A jittery CEO crowd at Milken looks abroad for growth—and answers

In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady takes the temperature at Milken. The big leadership story: Game Stop CEO Ryan Cohen’s bid for e Bay would upend its nascent turnaround. The markets: Mixed as investors digest new developments in the Iran conflict. Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune. Good morning from the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, where leaders from around the world are talking about the innovation and trends shaping society. For a finance-heavy crowd, the focus is often on money and where it can be deployed to have the most impact. A down day in the markets may have dampened some spirits on site, along with fighting in the Strait of Hormuz, concerns over how the AI revolution plays out, private credit risk, and a sense that the world is being reordered in ways that might not benefit the U.S. With the Beverly Hilton under construction, there were few public places to sit and limited space to network. “This feels like a high school fire drill,” one CEO said as we clustered in the lobby. Food for thought: Going global. Yes, the U.S. remains a resilient market where everyone wants to invest. That part we know. I sought out people like Kaan Terzioğlu, Group CEO of VEON, a Dubai-based telecom and digital services provider in emerging markets like Pakistan and Bangladesh. “These countries are always seen as risks. Pakistan is not an oil-producing country; it’s a data-producing country,” he said. “And Bangladesh is a country of almost 180 million people where women are totally engaged in economic development. I’m very bullish about the future of Bangladesh.” I’ve heard a lot of optimism about investing in emerging economies. Bruce Flatt of Brookfield Asset Management, for one, is doubling down on investing in the Middle East. Is China the grown-up now? Writer Niall Ferguson argued that China is fighting a proxy war in Iran, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told the Milken crowd that China should not have hi