My Life As a Davos Deadhead
I always wanted to be a member of the elite. Elite conferences are where I get the closest.
I have devoted my life to one thing. That thing probably should have been helping others. Instead I have been laser focused on becoming a member of the elite.
When I was seven, my parents took me from our suburban New Jersey town to a French restaurant in Manhattan, where they tried to dissuade me from ordering escargot by telling me that escargot are snails. It was a good strategy, but it didn’t work. I suffered through those gastropods, and then I suffered through homework and extracurriculars to get into a college with brand recognition.
I got into Stanford, where I finally saw the elite in person. But I didn’t get to experience being an elite until the summer I interned in Manhattan at Newsweek magazine. Editors handed me stray invites: a press pass to the Democratic convention, a movie screening of Glengarry Glen Ross, a book party at a drag queen–filled nightclub in a former church. I went back to college knowing that if I could once again score invitations to these events, my life would be bigger, my curiosity more sated, my passed plates of hors d’oeuvres more free. I called this world where influential people congregated the Loop, and I vowed to get in.
