John Perry's Open Road

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John Perry Barlow Highlight (0:57)
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Interview (7:44)
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The Beginning of the Future (2:12)
Interview Excerpt -
Writing Grateful Dead Songs (0:47)
Interview Excerpt -
If You're Not Lost (0:47)
Interview Excerpt -
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (0:34)
Interview Excerpt -
Everybody Else Is Scared Too (1:12)
Interview Excerpt -
Opening Yourself Up To Possibilities (1:19)
Interview Excerpt -
The Absence of Alternatives (1:11)
Web Exclusive -
Jobs (1:48)
Web Exclusive -
Life Is Scary (1:24)
Web Exclusive
JOHN PERRY BARLOW
Co-founder
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
If you think of getting lost as a positive thing, you open yourself up to possibilities you wouldn't have otherwise considered
INTERESTS:
Non-Profit Organizations Technology
THEMES DISCUSSED:
Community Chance Exploration Values Courage Fear Opportunity Family Choices Regrets
FOUNDATION:
BIOGRAPHY:
- Studied comparative religion at Wesleyan University, then spent two years wandering around India.
- After college, he spent time living on his family's ranch and writing songs for the Grateful Dead.
- Was always fascinated by what would replace the solitary ranch lifestyle that was dying out.
- In the '80s, someone told him to check out a Grateful Dead message board; this was his first encounter with the Internet, still in its early stages.
- He realized the Internet was going to become "the nervous system" of the collective human race, it became one of his interests.
- Harper's Bazaar started a forum discussing the issues of personal privacy and freedom of expression in the age of the Web.
- In 1990, he took those ideas and started EFF, which protects free speech online, limits government access to personal data.
- Stresses that everyone feels confused about what they want to do with their lives; you can take comfort in knowing your colleagues are just as scared as you are.