Until about 1750, economic growth was too slow for anyone to feel it within a lifetime. Then England’s one percent a year arrived like an explosion — you can still read the astonishment in the letters of the time. Several African economies have now grown at five to ten percent for the better part of a quarter-century, and the technology that should amplify them improves by the week.
The economist Alex Imas asks what will be scarce when intelligence becomes cheap. His answer is the relational: trust, provenance, presence — the parts of the economy where the human element is the value itself.
We agree. Machines will draft the contracts. The decision to trust is still made in person.
So we set a table. A private dining room, sixteen seats, decision-makers from two neighbouring continents who would otherwise never meet. Three hours, good food, no stage, no slides, no agenda beyond the conversation itself.
It sounds banal, and the effects are anything but. When people come to know each other on a human basis first, they find ways to help each other — and growth follows. We have watched friendships form high above Munich, in Berlin, in Prague, and we have watched what they set in motion.
Leaders shaping the future the way it has always actually been shaped: together, in person, over dinner.
By invitation