The annual Allen & Co. conference is underway in Sun Valley, Idaho, and it looks less like a retreat and more like a high-stakes coordination point for the tech and media worlds. The invite-only gathering begins Tuesday, with some of the biggest names in AI, entertainment, and capital showing up as hundreds of private jets have been landing since Monday.

Tim Burke, director of the Sun Valley Friedman Memorial Airport, told Business Insider he expects between 300 and 350 aircraft each day during the conference, more than four times the typical traffic. That’s the operational tell. The strategic tell is the guest list itself: executives and major investors from OpenAI, Apple, Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, YouTube, GM, Palantir, Disney, Amazon, Uber, and more, plus Tim Cook arriving as he prepares to step down, and Kevin Warsh arriving as chair of the Federal Reserve just weeks after taking over from Jerome Powell.

And yes, the conference is basically “summer camp for billionaires,” only the counselors are CEOs and the curriculum is what to do about AI and what to do about media. Though discussions among invitees are kept confidential, Tim Armstrong, CEO of Flowcode, previously told Business Insider that AI was the “1,000-pound gorilla” in “every conversation, every meeting” at last year’s conference. This year’s roster suggests that gorilla is still in the room, wearing a suit and probably asking about enterprise adoption, AI infrastructure costs, and who owns the pipeline into the next wave of customers.

For OpenAI, the boardroom energy is hard to miss. Bret Taylor, chairman of OpenAI, arrives at the Sun Valley Lodge, and he also leads Sierra, the AI startup he cofounded that builds customer service agents for businesses. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, waves as he walks into the conference as OpenAI continues its push to build the next generation of AI systems while expanding its business beyond ChatGPT, and as the company looks toward filing an IPO.

Amazon brings its own AI gravity. Andy Jassy attends with his wife, Elena, and Amazon is cementing its place in the AI race after inking a $50 billion investment agreement with OpenAI in February. In a world where AI costs real money before it prints real revenue, that kind of capital commitment is both a signal and a stake. It suggests Amazon is not waiting to see who wins; it is paying to help shape the winner.

Apple’s timeline is also part of the story. Tim Cook arrives as he prepares to step down as Apple’s CEO after nearly 15 years at the helm. He will hand the role to Apple hardware chief John Ternus in September while remaining with the company as executive chairman. When a company is mid-transition at the CEO level, large industry gatherings matter even more, because key partners and rivals use the same window to pressure test strategy and appetite for risk.

The media reshuffle is not happening in the abstract either. David Zaslav, President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, arrives as the company weighs major strategic changes after announcing plans to split into two stand-alone public companies. The move separates its streaming and studio business from traditional cable networks. In parallel, Bob Iger arrives as Disney’s senior advisor and a Disney board member through the end of 2026 after stepping down as Disney CEO in March and handing the reins to Josh D’Amaro. Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, checks in as Netflix continues investing in live events, advertising, and sports programming. Rob Manfred, MLB Commissioner, is there too, overseeing MLB’s efforts to expand streaming distribution and modernize the league’s media business. Put together, this is a map of entertainment power trying to stay relevant while the audience shifts and the economics get remixed.

Regulation and macro pressure sit underneath all of it, not above it. Kevin Warsh, chair of the Federal Reserve, arrives in a suit just weeks after taking over as chair, replacing Jerome Powell. The Fed moment matters because investors are watching how Warsh approaches inflation, interest rates, and the Fed’s independence. When capital is expensive or uncertain, AI infrastructure, streaming deals, and large balance sheet strategies get stress-tested fast. Even if the conversations are off the record, the math is not.

Finally, the conference mixes AI builders, platform owners, and infrastructure players. Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, flashes a peace sign as Palantir expands its AI business across government and commercial customers. Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube, oversees YouTube as it continues to dominate streaming watch time and expands its business around Shorts, podcasts, and AI-powered creator tools. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO, is seen chatting with Wendi Murdoch, and Uber is positioning itself as a potential backbone for the future of self-driving transportation while expanding beyond rides into AI and autonomous vehicles. Jerry Yang, former CEO of Yahoo, remains a prominent investor through AME Cloud Ventures, backing AI and enterprise technology startups.

If you’re running a company in this ecosystem, the operational question is simple: who is making moves, and where are the bets landing? Sun Valley is giving that answer with a guest list and a flight schedule. The strategic stakes are bigger than small talk. AI investment choices, media consolidation plans, and even interest-rate sensitivity all converge when the decision-makers are in the same place at the same time, under the same confidentiality rules, with the same markets watching for signals.