It’s all mad, exciting and even fun

It’s said that Davos is the place where billionaires explain to multi-millionaires how ordinary people live and what they need in life. To some, I may appear as one of the first two. If anyone from the tax authorities is reading this, then I am an ordinary person of modest means, and as my wife often reminds me, I have much to be modest about. Ouch!

I have never been to Davos before, neither to ski nor pontificate about the world’s future. With a damaged knee – half the meniscus has gone missing – I decided to avoid the skiing part. Anyway, I am a rubbish skier but full of half-baked ideas about finance, politics, and the world’s future, as anyone who has read my previous articles in Family Capital will know.  

Being the leader of the world’s most powerful country while behaving like a belligerent narcissist and an imperialist with tendencies to monarchical absolutism can get you a long way until someone stands up to you and tells you to go and enjoy sex and travel. This is yet to happen

On this occasion, I was invited to speak and share my thoughts with the Davos attendees. I left the private jet and helicopter at home, flew out with Swiss Air to Zurich, and rented a car for the two-hour drive to Davos. This is not a good idea, as parking is impossible, and the entire town will be gridlocked during the event.  

 I had a VIP badge which might have impressed my mother but there are VIPs and vips. I was in the vip league. Think of Grimbsy Town in the UK. The High Street in Davos is where the Save the Planet fraternity meets the High Tech world. One group seems to want to save mankind from extinction with a sense of dread and principle, and the other group, which has many principals flying in private jets with no observable principles, wants to sell digital solutions for all the world’s problems, without fact checkers or any concern for truth.  

These not-obvious bedfellows gather in the various hotels, cafes, and conference centres as the likes of Rachel from accounts, otherwise known as the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, fly in, make a speech full of cliches and sound bites, and then fly out. Trump and Musk never showed up, although Musk’s brother did. But I have no idea why.

 I had the opportunity to listen to and judge ten VC start-ups make their pitches and then to judge them. I was genuinely blown away by all these bright, articulate young people. They all presented ideas that were, if achievable, game changers that would benefit the world. 

Two had nuclear fusion solutions, which are not to be confused with dirty nuclear fission. One had a possible cure for cancer based on modern vaccine research and was in early trials where surgery, chemo, and radio therapy had failed. Another was applying high-tech and AI to agriculture to help farmers know exactly where to use water and fertilisers and in what quantities, saving on waste and pollution. 

One young woman showed us how to capture CO2 and use the oceans as the most efficient and safest way of storing it. Another has built a student database business with the help of hundreds of universities and students to help the students understand finance and budgeting, and for the universities to obtain exceptional information about the students’ needs, focus and risk of expensive drop outs before they happen. 

Without making any invidious comments, all the presentations were of the highest standard, and the two women presenting were, as we say, from civil service Latin, Primus inter Pares. First among equals. Not easy to have your spirits lifted in these dystopian times as a Musk of Trump sense and sensibilities. I’ll come to that later.

Adjudicating these presentations felt like I was negotiating with my grandchildren. It was almost impossible not to be inspired by them all and emotionally drawn to try and invest in the lot. Then I remembered I needed to park my heart and start using my brain to evaluate them. Sadly, some failed on the risk of scalability. It is too close to the trial stage and risky to risk, hoping they will make it to an industrial size. 

Like so many Tech start-ups, any sense of normal EBITDA multiples to work out value just don’t apply. Think of a number, add a zero, use the words AI and Unicorn and business with negative revenues are suddenly worth millions. Hold your breath, believe, and back the smartest ones in the room – Blackbullion and Crop X. That is what I am doing. It also helps that these are both real businesses with revenues and clients led by outstanding people.

 If you are still worried about what I did with my car in Davos, I just adopted the “Fake it till you make it “approach. I flashed my VIP badge at the car park of one of the big hotels and demanded to be let in. I was and later out. You need a bit of Chutzpa to get things done.

 Back to the Musk of Trump. Being the leader of the world’s most powerful country while behaving like a belligerent narcissist and an imperialist with tendencies to monarchical absolutism can get you a long way until someone stands up to you and tells you to go and enjoy sex and travel. This is yet to happen. 

Bluff backed by power has in the blink of an eye allowed him to free thousands of convicted felons who tried to storm the parliament. Bring an indicted criminal of a failed nuclear state back in from the cold, throw an elected leader of a country seeking a western and democratic life for his nation under a bus. 

Make the whole of Europe realise that spending billions on health and welfare at the expense of having proper defences just made them weak everywhere, physically and mentally, turning your friends into enemies and enemies into friends, maybe a perfect opportunity for China. 

Shredding WOKE, inclusion, equality, and diversity for supposedly meritocracy has resonated with a chorus of approval possibly louder than the one of disapproval. Threatening tariffs is more potent than introducing them, as that will cause both inflation and stagnation.

And firing people controlling nuclear safety may not be such a good idea. Disruption and chaos may be the only way to stop the inexorable growth and cost of not-for-profit government bureaucracy.

But along with some good comes a lot of unknown and potentially hazardous collateral damage. It’s all mad, exciting and even fun. But it might signal the end of the US empire and the greatest challenge to democracy since the 1930s.