The Esther Dyson papers contain material that documents Dyson’s career analyzing and creating projections on emerging technologies with her newsletter Release 1.0, and her interest and investment in tech start-ups with her venture capitalism firm EDventure Holdings. The collection dates from 1974 to 2001, with the bulk of material from 1980 to 1996, and includes material related to Dyson’s research on technology companies, products, and topics.

Esther Dyson was born July 14, 1951, in Zürich, Switzerland, to physicist Freeman Dyson and mathematician Verena Huber-Dyson. At age 16, Dyson was accepted to Harvard University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1972. After graduation, she went to work at Forbes as a fact-checker and then reporter from 1974 to 1977. In 1977, she started working as a Wall Street securities analyst for New Court Securities (later called Rothschild) and then Oppenheimer and Company, specializing in high-tech and software companies.

36 Linear feet, 28 record cartons, 3 manuscript boxes

The Computer History Museum (CHM) can only claim physical ownership of the collection. Users are responsible for satisfying any claims of the copyright holder. Requests for copying and permission to publish, quote, or reproduce any portion of the Computer History Museum’s collection must be obtained jointly from both the copyright holder (if applicable) and the Computer History Museum.

Material in box 8, folder 31 contains social security numbers. Researchers must use a redacted photocopy of this restricted material for research until the restriction is lifted at the death of the number holder. Otherwise the collection is open for research.