The Davos Idea Began With a Book

You're back at the University of Geneva. You're teaching economics. Is that what you're teaching? I was teaching, actually, leadership corporate management. As a professor I was, I should say frankly, a little bit bored after all the previous experience. I had written this book. Then I felt why not to create a platform where business leaders could meet their stakeholders, which means political leaders but also outstanding voices of society. So I got, I had made some savings and I got some money from my parents and that's how I started the Davos platform, which is now called the World Economic Forum. And actually I incorporated it immediately as a not-for-profit foundation because I recognized if I wanted to attract governments, it cannot be a profit-making venture. So had you made it a for-profit venture, you think it would not have become as big as it has become? No, certainly not because now we have the trust of everybody because people know we are serving a purpose and we are not serving our own interests. What year was it that you had your first conference? It was 1971 and there were 444 people and actually I hired one employee because I needed some experience in how to run a conference. That's how I met my wife. She was my first hit and my first collaborator. So you've now been married for how many years? Next year it will be 50 years, David. 50 years, okay. So you're going to have a big party at Davos to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary? No, we are more, let's say, a private family. I think we will do it. We married in a very little church in a mountain valley which cannot, let's say, give room to more than probably 20-30 people. So we will go back certainly to such a church if COVID allows us to do so. Thank you.