Katinka Matson - Brockman Inc.
John Brockman

Steve Case - AOL
Nathan Myhrvold - Microsoft

Jeff & Mackenzie Bezos - Amazon.com

John Brockman
John Markoff - New York Times
John C. Dvorak - ZD

Dean Kamen - Deka Research
Stewart Brand

David Bank - Wall Street Journal
Kim Polese - Marimba

Steve Riggio - Barnes & Noble

Arwen Dayton - Author
Sky Dayton - Earthlink


Michael Milken
David Bunnell - Upside


Charles Simonyi - Microsoft
Kara Swisher - Wall Street Journal


Mark Kvamme - CKS
Steve Case - AOL


Dave Ditzel - Transmeta
Forrest Sawyer - MSNBC

A. Don Key - dot.com advisor
John Brockman

"The dinner party was a microcosm of a newly dominant sector of American business." — Wired

Edge Dinner Photo Albums

2001
These days, it's open season on the Web. In fact, the pile-on deriding the tech sector sometimes is as over-the-top as the initial hyping was. Now, instead of being the font of all goodness and light, the Web sector is considered dead as a doorknob.....

Where that will take us now is anybody's guess, but it won't be back to headier times, says John Brockman, a New York literary agent who became known in Silicon Valley over the past several years for throwing an annual "Billionaires Dinner." He wants to change the name of the event. "This year," he says. "It's the 'Joy of the Ordinary Income Dinner.' "

Bon appetit and pass the Rolaids.

— Kara Swisher (Boom Town: "Internet Downturn Clears Way For Bigger, Established Players") THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

MONTEREY, Calif. — Like a lot of things in the frothy Internet world, it didn't take long for an annual get-together at one of the industry's trendiest conferences to show mindboggling growth —in this case a change in its name from the Millionaires' Dinner to the Billionaires' Dinner.

And why not? Sure, precious few of the people at the dinner supping on ahi tuna and shrimp scampi on Thursday at Cibo restaurant actually had billions in net worth. But the crowd was sprinkled generously with those who had amassed wealth beyond imagining in a historical eye blink. The muscle and money behind tech stars such as Microsoft, America Online, Sun Microsystems and others had gathered at the Technology, Entertainment and Design Conference here.

When the host, New York literary agent John Brockman, added three zeros to the dinner last year, there was more than a bit of giggly discomfort among the attendees. The general agreement was that the provocative Mr. Brockman, who also runs a discussion Web site called Edge.org, was poking fun more than offering a description. . . . .

— Kara Swisher (Boom Town: "At the Growing Billionaires' Dinner, Tech Stars Move to Grown-Ups' Table") THE WALL STREET JOURNAL [2.28.2000]

A few TEDs ago, [The Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference] John Brockman began hosting an annual Millionaires' Dinner in honor of his acquaintances at the conference whose net worth exceeded seven figures. But rising equity values prompted Brockman to rename his party the Billionaires' Dinner. Last year, Steve Case, Jeff Bezos, and Nathan Myhrvold joined such comparatively impoverished multimillionaires as Barnes & Noble's Steve Riggio, EarthLink's Sky Dayton, and Marimba's Kim Polese. The dinner party was a microcosm of a newly dominant sector of American business.

— Gary Wolf, WIRED [2.2000]

You don't have to be a billionaire to get invited to the "Billionaire's Dinner" tonight in Monterey, Calif. But you do have to know literary agent/author/entrepreneur John Brockman, who makes it his business to know who is among the digerati.

The dinner coincides with the 10th annual Technology, Entertainment, Design or TED, conference, which brings together Hollywood and Silicon Valley.....Last year's dinner guests included confirmed billionaires Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc. and Steve Case of America Online Inc. as well as likely contender Nathan Myhrvold of Microsoft Corp.

It's just a fun gathering for a few of my friends," Mr. Brockman says. The stock market has made new billionaires out of some previous centimillionaire guests, so Mr. Brockman doubled the size of the dinner but claims he still has to turn people away. To add suspense to this year's event, Mr. Brockman promises two surprise billionaires who prefer to remain unidentified. Hint: at least one is unmarried.

— "Digits" Column, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL [2.24.2000]

The weather, though, from San Francisco down the coast to Monterrey, where TED is held, turned bad, and it suddenly started to look like Brockman's dinner might be short a few billionaires.

It used to be the millionaires' dinner, but in the enthusiasm of the bull market, Brockman upped it a thousandfold (certainly, among the guests, there were a lot of millionaires — maybe everyone). Of course, the point is not the billionaires per se but the good fellowship that the idea of proximity to billionaires engenders. Does that fellowship disappear just because some billionaires don't want to take a chance on the weather?

— Michael Wolff ("Bond Trading: At TED, the new-media version of a Mafia wedding, you rub elbows with the dons and capos of the Internet world and become an instant member of the family."), NEW YORK [3.13.2000]

It was billed as the "Billionaire's Dinner" and was described earlier in the week as a modest gathering of people who happen to be gosh-darn rich. But literary agent John Brockman's dinner for some 60 people in Monterey last week was more of a press-fest than anything else. There were more people who type the word "billionaire" in the room than people who actually hold the assets.

But with cameo appearances by Conde Nast editorial director James Truman, Time Out New York's Cyndi Stivers, Fortune's Peter Petre, Powerful Media's Kurt Anderson, news anchor Forrest Sawyer and Industry Standard columnist James Fallows, this was the year when chic New York media met the geeks.

— Chris Nolan ("It's a Terrible Thing To Lose Minds"), NEW YORK POST [3.2.2000]

1999
The Annual "Billionaires' Dinner" (upgraded from last year's "Millionaires' Dinner") was held on Thursday, February 18th at Cibo in Monterey. Among those emerging from the Gulfstream jets were Steve Case, Nathan Myhrvold, Jeff Bezos, Steve Riggio, Danny Hillis, Bran Ferren, Douglas Adams, Terry Gilliam, Kai Krause, and Joichi Ito. Fortunately, famed industry pioneer and gossip David Bunnell was there taking notes (with a pen, by the way).

—David Bunnell ("Restaurant Owner Buys TED"), UPSIDE [2.24.99]

1998
Chronicler of the digerati, John Brockman, handpicked the best of breed at last week's Monterey TED(technology, entertainment, design) conference to attend his yearly soirée, where technology's philosopher-kings mused on all things Internet, multimedia.

— Trish Williams ("World Domination, Corporate Cubism and Alien Mind Control at Digerati Dinner"), UPSIDE [2.23.98]