Welcome to Axis ProRata, a podcast that takes just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech business and politics.

I'm Dan Premak. On today's show, the largest software merger in history and the rise of belief-driven buyers.

But first, what happens now with Saudi Arabia? Just two weeks ago, it seemed that all anyone could talk about was Saudi and the

murder of Jamal Khashoggi. But then came the mad Magabomber and the horrific massacre in Pittsburgh,

and all of our collective attention seemed to turn to the new horribles. But we shouldn't forget

Saudi Arabia because Saudi Arabia hasn't forgotten us. The country last week pushed forward with

its big investment conference, nicknamed Davos in the desert, much to the chagrin of the World Economic Forum,

which hosts its big annual event in Davos and which asked all of us to stop saying Davos in the

desert. So the event formerly known as Davos in the Desert lost tons of big name speakers,

but still included announcements of about

$56 billion in new deals, many of which were with U.S. companies, and it did feature some

big-name Silicon Valley faces, like Jim Breyer, a venture capitalist best known for being an early

investor in Facebook, and who currently sits on the board of 21st Century Fox.

So what comes next?

Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a massive financial diversification away from fossil fuels,

and that includes lots of big money investments in Western technology companies,

mostly through its $45 billion investment in something called the SoftBank Vision Fund,

which has already backed companies like Uber and WeWork and DoorDash and Slack and

even the dog walking platform wag. So will companies now shun Saudi money or will they also turn

their attention to other things and resume what had been business as usual? After all,

investors are kind of known to have short memories. And even the Wall Street firms that didn't

send CEOs to the former Davos in the desert did send lower level bankers who were patrolling the hallways, having conversations.

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