Giuliano da Empoli, the acclaimed author of The Hour of the Predator!

Presidents behaving like monarchs. Tech giants determined to reshape the world order. Armies of online trolls influencing public opinion. The old order is over. The age of predators is here.

This is not a future scenario—it is the reality we are already living in. And no one captures this reality better than Giuliano da Empoli.

The Italian-Swiss author, political scientist, and former advisor to Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has, with his latest book The Hour of the Predator - Encounters with the Autocrats and Tech Billionaires Taking Over the World, delivered one of Europe’s most talked-about analyses of power, technology, and politics in recent years. The book has become a bestseller in multiple countries and has been described as “an urgent guide to our new world and our uncertain future.”

Da Empoli is a professor at Sciences Po in Paris and the founder of the Volta think tank in Milan. Drawing on unique insights from the inner circles of power, he takes audiences from closed-door UN meetings to luxury hotels in the Middle East—from top-secret negotiations to violent power struggles. He portrays dictators and tyrants, strongmen and AI billionaires—geopolitical predators and desperate, faltering leaders trying to appease them.

At the Nordic Media Days, he will meet award-winning tech journalist and author Kara Swisher for this year’s «Aarebrot Conversation». Together, two of the sharpest minds of our time will discuss one of the most pressing questions we face: How do we defend democracy when all the rules have changed?