Sorry to be off topic, but are most people here on HN as unhappy about Davos and the World Economic Forum as I am? I really dislike their "Young Leaders" program, going back decades (lots of US politicians, Canada's Prime Minister, etc. have been indoctrinated).
I am very happy to see Davos getting bad rap right now from independent bloggers and independent (small) news outlets. This helps push back against corporate owned media which pushes a positive slant on one world government, "in 20 years you will own nothing and be very happy", etc.
There's short street interviews(or rather attempts) of WEF participants, booming on Twitter from Rebel News. To be fair, questions asked by interviewers are often just provocative, still, arrogance in behavior of, specifically, CEOs is just overwhelming.
10 people sit on the managing board, none of them household names: Børge Brende, Mirek Dušek, Julien Gattoni, Jeremy Jurgens, Adrian Monck, Sarita Nayyar, Gim Huay Neo, Olivier M. Schwab, Saadia Zahidi, and Alois Zwinggi.
I think it's abhorrent how supposedly democratic countries don't see an issue with a private event just for politicians and international corporations.
WEF/Davos is extensively reported on in mainstream media. And you can watch the talks and panels on their own YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@wef/videos
It’s the more exclusive private parties where the real influence is wielded. Like convincing Japan to give Negative Interest Rate Policies a go as an experiment to see if it would work for the rest of us.
Just listened to The Economist podcast that hyped them that CEOs and politicians can meet once every few months, thus saving lots of jet fuel from private jets. Why do they need to travel at all? Have we forgotten that most travels don't need to happen because we have that online meeting thing?
It was supposed to sound like a good thing, but it was out of context, so made me think, why even mention it, almost like they have an agenda to sell here.
"Look at that big conspiracy event where the date and location are known and it's all over the Internet!"
Why do some HNers think Davos is a secret gathering where evil is planned? If they really wanted to have a secret gathering, they can do it Jeffrey Epstein-style with private flights and zero fanfare (even US presidents manage to fly to Afghanistan without many people noticing), it shows your lack of imagination if you think the widely announced and publicized event is supposed to be a conspiracy gathering.
I don't care about Davos one way or another, but I am sick of people trying to push online meetings in place of irl social events as "the same." A majority of people prefer to meet and socialize in person and it is going to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
Well fortunately, any of us have the opportunity to get to a place where we can offer insight and contribute to the light winds that somewhat influence the global economy. When you have a role to play in that, maybe you’ll be invited. I hear the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting is a good time, if you are sad that you are missing out on something. As far as politicians, you might not like it, but we elect those politicians to represent us. So I am happy that they have a voice at these forums, even though sometimes that voice isn’t who I specifically wanted there.
What do you expect? A ticketed event for a price? Then you'll still moan about any rich douchebag being able to buy their way in. An "anyone can join" event? Then all the people with influence will just be busy because all their fans will want a selfie. The G7/8/20 is a forum where world leaders can have private conversations and maybe get other leaders to see things from their perspective and change their minds, what about doing the same with CEO's of big corps, who also run the world, whether you like it or not...
It's not like the WEF is super exclusive, I remember seeing a job offer from a small tech company who got bought for 10M Euro, I read about this company's history and found the founder's Facebook page. He had pictures of a prop plane, I think he spent some of the money learning to fly, and 2-3 pics where he's in Davos, including a blurry selfie of him standing in line for lunch at the WEF in front of Bill Clinton.
Remember like three weeks ago when the twitter files showed US congress texting and calling back and forth with the heads of major corporations? About how congress was polling in response to those corporations' actions and what they were both gonna do about it?
I like Davos and the WEF. Most people against them these days are far-right nutjobs and some don't even know they are becoming like that. Populism is a hell of a drug.
It's basically the powerful people's version of an academic symposium. I watched a lot of panels last week on youtube and the discussions were informed, interesting and very down to earth in regards to real problems and plausible solutions (not utopic, naïve, or extremist ones). Collaboration between governments, states and business, etc. Stuff that actually have a chance to achieve something. In particular I felt they were on point about the Amazon and the reception the new Environment Minister of Brazil, Marina Silva, a person I absolutely trust about this matter at least, was a great signal the WEF is an org I can trust, even if I disagree with some guests (natural since it's politics and I don't want it all to be in line with what I want).
Clearly you must’ve missed the panel about secretly controlling the world, it was in between the one on vampiric bloodsucking and the one on mind control via mass media.
