So it is late afternoon on Thursday and as I sat down between sessions to up date the blog, someone asked if they might share the small table I am sitting at. It happens to be Dan Quayle our former VP. The irony is that I spent part of the morning with his much more interesting successor Al Gore.
The day began very early at 7 Am with Paul Saffo and I leading a session for CNBC sponsored by Infosys on scenario planning. It was both creative and fun. In the end the consensus of the group of about 80 people was short term pessimism and long term optimism. Then went on to the session announcing Google.orgs new initiative with Larry Brilliant, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Managed to have a nice conversation with Al Gore and he conveyed his gratitude to GBN for the work we did on Current TV. Van Jones from Oakland made an impassioned appeal to keep the green issues and the poverty issues linked by helping gain opportunity from responding to climate change.
I cam back to the Kongress Hall to do a bit of work. First was Musharraf's talk/ He said that he had acted only constitutionally in suspending the constitution (HUH!) and promised a truly fair election. I am not sure how credible he is. Then got caught up in a conversation with baroness Susan Greenfield of the UK a brilliant and controversial neuro-scientist who is one of the few who believes that human modification is inevitable. As she was getting up who sits down but Gavin Newsom and his new fiance. We had a long talk and he promised to come by the office. As it happens I was just about to have a meeting with Peter Piot the Head of the UN AIDS program with whom we are planning a major meeting in SF in March. Not surprisingly Peter managed to get Gavin to agree to participate. Peter and I will do an oped together on the future of AIDS.
Then went to a session of A new Concert of Powers with a few of the key foreign Ministers, France, Russia, Henry Kissenger, Shimon Peres and my friend George Yeo the Foreign Minister of Singapore. Mostly fairly uncontroversial except for the closing comments of Kudrin of Russia in which he said perhaps the world no longer needs blocs like NATO, because of course both Russia and China now need to on the inside. In talking with George Yeo afterwards he commented that the current financial crisis and the realignment of finance that developed with the developing countries providing funds to the rich world suggests that as we come out of this recession will also lead to major realignment of power. More later tonight following my session on carbon trading.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
What's on their minds and what's not.
so it is a little after midnight on the first day and I have just returned from a long dinner that Alice Waters and Michael Pollan staged at the Schatzalp...but more on that later.
For me one of the interesting things I get out of Davos is to see what's on people's mind and what's not. The two big things so far are the global economy no surprise, with the financial events of recent days and weeks. The second big thing is climate change, especially energy...again no surprise, given all the attention it gets in the world these days. But what's not is more interesting. The middle east/Iraq/Iran is not. The US election is not. Technology is not (I must have killed that with my WEB 2.0 panel last year.) Africa is not.
So it happens that I was sitting here writing Dave Gergen and Gene Sperling sat down nearby. Gene is Hilary's chief economist and formerly Clinton chief economist. So I decided to check out my judgments. And I got a very clear answer. No one here cares anymore. There is no session on where the US is headed and no discussion of it...the US has become marginal on the world stage. We discussed various speeches including the entirely banal content free speech by Condi Rice...not even taking any credit for the surge in Iraq that seems to be having some effect or the middle east initiatives. In fact Gene had helped write Clinton's great speech here in 2000. I even praised Dick Cheney's speech as exceeding my expectations and Gene responded that the VP never has a problem exceeding his expectations.
Back to the economy...a conversation with Martin Wolf of the FT and a long time friend captured much of the sense of the room. There is a feeling that this not a major crisis but it will be a long lasting one. A recession of a couple of years...well into 2009. It is the result of poor financial regulation and incompetence and malfeasance in the financial sector. And there is a great deal of blood to be spilled there. While the US gets much of the blame there is also not much honor to go around to any of the major countries. To which you can sustained high energy and food prices. So there is on the whole a darkish color to the economic outlook...not catastrophic.
On climate change not much new. There is on the whole consensus on the need to do something, but also a feeling that current measures (e.g.Kyoto) don't go far enough. Most people seem to agree on what actually needs to happen, but there is little agreement on whether we will actually do it.
Karzai the President of Afghanistan spoke this evening and once again renewed his appeal to not abandon him. He got very polite applause but he did not seem at the center of things in the way he did a few years ago. it will be interesting to see what Musharraf has to say tomorrow.
