Panels give 1-percenters real-world urgency
was the 1 percent who turned up at Allen & Co.’s media-andtech conference in Sun Valley last week — but their agenda focused on issues for us common folk.
Speakers acknowledged that America has turbulent race relations, a vulnerable economy and a military that’s no longer invincible.
While none of this is new, Allen & Co. attached faces to the issues that gave them depth, breadth and a sense of an urgency, according to attendees of the private sessions.
Tom Brokaw moderated “A Country Divided” panel that, sources said, would have been unwieldy in lesser hands.
His task was to herd such metaphorical cats as ex-NBA MVP Charles Barkley, Xerox Chairwoman Ursula Burns (who previously served Xerox as the first female black American to head a Fortune 500 company), NFL security chief Cathy Lanier and “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance.
Brokaw gave the panelists
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enough space to let their personalities shine, but kept them on point.
The audience’s takeaway: Empty gestures and lip service are meaningless when dealing with race.
Various reports on the economy eschewed the self-congratulatory table-thumping so common at business conferences.
Instead, hedge fund managers Stanley Druckenmiller and Seth Klarman noted that many influential leaders, including the president, like to believe the stock market and the economy are one and the same.
Who can blame them, given the market is at an all-time high?
But the truth is, the economy has been stuck in low-growth mode for eight years, the hedgies said.
Air Force General Lori Robinson killed the audience with her unabashed honesty.
While she expressed confidence the US could fully defend itself against any attack from North Korea, she was much less sure about a skirmish with Russia.
“What she was telling us,” an attendee said, “is that the Cold War is still alive.”