Epstein Birthday Book Contributor/Wildlife Photographer Nathan Myhrvold Has One Of The Coolest Artifacts Ever… In His Living Room!

I don't know about you, but in the last few days, roughly 70% of my social media feeds have been about the recently disclosed pages from Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday book. The other 30% are posts about the angry Phillies fan "Karen" who has still somehow managed to go unidentified after nearly four days and may actually skate by without getting totally Twitter vilified. Impressive!

Here's the story on the Epstein birthday book in case you somehow have no idea what I'm talking about:

Back in 2003, Jeffrey's henchwoman, Ghislaine Maxwell, reached out to a couple dozen of Jeffrey's closest pals to compile a book of well-wishes for his 50th birthday. Think of it like a yearbook, except instead of classmates signing "have a good summer!" and drawing smiley faces, you had billionaires, politicians, fashion designers, and Harvard professors leaving bizarre doodles, questionable poems, and deeply awkward love notes to a man who was already known in certain circles for being… well, Jeffrey Epstein.

The book itself was organized into sections — "Friends," "Science," "Brooklyn," and so on. The "Friends" section featured names like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Bill Clinton's alleged contribution was a simple note that praised Jeffrey's "childlike curiosity." Donald Trump's alleged contribution, which he denies responsibility for, is a weird dialogue about a "wonderful secret" they both shared. And the text is encompassed by a lewd outline of a female body with Trump's trademark signature acting as female body hair. Again, Trump denies that he wrote the dialogue or drew the illustration.

There's a contribution from a Harvard economist, fashion designer Vera Wang, Victoria's Secret owner Leslie Wexner (whose contribution included a sketch of a pair of breasts), and Peter Mandelson (now the UK's ambassador to the US), calling Epstein his "best pal."

Bill Gates is NOT a contributor to the 50th birthday book because he did not meet Epstein until 2011. But there is a Microsoft connection in the book.

One of the birthday book's lengthiest contributions came from a guy named Nathan Myhrvold.

(Photo by Taylor Hill/WireImage)

Putting aside his Epstein connection for a moment, Nathan is a very interesting guy. In 1986, he sold his company, Dynamic Systems Research, to Microsoft for $1.5 million in stock. He then went on to work at Microsoft for the next 13 years, eventually becoming the company's first Chief Technology Officer.

FYI: Had Nathan sold his company for $1.5 million worth of Microsoft shares in 1986 and never sold a single share, after nine 2-for-1 stock splits over the years, today he would own 36.6 million shares. At today's $498 closing price, that $1.5 million sale would have turned into $18.25 billion.

Alas, he clearly did sell some of those shares because today we estimate his net worth to be $900 million.

In 2000, Nathan co-founded a company called Intellectual Ventures. Over the last 25 years, Intellectual Ventures has quietly amassed more than 30,000 patents, making it one of the largest holders of intellectual property in the world. The company's model has been both praised and criticized: on one hand, it provides a way for inventors to monetize their ideas; on the other, it's been accused of acting like a "patent troll," buying up patents to extract licensing fees from big tech companies. Regardless of where you fall on that debate, the venture has added significantly to Nathan's fortune.

Outside of business, Myhrvold has embraced his inner polymath. He co-authored scientific papers with Stephen Hawking, became a James Beard Award–winning chef and the author of the six-volume culinary bible "Modernist Cuisine," and developed a passion for wildlife photography that has taken him on expeditions all over the world.

Speaking of his wildlife photography, let's jump back to the Epstein book for a moment.

As we mentioned earlier, Nathan provided one of the lengthiest contributions to Epstein's birthday. Nathan didn't just write a quick note or a poem; he wrote a seven-page letter. The letter ended with the lines…

"I've included a few photos that I took on my recent trip to Africa. They seemed more appropriate than anything I could put in words." 

The first photo was a screaming monkey with its penis hanging down. The second photo was of a male zebra having just completed making love to a female zebra. The next photo was a male zebra with its penis hanging down. There was a photo of a male lion mounting a female lion…. you get the idea. Here's an embed of some of the images if you want to explore more:

Nathan Myhrvold's letter in Epstein's birthday book. pic.twitter.com/AmVaojRGJl

— SKDoubleDub (@SKDoubleDub33) September 9, 2025

So yeah, Nathan's seven-page "happy birthday" contribution to Epstein was basically a safari slideshow of animal genitalia and procreation.

But we haven't even gotten to my favorite fun fact about Nathan yet! And this has nothing to do with Epstein and isn't weird. It's pretty cool, actually.

Back in the mid-1990s, Nathan visited the set of the "Jurassic Park" sequel and struck up a friendship with Jack Horner, the paleontologist who consulted on the film. Horner convinced him to put some of his Microsoft millions into a dinosaur-digging foundation. Nathan agreed, and the foundation he funded would go on to unearth more Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons than had ever been found. Most of those skeletons were donated to museums, including the Smithsonian. But Nathan kept one for himself.

In 1999, at age 37, he paid $5.7 million for two acres of shoreline property on Lake Washington in Medina, Washington, and built a 19,500-square-foot mansion. And what did he put in the center of his stunning new lakeview living room? A full Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.

If you're ever cruising across Lake Washington, just remember: one of the houses on that shoreline contains a 70-million-year-old apex predator looming over the furniture. You can get an idea of it from the video and photo below: