| Dear Friend, The best part of my job is meeting brilliant people, many of whom I persuade to speak at my Strategic Investment Conference. Thankfully, as the SIC grows in reputation, less persuasion is needed, which makes my job a lot easier. But the speaker I’m announcing today is a little different—I haven’t met him yet, though I’ve admired his work for some time. When I wrote to ask him to speak at the SIC, I didn’t have much hope that he would come. After all, he is one of the world’s most high-profile science and economics writers, with his books garnering multiple awards, including the Hayek Prize and the Julian Simon award. And his TED talk is at almost two million views, and climbing. But I thought it was worth a college try. I knew his dedication to challenging orthodox viewpoints and his optimistic outlook on humanity’s future would be invaluable assets for my conference. Amazingly, he said yes. And so I’m extremely proud and happy to announce that author, journalist, scientist, and wave-maker Matt Ridley will be speaking at the SIC 2017. (I know some of you will block out your calendar for the SIC, May 22–25, because of his name alone. You can click here to get your ticket.) | “The bottom-up world is to be the great theme of this century…” | | | Matt Ridley | | |
I find Matt to be a leading intellectual light in a relatively dark economic world. Perhaps that is because I agree with much of what he says, but it is also because he causes me to really think about how my core beliefs interact with my actual writing. In some cases, it is thanks to him that I’ve had to adapt. When Investopedia called me up last year, asking for the most interesting book I’d read lately, I named his 2015 book,The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge. (Brief side note: I always make heavy use of my Kindle app’s highlight and note-taking abilities—they’re extremely useful for any serious researcher. I checked and I highlighted 80 pages of The Evolution of Everything (plus notes) to go back and read again and again, which I have been doing.) Readers of The Economist will know Matt from his nine-year stint there. Readers of the Wall Street Journal will know him from his “Mind and Matter” column. UK readers will know him from his work in The Times, but he’s probably most well-known for his 2010 best-seller, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. So I’m looking forward to Matt’s presentation at the SIC 2017. I am sure you will find him as fascinating, enlightening, and yes, sometimes as infuriating as I do—Matt and I have similar abilities, we can both discuss something that will upset almost every reader/listener. But I think that's a feature, not a bug. We’re still almost four months away from the conference, so I’m more than happy that we have already confirmed so many big names. Aside from Matt, you’ll get a chance to rub elbows with luminaries including Ian Bremmer, Lacy Hunt, Pippa Malmgren, George Friedman, Raoul Pal, and more. I truly hope you join us for the SIC 2017. It’s an event where, to paraphrase Matt, ideas mate and give birth to other ideas. And as we continue through this Decade of Disruption, new ideas are what’s needed. You can click here to get tickets for the SIC while they’re still available. Your rationally optimistic analyst,
John Mauldin
Chairman
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