It’s truly disappointing how much the HN crowd skews towards conspiracy theorists these days. This place is becoming a cesspool for informed discussion.
To be fair there's also a lot of leftists who protest WEF, G7/8/20, etc. There is also left populism...
There's a lot of merit to face to face meetings - if you could have a date over FaceTime or in real life, which would you prefer? - and of course it's only the elite/influential people who are invited, they're the ones with the power to change things. Whether or not they're capable of fixing the world or if their hands are somewhat tied because of politics or shareholder motivations, is a different question.
For some populism: I do think most politicians/elites care more about their career/wallet rather than the world.
Davos is officially sanctioned corruption for oligarchs, but the organization is also apparently a cult of personality that may not survive Klaus Schwab, so maybe it will just go away.[1]
I’m sure Henry Kissinger has other people lined up to take on that roll. The technique of using exclusive events to socialize and indoctrinate people is age-old.
At those ages it's a bit of a crap-shoot. Depends on who has access to the better adrenochrome (j/k)... I'm not sure if he needs to personally anoint the successor. It just surprises me that people don't realize that it's WEF is a continuations of a very old power structures that predates it.
Honestly it’s just a job guys. People want these companies to act like your parents and coddle you. No it’s freakin Micro gd soft.
You’re paid to work while the company believes it is worth paying you.
I’m so tired of seeing these layoff news. DUDE WE ARE IN TECH. I make a ton of money, maybe not as much as some super elite tech workers but enough to live in SF and have six years runway to maintain my lifestyle without a job.
I feel bad for people who make 12/her and get fired without 4 months plus severance, without health insurance extension, etc.
Seriously, stop complaining. End of the day life is not fair and you have to set yourself up to SURVIVE. As a fellow tech worker, realize we are playing a capitalist game and when capital is expensive our jobs are at risk.
It’s work. It’s business. You are exchanging time and skills for money willingly.
I do feel bad for the 12/hour folks considering I used to be one of those.
As someone who got into tech as a self taught engineer at age 25 I am always blown away by the entitled nature of people around me who either A) don't work that hard and goof around on the clock and B) complain when we're literally coddled to the brim with free food, free trips to events every year, and various other free benefits.
I remember not getting a $0.25 per hour raise one year and being upset about it for a minute. I didn't have free top of the line health insurance (no insurance actually), nor did my company just pay for things that have nothing to do with my job. As someone who went from a few hundred bucks in his bank account to now literally six figures in my checking, and much more in stocks and investments (which are down lol), even if I got laid off I know I'm probably getting 5 years x service + 3-4 months full pay severance worst case scenario.
All I'm saying is that we're playing the game (capitalism) and companies will cut their losses. That's just how it works and we choose to sign offer letters, and yes I feel much worse for my friends who are not in tech who can barely afford to put food on the table or meet rent than a fellow tech bro who has to cancel his luxury Lake Tahoe cabin rental during these economic hardship times.
Go work at a fast food place and goof off. You’re fired.
Go play ping pong (literally dealt with this a few years ago when we had to go in the office, some team we relied on used to just waste time and move slow) and “estimating is hard wahh”? 400k tc and still complain how life is hard lol.
I'm not going to defend the event or the optics of it all, but I would hazard a guess that if you hire Sting to perform at your company picnic it's not something you do the week before the event. The contract was probably signed off and paid in full months or years ago depending on how busy Mr. Sumner is these days.
I've been in a similar situation. Large company outing booked and all set up for the holidays, then there's a sudden layoff involving most of the people booked on the trip. We gave them the tickets and said "why not go anyway?"
This was not the Microsoft company picnic, it was an event for 50 or so senior execs. Microsoft famously used to have a huge and extravagant company-wide picnic for all employees in the fall--they would rent out an entire stadium or other huge area. They canceled the company-wide picnic in the downturn of '09 and as far as I know never brought it back. This event was something different and just for a hand picked selection of execs.
When we (our group in Microsoft) did our group event a few weeks ago it was in fact a picnic. Guess what? because we didn't want to spend a lot of money on it and wanted to show we are cost-cutting we did a potluck. Everyone cooked and brought stuff along. No one spent a lot of money, it was nice.
When we did a team event it was volunteering together. No fancy restaurants like last year for the same reason - we don't want to be wasteful in an unclear market.
