alcohol in Some Sense. It accentuates.What You Would Do Any Way. If You Want To Be Loner, You Can Be More Alone and if You Want to Connect, It Makes Easier to Connect.