Epstein would give Brockman about a half million dollars per year (IIRC) for the Edge foundation to put on its Billionaire's Banquet bringing together tech moguls like Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, and Elon Musk with Brockman's clients like Pinker and Dawkins (IIRC). In return, Epstein would get his picture taken with the more famous guests.
Epstein was a doofus BSer who couldn't maintain a conversation with a scientist for more than a minute or two, but big time scientists are used to being nice to rich but none too bright donors.
Also sexual access to young women and teen girls without having to navigate a brothel, an escort service, embarrassing faffing about with money or credit cards or smirking hotel front desk clerks or, you know, the cops
Part of his charm was his willingness / ability to cater to desires it would be humiliating for pointy headed science nerds to articulate: desire for celebrity rubbing of elbows and high class hobnobbing, desire to be addressed as an oracle on Big Thinky Questions not just your corner of research, desire to have access to helot class concubines
Yes, providing sexual access was absolutely central to Epstein's appeal and power. Two things that stood out to me in the recent NYT story on Epstein -- albeit as Steve noted it overlooked and left out a lot -- were 1)that Epstein had a way with women very early on; 2) many of his associate or clients did not. Epstein spotted Les Wexner's total social ineptness. What use are billions of dollars if you can't even hold a conversation or charm a woman?
Alan Dershowitz and Bill Gates don't strike me as smooth operators either and I can imagine what they valued in their relationship with Epstein.
One of the great -- or amusing, or maybe just confusing -- ironies of the Epstein mess is that Larry Summers has been disgraced for confessing to Epstein his unrequited attraction to an adult female professional. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but what got Larry was not any act other than texting Epstein that he pined for that young female economist. She politely shot him down and he was morose about it.
There is an absurdity about this. Epstein was a criminal sleaze of epic proportions, and all we see recently is Summers humiliated publicly for finding an adult woman attractive?
Maybe there will be more destroyed like Prince Andrews, but I am not holding my breath.
I find it interesting that Epstein was obviously able to 'facilitate' both the socially-inept nerdish types you've mentioned, but also another subset of his associates who clearly didn't have the same kind of trouble finding women, e.g. Bill Clinton, whose shit-eating grin graces so many of the photos out there right now.
To this latter group, he was clearly offering something worthwhile -- maybe, as Kathleen noted, ease of access and a degree of privacy, and perhaps even a patina of stylishness on the distasteful reality of rich guys screwing half-compliant young girls.
I also don't discount darker motivations related to the grotesque, satanic art and vibe surrounding the whole sordid mess.
Larry Summers obviously found Epstein a guy around whom he could let down his guard and confess something human but discrediting: I am old and married but have a hopeless crush
Epstein seems to have been good at getting high ranking men to feel safe about rolling over and showing him their bellies. If he was not employed by an intelligence agency he ought to have been.
Your reference to 'helot class concubines' is apt.
I've been listening to podcasts on Greco-Roman culture from several different sources recently, and one point that's made over and over is how alien the sexual mores of the classical world really were. If you were a young and attractive slave, you were a sex toy, and you could expect to get used frequently and casually.
The Epstein claque seem to have behaved much like classical slave owners.
Epstein was a real kombinator, a charming con man. Not sure he actually was as horrible as it was made out but the Dems needed a dead horse to beat so that is why it stayed in the news. Perhaps he was especially relatable to powerful Jewish men but he was from the east coast and that is who the powerful men were. He did have a very close relationship with Clinton.
One surprising revelation is what a putz (another yiddishism) Larry Summers was. I knew him years ago as a very arrogant and not very warm person. Summers asking Epstein for date advice was really pathetic.
The idea that Jeffrey Epstein was the scheming mastermind of an international espionage operation seems more and more ridiculous the more I read about him. Based on Ronen Bergman’s excellent book Rise and Kill First (about the history of Israeli assassinations), Epstein appears to have had approximately the opposite personality of the typical Mossad officer.
To expand on Steve’s observation that people liked Epstein, it seems like was essentially a pimp/con man. Both such types are good at seducing women and reading people.
Jeffrey Epstein was pretty similar to a more upscale version of Harvey Keitel's Jewish pimp character in "Taxi Driver," who likes really underage girls (Jodie Foster).
Epstein started as a math teacher. He may have had some interest in science too.
I read an article in the NYT about Epstein and several scientists. All had denied anything to do with underage teens. (Maybe, maybe not, who knows?)
But Epstein also had a lot of money. He lured scientists by offering to fund projects.
He seemed to like doing this.
