Flint Dille

Screenwriter, game designer, and worldbuilder: Transformers, G.I. Joe, D&D, Riddick, Ingress

Flint Dille's fingerprints are on four decades of American pop culture. He was head writer of The Transformers' third season and story consultant on The Transformers: The Movie, story editor on G.I. Joe, and a writer on An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. He collaborated with Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax at TSR, won Story of the Year honors for The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and Dead to Rights, and served as creative lead of Ingress at Google and Niantic Labs.

The grandson of the publisher who brought Buck Rogers to the world, he is the author of The Gamesmaster and co-author of The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design. His conversation explores imagination as a practical force, and how people become active authors of the lives and worlds they want to build.

Worldbuilding Your Life

Daniel Kottke

One of Apple's first employees, builder of the original Apple I boards

Daniel Kottke's path ran from a Reed College dorm room to an ashram in India to a garage in Los Altos. He met Steve Jobs at Reed, and in 1974 the two traveled across India together in search of enlightenment. Two years later he was in the Jobs family garage assembling and testing the original Apple I boards, becoming one of Apple's first employees before anyone knew what Apple would become.

He went on to work on the Apple II and served on the original Macintosh team. His story is about curiosity, friendship, and proximity to builders: proof that saying yes to a strange invitation can put you at the center of history before the path is obvious to anyone.

Before Apple Was Apple

Danger Ranger

Co-founder of Burning Man · Founder of the Black Rock Rangers

Michael "Danger Ranger" Mikel spent his early career in Bay Area tech before helping build one of the most influential participatory cultures on earth. A veteran of San Francisco's Cacophony Society, he co-founded Burning Man's Black Rock Desert era, founded the Black Rock Rangers in 1992, and has served on the Burning Man Project's founding board.

His conversation explores participation, art, community, and the idea that meaningful cultures are not consumed. They are built.

From Spectator to Participant