Davos Is Just a High School Reunion — And AI Companies are the Cool Kids

Every January, the world’s wealthiest decision-makers descend on the World Economic Forum in Davos, and we’re told this is where the future gets negotiated. This year, while the world talks of Greenland, geopolitics, tariffs, and other surreal headlines coming out of the Alps — I’m thinking about the social dynamics on the literal streets of that mountain town.

Like any professional convening that draws the powerful, Davos functions less like a sober policy conference and more like a global high-school reunion, complete with insecurity, status anxiety, and a desperate fear of missing out. And nowhere is that clearer than in the party scene. Big tech and AI companies are throwing the most lavish, impossible-to-get-into events, and global leaders and their staffers are lining up — literally — to get inside.

A sharp New York Times piece captures this perfectly: initiatives focused on gender equity and public good sit empty, while neon-lit crypto lounges and AI cocktail hours pulse with attention. That imbalance matters. Parties shape conversations. Conversations shape priorities. Priorities shape policy.

I’ve seen this dynamic before at places like Aspen, SXSW, CES — and it always works the same way. The room that feels important becomes the room that is important, regardless of what’s actually being said inside it.

The unsettling part is this: these companies now wield the resources and influence of nation-states. When they dominate Davos socially, they dominate it politically. And that should worry anyone who still believes that regulation, caution, or democratic deliberation might matter in the age of AI.

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