This is Sun Valley, the summer camp for the billionaires who made fun of ‘Succession’ | the people

In the sixth episode of the second season Succession, the entire Roy family attends a major retreat of media, technology, and banking moguls called Argestes, where Roys aims to strike a deal with the Pierce family, owners of another media giant in direct competition with Waystar Royco, Pierce Global Media. The episode opens with the family flying over the sky inside them Jet Private, waiting for the airport to give them permission to land, while an impatient Logan Roy exclaims that he will kill any tech entrepreneur who lands before him.

The first parallel between the hit HBO series and Sun Valley, the Billionaires Summit, which kicks off its 38th edition on Wednesday, July 12, is clear: During these sessions of conferences on business and economics, which usually feature glimpses from the worlds of technology, media and finance, the airspace of the resort town of Sun Valley Small, in Idaho (USA), with a population of no more than 1,500, tends to fall apart as private jets of business leaders begin to arrive at Friedman Memorial Airport. According to the American media diverseAmong those in attendance this year is Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, and possibly also its chairman, Reed Hastings; Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Bill Gates or presenter and businesswoman Oprah Winfrey. According to the same post, the topics of conversations this year could be artificial intelligence and climate change.

The battle for airspace is neither the first nor the only detail drawn by the HBO cartoon series of the so-called “Summer Camp for Billionaires,” which private investment firm Allen & Company has organized every July since 1983. Just like the fictional Roys, many businessmen use these holidays To close important mergers and acquisitions deals, therefore, the paparazzi who roam the surroundings fighting for the shot that could immortalize the beginning or outcome of important negotiations. Some of the most memorable and well-known deals to come out of Sun Valley were the talks that led Lowell McAdam, Chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications, to the Verizon-AOL merger, Comecast’s purchase of NBC Universal (which started in Sun Valley golf courses) Or Jeff Bezos’ bell in 2013, when he bought Washington Post After two meetings with Donald Graham during these lecture sessions.

The annual event is hosted at the Sun Valley Lodge, a historic venue Refuge Which opened its doors in 1936 and includes 108 luxury rooms, a spa with a length of more than 1,800 meters, a gym, a yoga studio, an outdoor swimming pool and a cafe, in addition to many restaurants, lounges, conference rooms and events of all kinds. The classic, rustic-looking stone entrance to the hotel was another wink we could see Successionsince it is the only area of ​​the entire resort that photographers are allowed access to during the conference session and where it is common to see attendees emerge from their black vans upon arrival while being greeted by hotel staff.

Another, more striking detail (which is also recounted in the series) is the relaxed dress code for conferences. If the HBO series is distinguished by its depiction of the silent luxury trend – the 1% way of dressing, which is characterized by the use of clothes made of exquisite materials, which, however, go unnoticed by inexperienced eyes due to their spartan appearance -, in the episode dedicated to the entrances and exits of Sun Valley, Roys is dressed casually, in a classic light puffer jacket (aka Vassaliko) and T-shirts and T-shirts. At the Royal Sun Valley Retreat, guests were gifted Patagonian pullovers, the top aesthetic choice for casual Wall Street Fridays before Silicon Valley brought sweats all the way, and in 2017, he pictured the ultra-cozy Jeff Bezos walking in a black polo shirt and blazer. Outside Refuge They spread quickly.

What’s going on inside RefugeHowever, it remains a mystery. For five days, in addition to listening to lectures and participating in round tables on politics, technology or economics, attendees are also invited to relax with various leisure activities, ranging from hiking in the mountains to golf. In short, it is about networks From the billionaires: “Sun Valley conventions are famous as the place where tech and media moguls gather to do some fly-fishing and strike multimillion-dollar merger deals, while many photographers pop in to get a photo of Mark Zuckerberg with his season’s polar jacket,” the journalist wrote in 2021. Hamilton Nolan in the British milieu guardianOr more specifically, Sun Valley conferences such as the Davos ForumAnd A mechanism for the concentration of wealth in casual dress.