The 15th edition of our annual conference in Aspen was crackling with energy, from the first activity (a vigorous 25-mile bike ride through the Maroon Bells mountain peaks) to the final session (the amusing and poignant “Master Coach: What I Learned From Bill Campbell”). Here’s a look at some of our favorite moments.
DISNEY
Away with the fairies (and Disney’s CEO) in Aspen
Even Bob Iger, it turns out, gets a little starstruck—at least when Tinker Bell is in the room. As the CEO of the Walt Disney Co. (DIS) recounted on the first night of Coins2Day Brainstorm Tech, he was wowed by a recent “mixed reality” demonstration that featured a lifelike version of the iconic pixie, one of his favorite Disney characters. “I stood in a room, and they had Tinker Bell flying right up to me, around me, and looking untethered, extremely real,” said Iger. “I mean very, very real—so much so I thought that I could touch the character flying right in front of me.” No surprise that Disney’s Lucasfilm division already has a partnership with Magic Leap, the company behind the experience. Its founder and CEO, Rony Abovitz, spoke at Brainstorm Tech the next day. —Michal Lev-Ram
WARNER BROS.
Full-court (career) press
It’s good to be Draymond Green. Sure, the star forward’s Golden State Warriors came up short in the NBA finals against LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers. But when it comes to a career beyond the court, Green (above, center) has it all figured out—and he’s got Warner Bros. Chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara (left) and media entrepreneur Maverick Carter on his side. The trio’s goal is to help pro athletes make their way into traditional entertainment vehicles like movies and television. With his megawatt smile, Green is off to a great start. —Dan Primack
“Everybody’s very excited about it, Including the engineers.”
—Diane Greene, VMware co-founder and Google’s (GOOGL) recently appointed enterprise chief, on her employer’s recent investments in cloud-computing technologies
AMC
At least it wasn’t called “computer men”
What compels people to watch Halt and Catch Fire, AMC’s hit TV series about the Texas tech scene in the 1980s? Co-creators Christopher Cantwell (left) and Christopher Rogers waxed philosophical. “There’s no off switch to the Internet. We’re not going back. So I think there’s a growing fascination with ‘Who did this to us, and why?’ ” Cantwell explained. “[The Internet] is inextricably interwoven into every aspect of our life. So I think there’s really a question of ‘How did we get here?’ ” —Michal Lev-Ram
GIRLS WHO CODE
Program it, and they will come
“I am not a coder. I am not an engineer or computer scientist. My passion for teaching girls how to program comes from my experience in politics,” began Girls Who Code founder and CEO Reshma Saujani. Women must again be at the center of the tech industry, Saujani argued. “In the 1980s, 37% of computer-science graduates were women. Today that number is less than 18%.” Her solution? Start ’em young. Says Saujani: “They are going to build solutions to make our world better.” —Andrew Nusca
KOCH INDUSTRIES
“If I had to vote for cancer or a heart attack, why would I vote for either?”
—Charles Koch on this year’s U.S. Presidential nominees
IN MEMORIAM
“Coach” Bill Campbell
Silicon Valley lost a legend in April. Mentor to execs such as Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos and Alphabet’s Larry Page, Bill Campbell was remembered—with expletives, as he would have wanted—by (from left) Intuit’s Brad Smith, Uber’s Emil Michael, Kleiner Perkins’s John Doerr, MetricStream’s Shellye Archambeau, and Coins2Day’ s Adam Lashinsky. The “old pro” would have hated the attention—making it all the more instructive.
Miss this year’s conference? Watch the highlights at coins2day.com/brainstormtech.
