Adam Parsons, Business Correspondent

Davos is a weird place to be. A ski resort where nobody goes skiing, a conference where the mingling feels more important than most of the speeches.

A temple to capitalism where lots of people are worried that capitalism isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

There is angst, and networking, and preening, and it's all happening in the middle of a mountain range. Davos isn't just distant, it's positively remote.

Maybe that's why the World Economic Forum feels like its own fiefdom, cut off from the real world.

A land where people talk about income inequality, but where the Promenade is gridlocked with Mercedes-Benz S-class cars, chauffeur in the front and someone important hidden behind blacked-out glass in the rear.

It is easy to be cynical about all this, not least when the forum talks proudly about its commitment to gender equality.

It trumpets this as the year when more women than ever are delegates - a not-so-dizzying 21%. Yup, just, ahem, 79% of the people here are men - many of them white, well above 40, and either European or American.

So yes, it is a forum that often sees rich people talking to other rich people about how they can make more money.

And no, it's hard to pinpoint anything concrete that has ever been achieved at Davos, other than creating a caricature of globalised privilege. Or, if you prefer, fodder for the Illuminati stories of conspiracy theorists everywhere.

But behind all this, there is something useful going on, and that is the old-fashioned concept of people talking to each other.

Martin Gilbert, co-Chief Executive of the fund management firm Standard Life Aberdeen, told me he expected to have 50 meetings at Davos this year.

Others will have even more, from first thing in the morning to late at night - chatting, sharing ideas, exploring how to work better together. Confronting problems.

Because there is a nervousness in the air here. Remember that stock markets around the world are booming right now, and corporate results have been strong.

You'd expect that to percolate through the World Economic Forum as a seam of joy, evidence that the capitalist model is prospering. Instead, from everywhere you hear talk that things have to change.

There is anxiety. Jez Staley, the boss of Barclays, worries that the economic growth and volatility that we see now is unsustainable. He said the world feels like it did in 2006, when it sat on the runway to a financial crisis. And that didn't end well.

But also there is a feeling that capitalism just isn't working very well - that it has led to too much inequality, that too many businesses lack a moral compass, and that corporate life needs to come into check with the rest of the world.

Even died-in-the-wool fans of the free market seem suddenly to be coming round to the idea that society is about more than profit and loss.

Take plastics. I sat down for a chat with Dame Ellen MacArthur, now in the midst of her seventh visit to Davos.

She said she was intimidated when she first came, but now finds it fascinating, and says she has seen a transformation in the interest that big business is taking in issues around recycling and sustainability.

Davos, she says, may be bewildering, but it's a fantastic talking shop.

And that is the key to this bizarre event - not the speeches (albeit everyone here is on tenterhooks for what President Trump will say on Friday) but the meetings, the conversations and the chance encounters that lead to a proper meeting.

In an era where we type instead of talking, Davos seems to do something rather important - it takes busy, important people and makes them chat to each other about the world around them.

Who knows what they'll decide, but at least - up a mountain, surrounded by snow - the conversations start.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Paste BN editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously: Ed Conway - Do we need governments?