Stein previously wrote “A Writer’s Guide to Loving the Netflix–Warner Bros. Deal” — when that was still a thing.
Each July, 86-year-old investment banker Herb Allen’s four-day Sun Valley, Idaho conference aims to solve world problems, such as business moguls never having met certain other business moguls. The most dizzying part of arriving at the Sun Valley Lodge is quickly adjusting your status. You don’t want to surround yourself with loser CFOs, but you also don’t want to get mogged in every photo by Bob Iger.
Last year, David Ellison networked with Bari Weiss about buying The Free Press, leading to her being handed CBS News. No one knows what deals will be made on the buffet line this year, but they’re sure to involve artificial intelligence, sports and policies that win more primaries for the Democratic Socialists of America.
Herewith, in captions, the attendees’ “private” thoughts at the no-press gathering are revealed…
A CNBC reporter asks Bob Iger, right, and Brian Grazer if they flew commercial.
“The contract said that I have to be at least one pace behind Bob Iger,” explains new Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro (in white), with (from left) Matthew Walden and Iger.
“Yes, of course,” responds Iger to Mike Ovitz’s comment. “Everyone else here needs these name tags, but not you and me.”
“My Princeton senior thesis was ‘A Study of Freedom and Morality in Kant’s Practical Philosophy,’” fumes Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch to his wife, Sarah Murdoch. “So why does everybody keep saying we’re not ‘serious people.’”
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan pictured alongside all the other television execs with significant power in the current landscape.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos is struck with yet another great show idea. This one is kind of like Is It Cake?, but it’s about whether the door is for a bathroom.
Even after launching a takeover bid of MGM Resorts in June, Barry Diller really just wants to be in a Cialis ad.
Upon being told that his order for two non-alcoholic beers could be misconstrued as a peace sign Palantir CEO Alex Karp immediately switched his order to three non-alcoholic beers.
General Motors CEO Mary Barra is thrilled to discover that, yet again, there are no lines for the women’s bathroom.
Comcast co-CEOs Brian Roberts and Mike Cavanagh are spinning off NBCUniversal strictly because it makes strategic sense. But if anyone at the conference wanted to make a purchase offer, they’ll both be sitting at the bar waiting all four days.
Throngs gather around former Disney CEO Michael Eisner to hear his stories about baseball cards and summer camp.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred offered some great ideas about how to make four-hour conference meetings six minutes shorter.
Wendi Murdoch tells Uber CEO Dana Khosrowshahi that his isn’t even one of the 40 tightest shirts she’s seen at the conference.
This swan is worth $14 billion.
Always cheery, always helpful, nice guy VC Reid Hoffman suggests a really good tattoo removal guy.
Few have ever looked as authentic in the uniform of the working man as Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav (right, with Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone).
Superconnector Michael Kives, right, can introduce people to D’Amaro using only his mind.
WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels and his wife, life coach Helma Wiedenfels, keep their marriage fresh by never talking in advance about what they’re going to wear for the day.
“Yes, that luggage is also mine. And that one. And that one. And that one. And that one. And that one,” directs Gayle King.
After enduring a 15-minute conversation with Zaslav, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hurries to his car to talk to ChatGPT.
Always concerned about the bottom line, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy forces his wife, fashion designer Elana Rochelle Caplan, to buy all her clothes on Amazon.
Despite investing $100 million into augmented-reality dome theaters and making a 2027 movie about talking plants called Buds, Sony Pictures CEO Ravi Ahuja does not look at all stoned.
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel taking a short break from the conference because everyone thought it was funny to send him a dick pic.
“What have I done?” wonders former Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, after sending Spiegel a dick pic.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft deftly avoids yet another attendee who asked what he thought about the Melania documentary.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver wishes he could draft some Black people to the conference.
Karlie Kloss tries, yet again, to convince her husband, Thrive Capital founder Josh Kushner, that everyone there knows that he’s the brother who hates Trump.
Tim Cook, left, informs his successor, new Apple CEO John Ternus, that he should also wear that name tag in the office.
Jeff Bezos contemplating what three wishes he wants to ask his genie friend for.
It turns out the Sex and the City reboot could have been worse. (From left: Ivanka Trump, Veronica Grazer, King and Wendi Murdoch)
When asked by Casey Wasserman (center) how many times he was going to raise the federal funds rate before he, too, incurs Trump’s wrath, new Federal Reseerve Chief Kevin Warsh did that annoying “six, seven” bit.
Jonathan Haidt explains to King, left, and Nellie Bowles that, like him, teenagers should use the imaginary phone he carries in his hand.
CBS News head Bari Weiss pretends to be happy to be at a place where no one hates her.
Scrawny-ass former Netflix chieftain Reed Hastings might not want to flaunt that he can’t handle a Core Power 42.
