Michael Chobanian, founder of Kuna, a popular Ukrainian crypto exchange: “We don’t trust the government. We don’t trust the banking system. We don’t trust the local currency. The majority of people have nothing else to choose apart from crypto.”
Anthony Capuano, CEO of Marriott International: “China has been tough, it’s the only country in the world or region in the world where we didn’t see sequential quarter-over-quarter improvement in revenue per available room, principally because they continue to pursue this zero COVID policy.”
Manav Gupta, a director at Credit Suisse: “While currently there is a lot of focus on geopolitical tensions pushing up oil prices, the fundamental fact is that [the] market is well undersupplied in 2022. Even if geopolitical tensions ease over the next few weeks, near-term high oil prices are here to stay.”
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian and commentator on authoritarianism and propaganda: “All strongmen build ‘inner sanctums’ to manage day-to-day governance. Composed of flatterers, family members and cronies, all of them chosen for their loyalty rather than their expertise, they shield him from any unpleasant counsel — and share handsomely in the profits from his thievery. This is certainly the case in Russia, a fully realized kleptocracy: In 2018, 3 percent of Russians held about 90 percent of the country’s assets, with Putin’s oligarchs owning the lion’s share of those.”
Murat Kacira, professor and director of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center at the University of Arizona: “The consistent vertical farm environment delivers consistent yield and quality independent of the outdoor environment. When you transplant something in a vertical farm, you know at the end of a given time period what you are going to get in terms of the yield and quality of that product.”
Enrique Lores, CEO of HP Inc.: “The PC market is $200 billion bigger than it was before the pandemic because of the way people are working, playing. We see this hybrid world for the foreseeable future.”
Joseph Gyourko, professor of real estate at Wharton, commenting on the future of the U.S. office market: “I strongly suspect what will result is a move to concentration, a flight to quality. Over the next few years, as tenants start to rethink space needs and their leases rollover, they’ll go into better buildings, and the worse buildings will be in trouble.”
Bill Miller, founder, chairman and CIO of Miller Value Partners: “I'm less worried about inflation than most people because, if you look out to the five-year inflation expectations, it’s high, it’s 3.2 percent, but that’s not high historically. That’s about in line with historical inflation going back to the 1920s, and if you look at companies like Cleveland-Cliffs, the big steel company, steel prices are expected to fall significantly next year.”
Kathryn Cunningham, assistant professor of theatre at the University of Tennessee: “There is a scene in Hulu’s new series, ‘The Dropout,’ where Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes stands in front of a mirror and practices saying, ‘This is an inspiring step forward.’ With each iteration, her voice deepens. As the world has learned about Theranos’ web of deception … the behavior might strike some people as bizarre, even sociopathic. But because of my training in vocology, the study of vocalization, and my interest in speech biases, I’m intrigued by why Holmes may have felt compelled to change her voice in the first place. I see the story of her voice as part of a broader cultural fixation on the way women speak and sound.”
Asher Siddiqui, a Dubai-based venture capitalist, speaking about Dubai ascension as the tech hub of the Arab world: “The thing that’s really changed is COVID — it accelerated the ecosystem by three to five years.”
Jim VandeHei, CEO of Axios: “America is screwed if we don’t restore fast a common connection, a common truth and a common reality. This can only be done closer to people’s homes, professions and workplaces — the places they can see, touch, verify. You do this with smart, clinical news and information — devoid of opinion and needless noise — pushed to consumers in an efficient, quick, respectful way.”
Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist: “If China announced that, rather than staying neutral, it was joining the economic boycott of Russia — or even just strongly condemning its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and demanding that it withdraw — it might shake Vladimir Putin enough to stop this vicious war. At a minimum, it would give him pause, because he has no other significant ally aside from India in the world now.”
Nicholas Grous, analyst, ARK Investment Management: “During the pandemic, digital advertising gained share as traditional advertising declined. At the end of 2021, global digital advertising was roughly $440 billion, 62 percent of the market. According to our research, it will continue to grow at a 11 percent compound annual rate during the next eight years, surpassing $1 trillion by the end of 2029.”