Before the Alice Waters dinner there was an event for Environmental Defense Fund to launch the new book Earth; The sequel by its President Fred Krupp...a very pragmatic look at what we need to do on climate change and energy.
Alice Waters and Michael Pollan staged a locavores dinner...at a restaurant high up on the mountain ( actually the sanitarium in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain) with food all acquired locally. A spectacular a completely unique dinner especially at Davos where the food is ordinary at best. Michael, who is a neighbor back in Berkeley gave a terrific talk/appeal to preserve the local opportunities all over the world and not succumb to a globalization of the diet. Ran into Nick Negroponte at the dinner and talked about the launch of his low cost computer for the worlds kids...an amazing accomplishment. By the way the dinner will be on BBC World on Friday and you might find it on their website for a download.
And for any of you who think it is the life of luxury up here in Davos. It is a town for austere Swiss skiers. When I actually got into my hotel room tonight...the one that was not available when we arrived I looked around the room and noticed something that seems to be missing. And then I figured it out. It was the bed. So I will be heading up there soon...have to do this in the lobby where there is wi-fi and pulling down my murphy and sleeping until 6 when I go off to do an early CNBC event.
For me one of the interesting things I get out of Davos is to see what's on people's mind and what's not. The two big things so far are the global economy no surprise, with the financial events of recent days and weeks. The second big thing is climate change, especially energy...again no surprise, given all the attention it gets in the world these days. But what's not is more interesting. The middle east/Iraq/Iran is not. The US election is not. Technology is not (I must have killed that with my WEB 2.0 panel last year.) Africa is not.
So it happens that I was sitting here writing Dave Gergen and Gene Sperling sat down nearby. Gene is Hilary's chief economist and formerly Clinton chief economist. So I decided to check out my judgments. And I got a very clear answer. No one here cares anymore. There is no session on where the US is headed and no discussion of it...the US has become marginal on the world stage. We discussed various speeches including the entirely banal content free speech by Condi Rice...not even taking any credit for the surge in Iraq that seems to be having some effect or the middle east initiatives. In fact Gene had helped write Clinton's great speech here in 2000. I even praised Dick Cheney's speech as exceeding my expectations and Gene responded that the VP never has a problem exceeding his expectations.
Back to the economy...a conversation with Martin Wolf of the FT and a long time friend captured much of the sense of the room. There is a feeling that this not a major crisis but it will be a long lasting one. A recession of a couple of years...well into 2009. It is the result of poor financial regulation and incompetence and malfeasance in the financial sector. And there is a great deal of blood to be spilled there. While the US gets much of the blame there is also not much honor to go around to any of the major countries. To which you can sustained high energy and food prices. So there is on the whole a darkish color to the economic outlook...not catastrophic.
On climate change not much new. There is on the whole consensus on the need to do something, but also a feeling that current measures (e.g.Kyoto) don't go far enough. Most people seem to agree on what actually needs to happen, but there is little agreement on whether we will actually do it.
Karzai the President of Afghanistan spoke this evening and once again renewed his appeal to not abandon him. He got very polite applause but he did not seem at the center of things in the way he did a few years ago. it will be interesting to see what Musharraf has to say tomorrow.
Before the Alice Waters dinner there was an event for Environmental Defense Fund to launch the new book Earth; The sequel by its President Fred Krupp...a very pragmatic look at what we need to do on climate change and energy.
Alice Waters and Michael Pollan staged a locavores dinner...at a restaurant high up on the mountain ( actually the sanitarium in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain) with food all acquired locally. A spectacular a completely unique dinner especially at Davos where the food is ordinary at best. Michael, who is a neighbor back in Berkeley gave a terrific talk/appeal to preserve the local opportunities all over the world and not succumb to a globalization of the diet. Ran into Nick Negroponte at the dinner and talked about the launch of his low cost computer for the worlds kids...an amazing accomplishment. By the way the dinner will be on BBC World on Friday and you might find it on their website for a download.
And for any of you who think it is the life of luxury up here in Davos. It is a town for austere Swiss skiers. When I actually got into my hotel room tonight...the one that was not available when we arrived I looked around the room and noticed something that seems to be missing. And then I figured it out. It was the bed. So I will be heading up there soon...have to do this in the lobby where there is wi-fi and pulling down my murphy and sleeping until 6 when I go off to do an early CNBC event.
