Esther Dyson Quotes

Any new technology tends to go through a 25-year adoption cycle.

I think any new technology that helps connect and create social cohesion is great. But at the end of the day, you and I are analog creatures. We have to take 'oohs and aahs' and convert them to 0s and 1s and then convert them back to 'oohs and aahs.' Narratives that work in social networks are the exchange of stories that are told well.

If we look at the life cycle of technologies, we see an early period of over-enthusiasm, then a 'bust' when disillusionment sets in, followed by the real revolution.

To bring out a new technology for consumers first, you just had a very long road to go down to try to find people who actually would pay money for something.

When color TV arrived, it just sat there and you saw color. I've been to retail stores where there were no 3-D glasses at all and the 3-D images were all blurred. People were coming in and saying, 'I don't want to buy that.' There's a lot of marketing connected to introducing technologies and especially introducing new experiences.

It's rare that you can solve a technology problem with more technology.

I've never met a skeptic of VR who has tried it.

Wherever technology's going, we're cool with it. We're definitely promoters of kids trying out new stuff.

For me, I try not to set any goals or try and see what's gonna happen, because I don't wanna be let down or disappointed that something didn't happen the way I thought it was gonna happen.

Any new thing that comes out with the ability to enhance our show or my ability to communicate with fans and give people more behind-the-scenes access, you know we'll be all over it.

Even in the business department of a magazine, tech was a backwater.

To master a new technology, you have to play with it.

The first text I ever got was somebody breaking plans on a first date. That was, like, the worst way to be introduced to a new technology is with rejection.

My sons are my friends, too, and they have introduced me to new technology and new sounds from around the world. I have learnt a lot from them.

When you start over and jump into new tech, you don't know what the negatives are going to be until you go through a few cycles. We're always changing our tech, but we don't wholly destroy it with each game. We're taking parts out.

The main advantage of blockchain technology is supposed to be that it's more secure, but new technologies are generally hard for people to trust, and this paradox can't really be avoided.

In my view, technology should only be used on objective situations - offside, in or out of the box, over the line or not - but when it comes to subjective situations, people are never going to agree. That's sport.

There's no question in my mind of the value in technology in fueling young minds. Like any other tool, if you simply throw it in the classroom and don't consider how best to take advantage of that tool, and you try the old ways with a new piece of technology on the desk, it's no panacea.

The benefit to building a startup is that customers don't have the same kind of friction when they adopt new technology.

You know the old adage: Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.

I believe I've spent my life expecting people to behave in a certain way. I believe that when they didn't behave according to my expectations, I became angry, sad, confused and occasionally fearful. I believe these expectations are the reason I've been angry, sad, confused and occasionally fearful more than I care to admit. As a result, I now believe my expectations are the real problem. I believe that everyone has this very same problem, and they ought to start acting accordingly.

Disappointment, discouragement, and despair are nothing but the bitter fruit of an unfulfilled expectation allowed to live beyond its time.

When television came in, everybody thought that was the end of the movie business, which was not and is not.

Love is what enables us to bridge the gap of disappointment when others don't live up to the expectations we have of them.

You move your life across the country and make a commitment to a place, and to a genre, and then you realize that neither the place nor the genre might be what you thought they were going to be, or that the world you thought you were going to find in school doesn't actually exist.