Esther Dyson is an active investor in a variety of start-ups, none of them in the domain-name business. She sold her business, EDventure Holdings, to CNET Networks in early 2004, and left CNET late in 2006. Previously, she had co-owned EDventure and written/edited Release 1.0 since 1983. She now does business again under the name of EDventure, which she reclaimed when she left CNET.

Dyson focuses on emerging technologies, emerging companies and emerging markets. Her past investments include Flickr and del.icio.us (sold to Yahoo!), Medstory and Powerset (sold to Microsoft), Postini (sold to Google) and Brightmail (sold to Symantec). She currently sits on the boards of 23andMe, CVO Group, Eventful.com, Evernote, Meetup, NewspaperDirect, Voxiva, WPP Group and Yandex, and on the advisory boards of Choicestream, GridPoint, IBS Group and Keas. Her aerospace investments include Airship Ventures, Icon Aircraft, Space Adventures and XCOR Aerospace.

By 1994, she had already explored the impact of the Net on intellectual property (among other things, why many software products are now turning into online services). In 1997, she wrote a book on the impact of the Net on individuals’ lives, “Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age.” It includes a number of chapters about today’s hot topics such as security, privacy, anonymity and intellectual property.

Dyson is also an active player in discussions and policy-making concerning the Internet and society. From 1998 to 2000, she was founding chairman of ICANN (the organization responsible for overseeing the Domain Name System). A variety of government officials worldwide turn to her for advice on Internet policy issues.