January 21, 2026
WHEN: Today, Wednesday, January 21, 2026
WHERE: CNBC’s “Squawk Box” – “Money Movers”
Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcripts of CNBC interviews with “Squawk Box” and Sara Eisen which aired on CNBC today, Wednesday, January 21 for Davos 2026 in Davos, Switzerland.
Interviews included: TCW Group CEO Katie Koch, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, White House AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks, White House Tech Policy Chief Michael Kratsios, Morgan Stanley Chairman & CEO Ted Pick, Honeywell CEO Vimal Kapur, BNY CEO Robin Vince, Lazard CEO Peter Orszag, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates, Citadel Founder & CEO Ken Griffin, Thoma Bravo Founder & Managing Partner Orlando Bravo, Moelis & Company Executive Chairman Ken Moelis, and IBM CEO Arvind Krishna.
Links to video of the interviews are included below.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
Interview with TCW Group CEO Katie Koch
KOCH ON COUNTRIES DIVERSIFYING FROM US
KATIE KOCH: I think what is going to happen is that the foreign, every asset owner that I'm talking to in Davos, and I'm talking to most of the large ones, they are looking to diversify away from the US. There's a push factor, a pull factor. The push factor is they are overexposed, because the US has outperformed for a long time. We're highly indebted. They're worried about currency weakness is obviously a problem, and they're worried about the policy uncertainty. So there, that's the push factor. The pull factor, which is super exciting, is that global diversification and the benefits of it are back on the table for the first time.
KOCH ON EUROPE
KOCH: So the real concern that people have here is that Europe's going to retaliate with one of two tools, the anti-coercion, it’s been talked about a lot, which would obviously hurt trade, and they happen to own 40% of the foreign ownership of US bonds, which they could dump. So people are wondering whether they'll do that. I don't think that is going to happen, because A, it would be self-defeating. It would hurt them. And B, has been discussed broadly, there's not really a great liquid alternative quantum to redeploy that. Okay, now the broader global investment community, and let's think about it short and long term. From a short-term perspective, I do think that there is going to be pressure on the market.
Interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
AMODEI ON AI ENTERPRISE BUSINESS
DARIO AMODEI: I think we've, we've picked a path that's quite different from the other players, you know, Anthropic, since the beginning, you know, anthropic has thought in terms of safety and reliability of AI systems. And one of the things we realized is that that was very synergistic with working with enterprises as compared to consumers because enterprises really, they value the reliability, they value the trust, they value the long-term relationship with customers. And so, we decided to pursue the enterprise business. We have, you know, we have consumer products, but they're not our major focus. It's maybe 80/20 on it's maybe 80/20 on the enterprise side. And so that that really allows us to proceed in a different way, right? We don't have to do ads, we don't have to focus on short form video. We don't have to focus on maximizing engagement. Instead, we actually just focus on making our models as smart and as capable as possible, because that's what enterprises are looking for. They're looking for capability. They're looking for intelligence. They're looking for optimizing complex business processes across things like finance, coding, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturing, energy, right, all the things that drive the economy.
AMODEI ON SMARTER AI MODELS
AMODEI: I actually think there's a divergence where, if you're optimizing, if you're optimizing for for consumers, right, you're trying to be as engaging as possible. You're trying to be as entertaining as possible. I actually don't think some of these other models have enough incentive to get smarter, have enough incentive to become capable of more tasks across the board, and we've been able to focus on that more.
AMODEI ON AI REVENUE
AMODEI: I think across the board, we're both trying to grow our revenue as fast as possible. Our revenue grew from zero, in 2023, zero to 100 million, 2024, 100 million to 1 billion and 2025, 1 billion to almost 10 billion. So if we can keep that curve going, or even anywhere close to it, then, then, you know, the return the investments will be justified. But I think you bring up another point that's also relevant, which is, you know, we need to make sure that kind of the technology diffuses, and everyone shares in the benefits.