Epstein would give Brockman about a half million dollars per year (IIRC) for the Edge foundation to put on its Billionaire's Banquet bringing together tech moguls like Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, and Elon Musk with Brockman's clients like Pinker and Dawkins (IIRC). In return, Epstein would get his picture taken with the more famous guests.
Epstein was a doofus BSer who couldn't maintain a conversation with a scientist for more than a minute or two, but big time scientists are used to being nice to rich but none too bright donors.
Yes, he bought his way into their company.
One of the ones at the NYT story did ask for help with a woman problem.
The story was based on the big email dump.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/us/professors-jeffrey-epstein-relationships.html
Also sexual access to young women and teen girls without having to navigate a brothel, an escort service, embarrassing faffing about with money or credit cards or smirking hotel front desk clerks or, you know, the cops
Part of his charm was his willingness / ability to cater to desires it would be humiliating for pointy headed science nerds to articulate: desire for celebrity rubbing of elbows and high class hobnobbing, desire to be addressed as an oracle on Big Thinky Questions not just your corner of research, desire to have access to helot class concubines
Yes, providing sexual access was absolutely central to Epstein's appeal and power. Two things that stood out to me in the recent NYT story on Epstein -- albeit as Steve noted it overlooked and left out a lot -- were 1)that Epstein had a way with women very early on; 2) many of his associate or clients did not. Epstein spotted Les Wexner's total social ineptness. What use are billions of dollars if you can't even hold a conversation or charm a woman?
Alan Dershowitz and Bill Gates don't strike me as smooth operators either and I can imagine what they valued in their relationship with Epstein.
One of the great -- or amusing, or maybe just confusing -- ironies of the Epstein mess is that Larry Summers has been disgraced for confessing to Epstein his unrequited attraction to an adult female professional. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but what got Larry was not any act other than texting Epstein that he pined for that young female economist. She politely shot him down and he was morose about it.
There is an absurdity about this. Epstein was a criminal sleaze of epic proportions, and all we see recently is Summers humiliated publicly for finding an adult woman attractive?
Maybe there will be more destroyed like Prince Andrews, but I am not holding my breath.
Excellent comment.
I find it interesting that Epstein was obviously able to 'facilitate' both the socially-inept nerdish types you've mentioned, but also another subset of his associates who clearly didn't have the same kind of trouble finding women, e.g. Bill Clinton, whose shit-eating grin graces so many of the photos out there right now.
To this latter group, he was clearly offering something worthwhile -- maybe, as Kathleen noted, ease of access and a degree of privacy, and perhaps even a patina of stylishness on the distasteful reality of rich guys screwing half-compliant young girls.
I also don't discount darker motivations related to the grotesque, satanic art and vibe surrounding the whole sordid mess.
Larry Summers obviously found Epstein a guy around whom he could let down his guard and confess something human but discrediting: I am old and married but have a hopeless crush
Epstein seems to have been good at getting high ranking men to feel safe about rolling over and showing him their bellies. If he was not employed by an intelligence agency he ought to have been.
(Let’s be real: He was definitely an asset)
Your reference to 'helot class concubines' is apt.
I've been listening to podcasts on Greco-Roman culture from several different sources recently, and one point that's made over and over is how alien the sexual mores of the classical world really were. If you were a young and attractive slave, you were a sex toy, and you could expect to get used frequently and casually.
The Epstein claque seem to have behaved much like classical slave owners.
Epstein was a real kombinator, a charming con man. Not sure he actually was as horrible as it was made out but the Dems needed a dead horse to beat so that is why it stayed in the news. Perhaps he was especially relatable to powerful Jewish men but he was from the east coast and that is who the powerful men were. He did have a very close relationship with Clinton.
One surprising revelation is what a putz (another yiddishism) Larry Summers was. I knew him years ago as a very arrogant and not very warm person. Summers asking Epstein for date advice was really pathetic.
The idea that Jeffrey Epstein was the scheming mastermind of an international espionage operation seems more and more ridiculous the more I read about him. Based on Ronen Bergman’s excellent book Rise and Kill First (about the history of Israeli assassinations), Epstein appears to have had approximately the opposite personality of the typical Mossad officer.
To expand on Steve’s observation that people liked Epstein, it seems like was essentially a pimp/con man. Both such types are good at seducing women and reading people.
Jeffrey Epstein was pretty similar to a more upscale version of Harvey Keitel's Jewish pimp character in "Taxi Driver," who likes really underage girls (Jodie Foster).
Sex criminals fall into two categories - the confidence tricksters and the armed robbers
The Democrats are going to shoot themselves in the foot again because 80%+ of people Epstein had his picture taken with are Democrats.
And this is not going to be Good for the Jews.
Epstein's contacts tended to be on right half of the left.