This year was my second visit to the magic mountain, and I found myself on the inside of a lot more high-security rooms. So I heard more, from:
- Government officials
- Public company CEOs
- Global investors
- International organization officials
- And the sponsors and advertisers who cover every surface with their logos
My guide to Davos
- 5,000 people, 6 days, 100 parties
- The Hotel Steigenberger aka Belvedere is like a CES for CEOs
- You can live for free once you get there. One journalist did the whole thing on $50/day
- Sentiment is not uniformly “Davos saves the world.” Plenty of doubts there on the mountain, not only among the intellectual elite back home like my friend who said he wants to “blow the whole place up”
Macro not over yet. A year ago things were wobbly (market highs, North Korea tensions, trade war) and now it all feels normal. The economic matters don’t seem to have turned decisively down. Economists and investors were talking “another year”. So I guess I was wrong about September 2018 as the peak. (Though check the S&P all time high.)
But cuts galore back home. Verizon/Yahoo, more (Buzzfeed, Tesla, NBC, Hasbro, Starbucks, GM) plus China at 29 year GDP growth low.
But the talk of the town was: Brexit.
UK is screwed. Absolutely everyone thinks the situation is awful and totally unpredictable. With folks scrambling to just avoid a crash-out in March there seems little work done for “April 1”. Frankfurt real estate owners told me the market is on fire. Knotel sees the same (we are expanding in Germany and just acquired market leader Deskeo in Paris.) Overheard: “don’t even try to figure it out”. And: “I’m a political appointee and I’m afraid there is nothing I can…” (as I asked a spirited question).
Europe is confident. The other side of the table is a resolute European group that is feeling ascendant. 500mm+ consumers, rich countries growing well, strong performance against globalization panics (vs. US tech? GDPR; vs. China? German mittelstand). These folks were 100% “let’s go!”
India is ascendant. 4 separate delegations from India (including my family’s home state Maharashtra and my dad’s favorite Andhra Pradesh) with big presence talking up a country with predictable government, lots of smart people, and…a state-sponsored happiness and wellness agenda I haven’t even heard in California.
Russia wasn’t looking so good. Lonely disco.
Chinese were low profile.
While most(?) of the people there were American, the only US officials I met were Obama/Clinton-era (at the thrift store I met a former chair of economic advisors. She didn’t provide an opinion, except on the jacket I tried on.)
Not just me expecting the end of the Trump presidency this year.
Environment was the official focus of the World Economic Forum, and it was an optimistic narrative from everyone we spoke to. We will get it under control. Carbon reductions are happening, forces are accelerating for change.
Bitcoin and blockchain were on the back foot, but they were there.
Bottom line: an optimistic place this year. How could it not be? Billionaires at the last-stop bar in the snowy paradise have little to worry about.
Oh, and why were we there? Knotel is now in 7 cities on 3 continents with around 200 buildings that serve as HQs for some of the 1000 largest companies in the world. As we serve an ever expanding universe of global CEOs with our Agile HQs for their people around the world, it just seems sensible to visit with them where they plan their agenda. Give me a shout if you will be in Davos next year and you can join one of our events.
amol@knotel.com Cheers
Amol
