Inside the secretive world of Google camp
It is dubbed Davos on sea but, asks Rosa Silverman, what really happens when pop royalty meets real royalty at a tech camp?
It has been dubbed “Davos on sea”: the secret summer camp attended by celebrities, business leaders and tech gurus, and hosted by Google in the most lavish of settings. Like the World Economic Forum, it unites some of the planet’s most powerful and influential names; unlike at Davos, temperatures tend towards the scorching. This year’s event, which took place last week at the exclusive Verdura Resort near Sciacca on the south-west coast of Sicily, saw Prince Harry rub shoulders with an eclectic guestlist, including Sir Elton John, actors Emma Watson and Sean Penn, in a picturesque valley of olive groves. The aim of the three-day conference? To bring great minds together and stimulate discussion around various topics not directly related to business. Last year, these ranged from architecture to chess to how technology can solve major global problems.
So far, so unsecretive. Yet so strong is the emphasis on exclusivity that for further details of the itinerary, guests are reportedly given access to a password-protected web page and instructed not to share it on social media. Even Prince Harry’s attendance went largely under the radar until a grainy picture of the royal in situ surfaced on social media. No mention of his Italian sojourn was made on the Court Circular, and Kensington Palace offered no comment.
So what, apart from three mornings of chin-stroking discussion, were the guests actually up to at this Rocco Forte hotel, where a room can set you back more than €1,600 (£1,448) a night? Food and entertainment, it seems, played a big role in proceedings, and no expense, one surmises, was spared.
At no time was this more in evidence than the final night, when a sumptuous Italian banquet was served against the backdrop of the Valley of the Temples, a Unesco World Heritage Site. It was never going to be a modest affair: the cost of renting the site of these Greek ruins has been estimated at around £70,000 – and that’s before you pay for the obligatory four-course banquet cooked by the Michelin-starred Alice Ristorante, which flew all its 20-plus chefs in from Milan for the occasion.
As for what one serves at a dinner for 310 guests hosted by Larry Page, the Google co-founder, and Sundar Pichai, the chief executive, the answer, it would seem, is to stay native: courgette flower antipasti, fermented Amalfi lemon risotto, and salted codfish with tomato, olive and caper sauce, followed by meringue with a coffee and bitter cocoa ganache. As guests tucked into the latter, Lenny Kravitz took to the stage, and by the second song almost all were on their feet – though not, according to one witness, Prince Harry, who stayed seated next to Sir Elton.
“It was a fantastic atmosphere,” says Loredana Brenna, who attended as part of the Alice Ristorante contingent. “It was a really fantastic, beautiful, well-organised event. The location, the tables decorated with flowers and candles, the temple in the background – it was all really beautiful. The guests looked very happy.”
And well they might. But what’s in it for Google? Last week’s Google Camp was the fourth iteration of this annual event. Last year’s, at the same location, saw supermodel Karlie Kloss, activist Malala Yousafzai and singer Alicia Keys among VIP guests trading ideas.
Other events of a similar nature have also been hosted by the American tech firm. In May, it invited a number of executives to a smaller-scale affair at The Grove, a luxury hotel in Hertfordshire – among the attractions on offer was a spinning class given by Sir Bradley Wiggins. A smaller-scale Google event held last year at Soho Farmhouse brought a handful of “influencers” together for one night, among them Jon Favreau, the actor, and Tom Fletcher, the former British ambassador to Lebanon.
Some might call this supercharged networking: a continuation of the age-old practice of winning friends and influencing people. According to Google, the rationale is thus: “In recent years, we have been keen to listen more, especially in Europe, and to build relationships and dialogue on a range of topics.”
Some, however, ascribe other motives to the trend of tech giants hosting such forums: convincing sought-after developers to remain at the firm, being one. Carl Miller, research director at the Centre for Analysis of Social Media at the think-tank Demos, says: “There’s unbelievable competition for developers and programmers. Within Silicon Valley it’s very cut-throat. Under the happy-clappy, warm image they try to create, they are actually quite cold and clear about trying to keep developers in their community, as they tend to stay for just a year or two and then move on.”
This, he says, is a huge problem for the tech giants: when a developer leaves, he or she takes with them a wealth of knowledge and information. Besides which, there just aren’t all that many talented programmers to go around, so they are, he adds: “at a huge premium”.
As a result, the firms “are attempting to make people buy into the vision of the company. It’s about trying to make the employees feel they are part of something bigger. It’s all about corporate loyalty”.
In other words, if Google’s pulling power extends to Hollywood, Sicilon Valley and business A-listers, not to mention British royalty, its staff will surely feel that they belong to one of the most important companies in the world. Or so the argument goes. In a similar vein, famous authors and thinkers are periodically brought in
The elite guests at Google camp feel they are part of an exclusive club
to give talks to the staff – who, it is hoped, will quite literally be wearing the company T-shirt as a result.
Then, of course, there is the desire to influence public opinion more widely, beyond the tech community. “As digital life becomes just life, tech companies become mired in more discussions,” says Miller, who cites misuse of their platforms by terrorists and paedophiles as two of the biggest issues facing digital giants. “One of the ways companies try to influence public opinion is by hosting the forum in which those debates take place.”
Or, to put it another way, by getting the rich and powerful on side. Hence the apertivos of sparkling Italian wine, the star-studded guest lists and scenic Sicilian setting of Google Camp. Hence the day trips, visits to local wineries and spa treatments that were, apparently, laid on last week. And hence all the efforts to make the guests at Google Camp feel like they are part of an exclusive club.
If the intention was to leave them full of the joys of life – and Google – it seems to have worked. Bernardo Campo, head of the Valley of the Temples park authority, who was among those in attendance, gave the event a glowing review.
“Google wanted to repeat this year what is a now a wonderful tradition,” he told the Italian press. “General enthusiasm was the overriding motif of the event.”