Davos 2026: a week of vindication

Posted on: 24 January 2026

There is something shamelessly gratifying about watching your analysis confirmed by the very people you expected to deny it until the end.

Over the past ten days I wrote about profitable stalemate on Greenland, about Davos as American hostile takeover, about OpenAI as the Blockbuster of artificial intelligence, about Europe responding to provocations with declarations instead of actions. Not opinions: structural analysis with predictable outcomes. Regular readers know how this works. If you are new here, now you have a chance to understand why you should pay attention.

While the week unfolded, the chorus was deafening. Bloomberg headlined that the Greenlandic prime minister was telling people to prepare for a possible invasion. The Atlantic Council spoke of "NATO's darkest hour." Al Jazeera advised Europe to prepare for annexation and the end of the Atlantic alliance. Experts took turns on talk shows predicting wars between allies, constitutional crises, the end of the post-war world order. Frederiksen repeated "the end of NATO" like an apotropaic mantra. Think tanks churned out analysis on how Europe might defend itself, whether it was willing to, whether it made sense to try.

Those who know the game well did not panic. They simply did what they always do: connect the dots. On Tuesday I wrote about "profitable stalemate", the mechanism whereby all parties benefit from maintaining tension without resolving it. On Wednesday Trump and Rutte announced the "framework" that confirmed exactly that pattern. No war, no end of NATO, no apocalypse. Just the usual dynamic: whoever shouts loudest gets what they want without firing a shot, whoever protests for the cameras saves face, everyone goes home satisfied.

Let us start with the main course.

On Thursday, in Davos, Bret Taylor told CNBC: "It probably is a bubble. When everyone knows that AI is going to have a huge impact, money is plentiful. Smart money, dumb money, too many competitors at every layer of the stack. Over the next few years, you'll see a correction."

Bret Taylor. The chairman of OpenAI's board of directors. Admitting the bubble. In Davos. In front of 800 CEOs.

A few days earlier I had written that ChatGPT is the Blockbuster of AI and that those building careers on prompt engineering are accumulating skills heading for extinction. The reaction in the comments was predictable: exaggeration, catastrophism, you do not understand the potential. Then OpenAI's chairman walked onto the world's most important stage and said exactly what I had written.

Not "maybe". Not "could be". "It probably is a bubble."

Sam Altman, you will notice, was not in Davos. The CEO of artificial intelligence's greatest hype machine sent his CFO to talk about "practical adoption" while his chairman publicly admitted the industry is in a bubble. He stayed away. Ask yourself why.

Dario Amodei of Anthropic confirmed the figures I had cited: 80% of revenue from enterprise, 20% from consumers. I had written that this is the difference between building sustainable businesses and burning 14 billion dollars a year chasing free users. Amodei said it himself, in Davos, live on CNBC.

Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind, Nobel laureate, declared that current language models are "nowhere near" general intelligence. Yann LeCun, one of the fathers of deep learning, went further: LLMs will never achieve human intelligence. Never. A completely different approach is needed.

I had written that everyone who invested the same resources obtained roughly the same results. That there is no technological moat. That there is no lasting competitive advantage. That there is only who burns more cash than others. Hassabis and LeCun confirmed it. From the Davos stage. With their Nobel and Turing Awards.

But artificial intelligence was only half of the week's story.

On Greenland, the "profitable stalemate" I described on Tuesday materialised on Wednesday with precision that calling surgical would be an understatement. Trump withdrew the tariffs threatened for the first of February. He declared he would not use military force. He obtained a "framework" with NATO Secretary General Rutte: total base access, unlimited military presence, no time limit. Zero cost. Denmark did not cede formal sovereignty, so it can claim it did not lose. Trump got everything he wanted, so he can claim he won. Everyone saves face. Nobody has to admit anything.

I had written that profitable stalemate is when solving the problem pays less than maintaining it. That all parties benefit from tension without resolution. That Europe would protest without acting. Tuesday theory, Wednesday news.

The Board of Peace, launched Thursday with solemn ceremony, confirmed the other prediction: Davos as hostile takeover. "Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do," Trump said from the stage. Verbatim. Not irony, not metaphor. Operating programme.

Last week I had written that the record American delegation was not engagement with multilateralism but colonisation from within. That the forum was shifting from a space for civilising power to a megaphone for American unilateralism. Trump responded by launching a UN alternative from the World Economic Forum stage and announcing he would chair it personally.

The Board of Peace signatories tell the story better than any analysis: Albania, Argentina, Hungary, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kazakhstan, Pakistan. The coalition of pragmatists. Those who understood it pays to be inside the room where decisions are made, even if the room is American property. Those who prefer negotiating the terms of dependency rather than pretending an autonomy they do not have.

Western allies boycotted. UK, France, Germany, Italy absent from the ceremony. Belgium had to publicly deny signing after the White House included it on the list. Canada, after accepting the invitation, was dis-invited by Trump that evening via Truth Social post.

Macron, he of "we don't give in to bullies", did not sign. But he did nothing else either. Thundering declaration, zero concrete action. Exactly the pattern I described on the 20th of January: Europe responds to American provocations with press releases while Trump advances with fait accompli. Macron speaks to his voters. Trump speaks to the world. Guess who wins.

The moment worth the entire week came when Jared Kushner presented the Gaza plan. Slides with timelines, maps with development zones, renderings of how the territory will be "rebuilt" in two or three years. Trump commented: "Beautiful piece of property. I'm a real estate person at heart."

He was not joking. He was describing his cognitive framework. For someone who has spent his life doing property deals, everything is real estate. Including war zones. Including territories where two million people live. Location, location, location.

Energy, the other theme I analysed last week, emerged exactly as predicted. Trump from the stage: "We needed more than double the energy currently in the country just to take care of the AI plants. Instead of closing down energy plants, we're opening them up." Satya Nadella: "Energy and energy infrastructure costs will be the key driver of who wins the AI race."

I had written that energy concentration for AI is not a side effect but intentional design. That whoever controls energy controls AI. That the green transition is becoming cover for monopolisation. Trump and Nadella confirmed the thesis from the Davos stage, broadcast worldwide.

What does all this mean?

It means structural patterns are more predictive than declared intentions. It means following incentives instead of declarations allows you to see outcomes coming days or weeks in advance. It means forty years spent observing systems instead of commenting on headlines produces a certain kind of analytical advantage.

I am not saying this to boast. I am saying it because it is verifiable. The posts are public, dated, falsifiable. Anyone who wishes can check what I wrote in recent days and compare it with what happened in Davos. Facts are facts.

As I write, the first trilateral USA-Russia-Ukraine talks since the Russian invasion began are underway in Abu Dhabi. Another opportunity to test the framework. If I am wrong, you will see it. If I am right, you will see that too.

For now, Davos week produced exactly what structural analysis suggested. OpenAI's chairman admitting the bubble. Trump getting everything without firing a shot. Europe responding with press releases. Kushner presenting Gaza as real estate opportunity.

If this is the new world order, at least now we know how to read it.