THE EDITORS WISH TO thank the many people who made this book and Project Hieroglyph possible. Many of the people we name here will be named again several times below because of the many roles they served in building and supporting this big idea. First, we’d like to acknowledge Neal Stephenson for founding Project Hieroglyph and President Michael Crow for bringing the Center for Science and the Imagination to life at Arizona State University (ASU).
On behalf of the Center for Science and the Imagination, we thank Kimberly de los Santos for shepherding the idea in its nascent early stages; Safwat Saleem and Joshua Gallagher for establishing Project Hieroglyph’s early style; Art Lee, Jim O’Brien, and Karen Liepmann for sage counsel; and Lauren Pedersen, Elizabeth Vegh, and Wesley de la Rosa for their good humor, can-do attitudes, and the many hours they have contributed to making Project Hieroglyph and the center as creative and vibrant as they are today. We wish to specially acknowledge Jennifer Apple, volunteer editor extraordinaire; Chelsea Courtney, business operations specialist and operational wizard; Nina Miller, the tremendously creative designer and architect of the current Project Hieroglyph platform; and Joey Eschrich, a tireless and talented editor, promoter, enthusiast, manager, field marshal, ghostbuster, and majority whip for Project Hieroglyph and the center. For the launch of Project Hieroglyph we thank Jeremy Bornstein, Gary McCoy, Karen Laur, Zoe Glynn, and all those at Subutai Corporation and Brainstem Media for their hard work on the first iterations of the Hieroglyph platform, as well as Jim Karkanias, Stewart Brand, Esther Dyson, and the many others who provided key pieces of advice and support during Project Hieroglyph’s early days.
As editors we also wish to acknowledge the wit, warmth, and unflagging support of Jennifer Brehl and the entire team at HarperCollins, as well as Michele Mortimer and the charming Liz Darhansoff, of Darhansoff and Verril Literary Agents, who acted as agent for the project, negotiating the complex contract on behalf of ASU.
Ed Finn would like to thank all those at ASU who have made the center’s existence not merely possible but a thrilling adventure for their support, their good advice, and their intellectual generosity, especially those who might grant him tenure one day. He’d especially like to thank Michael Crow for letting him just make stuff up and then try it as a job description and Kimberly de los Santos for hiring someone who is, by many objective measures, pretty weird. He is eternally grateful to Anna and Nora for giving him new reasons for optimism every single day.
Kathryn Cramer thanks Neal Stephenson and Ed Finn for the opportunity to work on Hieroglyph, Edward Cornell for his support and encouragement, Gregory Benford for conversation and advice, and David Hartwell for suggesting to Neal Stephenson that she might be right for this project.