Don’t bother ringing or texting Rupert Murdoch this week – he won’t be answering. The same goes for Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Zynga’s Marc Pincus, Liberty Media (and Austar) boss John Malone, investor Warren Buffet and Groupon’s Andrew Mason, among others.
Along with many other technology and media top cats they are attending investment bank Allen & Co.’s annual media and technology leaders’ conference in Sun Valley, where mobiles and texting are banned, at least during conference hours.
Jobs – recovering from a liver transplant and other health problems – has sprung a surprise by revealing he will attend the July 6-10 bash for the first time in five years, according to the guest list, obtained by Bloomberg News.
Bloomberg suggests that he may be using the event to court executives he needs to add content to new Apple products, including a subscription TV service.
It says Sun Valley is used by executives of media and technology companies to network and discuss deals. Talks start over the communal 6.45am breakfast, which is followed by conference sessions.
From Tuesday through Saturday, the high-powered guests will also be offered tennis, golf, fly-fishing, Salmon River white-water rafting, skeet shooting, massages and mountain biking.
Rupert Murdoch may give the rafting a miss this year. A couple of years ago he fell out of his raft and was whipped downstream. He managed to get to shore, but cut his legs badly scrambling up onto rocks.
It was Roop’s worst physical experience, no doubt, since he broke his fingers winding the sheets aboard Larry Ellison’s maxi-yacht Sayonara on Sydney Harbour during a pleasure jaunt ahead of the ill-fated 1998 Sydney-Hobart race.