So Many Davos moments
Davos for me began on the plane from London to Zurich when I ran into Phillip Rosedale, the founder of Second Life, on his way to his first Davos. I invited him to join Paul Saffo and me in the car for the three hour drive up the mountain. Great conversation you can imagine. The key insight was that within twenty years the web will evolve into second life in other words ,our web world will be the virtual world of second life.
After we arrived at registration ran into Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch, always very active here. When Phillip and I got to our hotel we found it had been overbooked and we were moved for one night to anotheralong with Dave Gergen and the founders of Facebook and Linked in. As we walked to dinner we ran into Kishore Mahbubani the Dean of the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, who joined us for dinner. We agreed to host a dinner for him in a few weeks in San Francisico on his new book on the Asian futre. On the side had a great conversation with Tim Garton Ash the British historian on how I can counter Niall Fergusons very cogent arguments for pessimism in our upcoming debate. Orville Schell dropped by our table and he and Phillip connected on how the Asia society could run global virtual meetings in Second Life. This was followed by a frustrating time trying to get on line from our temporary hotel and failing hence posting today at mid day.
And just another moment as I was writing. Vinod Khosla came walking up to discuss central solar power projects which he is investing in and we agreed to meet to discuss our shared interests when we get home. This morning it was the forecasting panel chaired by Paul Saffo. Much to my surprise there was a large turn out, even Joe Nye was there. Phil Campbell the editor of nature was there as well and we discussed the difficulty of anticipating technology in the biological era as compared to the world of IT. Biology being subject of the forces of evolution and innovation in a quite different way than IT. Then followed a session on where we are on dealing with climate change. My firend Jim Rogers was the best on the panel, but unfortunately it was not especially revealing.
Steve Roach the economist from Morgan Stanley just stopped by to chat and sends his greetings to our newest GBNer, Nick Turner. But he did say that we are entering a new finacial era characterized by a much tighter financial regulation especially of the process of securitization and a dramtic decline in American consumer spending.
This year at Davos I a doing more ethan my usual number of sessions where either I lead the session or on the panel so it means I have less leeway to control my own schedule. Many of my sessions have to do with climate, energy and water so you will be hearing alot on those issues, which figure very large this year at Davos. Well more later tonight.
After we arrived at registration ran into Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch, always very active here. When Phillip and I got to our hotel we found it had been overbooked and we were moved for one night to anotheralong with Dave Gergen and the founders of Facebook and Linked in. As we walked to dinner we ran into Kishore Mahbubani the Dean of the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, who joined us for dinner. We agreed to host a dinner for him in a few weeks in San Francisico on his new book on the Asian futre. On the side had a great conversation with Tim Garton Ash the British historian on how I can counter Niall Fergusons very cogent arguments for pessimism in our upcoming debate. Orville Schell dropped by our table and he and Phillip connected on how the Asia society could run global virtual meetings in Second Life. This was followed by a frustrating time trying to get on line from our temporary hotel and failing hence posting today at mid day.
And just another moment as I was writing. Vinod Khosla came walking up to discuss central solar power projects which he is investing in and we agreed to meet to discuss our shared interests when we get home. This morning it was the forecasting panel chaired by Paul Saffo. Much to my surprise there was a large turn out, even Joe Nye was there. Phil Campbell the editor of nature was there as well and we discussed the difficulty of anticipating technology in the biological era as compared to the world of IT. Biology being subject of the forces of evolution and innovation in a quite different way than IT. Then followed a session on where we are on dealing with climate change. My firend Jim Rogers was the best on the panel, but unfortunately it was not especially revealing.
Steve Roach the economist from Morgan Stanley just stopped by to chat and sends his greetings to our newest GBNer, Nick Turner. But he did say that we are entering a new finacial era characterized by a much tighter financial regulation especially of the process of securitization and a dramtic decline in American consumer spending.
This year at Davos I a doing more ethan my usual number of sessions where either I lead the session or on the panel so it means I have less leeway to control my own schedule. Many of my sessions have to do with climate, energy and water so you will be hearing alot on those issues, which figure very large this year at Davos. Well more later tonight.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Davos 2008 is coming
This is just to let my friends know that I am preparing for Davos and will be posting starting next Tuesday evening Jan 22 from Davos. Let me know what you find interesting.
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