--- alias: - John Brockman born: 1941-02-16 category: Authors & Journalists created: 2026-06-20 location: New York, New York summary: John Brockman is a New York literary agent who founded the Edge Foundation and Edge.org, hosted the annual Billionaires' Dinner, and whose salon was for years substantially funded by Jeffrey Epstein. tags: - Person - JeffreyEpstein - EdgeFoundation - SciencePhilanthropy - LiteraryAgent - ThirdCulture - BillionairesDinner updated: 2026-06-20 --- John Brockman (born February 16, 1941) is an American literary agent and author who founded the [Edge Foundation](/organizations/edge-foundation/) and its website Edge.org, coined the popularized version of the "third culture," and built a science-and-technology client list through his agency Brockman Inc. For years his annual literary salon and its Billionaires' Dinner were substantially financed by [Jeffrey Epstein](/people/jeffrey-epstein/), and foundations associated with Epstein supplied a majority of Edge's revenue over 2001 to 2017.[^1][^2] ### From the 1960s Art Scene to Brockman Inc. Brockman was born in Boston to Austrian Jewish immigrants and raised in the Dorchester neighborhood, taking an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1963. He moved into the New York avant-garde of the 1960s, organizing intermedia and underground-film events and absorbing the ideas of Marshall McLuhan, John Cage, and Buckminster Fuller, whom he later cited as formative influences. He published early experimental books including *By the Late John Brockman* (1969) before turning to literary agenting.[^3][^1] Brockman formed the literary agency Brockman Inc. in 1973 as an international agency for serious nonfiction. It became the leading agency in science and technology writing, negotiating large advances for authors including Richard Dawkins, Daniel Kahneman, Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Jared Diamond, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and Martin Rees, a roster that at points included three Nobel laureates. His wife Katinka Matson co-founded the agency, served as its president, and produced the digital botanical images used across Edge; she is listed as a co-founder of Edge as well.[^3][^9] Brockman described the agency and the salon as overlapping enterprises, with many Edge contributors also being agency clients. His son Max Brockman joined the firm, became its chief executive, and edited the *This Will Make You Smarter* and *What's Next?* anthologies drawn from younger Edge contributors. Among the clients whose Epstein ties later drew scrutiny were Pinker, Dennett, [Marvin Minsky](/people/marvin-minsky/), and the MIT Media Lab director [Joi Ito](/people/joi-ito/), all of whom appeared on Edge or in Epstein's orbit.[^9][^1] ### The Reality Club and the Third Culture Brockman founded a discussion group he called the Reality Club, which met from 1981 to 1996 in restaurants, lofts, the Rosa Mexicano restaurant, and other venues around New York for seminars by scientists and intellectuals. In 1995 he published *The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution* (Simon & Schuster), arguing that scientists who write for a general public were displacing the literary intellectual as the people "rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives," an expansion of C. P. Snow's 1959 idea of two cultures.[^5][^4] The Reality Club moved online as Edge.org, which Brockman launched in 1996 under the nonprofit Edge Foundation he had incorporated in 1988. From 1998 he posed an annual Edge Question to his contributors, drawn from a curated pool of scientists, writers, and what he called third-culture intellectuals, with prompts such as "What is your dangerous idea?," "What will change everything?," and "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?" The responses were published on the site and collected in a long-running book series with titles including *What We Believe but Cannot Prove*, *What Is Your Dangerous Idea?*, *This Will Change Everything*, and *This Explains Everything*.[^6][^4] The journalist John Naughton called Edge.org "the world's smartest website" in a 2012 *Observer* profile, a phrase Brockman and the foundation thereafter used in their own materials. Brockman retired the annual question in 2018, framing the move as the finale to twenty years of Edge Questions. The contributor pool skewed heavily male; one tally of those answering put the figure at roughly 80 percent men.[^7][^1] ### Epstein Funding and the Billionaires' Dinner Brockman hosted an annual dinner from 1999, timed to the TED Conference then held in Monterey, California, which became known as the Billionaires' Dinner and brought Edge contributors together with technology and finance figures including Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, and [Elon Musk](/people/elon-musk/). Brockman embraced the name after trying alternatives; recalling the 2004 dinner, he wrote that "last year we tried 'The Science Dinner.' Everyone yawned. So this year, it's back to the money-sex-power thing with 'The Billionaires' Dinner.'" Katinka Matson organized the events alongside him.