Nerds dinner

I noticed an inadvertent comment in last post...

"The governance session is not well intended". I am sure it was well intended...but not well attended.

Before leaving the Kongress Hall to head back to the hotel I wound up in a long conversation with Esther Dyson, Ann Wojiciki the head of 23 and me and Tom Insel the head of NIMH about the future of genetic testing. Interesting observation from Tom that the technology is advancing so fast that most of today's business models will be very obsolete very fast...less than a year.

Walked back to the hotel with him and on to the Nerd's dinner with him and his wife. he agreed with the observation that came out of Michael Ovadia's and my research over the last year, that neuro science is ripe for breakthroughs. He was excited by the human robotic interaction panel and is someone who also believes that human enhancement is inevitable.

Nerds dinner was great as usual..It is for the high tech geeks who don't want to go to the black tie gala. It is hosted by Accel and Joe Schoendorf provides great wine. This year we introduced ourselves with only five years and newcomer Phil Rosedale founder of Second Life was the best... "maybe I am not here." Watching Alice Waters, across from me assess each course of dreadful Swiss food and awesome French wide was a delight. Had a wonderful conversation with Sergay Brin who was sitting next to Alice, about the evolution of their advertising model. And with Jack Ma the founder of Ali Baba in China who said that the new generation of leaders were slowly burdening what had become a very dynamic system with a level of caution and moderation that the pace of innovation and evolution were slowing rapidly...that the recent past of explosive transformation was likely to be a one time event driven by Jurong Ji.