At the Brilliant Minds conference, the tech elite meets international stars
I have been at the two-day conference. Not the kind you usually hear about, which ends in drunkenness and infidelity scandals, but one where the impression you give must interact with prince Daniel.
Brilliant Minds has been one of the tech entrepreneurs’ “best kept secrets”. The conference was founded in 2015 by Spotify Daniel Oak together with Ash Pournourientrepreneur and Avicii former manager, as a way to gather people for a couple of days to air thoughts and ideas about entrepreneurship, tech, innovation and so on. Last year, Ek left the chairman’s post and some of the country’s most powerful families stepped in instead, such as Wallenberg, Rausing and Ax:son Johnson.
It has been a secret what actually goes on behind the successful doors, but in recent years, however, a loophole has been left open by widening the list of invitees to what is called “A taste of brilliant mind”. The fact that I was invited probably belongs to the new, slightly more accessible attitude.
On the way in to the Grand Hotel, everything is as usual. On a small elevation sits Doggy Doggelito and waiting for someone famous to arrive so he can take a selfie with them. We say hello and I work my way into the conservatory.
This year’s conference has the theme “Hope in action” and invitees include others Gisele Pelicot, Daddy Yankee, True Marine and Lupita Nyong’o. The artist James Blunt rips off two songs intensely. Before he steps down, we learn that his wife is working with the next speaker. I guess we got him in the bargain.
The opening speech is given by the CEO Annastacia Seebohm and is magnificent. She has a British English without filler words and with the evocative music, the moving LED screen and her saying things like “Join me” with an open body language I can’t think of anything other than the very expressive robot Sophia developed by Hanson robotics that went viral a couple of years ago.
I mingle with two women who have traveled here from New York. It is the first time they are at the conference and in Sweden. I ask what it’s like to live in New York and without specifying what I mean, they understand. It is a city that has lost a bit of its romantic shimmer in recent years. When the woman I’m talking to moved there from Mexico 18 years ago, it was different – the American dream of working hard and being rewarded was still intact.
The feeling in the room is enthusiastic. The way it once was for NYC. I see the glint in their eyes. They see Jannah, paradise.
A couple of weeks ago I was out with a friend at a bar in the Old Town. In front of us sat an odd mix of guys who didn’t seem to belong together. Like that kitchen drawer where you can find just about anything. It would turn out that they all worked at different levels of tech.
One of the guys, younger than the others, caught my interest. The others regarded him as a child prodigy.
He says the goal is to save the world and looks at me like I’m completely behind when I ask which political party is best suited for his mission. It doesn’t matter which party wins the election, the new technology doesn’t take that into account. It was like I was talking to a character from a movie. He also tells us that he fasts and is very concerned about his health, while sipping a vodka. We change numbers.
The feeling “this is an interesting character” I also get from Hjalmar NilsonneCEO of Neko Health. I can only describe his way of telling about his health startup as interesting. We hear about his previous failed tech venture, how he went bankrupt. As he lay there feeling sorry for himself at the bottom, he received a call from Daniel Ek and together they begin their work with Neko Health.
On stage I see why Ek made that call. Nilsonne is dedicated. It doesn’t matter what you sell. What separates the winner from the loser is the ability until the end to be so convinced and convincing that it is this particular service or product that will change the world.
When Oprah’s friend and colleague, the journalist Gayle King – a recurring friend of Brilliant Minds – begins her speech, which is really about something completely different, by telling about her experience of Nilsonne and Ek’s clinic completely uncritically, my feeling of being in an echo chamber is confirmed.
There is almost nothing that rubs off during the two days of the conference. The conversations are designed so that they barely touch on the holes that arise and that do not rhyme well with the theme of hope.
Or, well, one conversation lasted, between the journalist Lionel Barber and the historian Stephen Kotkin. The title of the conversation was “Understanding the world we’re in”.
I’m blown away by how good G these two have. You want to live here. But Kotkin hints at things not will talk about, like what the US has to gain from an ongoing war with Iran. When he, like many of the others who are interviewed, goes into his monologue, it feels to me, who have just heard about the power of hope and change blah blah blah, that Kotkin is going way outside the script when he lands on the fateful words: “We are lost”.
Barber tries to lead Kotkin, who has just wandered out into the dark, home, but Kotkin continues: “I probably won’t be invited here again.” Everyone laughs.
I don’t want to be too conspiratorial but at the time of writing there is no picture from that conversation posted on Brilliant Mind’s instagram. All other calls have been documented.
On Friday night is finally the after party. Listening to so many brilliant people makes you want to hit the bottle.
The party location is kept secret until we arrive. The human tendency to gravitate to where you belong kicks in and we are about 20 people whose common denominator is skin tone and the size of wallet that holds us together. Or the common denominator is that we could all go under the job description “creative”.
The party is held at Djursholm’s Country Club. A select number have previously been invited to a more intimate function in the large house. Aware that this is probably the last time I will come here, I shamelessly take a walk inside the house. The style is national romantic with a dose Pernilla Wahlgren.
During the evening, I meet one of the women from New York with whom I rubbed shoulders during the first day of the conference. Now she is completely convinced that Stockholm is the city in the world. We both look excited about Djursholm for the first time.
The party lives for the minutes that the Village People’s “YMCA” is playing. It doesn’t matter that during these days I haven’t really been in the rooms where it happens at all. When we dance, it feels hopeful that we are at least, if only for a moment, in sync on a human level. If we are lost, we are lost together.
