ET GBS 2015: Forum kept everyone engaged, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s tweets on PM Modi stole the show

NEW DELHI: The Economic Times Global Business Summit, Day 2, January 17 - delegates were talking about Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s tweets on Narendra Modi, who stole the show on Day 1 of ET GBS.

Taleb’s tweets – first, “I’d rather open a thousand schools than a single university”, Indian PM @narendramodi very impressive and, second, PM Modi mentioned that ‘small is beautiful’; small is mostly less fragile than large – were unusual in that it’s rare for a disruptively smart theoretician to find common ground with a head of government.

But the 2-day ET GBS turned out to be that kind of a forum – full of unexpected delights and charms.

Saturday’s bitingly cold, ferociously foggy Delhi winter morning wasn’t the best weather for anyone to travel to a hotel, to either give or listen to special addresses. They all came, though.

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, whose staff was smilingly complaining that their minister works all but 5 hours a day, arrived right on time, began by saying ET has been a change agent for economic dynamism for 20 years and ended by refusing to give too many details of his future plans – “I want a full page in ET after the rail budget”, he said, “I won’t get it if I give details now”.

The other two ministers were equally engaging. Ravi Shankar Prasad was seen chatting away with Paul Krugman and Piyush Goyal seemed, as he almost always does, completely at ease. All ministers politely fended off eager businessmen who had pitches to make.

But even businessmen with order books on their mind were transported to a more interesting world by Taleb. You knew within 10-minutes of his keynote address on ET GBS Day 2, why he’s so famous, why his books are so mind-bendingly good and why he’s so sought after. A disruptive thinker who’s also a gifted raconteur, Taleb knows exactly when to show a slide and when to pause for that ‘Oh!’ moment to happen.

He alone would have kept Day 2 of ET GBS going, indeed he said he’s perfectly happy to continue for hours, but there was so much more on offer. Not the least being a star-studded panel – Krugman, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramaniam and MIT’s Abhijit Banerjee.

Day 2 ending with a discussion of that quality was the perfect bookend for an event that showcased so much political, business and academic talent. Let us also add, Paul Krugman went off to see Humayun’s tomb with Coca-Cola’s Venkatesh Kini and Nassim Nicholas Taleb took to Facebook to arrange a meet-up over coffee with some fans in the city.

Taleb had said there’s so much disorder in Delhi’s traffic that India seems a fertile ground for radical thinking. Here’s hoping he’s right.