---
alias:
- John Brockman
born: 1941-02-16
category: Authors & Journalists
created: 2026-06-20
location: New York, New York
relations:
- fn: 5
  start: 1988
  type: founded
  with: '[[Edge Foundation]]'
- fn: 4
  role: husband; co-founded Brockman Inc. and Edge with Matson
  type: spouse_of
  with: '[[Katinka Matson]]'
- fn: 4
  role: son; chief executive of Brockman Inc.
  type: relative_of
  with: '[[Max Brockman]]'
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: 2026-09-25
---

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.[^1][^3]

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](/people/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][^4]

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](/organizations/mit-media-lab/) director [Joi Ito](/people/joi-ito/), all of whom appeared on Edge or in Epstein's orbit.[^1][^4]

### 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][^6]

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][^7]

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.[^1][^8]

### 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][^9]

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."[^10][^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](/people/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.[^1][^10]

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](/organizations/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][^4]

### The Conduit

Brockman's events were the setting in which several scientists first met Epstein. The MIT physicist [Seth Lloyd](/people/seth-lloyd/) told *[The New York Times](/organizations/new-york-times/)* that he met Epstein in 2004 at a dinner Brockman organized; Lloyd later took two post-conviction grants from Epstein and visited him during his work release. In 2002 Brockman invited a group of East Coast TED speakers, including his clients Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, to fly to California on [Epstein's plane](/concepts/lolita-express/); Pinker described the arrangement in 2019 as "my lit agent invited me to join a group of east-coast TED speakers Epstein flew to CA." The MIT cosmologist Alan Guth, another client, told NPR that Brockman arranged a meeting at which Epstein was to consider funding Guth's work, and described Edge as a club for Brockman's clients, whom Brockman called "Edgies." A December 31, 2010 email from Brockman to Epstein, released in November 2025, reads: "Thanks to Steven Pinker for suggesting this year's EDGE Question."[^12][^13][^14][^15]

The fuller text of Brockman's 2013 email to Morozov, as quoted by *BuzzFeed News*, read: "Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire science philanthropist showed up at this weekend's event by helicopter (with his beautiful young assistant from Belarus). He'll be in Cambridge in a couple of weeks asked me who he should meet. . . . He's been extremely generous in funding projects of many of our friends and clients. He also got into trouble and spent a year in jail in Florida." The "$30m" figure Brockman gave Morozov for the Harvard gift matched the claim in the [Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation](/organizations/jeffrey-epstein-vi-foundation/)'s press releases; Harvard's records show 6.5 million dollars.[^11][^12][^16]

### Timing of the Money

An [IRS](/organizations/internal-revenue-service/) filing of Epstein's C.O.U.Q. Foundation shows a 50,000 dollar gift to Edge in 2007, months after *The New York Times* reported on whether prosecutors had given Epstein preferential treatment over allegations involving underage girls. Edge then published Epstein's own answer to its 2008 question, "What have you changed your mind about?" Epstein foundation web pages claimed Edge support through at least 2014, which *BuzzFeed News* could not verify against tax filings. Epstein's contributor profile remained on the Edge website into 2019, months after the *[Miami Herald](/organizations/miami-herald/)*'s November 2018 series prompted a new federal investigation. Brockman did not respond to requests for comment from *BuzzFeed News* or NPR. NPR reported in 2026 that Edge appeared to have ceased publication in 2023.[^12][^14]

[^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]: 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.
[^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]: Brockman, John. *The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution.* Simon & Schuster, 1995.
[^7]: "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
[^8]: 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
[^9]: "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
[^10]: "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
[^11]: Morozov, Evgeny. "Jeffrey Epstein's Intellectual Enabler," *The New Republic,* August 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
[^12]: Aldhous, Peter. "Jeffrey Epstein's Links To Scientists Are Even More Extensive Than We Thought," *BuzzFeed News,* August 27, 2019, on Lloyd's 2004 meeting at a Brockman dinner, the fuller 2013 email text, the 2007 C.O.U.Q. gift, Epstein's 2008 Edge answer, the unverified later claims, the profile's removal in 2019, and Brockman's non-response. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/jeffrey-epstein-science-donations-apologies-statements
[^13]: Pinker, Steven (@sapinker), X (Twitter), July 11, 2019, reproduced in Aldhous, Peter. "Jeffrey Epstein Called Himself A 'Science Philanthropist' And Donated Millions To These Researchers," *BuzzFeed News,* July 11, 2019. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-science-donations
[^14]: Neuman, Scott, and Ava Berger. "Epstein paid for a conference of top scientists in 2006. His motives are now clear," *NPR,* March 9, 2026, on Guth's account of Brockman and "Edgies," Brockman's non-response, and Edge's apparent end of publication in 2023. https://www.npr.org/2026/03/09/nx-s1-5721150/epstein-scientists-physics-virgin-islands-conference
[^15]: "Release of emails renews interest in Harvard professor Steven Pinker's link to Jeffrey Epstein," *The Boston Globe,* November 19, 2025, on the December 31, 2010 email and the 2002 flight passengers. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/19/metro/steven-pinker-epstein-ties/
[^16]: Lopez, Diane E., Ara B. Gershengorn, and Martin F. Murphy. *Report Concerning Jeffrey E. Epstein's Connections to Harvard University.* Harvard OGC and Foley Hoag LLP, May 2020, pp. 3, 5, 21, on the 6.5 million dollar gift, the absence of any 30 million dollar pledge, and the foundation's "$35 million" claim. https://ogc.harvard.edu/file_url/208