Interview with Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins
ROBBINS ON ENTERPRISE AI
CHUCK ROBBINS: In the enterprise, I think it's we're seeing, obviously, some some pilot applications. You see a lot of stuff happening in customer service. You see a lot of applications in manufacturing, we see retail deploying agents to handheld devices for their staff in the stores. So we're seeing a lot of early stuff. And I heard Dario out here a few minutes ago talking about enterprise applications. And the good news for us is we're viewed as having a robust, broad, global go-to market capability in the enterprise. So a lot of these companies want to partner with us to take these services to the enterprise so that’s positive as well.
ROBBINS ON AI ADOPTION BEYOND BIG TECH
ROBBINS: It's so early right now. It's so early. You got to get your data sources right. You got to get comfortable with the security. You got to get comfortable with the risks of rolling these things out. You're going to have to have humans in the loop for a good period of time until you're comfortable. So a lot of that preliminary work is what's keeping this thing from really accelerating at a pace that you might think it would, but the work's going on for sure.
ROBBINS ON ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY
ROBBINS: I think there's, there's obviously a lot of uncertainty and fair amount of nervousness. I would say there's, it sort of feels like there's a little sort of underlying layer of tension here, right now,
BECKY QUICK: A little bit.
ROBBINS: A little bit. But, you know what, what we what the CEOs, I mean, I think what we believe is that this thing will get worked out, right ultimately, there'll be a lot. It'll it could get, maybe complicated getting there, but I think these kinds of things get worked out.
Interview with White House AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks and White House Tech Policy Chief Michael Kratsios
SACKS ON CRYPTO BILL COMPROMISE
DAVID SACKS: I think the banks have to recognize that the yield is already a feature of the GENIUS Act that passed and was signed into law in August. So if the bill ends up dying, then there will be a form of rewards. And so I understand their point of view, but again, if there's no deal, then they're going to lose on this issue. So I think it's in their interest to work something out at the same time, I would urge that some of the crypto folks to be a little bit- to see the bigger picture. Yes, I understand that yield is philosophically important to them, but so is getting an overall market structure bill. So I think if everybody-- if everyone, has an incentive to be reasonable here, I think, and if they do that, we'll get a bill.
SACKS ON CRYPTO FUTURE
SACKS: I think what's going to happen is that after market structure passes, the banks are going to get fully into the crypto industry. So we're not going to have a separate banking industry and crypto industry. It's going to be one digital assets industry. And I think—
QUICK: And will it be regulated the same way.
SACKS: Their opinions are going to evolve over time, and I bet you, over time, the banks like the idea of paying yield because they're going to be in the stable coin business.
SACKS ON CHINA CHIPS
SACKS: If we can sell a previous generation, deprecated chip into the Chinese market and take market share away from Huawei and prevent their scale up, we think there's some value in that, but I think this issue is going to be largely moot, because China sees the same thing we do and they're not going to let the chips in.
SACKS ON CEO SENTIMENT
SACKS: I think, from my point of view, and I think that's the point of view of most of the tech CEOs in Silicon Valley, things are going incredibly well.
SACKS: Let's talk about facts, as opposed to vibes. So the fact is, we're coming off a 5.4% GDP growth in Q4 right? We're down to what 2.6% inflation, down from the Biden high of 9%. The largest productivity increase we saw in Q4 in years. AI is going extremely well. President Trump's been incredibly supportive of the supportive of the tech industry. I mean, like they haven't seen before, Biden was imposing all sorts of unnecessary regulations. I think the tech industry is very happy with President Trump and the performance of this administration. I haven't heard any of the negative sentiment you're talking about. But look, are there CEOs who are longtime Democrats, who've always been the Democrat party? Yeah, of course there are, and some of those people don't like President Trump, and they never will, but the ones I talked to who are happy about the business environment, they're very happy with the performance of this administration.
SACKS ON GREENLAND
SACKS: What the President has expressed is a desire to, to acquire Greenland, which is something that American politicians have been interested in for 150 years. Great Secretary of State William Stewart tried to acquire Greenland. He acquired Alaska. Couldn't get Greenland done. FDR and Truman were interested in acquiring Greenland. This is actually an old idea that President Trump has made new again.
