George Soros pulled few punches as he addressed an audience in Davos on Thursday, bemoaning the rise of “mafia states”, such as Russia, and the threat to innovation posed by Facebook and Google.
Addressing diners at his annual dinner at the World Economic Forum the billionaire fund manager set the mood by saying the severity of the problems confronting the world forced him to scrap plans for the usual 50-50 speech and Q&A format for lengthier diatribe. “[P]repare yourselves,” he said.
Mr Soros described this moment in history as “rather painful”. Open societies around the world were “in crisis”, he continued, singling out Russia as an exemplification of the “dictatorships and mafia states” that were on the rise.