Dialog, the Peter Thiel-linked private network, secretly grades the people it invites to its retreats and then uses those scores to help decide who should meet and sit together. In records obtained by WIRED, nearly 200 prominent people tied to the group’s summer gathering were assigned hidden A, B or C ratings.
The timing matters because those records were tied to Dialog’s annual retreat this summer, where members, speakers and guests are scheduled to gather outside Dublin, Ireland, for two days of talks on artificial intelligence, geopolitics and modern warfare. The same materials show the group’s system is not just about who gets in. It is about how the room is arranged once they arrive.
The files include home addresses, private phone numbers, email accounts, dates of birth, photos, emergency contacts, food allergies and, in some cases, political leanings that members volunteered. WIRED said the records came from a trove of internal data received from a confidential source, and it was notified of the leak by maia arson crimew, the Swiss journalist and security researcher. The leak lands on a network founded in 2006 by Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman, one that has long presented itself as a tightly controlled gathering place for politicians, investors, entrepreneurs, military leaders, executives, academics and journalists.
That is why the ranking system is such a sharp break from the way Dialog describes itself. A document shared by a past participant calls it an invite-only community with more than 1,000 paying members, while also advertising private dinners in members’ homes and private spaces around the world, member-led global treks, concierge services and a private group chat. But the records examined by WIRED show a messier reality: of 192 dossiers, 130 are tagged as members and the rest are prospects, with markings such as First Time Dialoger or Warm. The exposed directory circulating online was separate from those internal records, yet it also appeared to pull in nonmembers and outside guests who had passed through Dialog’s orbit.
The grades themselves are opaque, which is part of what makes them news. Everyone in the files gets an A, B or C, but the records give clues rather than rules. The C grade appears reserved for the most famous and influential people, and only one in seven people in the files received it. Most got a B, with 141 of the 192 landing there. The A grade appears to be used mostly for older, established members the graders see as less notable. In other words, Dialog is not merely counting attendees. It is classifying them.
One name in the records makes the system easier to picture. Josh Brolin is listed as a VIP, but the files say he has never attended a Dialog retreat. His presence in the directory suggests the network is tracking more than confirmed guests and more than formal membership alone. The next retreat is already set for this August, outside Dublin, and the unanswered question is not whether Dialog can keep calling itself private. It is how long it can keep a hidden hierarchy hidden when its own records reveal who it thinks matters most.