KRATSIOS ON AI STRATEGY AND POLICY
MICHAEL KRATSIOS: Our AI strategy released in July, the action plan, the first pillar is about innovation. How can the US continue to innovate and make sure that the next great AI discoveries are made here in the United States, and a big piece of that is creating a regulatory environment that can allow AI to thrive. And the President, in his speech that he gave in July, spoke very specifically about this patchwork problem where, if every state has its own set of AI rules, make it extraordinarily difficult for entrepreneurs and young companies that want to thrive in the US to somehow deal with all these different different
state regs.
SACKS ON AI PATCHWORK PROBLEM
SACKS: You've got 50 states running in 50 different directions. That's going to create a patchwork problem. The big tech companies are always gonna be able to figure out how to comply because they have so many lawyers. But for our small tech companies or startups or entrepreneurs, that's gonna be a huge compliance burden. Imagine if in order to create a startup, you now have to hire lawyers in 50 different states, huge problem.
QUICK: Yeah, we don't want that.
SACKS: That's the thing we want to solve.
SACKS ON CA WEALTH TAX
SACKS: I've been in California for 30 years. It was painful to leave. I had no problem paying that one of the highest taxes in the in the country. I think it's 13.3% but this is different. This is this is not a tax. This is an asset seizure. This is saying that we're going to take 5% of everything you own, whether you're paid up on your taxes or not, whether your assets are realized or unrealized. Never anything like this before in American history. People are trying to minimize it by saying it's a one time. It's not a one time, it's a first time.
Interview with Morgan Stanley Chairman & CEO Ted Pick
PICK ON BEING IN A GOOD ENVIRONMENT
TED PICK: It definitely is a – as good as it's been a long time in the investment banking space. Because, as you know, the merger activity got stalled, first by the pandemic, and then roofing the rates and sponsors didn't know what to do. But now it's happening. And it's happening large cap as well, because the AI is, of course, real, and people need to defuse that cost. You're seeing a ton of large cap M&A and you're also seeing cross border activity. And that also brings great IPO volume into the market. We're seeing real companies, real capitalization, growth companies that aren't wanting to stay private much longer. They want to come. So, as an investment banking matter, it's a great setup. And our wealth business too, you know, assets have accumulated. Folks want to diversify. They like working with their financial advisor, and the E*TRADE platform is doing great. So, between wealth and asset management and the investment bank, things are going good.
PICK ON REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT
PICK: There is no doubt that the normalizing of the regulatory environment has really brought some steps, some strut back to the legacy firms. Those of us that have been able to keep our intellectual capital through thick and thin, we’re able to do the stuff that you knew us to do for 15-20, years – they got kind of quiet during the heart of the toughest regulation, and now it's normalized. And that's, you know, super, super positive for the forward and the kinds of activities that we can do with our clients. And I think also the fiscal orientation of the administration has been positive. Clearly, there's been a view that U.S. companies can power forward, and we haven't really seen the benefits yet of the bill, but that's going to come through. So, I think when you think about the corporate health of large-cap companies, excellent. Think about the high-end consumer health, excellent. You think about earnings growth – you guys talk about this every day – I think the long-term average is around 7 or 8% this year. Looks like – is talking about 15,16, 17% . So, wow. Fiscal health, strong consumer, strong corporate. Feels like a pretty good setup, and the Fed’s eased three times. They got more work to do, and we've seen inflation coming in. So put that all together, yes, asset prices are high, and yes, there's a lot of global political swirl, but overall, the lights are pretty green.
PICK ON GREENLAND CORPORATE ANGST
PICK: Corporate actors need to do stuff. And they sat on their hands, the pandemic, you know, stopped everything. And there’s going to be, you know, kind of the arc history is continuing, right? I think we, some folks, thought that, you know, this whole end of history bit, and AT the end of – end of history, I think, has come where folks now are getting back to sort of the jostling of nation states, wanting to, you know, be on top. Rise and fall of nations. All that kind of stuff is very interesting for folks that are helping solve strategic problems.
PICK ON WEALTH CREATION THROUGH AI & MARKET CAP CREATION FROM NEW COMPANIES
PICK: Our collective memory, is, you know, what did we really know about the internet when Andreessen took Netscape public? Which we did all those years ago. And the answer is, we knew something big was going to happen, we just didn't know what it was. I think what we're seeing though, through our own work, with each passing quarter, this has gone from something that is an efficiency play to an effectiveness play. We are becoming more productive by definition and that’s incredibly exciting for our clients but also for us.
PICK ON SPREAD BETTING
PICK: If you're a common arms merchant in the ecosystem, you have to do a certain amount of spread betting. You have to sort of hope that you are with the two or three or four winners in each of those spaces all the way up to the cloud. And then as a user, I think you have to think about your use cases, what the inference is, how you're going to protect your data, and you have to actually be willing to do something that we have not wanted to do because of the – sort of the regulatory wave of the last 5-10 years, which is, make mistakes. Go down rabbit holes, take some acceptable risk and then reset knowing that in the long run, this is going to save a point or two on the cost side running, and the productivity will be at least a point or two running. That’s incredibly exciting, you have to get after it.
Interview with Honeywell CEO Vimal Kapur
Interview with BNY CEO Robin Vince
VINCE ON THE MARKETS TODAY
ROBIN VINCE: The markets are obviously trying to take in all the news, and so markets aren't great at pricing in extreme tail risks. They're pretty good at taking in what we see right in front of us today, which actually in the U.S., has been a great economic story. You look at GDP last year, coming into this year, expectations probably for stock markets higher. We all have to be in the preparedness business. You don't know what's going to happen. There are a lot of risks. But actually, if you look at what's happening in the economy, that explains a lot of the stock market today. And yes, we've got a lot of valuation, concentrated valuation in a few stocks, but we also have quite broad read across different sectors. And so there are a lot of reasons to be a bit optimistic, notwithstanding that there's a lot of macro noise.
VINCE ON CEO ACTION
VINCE: At the end of the day, you have to react to what's going on. The economy is in pretty good shape, certainly in the United States, but we've seen performance, good performance in stock markets around the world. CEOs want to be in business, getting things done, raising capital, deploying it, and so that business continues. Remember, the market is good at pricing certain risks but is not very good at pricing a whole string of very low probability events. And so when you just look at the probability theory, you've got a bunch of things that 5% they could go horribly wrong, and you might add them up together and say, hey, odds are that something's going to potentially happen, but the market doesn't deal with that very well. And so there is a focus on the present. What are the facts? And we need to get on with it while being very cognizant and always preparing for risks.
VINCE ON BNY BEING THE OLDEST BANK
VINCE: We’re the oldest bank in the United States. And it’s a fun moment to be that because we’re celebrating 250 years of the nation. We were born in 1784 so we're kind of of the moment of America's 250. But we get to be innovative as well. And so while we're on a 10-year journey, we marked out the first three years as being an important chapter. We just completed that. And you can see it. You quoted some of the numbers. We've actually done a pretty good job in sort of really reinventing, reimagining the company ready for the next thing. And that's kind of where we are in our journey. We're excited. We're excited about AI, we're excited about digital assets, we're excited about innovation, we're excited about our people, and all of that is for serving our customers. And so, you can feel that in the halls of the company today, and that's a fun thing.
Interview with Lazard CEO Peter Orszag
ORSZAG ON DAVOS IDEAS
PETER ORSZAG: I think there are some really big ideas and big issues here. For example, Mark Carney's proposal basically that the Transpacific Partnership should join forces with the European Union. That's a huge idea, and that would transform the world trading system in a way that, you know, many other things wouldn't do. So–
QUICK: How does that work?
ORSZAG: They join together. And basically what's happening is the world is moving into two poles, the CRINKS, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and then the United States. This would effectively form a third pillar, and they would invite either the United States or China to join. It fundamentally changes the dynamics.
QUICK: Fundamentally changes the dynamics but it doesn't seem like it necessarily would lead to improved ties with the US. This is a way of, kind of pushing back and saying, no, we're not going to be bullied into anything.
ORSZAG: There's a lot of talk of taking the world as it is, not as you want it to be here. And I think this is one of many steps the Europeans could take to take the world as it is and try to do something about it.
ORSZAG ON GREENLAND AND IRAN
ORSZAG: I think it's very likely that over the next few days there will be something that happens in Iran—
SORKIN: You do?
ORSZAG: And it’s something big. Yes.
SORKIN: Why do you think that?
ORSZAG: I did, well, from a variety of different, you know, indirect information. And also, to your point, I think it's entirely possible the United States was waiting for the carriers to arrive.
