Seth Lloyd (born August 2, 1960) is a professor of mechanical engineering and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ted Jack Kaptchuk (born August 17, 1947) is an American medical researcher who holds professorships in medicine and in global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School. He researches the placebo effect within the field of placebo studies.

John Brockman (born February 16, 1941) is a literary agent and author specializing in scientific literature. He established the Edge Foundation, an organization that brings together leading edge thinkers across a broad range of scientific and technical fields. In 2019 it was suggested that Brockman was the “intellectual enabler” of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who died awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking girls, who kept Brockman’s Edge Foundation on a retainer fee.

Hubert Burda (born 9 February 1940) is a German billionaire publisher. He is the owner, publisher and general partner of Hubert Burda Media, a global media company of more than 600 media products, including websites, print magazines and other brands.

Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born French and American mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of physical phenomena and "the uncontrolled element in life".