Work Sauce

Dialog: Inside the Grading System at Peter Thiel's Private Society

In June 2026, a leak exposed the full grading system, dossiers, and 222 registered attendees for the Dublin retreat. What emerged was a portrait of a private organization that grades members on wealth and fame, uses AI-assisted profiling, and operates a built-in matchmaking system — all under the guise of "off-the-record discussion."

What It Is

Dialog is an invitation-only society founded in 2006 by Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman. It describes itself as an "off-the-record forum for executives, elected officials, and academics" — "no speakers or panel discussions, but exclusively moderated discussion rounds in small groups of eight to twelve participants."

• Founded: 2006, by Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman
• Executive Director: Raffi Grinberg
• Chairman: Auren Hoffman (also founded SafeGraph, a location-data broker, and LiveRamp, an identity-resolution firm)
• Purpose: Private discussions among ~2,500 annual participants and 1,000+ paying members
• Venues: Resorts in California, Arizona, Venice, with a planned campus near Washington, D.C.
• Cost: $16,000+ registration fee; pricing varies by grade
• Two products: Membership (private dinners, member-led treks, concierge, private group chat) and Retreats (200+ people for 3-4 day meetings)

The public page is near-empty. The real infrastructure is behind sign-in walls: app.dialog.org for the Global 2026 retreat, dating.dialog.org for the matchmaking system.

The Grade System (The Core Revelation)

Every member or prospect receives an A, B, or C grade before joining, using AI tools and staff judgment.

What Grades Measure

• Wealth — measured by assets under management. One investor graded by $30B AUM; another dismissed with "Small AUM."
• Fame — whether the "average person" would recognize someone; weighs if people are "widely recognized" or "prominent," sometimes against "a Fortune 500 company or a top celebrity."

Pricing by Grade

• Bottom-grade attendees pay full price ~70% of the time
• VIPs ("C" grade) pay full price only ~25% of the time
• Fees extend into tens of thousands of dollars

The Dossiers

Each member has a dossier including:

• Assets under management
• A 1-to-4 value-add score, averaged from multiple staff ratings
• Who can be trusted to moderate discussions
• Notes about fit at previous events
• Political leanings — staff make separate internal assessments even when members disclose
• Matchmaking preferences ("looking for love" — Single Man / Single Woman / Other)
• Personal phone numbers, emails, DOBs, photos, emergency contacts, food allergies

Post-Retreat Code Review

Grades are reassessed after every retreat through an internal process called a "post-retreat code review." Members can be disinvited for:

• "Value Add Too Low"
• "Poor Culture Fit"
• "Grade Fell Too Low"

Specific Grade Examples (anonymized)

• An actor graded C/VIP despite never attending a retreat; staff cited his blockbuster film franchise and millions of Instagram followers
• A well-known economist initially denied VIP "C" by an AI tool; staff overruled the AI assessment
• A think-tank president graded B because "the institute may not be as widely recognized by the average person"
• One member graded lower specifically to avoid seating with VIPs

AI-Assisted Profiling

Dialog used an AI tool to assemble dossiers on at least 26 people. The AI tool made initial assessments that staff sometimes overruled. Staff notes reveal blunt internal logic:

"Doesn't have significant following. [Value add] not high enough to keep." (on a quantum-computing startup founder)

"Small AUM." (on an investor)

"Just because her boyfriend has $$" (staff member resisting raising an author's fee)

Political Leanings Tracking

• Members are urged to self-disclose; staff make separate internal assessments
• Staff assessments override self-descriptions in many cases
• Political data is tracked alongside grading, matchmaking, and moderator tiers

Gender Breakdown

Women = roughly 1/3 of those graded but hold only 18% of top marks (C/VIP grades)

The Matchmaking System

• Built-in system pairs members for networking and dating
• ~10% opted into a singles pool
• More than three-quarters already have algorithm-suggested matches, which staff refine by hand
• Each introduction includes a photo and short bio
• Do-Not-Pair system bars spouses, professional associates, former ambassadors vs. heads of family organizations, and a prominent tech founder vs. an author. The largest group barred from matching: Dialog's own staff/organizers.

The Moderator Tier

Tracks who is most trusted to moderate discussions, run workshops, or hold "Soapbox" sessions. An internal moderator guide urged: everything is "off the record," comments should be concise and "nonobvious," and introductions should "avoid status signaling."

The 2026 Leak

In June 2026, hacktivist maia arson crimew discovered that dialog.org had an unprotected list of 113 people labeled "Directory List" embedded in the website code — served to any visitor who viewed the source. A separate app.dialog.org sign-in screen presented no terms of service, no membership restriction notice, and no indication an invitation was required.

Separately, other records and documents were leaked to reporters. These show 222 people signed up to attend the 2026 Dublin retreat (Aug 12-16). Of that group, 87 are first-timers, while others stretch back a decade+. A handful go to the founding 20 years ago.

Records were stored in Airtable, with membership status, retreat history, bios, home cities, and private access tokens. None used government email addresses — all registered with personal/corporate accounts, placing their attendance outside email systems subject to public-records laws.

Sensitive Data Exposed

• Political leanings — promised "WILL NOT be shared… ever"
• Matchmaking responses
• Personal phone numbers, emails, DOBs, photos, emergency contacts, food allergies

Registrant Predictions (from sign-up form)

• AI will reorder work, war, education, belief within years
• Mass labor displacement → swing back toward unions/government programs
• "AI winter," domestic terrorism targeting data centers, criminal defendants choosing AI lawyers over public defenders, religious revival from disruption
• One predicted: "Societal degeneration will continue to accelerate."

Talent Lists (from leaked profiles)

Include: "funhouse construction," accent imitation, backcountry skiing, urban exploration, "meditative and psychedelic inquiry into the nature of reality," "compassion and existential dread," "dinner parties, keeping secrets, remembering birthdays."

Book Recommendations (from leaked profiles)

Skew toward Marcus Aurelius, Milan Kundera, Annie Duke's Thinking in Bets, Peter Attia's Outlive, and Thiel's Zero to One.

Discussion Topics (2026)

• "Money (Does?) Buy Happiness"
• "Bring Back Nuclear"
• "Navigating WW III"
• "Battlefield Technologies"
• "How's Your Sex Life?"
• "Build-a-Cult (Soapbox)" — moderated by founder of Pray.com
• "Build-a-Party" — run by a former White House national security official
• "It's Fun to Be in Charge"

The Planned Campus

In 2025, Dialog was looking to purchase land near Washington, D.C. for a planned campus — near Langley, Virginia and The Pentagon. The role of the Thiel Foundation in this transition from nomadic phase to institutional phase is notable.

Co-authored with my second brain, Obsidian.