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The Google Sandwich

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2nd Oct 2008




Friday, 26 January 2007

A Whole Lotta Google Love

Of the many activities taking place at the World Economic Forum 2007 Annual Meeting, partying is not really very high on the list, and not many events include a conga-sandwich with the world's leading tech luminaries. Forum sessions start early and end late, often running until 10pm, and the crush of cocktail parties that begin at 6.00pm are usually fairly sedate.

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DJ Pompougnac spins for Google at Davos
Enter Google, which hosted its annual party on Friday night in Davos, and all that gets turned upside down, as usual. Embedded at the Forum's ground zero, (the Steigenberger Belvedere Hotel), the Google party again attracted a super concentration of the new Internet's power players, and reflected the younger, global feel of today's internet superstars. With the exception of Steve Forbes doing a couple of turns on the multicolored dance floor, the party was dominated by the young global elite, and like everyone else in that group, they know how to party.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin cut up the dance floor with Chad Hurley of Youtube, Chris DeWolfe of Myspace and Wendi Murdoch while the rest of the crowd tried to outdo each other with the most ridiculous of dance moves. Anne Wojcicki (Sergey's GF) and Lucy Southworth (Larry's GF) made up the rest of a dance floor sandwich, and together they kept the party buzzing with group hugs, smiles all around and the confidence that comes with knowing you can wear whatever you want when your website attracts 160 million users a day and all the old industrialists have been put to bed.

Of course the champagne flowed freely and the crowd was as powerful as they come, (Technorati, Clinton Global Initiative, Time Warner, McKinsey & Co., Lehman Bros., UPS, NASDAQ, and on and on) but the coup d'etat choice was the music: Stephane Pompougnac of Hotel Costes kept the room moving as he smiled serenely from behind the decks.