[^1][^10] According to financial records reviewed by *BuzzFeed News*, foundations associated with Epstein provided $638,000 of nearly $857,000 in revenue that Edge received between 2001 and 2017, and for a period Epstein's dinners and Edge were nearly entirely funded by him. Epstein gave at least $50,000 a year in 2009, 2010, and 2011; no gifts were recorded from 2006 to 2008, the period of his Florida investigation and imprisonment. Epstein was photographed at the dinners in 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2004 and attended the 2011 dinner alongside Bezos and Brin; his last recorded gift to Edge was $30,000 in 2015, after which Edge raised only several thousand dollars from a single donor and the dinner series ended.[^1][^2] In a 2013 email later published by his client Evgeny Morozov in *The New Republic*, Brockman sought to arrange a meeting between Morozov and Epstein, writing that Epstein "showed up at this weekend's event by helicopter (with his beautiful young assistant from Belarus)," noting that Epstein "got into trouble and spent a year in jail in Florida," and stating that Epstein "gave Harvard $30m to set up [Martin Nowak](/people/martin-nowak/)." Brockman also described visiting Epstein's home and seeing Epstein "in a sweatsuit and a British guy in a suit with suspenders, getting foot massages from two young well-dressed Russian women," and said he later realized the second man was [Prince Andrew](/people/prince-andrew/). Morozov declined the introduction, replying that the Victoria's Secret and modeling-agency connection was "one more reason to stay away actually."[^8][^11] ### The 2019 Fallout After Epstein's July 2019 arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges, the science writer Carl Zimmer asked to be removed from Edge, citing the Epstein funding. The author Naomi Wolf left Brockman Inc. on July 31, 2019, citing both Epstein's funding of Edge and the appearance of Epstein associate Sarah Kellen on the Edge website, and Morozov publicly called on Brockman to close the foundation. Photographs showing Kellen with Brockman and with Max Brockman at Edge dinners in 2002 and 2003 were removed from the site.[^8][^1] Most listed Edge contributors did not publicly disassociate from the foundation after the *BuzzFeed News* reporting. The renewed release of U.S. Department of Justice files in 2026 returned attention to the Edge network, with Nowak again placed on Harvard administrative leave in February 2026 and other figures named in the documents drawn from circles that overlapped with Brockman's salon.[^1][^9] [^1]: Aldhous, Peter. "How Jeffrey Epstein Bankrolled The Exclusive Edge Foundation And Reaped The Benefits," *BuzzFeed News,* 2019, on the $638,000 of $857,000 figure, the Billionaires' Dinner, the 2013 Morozov email, Kellen, and the 2019 departures. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/jeffrey-epstein-john-brockman-edge-foundation [^2]: Aldhous, Peter. "How Jeffrey Epstein Bankrolled The Exclusive Edge Foundation And Reaped The Benefits." *BuzzFeed News,* 2019, on the foundation contributions of about $638,000 of nearly $857,000 received 2001 to 2017 and the $30,000 gift in 2015. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/jeffrey-epstein-john-brockman-edge-foundation [^3]: Naughton, John. "John Brockman: the man who runs the world's smartest website," *The Observer,* January 8, 2012, on Brockman's background, the McLuhan and Cage influences, and the agency. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/jan/08/john-brockman-edge-interview [^4]: Brockman, John. *The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution.* Simon & Schuster, 1995. [^5]: "About Edge," Edge.org, on the third culture definition and the Reality Club's 1981 to 1996 meetings. https://www.edge.org/about-edge [^6]: "About Edge," Edge.org, on the 1988 incorporation of the Edge Foundation as an outgrowth of the Reality Club. https://www.edge.org/about-edge [^7]: Naughton, John. "The Man Who Runs The World's Smartest Website," *The Observer,* 2012, reproduced at Edge.org. https://www.edge.org/conversation/john_naughton-the-man-who-runs-the-worlds-smartest-website-in-the-observer [^8]: "Edge Foundation President May Have Been Jeffrey Epstein's Connection to Intellectual Elite," *InsideHook,* 2019, on Brockman as Epstein's gatekeeper, the 2013 email, and the 2019 fallout. https://www.insidehook.com/culture/edge-foundation-president-may-have-been-jeffrey-epsteins-connection-to-intellectual-elite [^9]: Naughton, John. "John Brockman: the man who runs the world's smartest website." *The Observer,* January 8, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/jan/08/john-brockman-edge-interview ; for the agency founding and client roster see also Aldhous, Peter. "How Jeffrey Epstein Bankrolled The Exclusive Edge Foundation." *BuzzFeed News,* 2019. [^10]: "The Edge 'Billionaires' Dinner' 1999" and subsequent dinner pages, Edge.org, on the 1999 start of the dinner at the TED conference in Monterey and Brockman's account of the 2004 naming. https://www.edge.org/event/the-edge-billionaires-dinner-1999 [^11]: Morozov, Evgeny. "Jeffrey Epstein's Intellectual Enabler," *The New Republic,* 2019, reproducing the 2013 Brockman email, the "$30m to set up Martin Nowak" line, the Prince Andrew foot-massage passage, and Morozov's reply. https://newrepublic.com/article/154826/jeffrey-epsteins-intellectual-enabler