Latest Interviews

Executing Our Strategy - Goldman Sachs 2020 Investor Day

John Waldron

John Waldron, President and COO of Goldman Sachs, outlines a strategic mandate to drive operational excellence and global client engagement through a three-pillar approach of strengthening the core franchise, investing for growth, and enhancing efficiency. The firm targets a return on equity exceeding 10% over the next three years by expanding investment banking coverage, unifying its alternatives platform, and implementing $1.3 billion in cost savings while reallocating resources toward technology and talent mobility. This comprehensive roadmap includes structural changes such as increasing engineering budgets, launching the Apple Card, and scaling the "One Goldman Sachs" philosophy to break down silos across 100 key client relationships.

Strategic Roadmap and Goals - Goldman Sachs 2020 Investor Day

Goldman Sachs is advancing a strategic transformation through its "One Goldman Sachs" initiative, which unifies siloed franchises to deliver holistic client solutions while targeting a Return on Equity exceeding 13% over the next three years. The firm is capitalizing on the digital revolution and sustainability themes by launching a $750 billion financing target and expanding into adjacent sectors like transaction banking and digital consumer finance to drive durable revenue growth. Guided by core values of partnership and integrity, the leadership team leverages its global scale and top-tier talent to optimize operational efficiency and maintain a CET1 capital ratio between 13% and 13.5% while executing long-term growth plans.

The Risk, Fear, and Preparation Behind Free Solo

Alex Honnold

Alex Honnold's two-year preparation for his free solo of El Capitan combined high-volume physical training and iterative mental risk assessment to achieve a historic, unroped ascent of the granite wall. This journey, captured in Jimmy Chin's Academy Award-nominated IMAX documentary, detailed not only the specific climbing strategies and speed records involved but also Honnold's evolution from a van-dwelling "dirtbag" to a philanthropist funding the Honold Foundation. The project highlights how Honnold balances extreme athletic performance with a deliberate shift toward solar energy initiatives, emphasizing that his radical lifestyle decisions were driven by a pursuit of mastery rather than conventional happiness.

David Chalmers: What is Consciousness? | AI Podcast Clips

David Chalmers, Lex Fridman

The speaker defines phenomenal consciousness as subjective experience distinct from information processing, highlighting the unresolved "hard problem" of explaining how physical brain processes generate feeling. While the event traces the shifting medical consensus on infant pain and the logical expansion of consciousness to diverse entities, it critically examines competing theories like panpsychism, cosmopsychism, and Integrated Information Theory as potential solutions. Ultimately, the presentation contrasts these minority views against the orthodox scientific stance, arguing that consciousness may require treatment as a fundamental property of reality rather than a mere emergent byproduct of complex machinery.

Charity: how effective is giving?

Hilton Douglas, Paul Tudor Jones, Anand Giridharadas, Michael Bloomberg, Charles Koch, David, Rufus, Danny Chivers, Jennifer Johnston, Sarah

Record levels of wealth concentration have driven a surge in modern philanthropy where donors like Mark Zuckerberg and Michael Bloomberg demand immediate, tangible results from their multi-billion dollar pledges. While this trend has fueled record-breaking foundation spending and specific successes like the retirement of 289 coal plants, it simultaneously faces criticism for allowing billionaires to influence social policy while potentially perpetuating the economic inequalities they aim to fix. Alternative models such as effective altruism and the Funding Network seek to democratize giving through data-driven efficiency and live auctions, yet they struggle against declining donor participation and accusations that such structures undermine democratic principles.

Karlie Kloss, Model and Founder of Kode With Klossy

Karlie Kloss

Supermodel Karlie Kloss leveraged her early fashion success to pivot toward technology, founding the "Code with Klossy" scholarship program that has since taught over 2,500 girls in 25 U.S. cities to code. Expanding her influence beyond modeling, she now hosts *Project Runway* and uses her 8.5 million social media followers to advocate for women in leadership while mentoring the next generation of innovators. Her career trajectory, driven by a desire to bridge the gap between creative industries and technical education, emphasizes vulnerability and continuous learning to dismantle barriers for young women.

YouTube Algorithm Basics (Cristos Goodrow, VP Engineering at Google) | AI Podcast Clips

Cristos Goodrow, Lex Fridman

YouTube's recommendation engine leverages collaborative filtering and vector-based user profiling to construct a dynamic "related graph" that clusters content by behavior rather than explicit programming. The system prioritizes long-term user satisfaction through evolving metrics like watch time and five-star surveys while employing rigorous A/B testing to mitigate clickbait and gaming. By balancing metadata signals with real-time engagement data, the algorithm adapts to bilingual preferences and individual viewing histories to maximize content retention and diversity.

Steve Inskeep, NPR Host and Author of "Imperfect Union"

Steve Inskeep, Tanya Cushman, Steve Yensky

Journalist Steve Yensky discusses the enduring power of audio storytelling and the historical legacy of the Fremonts in his new book, *Imperfect Union*, which details how John Charles and Jessie Benton invented modern celebrity through the strategic use of the telegraph and newspapers during the 1856 presidential campaign. Yensky draws parallels between that 19th-century political realignment and contemporary demographic shifts while analyzing modern geopolitical tensions, such as the dangerous strategic calculations underlying U.S.-Iran relations and the 2020 killing of General Soleimani. The conversation concludes with reflections on the journalist's need for constant readiness in a chaotic news cycle and a critique of social media as a source of misinformation compared to established news apps.

