“Community meets conference”—that was the idea, Imran Khan told me last year, which inspired him to bring tech founders, CEOs, and investors managing almost $1 trillion to the Crescent Hotel in Dallas for two days. This year, that community grew to more than 160, and its members ranged from political strategists and leading journalists—including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Katie Benner and CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa—to leaders on the cutting-edge of AI.
What united such a diverse group was that Khan had personally invited each of them. Brunswick partnered with Khan for the event, and Ash Spiegelberg shared some soundbites from the day’s discussions with the Review.
Khan onstage with X CEO Linda Yaccarino.
Linda Yaccarino, CEO, X: “When you’re brought in as a leader to transform a company, your vision and values have to be very clear very quickly. And ours was to protect, defend free speech.”
Evan Spiegel, Founder and CEO, Snap: “Is this ten times better than the next alternative? That’s the question we ask of every product. Because the consumer adoption curve has a lot of friction in it. And if your product’s not that much better, people aren’t going to make the effort.”
Adam Foroughi, Founder and CEO, AppLovin: “As a founder, you go to bed every night worried you’re going to wake up and your business is going to be gone—and if you’re doing that, you’re probably a good founder.”
Jamie Siminoff, Founder, Ring: “I told the CEO—there were two of us in the room—‘only one of us is walking out of this thing alive, and I don’t care if it’s me.’”
CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa leads a conversation with Snap CEO Evan Spiegel.
On the 2024 Presidential Election
Doug Sosnik, Brunswick Senior Adviser, former Senior Advisor to President Bill Clinton: “I think most people are underestimating how different Washington is going to look next year regardless of who wins.”
Michael Palmer, former CTO of McCain Campaign, Founder of i360: “The most remarkable thing I’m seeing is a stability in the polls, no matter the externalities that seem to happen. You saw real movement in the numbers after the debate, and after Vice President Harris replaced Biden on the ticket, but otherwise nothing seems to shift the race.”
Lanhee Chen, Brunswick Partner, Hoover Institution Fellow: “I don’t see this election as a question of which sector is going to win or lose—I see it as a question of who benefits more from certainty or uncertainty?”
Imran Khan on stage with AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi, right.
On AI
Chris Lehane, VP Global Policy, OpenAI: “I call it the 3 a.m. wakeup. Most mornings now I wake up, take notes, and try to go back to bed. This stuff is always on my mind. Because I think we’re in the midst of deciding if we’re going to have democratic AI or autocratic AI.”
Wais Jalali, Founder and CEO, XNRGY: “I’ve been in the industry for 33 years, and I have never seen a revolution like what you’re seeing with data centers today.”
David Steinberg, Founder and CEO, Zeta Global: “We’ve been talking about AI for seven years, not seven months. When we listed in 2021, we hung a banner on the New York Stock Exchange that said ‘Data + AI = Intent.’ And people asked me, ‘Who is Al?’”