UPDATE: Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Retreat – Bloomberg Shines; John Kerry Panel Glitch 3RD UPDATE, FRIDAY, 2:50 PM: People actually enjoyed the Michael Bloomberg panel today at the Herb Allen Sun Valley conference as the 72-year-old answered questions from journalist Willow Bay, wife of Disney’s Robert Iger. The former mayor of New York whose fight for reasonable gun laws is well-documented, spoke about his philanthropy efforts and giving back to society. Through Bloomberg Philanthropies, the billionaire does just that in the areas of education, the arts, gun issues, governance and public health. He spoke about how dysfunctional the current U.S. system is politically and otherwise to get things done — no doubt as he personally saw what happened behind the scenes in Washington D.C. as politicians in the pocket of the NRA stymied efforts to get background checks on gun sales passed. Leave it to a politician — an orator and a former Eagle scout (hey, it’s no small task) — to wake up the moguls. The second panel, which was supposed to feature Charlie Rose interviewing Secretary of State John Kerry piped in live from Afghanistan, went awry as the video feed didn’t work (they tried for about 15 minutes to get it up and running to no avail). That conversation, which was expected to be about how heavily the U.S. should be involved in the current explosive situation in the Middle East, will now take place tomorrow after journalist Becky Quick interviews Warren Buffet and Jeff Bezos. So they are attempting to fix the video feed for tomorrow, but let’s face it, if it doesn’t work, we doubt anyone will be upset as Kerry drones … on and on. Speaking of drones, there has been some attempt to make sure that drones don’t fly over the conference taking pictures, according to Bloomberg News. Ahhh, technology … the age of the paparazzi drone? If people are still awake after Kerry and Rose, a number of younger entrepreneurs will have their turn at bat. Most all we spoke with don’t expect any major deals to go down at this conference. That doesn’t keep attendees from talking about them – especially involving content producers – following Comcast’s agreement to buy Time Warner Cable, and AT&T’s with DirecTV. Speculation focused on the usual suspects: Disney, Fox, CBS, and Discovery. Media chiefs who’ve seen their cache fade over the last few years appreciated the recognition that traditional entertainment assets will be central to whatever happens next in technology, including online video. “The core entertainment [companies] are still at the core” – although Netflix, Google, and Amazon are “at table too” — says one. But most of the deal ideas “were dismissed as ‘not gonna happen’ by players involved,” we’re told by a familiar face at the proceedings. Venture capitalists in Sun Valley paid most attention to tech chiefs including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer, AOL’s Tim Armstrong, Google’s Larry Page, Pinterest’s Ben Silbermann, GoPro’s Nick Woodman, and LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman. They’re also stars for many in the pen where Allen & Co isolates journalists trying to cover the proceedings. There were more reporters than in the past from Silicon Valley, often replacing those on the media beat. 2nd UPDATE, THURSDAY, 6 PM: About 80% tech-heavy now. That’s the word coming from Sun Valley where the conference is underway. Interesting to hear people talking about the panels, including the one with Imagine’s Brian Grazer and TWC’s Harvey Weinstein as there seems to be a growing chasm between the young entrepreneurs from silicon valley who are still inventing, cyber-security companies, app guys, and the old media guard. “It’s kinda funny that you have these guys who have come up in a different era talking about things that seem so old,” said one attendee who attended the communications and creativity panels. “Harvey Weinstein was talking about Marco Polo (the TWC’s television series) and the changing landscape of distribution in television like a 10-part-mini-series is something new. It’s people getting together and talking from different era. It’s all Internet and tech now and the media guys talking about this kinda seemed arrogant. You have the younger generation, the more cutting edge people more interested in the one-on-one conversations” instead of the panel discussions. Interesting that I’ve heard that from both the young and the older attendees. All anyone is saying is that it’s good for networking but don’t expect any major deals coming from it and the panels are just so-so. Sounds like the Sun Valley format is getting stale. UPDATE, THURSDAY 2:58 PM: Hearing that it’s a bit ho-hum this year as far as the panels go, nothing really earthshaking: Google’s Larry Page talking about robotic cars; Barry Diller, Brian Roberts and James Murdoch yakking on about distributing content via wireless vs. non-wireless. Sounds pretty boilerplate. As one attendee said, “You know, nothing — no big deals — really actually happen here. People have said the ABC/Cap Cities deal happened here, but it really didn’t.” So who’s there from Hollywood? Those mentioned (and pictured) below as well as usual suspects: Viacom’s Philippe Dauman, News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch with sons James and Lachlan, Time Warner’s Jeff Bewkes, Comcast’s Stephen Burke, Disney’s Robert Iger, Universal’s Ron Meyer, DreamWorks Animation’s Jeffrey Katzenberg, Paramount chief Brad Grey, ABC News President Ben Sherwood and agents Bryan Lourd (CAA), Jim Berkus (UTA) and Chris Silbermann (ICM Partners), Jeff Berg (Resolution) and ex-WME exec Jim Wiatt — but no Ari Emmanuel (again). PREVIOUS, TUESDAY, 4:35 PM: Business leaders, politicians and media moguls are arriving today in Sun Valley, Idaho, for Herb Allen’s 30th annual Allen & Co conference, where bigwigs gather for panels and chit-chat about current business trends behind mostly closed doors. Details always are scarce about the goings-on at the retreat, with press these days mostly relegated to corralled areas where execs might pass by in cowboy boots and jeans for a word or two but rarely say anything of substance. We did get our hands on this week’s panel schedule, which confirms some of the attendees at the confab that began in 1984. Among the Hollywood names confirmed this year for the five-day retreat are Barry Diller, James Murdoch and Comcast’s Brian Roberts, all on a Thursday panel on the topic of communications. The same day, Harvey Weinstein and Brian Grazer will be interviewed by Charlie Rose during a panel on creativity, and Tom Brokaw will sit down with Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Other names on the list include Michael Bloomberg (whose philanthropic work on the issue of gun control is well known), Google’s Larry Page, Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos. They join the usual mix of attendees, the increasingly large numbers of tech moguls like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and telco bosses like AT&T’s Randall Stephenson. Here are highlights of the panel schedule through Sunday: Wednesday Leadership panel — Phil Jackson interviewed by Bill Bradley Google’s Larry Page interviewed by Ben Horowitz Thursday Communications panel — Barry Diller, James Murdoch and Brian Roberts Tom Brokaw interviewing Gen. Stanley McChrystal Creativity panel — Harvey Weinstein and Brian Grazer interviewed by Charlie Rose Education Forum with Eric Moskowitz Friday Philanthropy panel — Michael Bloomberg interviewed by Willow Bay U.S. Secretary Of State John Kerry interviewed by Charlie Rose Saturday Warren Buffet and Jeff Bezos interviewed by Becky Quick
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 23:55:09 +0000
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