cursichella1
27th January 2015, 12:06
A friend who is CEO of an American company attended this conference in Switzerland. He put together some notes "17 of the most interesting things I've learned so far". Several of these surprised me. I'm not sure what to think of the event itself. I'd kind of been under the impression that it was a Bilderberg type event for the underlings. In any event, I thought I'd share here:
The 2015 World Economic Forum was held in Davos-Klosters Switzerland Jan 21-24. I have attended 20 sessions and multiple round-table dinners and lunches. It's almost too much to take in, but I've been doing my best. Here are 17 of the most interesting things I've learned so far.
1.. I learned that "Phablets" or larger phones that are sort of like half phone / half tablet are taking over in sales. I also learned that more than 1 billion Smartphones will ship in 2015.
28742
2.. I learned that even with the huge Ebola scare that we heard so much about in 2014, that there are many other causes of death that outnumber Ebola by 1000's of times.
28740
3.. I learned from Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook that most of the developed world spends about $1.25 / day for data connectivity, or about equal to what most of the developing world spends per day on EVERYTHING!
4.. I learned that Apps revenues per year now exceed Hollywood's revenues / year!
28743
5.. I learned a great philosophy to stay young from a 91-year-young Shimon Peres. He said:
Count the number of achievements in your life.
Count the number of the dreams in your brain.
If the number of your dreams exceeds your achievements then you are young.
6.. I Iearned that the Global Internet Population has grown by 10x in 15 years, and nearly 100x in 20 years.
28744
7.. I learned that it's gone down from nearly 20 years to as low as 2 years for a company to grow a billion dollar valuation. Look how it's getting shorter and shorter below.
https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/5/005/0b1/0bb/01d99d1.jpg
8. I learned how little land it takes to power the entire earth with solar energy.
28741
9. I learned that LED lighting has been making huge and continuous strides in cost reduction, as well as increasing the amount of lumens per lamp, so that over time, LED’s could cut our energy use by 80%. I always knew that was one day possible, but I hadn’t realized how close we were getting.
10. I learned that there are 10 million people who own Bitcoin, but that most of them are just holding onto it. 9 million of those 10 have never done a transaction. All the transactions are being done by 1 million people. But I also learned that Gold is even more biased. There’s $10 Trillion worth of gold in the world, but almost none of it is ever used for transactions. Also on Gold, I learned that ½ of all the world’s Gold is in just one country – India.
In the past year, the value of Bitcoin has gone from about $1200 to about $250 today, but over the past 5 years, it was still the best performing currency in the world.
11. I learned in a session on global planetary threats that infectious diseases have caused more deaths than all wars AND natural disasters combined. I also learned that if we had a pandemic today like we had in 1918, with today’s population, 2 billion people would die.
12. I learned from Physicist Larry Krauss from Arizona State University that if we could make a computer that equaled the full power of a brain today, it would take 10 Terawatts to power it. ALL the power used by the entire planet today is about 15 Terawatts. And our brain - an ordinary human brain - consumes only about 10 watts!
13.. I learned from Ian Bremmer that the youth (15-24 year old) unemployment rates in Europe are staggering.
Germany 8%
UK 20%
France 24%
Italy 40%
Spain 57%
Greece 58%
14. I learned that of all of the Fortune 500 companies, fully 40% of them were founded either by immigrants or children of immigrants. That's a pretty amazing percentage.
15. I learned that only 30 cities have received fully HALF of the $5 trillion directly invested in commercial real estate over last decade.
https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/5/005/0b2/087/10e2f28.jpg
16. I learned that all the people on earth today are about 7% of ALL the people who have EVER been alive in all of history.
https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/7/005/0b2/088/1abaca1.jpg
17. I learned how serious the security / hacking issue has become. John Chambers from Cisco declared that EVERY company and EVERY country will be hacked - over time. Here's what he said below:
"I believe problems with security and hacking will go up exponentially this year. If you think last year was bad, this year will be worse."
The 2015 World Economic Forum was held in Davos-Klosters Switzerland Jan 21-24. I have attended 20 sessions and multiple round-table dinners and lunches. It's almost too much to take in, but I've been doing my best. Here are 17 of the most interesting things I've learned so far.
1.. I learned that "Phablets" or larger phones that are sort of like half phone / half tablet are taking over in sales. I also learned that more than 1 billion Smartphones will ship in 2015.
28742
2.. I learned that even with the huge Ebola scare that we heard so much about in 2014, that there are many other causes of death that outnumber Ebola by 1000's of times.
28740
3.. I learned from Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook that most of the developed world spends about $1.25 / day for data connectivity, or about equal to what most of the developing world spends per day on EVERYTHING!
4.. I learned that Apps revenues per year now exceed Hollywood's revenues / year!
28743
5.. I learned a great philosophy to stay young from a 91-year-young Shimon Peres. He said:
Count the number of achievements in your life.
Count the number of the dreams in your brain.
If the number of your dreams exceeds your achievements then you are young.
6.. I Iearned that the Global Internet Population has grown by 10x in 15 years, and nearly 100x in 20 years.
28744
7.. I learned that it's gone down from nearly 20 years to as low as 2 years for a company to grow a billion dollar valuation. Look how it's getting shorter and shorter below.
https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/5/005/0b1/0bb/01d99d1.jpg
8. I learned how little land it takes to power the entire earth with solar energy.
28741
9. I learned that LED lighting has been making huge and continuous strides in cost reduction, as well as increasing the amount of lumens per lamp, so that over time, LED’s could cut our energy use by 80%. I always knew that was one day possible, but I hadn’t realized how close we were getting.
10. I learned that there are 10 million people who own Bitcoin, but that most of them are just holding onto it. 9 million of those 10 have never done a transaction. All the transactions are being done by 1 million people. But I also learned that Gold is even more biased. There’s $10 Trillion worth of gold in the world, but almost none of it is ever used for transactions. Also on Gold, I learned that ½ of all the world’s Gold is in just one country – India.
In the past year, the value of Bitcoin has gone from about $1200 to about $250 today, but over the past 5 years, it was still the best performing currency in the world.
11. I learned in a session on global planetary threats that infectious diseases have caused more deaths than all wars AND natural disasters combined. I also learned that if we had a pandemic today like we had in 1918, with today’s population, 2 billion people would die.
12. I learned from Physicist Larry Krauss from Arizona State University that if we could make a computer that equaled the full power of a brain today, it would take 10 Terawatts to power it. ALL the power used by the entire planet today is about 15 Terawatts. And our brain - an ordinary human brain - consumes only about 10 watts!
13.. I learned from Ian Bremmer that the youth (15-24 year old) unemployment rates in Europe are staggering.
Germany 8%
UK 20%
France 24%
Italy 40%
Spain 57%
Greece 58%
14. I learned that of all of the Fortune 500 companies, fully 40% of them were founded either by immigrants or children of immigrants. That's a pretty amazing percentage.
15. I learned that only 30 cities have received fully HALF of the $5 trillion directly invested in commercial real estate over last decade.
https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/5/005/0b2/087/10e2f28.jpg
16. I learned that all the people on earth today are about 7% of ALL the people who have EVER been alive in all of history.
https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/7/005/0b2/088/1abaca1.jpg
17. I learned how serious the security / hacking issue has become. John Chambers from Cisco declared that EVERY company and EVERY country will be hacked - over time. Here's what he said below:
"I believe problems with security and hacking will go up exponentially this year. If you think last year was bad, this year will be worse."