I am disappointed in our execs doing this. I understand it was already probably pre-booked and it was probably just a few hours in a lot of long and frustrating leadership meeting but the optics are bad. Satya is usually such a respected leader for knowing how to do the right thing and avoid these situations, bummer.
As a Microsoft employee I don't think it demonstrated good leadership and I am disappointed both with communication towards employees and them doing this.
If you are in a position you are laying off people which implies you are hurting as a company you should:
- Not spend money on expensive events or non-essential stuff.
- If you've already booked events (like the sting concert) either sell them to another buyer or donate them to charity. The optics of partying while you are firing 10000+ employees is awful.
Instead, it 100% feels "business as usual", one email from Satya and a bunch about extra-curricular events and "cool stuff" happening in the company and campus. I'm really missing the "we're in this together" feeling from startups.
(I am a high-performer working on a profitable and old product and I don't think I'm on the chopping block, I enjoy my work, my team etc.)
Microsoft has enough money on its pocket to pay the penalty for cancelling Sting's concert. It's probably a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of the compensation paid to all people being laid off.
This is typical, companies are not a single organism perfectly synchronized.
A few years ago, I rented a booth space at an event and the company at my side did a massive layoff that included the people in their booth... while the event was running.
I had this happen at a conference I helped organize where between the time we knew who signed up to sponsor and the conference a bunch of companies (mostly in crypto) who spent a lot of money on booths because they really needed help hiring went bankrupt.
Satya and other top executives attended the concert, and they were also involved in the layoffs. In that one group, at least, we could expect some level of synchronization.
Was MSFT losing money and needing to reduce costs to survive, or did they just hire too many people over the past couple of years? I think it’s borderline embezzlement for a few dozen senior executives to use company money to hire Sting for a private concert in Davos in any event, but unless the company is straight up going broke, that’s irrelevant to the layoff issue even if the timing and optics look bad.
> Davos is private gathering with politicians..media..celebrities ... jason calacanis said on all in podcast how they offer him a seat at table for $25k or $40k some number like that in early 2000s.
They're modern day "philosopher kings." This is the world that we live in. In the capitalist meritocracy in which we all live, money is an important point keeping system. So it makes sense that you have to buy a seat at the table and it costs a lot. I imagine that money alone is not enough merit to get a seat though, as there are many other measures of merit or social rank.
I'm not sure how this can be effectively questioned. Ban private gatherings and private property? It's been tried before, didn't go well.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 127 ms ] threadI am very happy to see Davos getting bad rap right now from independent bloggers and independent (small) news outlets. This helps push back against corporate owned media which pushes a positive slant on one world government, "in 20 years you will own nothing and be very happy", etc.
Davos is a religious gathering. You wouldn’t be happy/unhappy about other religious gatherings that you don’t participate in.
The elites really don’t have any control or vision over what’s going to happen, just like shamans and religious leaders of the past did not
10 people sit on the managing board, none of them household names: Børge Brende, Mirek Dušek, Julien Gattoni, Jeremy Jurgens, Adrian Monck, Sarita Nayyar, Gim Huay Neo, Olivier M. Schwab, Saadia Zahidi, and Alois Zwinggi.
Is this satire, blindness, or just youthful optimism?
Who needs to conspire secretly when you can do it publicly, and then turn around and say it's not a conspiracy since it's out in the open?
It was supposed to sound like a good thing, but it was out of context, so made me think, why even mention it, almost like they have an agenda to sell here.
Why do some HNers think Davos is a secret gathering where evil is planned? If they really wanted to have a secret gathering, they can do it Jeffrey Epstein-style with private flights and zero fanfare (even US presidents manage to fly to Afghanistan without many people noticing), it shows your lack of imagination if you think the widely announced and publicized event is supposed to be a conspiracy gathering.
It's not like the WEF is super exclusive, I remember seeing a job offer from a small tech company who got bought for 10M Euro, I read about this company's history and found the founder's Facebook page. He had pictures of a prop plane, I think he spent some of the money learning to fly, and 2-3 pics where he's in Davos, including a blurry selfie of him standing in line for lunch at the WEF in front of Bill Clinton.
Yeah no one else does either.
It’s truly disappointing how much the HN crowd skews towards conspiracy theorists these days. This place is becoming a cesspool for informed discussion.
