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You're invited to the Boat-Burning
Jonathan's Birthday & Reunion • June 15

What Do You Give a Man Who Burned His Boats?

We asked. He answered.

Not a way back. There isn't one, and he doesn't want one. You get on the next boat with him. He has been crossing for nearly thirty years, and the heading has never changed: consilience, the unity of knowledge in service of life on Earth.

That's why the list is mostly time, people, and conversations rather than things. A crossing like this is made with others, and the gift he's actually asking for is company.

See Jonathan's wish list Hear his story

Not Your Typical Wish List

Each one is a different way to come along: a place to stay, a seat at your table, a road to travel together, or another kind of help entirely. Offer one on your own, or join someone else on a bigger one. Every one of them says the same thing: I'm aboard.

His Story — A Life in Pursuit of Consilience

Nearly three decades, one unchanging heading: consilience — the unity of knowledge in service of life on Earth. Here is how it began, what it has cost, and where it stands today.

In 1998, E.O. Wilson published Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge — the argument that the sciences, the humanities, politics, economy, and nature are one interdependent whole, and that unifying them is a moral duty. Jonathan read it, and it set the course of his life. He renamed his company just to reach Wilson. They met. They became collaborators in a mission to save life on Earth.

What followed spans nearly three decades: the Encyclopedia of Life, the Consilience Initiative, a promise made to Wilson to never give up, thirteen years building Webshield, and now the Quantum Privacy Network — consilience realized as working architecture, answering the calls of Wilson, King Charles III's Terra Carta, and Pope Leo XIV's Magnifica Humanitas.

These videos tell that story in his own words — for the people who've been part of it, and for anyone who wants to understand why this birthday, and this list, mean what they do.

1998
E.O. Wilson publishes Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Jonathan reads it — and everything changes.
1999
Jonathan renames his company Consilient to reach Wilson. They meet at Harvard and agree to launch a foundation together.
2006–07
Wilson publishes The Creation, calling on science and religion to join forces. He wins the TED Prize, wishing for an Encyclopedia of Life — Jonathan proposes the Consilience Initiative to enable it, and joins Wilson, Harold Varmus, and Jeffrey Sachs at the Google summit.
2013
Last meeting with Wilson, at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. Wilson passes the baton. Jonathan promises to never give up on the mission — and begins the thirteen-year build of Webshield.
2016
Wilson publishes Half-Earth — the quantitative threshold for safeguarding the majority of species on the planet.
2021
Edward O. Wilson passes away at 92. His mission to save life on Earth lives on — in the promise Jonathan made.
2026
The Quantum Privacy Network: consilience realized as protocol. Three independent calls to action — Wilson's appeal, King Charles III's Terra Carta, and Pope Leo XIV's Magnifica Humanitas — converge on the architecture Jonathan never stopped building. The next crossing begins now — and this time, he isn't making it alone.

In His Own Words

Over the past week we sat down and recorded a series of conversations about Jonathan's life — the idea that set its course, the promise he made, what it has cost, and where the vision stands now. These are those recordings, unpolished and honest.