Welcome to Axis ProRata, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

Sponsored by TSX Broadway. I'm Dan Premack. On today's show, changes may be coming to one of the Internet's oldest success stories and the latest on America's record-setting government shutdown.

The first, Swiss cheese. This week is the World Economic Forum in

Davos, Switzerland, where so many of the world's rich and powerful will gather to eat and drink

and ski, and then discuss global ills like wealth inequality and climate change. It's the Confab's

47th year, and like many events in their fifth decade, more and more people are questioning its

usefulness. Or as consultant Lauren McEvitt put it in Britain's city AM newspaper this morning,

quote, Davos is a better organized, allegedly philanthropic fire festival for influential boomers

with fondue instead of cheese slices. Ouch. So the reality, really, though, is that Davos seems

to represent an old, top-down hierarchy

in a world that's becoming more populist by the day. Yes, it is well-meaning, and yes, it still

matters for those trying to strike deals, either business or political, or both, but the internet, really,

has democratized us, the world, in a way that the old men on the mountaintops

no longer get listened to by the masses down below. Instead, they're mostly ignored, particularly

when so much of what they preach in Davos is not practiced when they return home. In 20 seconds,

we'll go deeper on all this with Axios chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon. But first,

this. TSX Broadway is bringing Times Square into the digital age. The project will be a powerhouse

for event activation with a 46-story tower wrapped in LED screens, a luxury hotel, experiential

retail space, and Times Square's only permanent outdoor stage. Learn more about this breathtaking

platform at TSXBroadway.com.

We're joined now by Axio's chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon. So, Felix,

you have been to the World Economic Forum in Davos before, right? I've been many times. Yeah,

...