Those who wonder where real power resides in today’s internet age should head to The Grove hotel in Hertfordshire’s rolling green hills next Monday and Tuesday.
Google is holding its annual Zeitgeist, a two-day invitation-only conference, attended by politicians, royalty, media moguls, internet whizzes and the odd rock star.
This year’s guest list is still under wraps but an early schedule was leaked last month — much to Google’s annoyance.
Among those said to be talking are former US President Bill Clinton, singer Annie Lennox, Goldman Sachs’s BRICs guru Jim O’Neill, Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger and model Lily Cole. TV journalists such as the BBC’s Stephanie Flanders will compère some sessions.
Google loves big names. Prince Charles, David Cameron, Sir Richard Branson, Boris Johnson and James Murdoch are among those who went in previous years.
Doubtless Google co-founder Larry Page and chairman Eric Schmidt, who fly over each year from Silicon Valley to host it, wouldn’t want to suggest that their event was a demonstration of power.
Certainly nothing as vulgar as commerce is on the agenda. Instead there are lots of speeches and discussion panels about technology and the environment.
The message is: Google can think about the future of the world
because it has the money to change things — more, perhaps, than many hard-pressed Western governments.
The wealth on display isn’t ostentatious but no expense is spared. And again this year they’re hosting Big Tent, the big-budget sister media event at the Grove on Wednesday, with luminaries such as Jon Snow, universities minister David Willetts, Father Ted writer Graham Linehan and LSE don Damian Tambini.
The fact that Zeitgeist, now in it’s seventh year is always held here is a compliment to London.
