ShaperTalk: Insights from Davos Attendees

At our ShaperTalk on Tuesday, 2/19, SF Global Shapers hosted several people who attended the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos last month, and we wanted to share key takeaways from the event:

• Davos was founded on the idea of multi-stakeholder theory, which is the idea that everyone impacted by a decision should have an impact on the decision. Since the first conference in the early 1970s, Davos has become the most significant gathering of leaders across sectors, industries, disciplines, and fields in the world.
• Private sessions give leaders a chance to ask leading experts the ‘dumb’ questions they might not otherwise have a chance to ask. Through these sessions, the conference also gives leaders a chance to take a step back and think about some things that will eventually affect their area of work that they don’t always have time to think about, like blockchain.
• A lot of people like to go to Davos because they can get things done in a few days that could normally take 6 months just by meeting with the right people, and that’s why people are willing to pay—in some cases—several hundred thousand dollars to attend.
• Some thought Davos could do more to get leaders to confront ideas they’re not familiar with or interested in but are nonetheless important because attendees can choose which sessions they attend.
• Some topics that weren’t on the agenda a few years ago were now okay to talk about (e.g. psychedelics). Climate change was discussed with more urgency now than in past years. Blockchain was arguably discussed too much, and nobody there knew what it was 3 years ago.

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