Ezra Klein@ezraklein
Enough people have asked me about the Peter Thiel-Dialog story that I think it's worth saying what it is, or at least what I saw it to be. So:
โDialog is a conference. I went once in 2018 and once in 2022. No one ever asked me to keep it or my presence a secret.
โMy understanding was Thiel was one of its founders but no longer involved by the time I went. I never saw or talked to him in connection with Dialog.
โNor did I see the other names Iโve heard mentioned, like Ted Cruz or Elon Musk or Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Jared Kushner. Dialog was not sold to me as a bunch of big names, which is part of why I went. I donโt need to go to a conference to hear what Ted Cruz thinks.
โYou could be a Dialog member, but I wasnโt. I donโt think joining got you much except guaranteed invitations to future Dialogs. There were occasional dinners and webinars, but I never went to one. I would not have described it as a secret or a society.
โThe panels were largely self-organized, so people would propose panels and hold them. I went to one on being a working parent and another on whether crypto had any real use cases and another on how to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. Youโd usually have 8 or 10 people in a room. It was all very TED-talk adjacent.
โIn 2018, I found it very optimistic, with an idealistic hacker-ish vibe. In 2022, I found the conversations and vibe more curdled and resentful. I didnโt enjoy it, and I didnโt go back. (That did prove a pretty good signal of where techโs politics were going though, maybe I shouldโve paid more attention.)
โThat said, Dialog was a pretty ideologically diverse crowd. I met some people there who were *extremely* far left and far right. I met some real eccentrics and weirdos. I appreciated that about it.
โ Iโm a journalist, I go to lots of things in the hopes of getting to know people, hearing new ideas, finding podcast guests, etc.
โBeing at something does not mean I endorse it, or everyone at it, or everyone who organized or founded it. I try to go to things where I donโt share the politics and perspectives of the crowd, for obvious reasons.
โI am surprised how credulous some people have been on this story. You have to believe some weird things about the world to believe Juliรกn Castro and Peter Thiel are somehow engaged in a common project. Secret societies, I imagine, need a lot of trust to function, but the people being named here do not trust each other and do not have aligned agendas.
So thatโs what I saw at Dialog. Iโll just end by saying itโs a weird experience to have a conference you havenโt thought about for years become the center of a new conspiracy theory.
wired.com/story/leak-expโฆ