Walking the Drug-Pricing Tightrope: Fostering Innovation While Maintaining Affordability

Dan Diamond, Matthew Eyles, Dan Leonard, Mark McClellan, Seema Verma, Greg Walden, Matt Iles

Moderated by Dan Diamond, a panel comprising Seema Verma, Matt Iles, Dan Leonard, and Mark McClellan examined the unsustainability of U.S. drug spending and the urgent need for bipartisan legislation to address the "gross-to-net" price bubble and the rising cost of ultra-high therapies. While the group agreed that current payment models create perverse incentives for manufacturers of legacy drugs and antimicrobials, they diverged on solutions, with CMS advocating for private sector competition and industry representatives emphasizing the risks of government price-setting on research and development. The discussion concluded that structural reforms, including value-based arrangements and targeted regulatory changes to Medicaid Best Price rules, are essential to align reimbursement with modern cure cycles before the projected 2026 spending crisis forces administrative intervention.

Food, Drugs, and Tech: 100 years of Public Health

Amy Abernethy, Vijay Pande

Established in 1906 to address public health crises, the FDA is currently transitioning its 20% GDP-regulated portfolio from legacy physical archives to a fully digital, data-informed infrastructure that leverages machine learning for food safety and pathogen tracking. While modernizing clinical trial frameworks through the 21st Century Cures Act to accommodate gene therapies and real-world evidence, the agency balances risk aversion with the urgent need to approve life-saving innovations like cell-cultured foods and AI-driven medical devices. This evolution positions the FDA to shift from reactive disease treatment to preventative longitudinal care, utilizing synthetic data and dynamic regulatory paradigms to manage emerging biological technologies over the next century.

Stephen Kotkin: Stalin's Rise to Power | AI Podcast Clips

Stephen Kotkin, Lex Fridman

Stalin ascended to power in the mid-1920s after Lenin appointed him General Secretary, a role that allowed the administrator to transform bureaucratic control into a personal dictatorship following Lenin's incapacitation and death. His rise was contingent on his organizational competence and reliability rather than theoretical brilliance, enabling him to leverage the interwar crisis of capitalism to build a Soviet superpower through genuine skill and ruthless ideology. Although he justified mass violence and manipulation as necessary means to secure the revolution, historical evidence indicates his methods produced significantly higher victim counts than the subsequent stability achieved by democratic capitalist systems.

Imagining Our Future Through Tech

Frank Chen

This scenario envisions a 2030s lifestyle where Katie and her peers utilize integrated bioengineering, IoT, and AI to create seamless ecosystems for health monitoring, adaptive housing, and automated work collaboration. Key technological breakthroughs include spider-silk biodegradable fabrics, CRISPR-engineered pets for medication tracking, and neuromorphic chips that power smart coaches while post-quantum cryptography secures the underlying data. Despite these advances, the narrative emphasizes that realizing this future depends critically on establishing viable business models, ethical privacy frameworks, and regulatory approvals to manage the profound societal shifts toward decentralized ownership and algorithmic decision-making.

David M. Rubenstein, The Carlyle Group Co-Founder and Author of "The American Story"

David M. Rubenstein

David Rubenstein, co-founder and executive chair of The Carlyle Group, recounts his transition from a legal career in public service to establishing a pioneering global private equity firm driven by the power of persuasion. Drawing parallels between historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and modern leadership challenges, Rubenstein emphasizes that effective leadership relies on oral communication, persuasive writing, and leading by example to navigate complex environments. He concludes by urging current and future generations to dedicate their careers to work they love while striving to leave their communities better than they found them.

What's Next for the Internet?

Chris Dixon, Jonah Peretti, Jenna

Chris outlines a trajectory from centralized, ad-driven web eras to a future "Era 3" where blockchain technology restores community ownership and aligns user incentives with platform governance. He argues that this transition, analogous to the automobile industry's early 1915 stage, leverages the convergence of AI, VR, and mobile commerce to disrupt traditional finance, healthcare, and media models like BuzzFeed's shift to transactional revenue. Ultimately, the discussion posits that decentralized networks will replace extractive surveillance capitalism with meritocratic, commons-based economies, resolving the friction between private connection and public reach while sparking new regulatory battles over encryption and information control.

Daniel Lubetzky, Founder and Executive Chairman of KIND Snacks

Daniel Lubetzky

Daniel Lubetzky leverages his childhood experience as a concentration camp survivor to forge a career that merges peacebuilding economics with the snack industry, founding PeaceWorks to foster Middle Eastern cooperation and Kind Bars to disrupt the market with transparent nutrition. His entrepreneurial journey, shaped by early retail setbacks and a rigorous focus on consumer demand, established a corporate culture that extends equity to all employees and funds the Kind Foundation's Empatico platform to cultivate global empathy among children. Through high-stakes roles on "Shark Tank," Lubetzky continues to apply these principles of shared interest and resilience, utilizing his real investment capital to mentor entrepreneurs while scaling his dual mission of kindness and economic integration.