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What would happen if roughly 200 members of the global elite gathered every year for a top secret retreat? What would they do? What would they talk about? Who would be on the guest list?
Well, data leaked by the Swiss hacktivist maia arson crimew (who also brought us the justice department’s no-fly list back in 2023) is shedding new light on Dialog, the private social club co-created by the former PayPal boss Peter Thiel and the angel investor Auren Hoffman.
The network has been around since 2006, and regularly gathers politicians, entrepreneurs, foreign officials, academics, Silicon Valley founders and even Hollywood folks for invitation-only retreats. In August, guests (who don’t necessarily have to be full-time members of the group) are scheduled to gather outside of Dublin for this year’s two-day affair.
And while knowledge of Dialog’s existence isn’t new, there are a few weird things we’ve discovered from this leak:
It operates a rating system for members
According to Wired’s breakdowns of the leak, Dialog grades its retreat attendees on a hidden scale, ranking them according to their wealth and fame. Everyone is assigned a grade of A, B or C, with the “C” grade being awarded to the most famous and influential.
The actor Josh Brolin is considered a VIP, and the notes on his membership point out: “His portrayal of Thanos in the Avengers series and his involvement in high-grossing films like Avengers: Endgame, which grossed over $2.79 billion, contribute to his prominence.”
But that’s not the only way attendees are judged. Most are also given a “value-add” score from 1 to 4, based on ratings from Dialog staff. If they determine a person’s “Value Add Too Low” or that they are a “Poor Culture Fit”, those members can be disinvited from events. The grades are also used to figure out what to charge for Dialog events, which can run attendees tens of thousands of dollars. Lower-grade attendees are charged full-price roughly 70% of the time, while only about a quarter of VIPs have to shell out the bigger bucks.
It hosts some very weird sessions
Planned events range from sessions like “Bring Back Nuclear” to others focused on “Disinformation and Deepfakes”, “Contrarian AI Takes”, “Democracy Under Surveillance” and “Money (Does?) Buy Happiness.”
If you’re looking for something a little more casual and normal-sounding, the agenda also includes sessions on cult-building (moderated by the founder of the Christian site Pray.com, no less), one on “Navigating WWIII” and a session titled “How’s Your Sex Life?”
It’s also a matchmaker?
Speaking of sex lives … Dialog has a matchmaking system that pairs members for networking and dating, according to Wired. One note shows that staff paired two members because they are “both in New York and work in government”. When introduced, each person gets shown a photo and a short bio of the other person. But Dialog also keeps a list of “do-not-pair” combinations for attendees who are spouses or who are already professional associates. Sometimes, though, there’s no stated reason why people are flagged.
How did this all get leaked?
More than the bizarre ranking system, the strange sessions and even the matchmaking, one of the most confounding aspects of all this is the fact that we know about it. Given that the group’s members include some of the world’s most culturally and politically important people, one would think that this information would be far more securely guarded.
The data exposed in the leak includes home addresses, phone numbers, emails, dates of birth, and other bio-data, as well as food allergies and the political leanings of some members.
“It’s just wild to me how this once again shows that the people who run the world are so confident in their safety that they don’t really bother with any proper operational security,” crimew, who leaked the data, told Straight Arrow. “Not even for their ‘off the record’ secret conventions where they all network and discuss our collective future.”
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Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist
