This is Business Wars Flipping the Bird.

Episodes will drop Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for the next two weeks.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge the entire season of Business Wars Flipping the Bird right now.

Start your free trial in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Wondry.

Thank you. For most of the year, Sun Valley is a quiet mountain town in Idaho, with a population of about 1,800 people,

a picturesque slice of earth nestled in the sawtooth national forest. But every summer for one week in early July, the moguls aren't just on the ski slopes. Sun Valley is an annual

conference run by a boutique investment bank called Allen & Co. Reporter Ed Ludlow has covered the event before for Bloomberg.

The way I'd describe it is like, it's kind of like Davos, but more secret.

Once a year, whether the locals wanted or not,

the leaders of industry arrived by private jet to live out their fantasies

of being Ernest Hemingway and leave with the new fishing story and the occasional multi-billion

dollar deal.

It's like billionaire's mountain retreat.

And it's a who's who of company executives, wealthy elite, the world's richest people,

influential bankers, interesting people, startup founders.

With the exception of Mark Zuckerberg's Friday night karaoke party, a Sun Valley favorite

turned COVID casualty, the event in 2022 was very much back to pre-pandemic form.

There are just a constant stream of Alan and Co hired escorts who just ferry the world's most

influential and richest between the main lodge where they have breakfasts and lunches and meat in the hallways and other

sporting activities like people go and play golf.

On the guest list this year were three of Twitter's most senior people, Twitter board

...