Panels, Politicians, Powder & Parties: Let’s Talk Davos
Members of the Flat World team strapped up their snow-boots, flew to Zurich, rode three trains and arrived in the Swiss ski town of Davos to talk sustainable investing. Every year Davos hosts the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the first international gathering of the year which amasses politicians, academics, businessmen and a dash of celebrities. It is a hotbox, where you can share a shuttle with a Hollywood star and a drink with Fortune-500 CEO at the piano bar (if you can grab the right badge in the hierarchy).
Our team came to Davos for a series of meetings, panels, discussions and dinners focused on channeling wealth into accretive and long-term oriented assets. For the un-initiated, Davos is an exhilarating week of early breakfast meetings and late-night “night-caps” (code for parties thrown by large consulting and SaaS firms). We left the Magic Mountain — as nicknamed by German novelist Thomas Mann — content, having made a series of fruitful partnerships and connections to help advanced our goal of creating a more sustainable form of capitalism. Nonetheless we have a few major takeaways:
The primary topic discussed in Davos is… Davos itself. We noticed most of the delegates, guests, and blockchain groupies bemoaning the staleness of the official theme, “Globalization 4.0,” and the conversation naturally turned to social impact and which UN SDG badge participants were wearing. Climate change and gender equality are consistent themes, but once again only 22% of delegates were women and 270 private jets arrived for the first three days of the forum. Thankfully the absences of Modi, Macron, Xi Jinping and Trump meant that Davos wasn’t the circus it was last year.
One of the biggest ironies of Davos is that the world’s most pressing challenges are best addressed on the sidelines of the forum. A revealing example was climate change, where the 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg became its spokesperson. Thunberg traveled for 32 hours by train and slept in a tent with temperatures at 5 degrees Fahrenheit (-15 C) to deliver her speech.
Questions around the proliferation of technology like artificial intelligence unite the private and public sector. There was consensus that transformative technology requires responsible stewardship by corporations and clear regulation from governments on how data and information is used. Furthermore, an inadequate response to the labor-market effects of technology could mirror the same displacements that occurred during the past decade of globalization, leading to the backlash of populist politics that WEF delegates all fear.
We really cannot expect the world problems to be solved in four days at a chic Swiss ski resort. But, there are very few occasions where so many executives and policymakers are packed in the same village. We were happy to see the language of inclusive business models, addressing the SDGs, and long-term value creation permeate almost every conversation. Actions to follow.
Derek Brooks, Asset Management
In a fiery speech, uncharacteristic of Davos, George Soros says China is the world’s “most dangerous opponent” to open and free societies.
A classic business book, the 1997 The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, by Clayton Christensen seemed to ring as evident as ever at this year’s conference in Davos.
If you’re planning on attending the forum in the future, pack some food in recyclable packaging in your bag. In 2015, “home of the US$43 hotdog” is the name NBC coined for Davos. A serving of chocolate mousse will set you back C$25. A hamburger platter? An enormous C$75.
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