Anton Chekhov once wrote “If you want to know about Bulgarians, you have to go to Bulgaria. You can’t just read about them in the newspaper.” That is my basic philosophy of life.
Which is why I find myself sitting at the bar of my hotel in Abu Dhabi tonight tired as heck after a long and interesting day. Don’t use up too much sympathy for me though. As you can see, barman Roman is taking good care of me and as long as the Chianti holds out I should be OK.
I’m here with my 1500 closest friends at the SALT conference to talk about global investing. Tomorrow, I will share the stage with a senior official from CIC (Chinas sovereign wealth fund) to talk to the conference about the link between China’s ‘One belt one road’ initiative, Huawei/ZTE/5G, and emerging market investing.
That will be fun, for sure, but today was even better. Anthony Scaramucci and I hosted a lunch for 20 CEOs for a no-holds-barred discussion of politics, economics, markets, and business/investment strategies.
There is nothing more fun than learning about people who run extraordinary businesses like the founder of a Mumbai-based agrochemical company operating in 117 countries and finding out there is actually a way to be of help, in this case by connecting him with the President of the China Agricultural University, where I am an Honorary Professor. CAU has had great success in developing genetically-modified seeds to improve the yields of marginally productive land.
Roman has informed me that we have reached the bottom of the Chianti bottle so I will have to end for tonight. will write more about what I learn tomorrow.
JR