QUICK: Was waiting for the what - I’m sorry?
ORSZAG: For the carriers to arrive.
SORKIN: And that this is just so that the Greenland story is just a head fake?
ORSZAG: I don't know about head fake, but it has the effect of, it has that effect, even if that's not the intent.
QUICK: And that would mean, what? How does that play out if that's actually the case?
ORSZAG: Then the big question becomes, can you actually do regime change through effectively, a bombing campaign? And I don't think we have any history in which that's effective, but we'll see. It depends what the objective of what happens is, if it's to take out the ballistic missiles that can be successful. If it's regime change, you know that that's got a more checkered history.
ORSZAG ON CONSTRUCTIVE ON ECONOMY
ORSZAG: Look. I think the US economy has performed pretty well. I'm actually constructive on the economy for 2026 but it's, it's the US economy at this point is effectively two things, AI and high-income consumers. And outside of that, it’s–
JOE KERNEN: Wages are growing across the board, finally.
ORSZAG: But by the way, that's also a risk. I think inflation is going to surprise to the upside this year. Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute and I actually put out a piece suggesting might hit 4% one reason is wage pressure. Another reason is most of the pass through from the tariffs has not actually occurred yet. Another reason is the fiscal deficit may be more elevated.
ORSZAG ON ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
ORSZAG: My outlook for the economy is actually fairly constructive, and the M&A market is, you know, again, very, very active. So business is actually pretty good. And then in our asset management business, it's also pretty good, in part because investors are looking for a diversified portfolio, and our specialty is a lot of emerging market equity and other things that is meeting favor with investors.
Interview with Accenture CEO Julie Sweet
Interview with Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates
Interview with Citadel Founder & CEO Ken Griffin
GRIFFIN ON TRUMP SPEECH ON DEFENSE SPENDING
KEN GRIFFIN: I think that was an important message to deliver to a European audience that that bluntly needs to do better. Europe's economic growth lags far behind America.
GRIFFIN: In rough numbers, Europeans earn roughly half of what Americans earn, and historically, they've spent less than half of what America has spent on defense, which means that each European spends about 1/4 the dollars of what an American spends in defending the free world, and that that's a real issue of equity and fairness.
GRIFFIN ON GREENLAND CONSIDERATION
GRIFFIN: I believe that through our treaty rights, that we have the access that we need. But I do want to say the President today put his best case forward, and it's a case that deserves consideration. And in particular, if we intend to use Greenland as a nexus for our missile defense system vis a vis the Soviet, or Russia, I think that that involves real consideration.
GRIFFIN ON INVESTOR PERSPECTIVE
GRIFFIN: Investors around the world do not want to see an escalation of this, of the stress in global trade that has played out over the last 12 months. There's no doubt investors want to see a stability in the terms of trade between the major trading partners of the world.
GRIFFIN ON TAX IMPACT
GRIFFIN: The most recent research indicates the tax been born by both American consumers and by American businesses. So the money raised by Washington in the tariffs has really come at the expense of the American people.
GRIFFIN ON EMBRACING AI
GRIFFIN: So the embracing of digitization by corporate America and AI as a part of that theme has been just a tremendous, tremendous source of economic growth the United States.
GRIFFIN: I'm a bit more skeptical about how fast this will play out. I'm still waiting for the every street in America be covered with self-driving cars. Hasn’t happened yet. Now we're getting closer. We're getting closer, but these types of seismic shifts that are driven by technology often take longer to play out than we anticipate, and in particular, as the technology becomes more complicated and nothing is as complex as modern AI systems are.
Interview with Thoma Bravo Founder & Managing Partner Orlando Bravo
BRAVO ON TRUMP AND GREENLAND
ORLANDO BRAVO: He dealt with Greenland head on, and what I loved about it is he said, no use of force.
EISEN: Yeah, seemed like the market like that too.
BRAVO: I thought that was exceptional.
EISEN: Why, was that a fear? A real fear?
BRAVO: I thought that was a big fear. And the market sold out – sold off yesterday, on it. So, I thought the making it very clear to the world – peace and no use of force. And then he made a compelling case for Greenland and I thought it was interesting.