There's a lot of merit to face to face meetings - if you could have a date over FaceTime or in real life, which would you prefer? - and of course it's only the elite/influential people who are invited, they're the ones with the power to change things. Whether or not they're capable of fixing the world or if their hands are somewhat tied because of politics or shareholder motivations, is a different question.
For some populism: I do think most politicians/elites care more about their career/wallet rather than the world.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/18/mutiny-erup...
You’re paid to work while the company believes it is worth paying you.
I’m so tired of seeing these layoff news. DUDE WE ARE IN TECH. I make a ton of money, maybe not as much as some super elite tech workers but enough to live in SF and have six years runway to maintain my lifestyle without a job.
I feel bad for people who make 12/her and get fired without 4 months plus severance, without health insurance extension, etc.
Seriously, stop complaining. End of the day life is not fair and you have to set yourself up to SURVIVE. As a fellow tech worker, realize we are playing a capitalist game and when capital is expensive our jobs are at risk.
It’s work. It’s business. You are exchanging time and skills for money willingly.
But also
"Seriously, stop complaining. End of the day life is not fair and you have to set yourself up to SURVIVE. "
Why would you feel bad for those people if life isn't fair and they should have set themselves to survive?
As someone who got into tech as a self taught engineer at age 25 I am always blown away by the entitled nature of people around me who either A) don't work that hard and goof around on the clock and B) complain when we're literally coddled to the brim with free food, free trips to events every year, and various other free benefits.
I remember not getting a $0.25 per hour raise one year and being upset about it for a minute. I didn't have free top of the line health insurance (no insurance actually), nor did my company just pay for things that have nothing to do with my job. As someone who went from a few hundred bucks in his bank account to now literally six figures in my checking, and much more in stocks and investments (which are down lol), even if I got laid off I know I'm probably getting 5 years x service + 3-4 months full pay severance worst case scenario.
All I'm saying is that we're playing the game (capitalism) and companies will cut their losses. That's just how it works and we choose to sign offer letters, and yes I feel much worse for my friends who are not in tech who can barely afford to put food on the table or meet rent than a fellow tech bro who has to cancel his luxury Lake Tahoe cabin rental during these economic hardship times.
However on HN many people post stories about burning out and wanting to leave the business
Go play ping pong (literally dealt with this a few years ago when we had to go in the office, some team we relied on used to just waste time and move slow) and “estimating is hard wahh”? 400k tc and still complain how life is hard lol.
I've been in a similar situation. Large company outing booked and all set up for the holidays, then there's a sudden layoff involving most of the people booked on the trip. We gave them the tickets and said "why not go anyway?"
When we did a team event it was volunteering together. No fancy restaurants like last year for the same reason - we don't want to be wasteful in an unclear market.
I am disappointed in our execs doing this. I understand it was already probably pre-booked and it was probably just a few hours in a lot of long and frustrating leadership meeting but the optics are bad. Satya is usually such a respected leader for knowing how to do the right thing and avoid these situations, bummer.
If you are in a position you are laying off people which implies you are hurting as a company you should:
- Not spend money on expensive events or non-essential stuff.
- If you've already booked events (like the sting concert) either sell them to another buyer or donate them to charity. The optics of partying while you are firing 10000+ employees is awful.
Instead, it 100% feels "business as usual", one email from Satya and a bunch about extra-curricular events and "cool stuff" happening in the company and campus. I'm really missing the "we're in this together" feeling from startups.
(I am a high-performer working on a profitable and old product and I don't think I'm on the chopping block, I enjoy my work, my team etc.)
A few years ago, I rented a booth space at an event and the company at my side did a massive layoff that included the people in their booth... while the event was running.
( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity_(The_Police_al... )
It was a still fun conference ^^
It saddening to see it not questioned enough.
A private gathering—-people with agenda and means..capital media and celebrities—-to normalize and propagate that agenda.
while these globalists say they want more open border they meeting in one of most exclusive country in the world where difficult to get citizenship.
this also a grift. jason calacanis said on all in podcast how they offer him a seat at table for $25k or $40k some number like that in early 2000s.
They're modern day "philosopher kings." This is the world that we live in. In the capitalist meritocracy in which we all live, money is an important point keeping system. So it makes sense that you have to buy a seat at the table and it costs a lot. I imagine that money alone is not enough merit to get a seat though, as there are many other measures of merit or social rank.
I'm not sure how this can be effectively questioned. Ban private gatherings and private property? It's been tried before, didn't go well.