Matt Damon, the anti-Davos & more from the Swiss alps
Plus: Meet the Aussie billionaire bucking Trump on climate & more AI/human musings
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⛷️A drive ski-by Davos update ⛷️ (stay ‘til the end for an actual ski shot)
🎥 At Axios House:
Matt Damon courts Davos set to partner with Water.org: Read and watch
Emerald AI CEO Varun Sivaram on AI and energy
Energy Impact Partners Founder Hans Kobhler on cleantech
Colossal Biosciences co-founder on conservation and de-extinction
Conservation Fund’s Larry Selzer and The Nature Conservancy’s Jennifer Morris on how nature is persevering
Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle on trade and energy
Novonesis CEO Ester Baiget on persisting sustainability
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I typically cover the energy that powers our lives — but for one night in Davos, I focused on the energy within us as humans. Lose that, and nothing else matters.
It felt like stepping into an oasis of authentic connection amid a gathering otherwise dominated by AI obsessions, geopolitical power plays and economic hierarchies.
As Calm CEO David Ko wrote: "No networking theater. No agenda chasing. Just leaders sitting together, sharing honestly. What unfolded was deeply human."
We even ate a healthy meal optimized for sleep and recharge.
As AI reaches deeper into our lives, experiences like this reinforce my belief that we need more moments centered on our humanity. Here’s to more authenticity — in real life and on platforms like this.
More Davos by photo
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Meet the Australian billionaire bucking Trump on climate
DAVOS, Switzerland — Australian mining executive Andrew Forrest is emerging as one of the world’s few top business leaders willing to publicly and loudly buck President Trump on climate change.
Why it matters: The broader business community is largely staying quiet in the face of Trump’s aggressive moves in a number of areas, including on clean energy.
Driving the news: Forrest is the CEO and founder of Australia-based Fortescue, one of the world’s largest mining companies.
“Even the most selfish political leaders know that there are boundaries to everything,” Forrest said on the main stage at the World Economic Forum, which took over Davos last week.
“We risk being those business and political leaders who knew of the planet’s limits, and crossed them anyway.”
The intrigue: Forrest convened three private meetings with between 20 and 50 CEOs to talk about the topic on the sidelines of the official proceedings.
“I’m a lone ranger here, and they’ve chosen to let me stand alone,” Forrest told Axios in an interview, when asked about other attendees.
Forrest says the fact that he’s not American gives him more latitude to speak up. He said other CEOs are largely staying the course on cleantech investments and climate — but they’re not saying that publicly.
“They fear retribution,” Forrest said. “That’s not the way to run a country.”
Read the full story in Axios.
What gives energy leaders pause on AI
Covering the energy demands of AI while increasingly using AI feels like a strange form of immersion therapy.
Why it matters: We’re all humans first, and only then journalists, founders, philanthropists or experts. And AI is fast reshaping how we work, think and find meaning.
Catch up fast: This is a followup to my Finish Line article on this topic. It’s taken on additional currency with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s warning this week of the imminent “real danger” that super-human intelligence will cause civilization-level damage absent smart, speedy intervention.
Driving the news: I’ve begun asking interviewees to drop their talking points and answer as humans: How are you using AI, and what worries you?
“I’m certainly most scared about the loss of meaning in human life,” said Varun Sivaram, founder of startup Emerald AI. He is referring to the loss of reason to do economically useful work, which gives people initiative in life.
Some people may see AI as helping liberate them from their jobs, Sivaram said, instead spending their time just seeing art and music.
“But a lot of people don’t want only that right, right? And I really worry about that a lot for the human soul,” Sivaram said.
Reality check: Others emphasize agency over inevitability.
“I think what’s missing in this conversation is the idea we have agency. We get to make choices,” said Mike Schroepfer, former CTO of Meta, now a founder of cleantech venture capital firm Gigascale Capital.
For example, he said: he can choose not to use GPS to preserve his sense of direction.
“I have faith in people to make good decisions about it and figure it out as we go along,” he said.
The intrigue: Getting people to truly open up has been hard. Some retreat to safe language; others invoke children or grandchildren as a proxy for deeper unease.
Inside the room: In a live interview last fall with philanthropist Bill Gates at Caltech, he responded with humor that carried an uncomfortable truth.
“Someday the AI is going to say to me, ‘Hey, stop messing around trying to eradicate malaria. I’m so much smarter than you. You just go play pickleball, and I’ll get back to you.’ And I’m going to be a little disappointed, like ‘Oh geez, I’m not that good at pickleball, ‘ “ Gates told me.
Read the full article in Axios.
Nordic ski, Swiss style!
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