BRAVO ON SOFTWARE BUSINESS
BRAVO: These software businesses serve their customers for efficiency reasons, and the more volatile the world is, the more tariffs there are, the more things change, our customers are looking for efficiency. And no matter what the geopolitical status of things is, efficiency is the name of the game for software.
BRAVO ON AI VS SOFTWARE
BRAVO: People need to understand that the franchise value of a software company, it's really not its technology. The franchise value of most software companies is its deep domain knowledge. Domain knowledge in an industry vertical, domain knowledge in a function, domain knowledge in a process. So, when you look at that domain knowledge, all those companies in that universe, including ours – and we're moving very quickly – they're leveraging this amazing AI infrastructure that the world is creating to offer new solutions to their customers.
BRAVO ON BUYING OPPORTUNITY
BRAVO: These amazing companies where their customers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on their solutions. Something is working there, and they're building agenetic solution that works with their systems and eliminates the labor that's working with those solutions, and then those companies are down 20 to 30%. That should at some point reverse. And we're seeing just incredible buying opportunities right now.
EISEN: Are you licking your chops? Are we going to see you get more active?
BRAVO: We are, and we will be a lot more active.
EISEN: In buying a public company?
BRAVO: Public companies and private companies.
BRAVO ON BIG TRENDS
BRAVO: The other big trend you're going to see is as these PE multiples in software have come down, now, those software vendors, the large ones, are not at risk of having PE multiple compression if they buy somebody else. And they find a lot of benefit right now in consolidating their markets, because they can really broaden their platform to be better prepared to serve their customers in the AI world. Now, all this AI excitement that our companies have – and we're moving very quickly with it – once again, think about it as eliminating or making the labor more productive that's already working with you, that's already working with your system. This is going to be a multi-decade growth opportunity.
BRAVO ON CONSOLIDATION
BRAVO: I think there'll be many phenomenal consolidators, from ServiceNow to Salesforce to others, and we have many in our portfolio, like Anaplan, that we thought, oh, we'll take this company to be worth 20 to 25 billion. Now we're looking to consolidate the market and make it worth 50, 70 billion. There's a huge runway of opportunity that just appeared upon us, because, once again, an enormous infrastructure, much bigger than cloud, more transformative than cloud, is being built that these domain experts will just grab to provide solutions to their customers.
Interview with Moelis & Company Executive Chairman Ken Moelis
MOELIS ON TRUMP AND GREENLAND
KEN MOELIS: I think there was a real sigh of relief that he took military action off the table with Greenland, which you know, for President Trump, it's unusual forever to take an option off the table. So I think that was a big sigh of relief for everybody.
MOELIS ON TRUMP AND EUROPE
MOELIS: He went out of his way, and I think he did it in Davos on purpose. I, and I agree with him on one thing, energy, cheap, accessible energy is the key to civilization. It is the key to bringing people to the middle class. That's how the United States got where they are with discovery of oil and cheap, accessible energy for most people, for production and manufacturing. And I really think he wanted Europe to hear it from him. I don't recognize you. You just heard that on your—
SARA EISEN: Yeah.
MOELIS: And I think it's because he went out to point, pointed out that you've destroyed your energy policy. I know he calls it the Green New Scam, but you do have to look at Europe and say their choices on energy policy have put them in the position they're in right now, which is fairly weak economically and in a global position. And I thought he made a very good case for that.
MOELIS ON EUROPE’S BIGGEST PROBLEM
MOELIS: I still think we're in a world right now where scale matters, access to capital, access to energy, and that's where I think, you know, Europe's biggest problem is, if you don't have cheap energy, look what's going on with their chemical industry. When you look at industries that are big users of energy, Europe just cannot compete. And by the way, these things are essential to everyday living, making of automobiles, manufacturing basic goods and services and scale matters, access to capital matters. And I do think access to this is a race right now. I know we talk about AI all the time, it's a digital race for digital sovereignty. As somebody said, there'll be digital sovereigns, and there'll be people who are digitally colonized. I think the United States wants to be digitally sovereign.
EISEN: Correct. Europe?
MOELIS: Well, if they don't have access to energy and capital. They will not be digitally sovereign.
Interview with IBM CEO Arvind Krishna
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