Latest Interviews
Showing 2626–2630 of 2,630 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Y Combinator26 min
Jessica Livingston at Startup School 2012
Y Combinator co-founder Jessica Livingston outlines the primary challenges facing startups, emphasizing that determination, defined as resilience combined with drive, is the most effective defense against failure. Through case studies of companies like Airbnb, Pebble, and Stripe, the discussion illustrates how founders must navigate intense investor skepticism, improvisational execution, and volatile market outcomes by pivoting strategies and maintaining operational focus. Livingston further warns against premature corporate partnerships and co-founder mismatches, urging entrepreneurs to prioritize building products users actually want while developing the thick skin necessary to withstand public scrutiny.
- Y Combinator27 min
Tom Preston Werner at Startup School 2012
GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner argues that startup success depends on the inseparable integration of people, product, and philosophy rather than capital acquisition. He details how the company assembled a diverse founding team without executive experience to foster innovation, prioritized intuitive design over feature bloat, and established core values like "optimizing for happiness" to drive culture. This holistic approach allowed the organization to justify a $100 million raise as a strategic tool for scaling its mission to improve global collaboration, rather than a measure of initial viability.
- Y Combinator26 min
Hiroshi Mikitani at Startup School 2012
Founded in 1997 by Hiroshi Mikitani with $200,000 in self-funded capital, Rakuten achieved profitability within two months and went public in 2000 by rejecting the traditional venture capital model. The company now commands 35–40% of the Japanese e-commerce market and operates 38 distinct businesses globally, expanding its ecosystem through strategic acquisitions like Kobo and a dedicated focus on shop-centric merchant services. Driven by a "merchant-first" philosophy and a recent mandate to adopt English as the official corporate language, Rakuten continues to pivot toward digital content sales and mobile commerce while maintaining strict cultural alignment across its international operations.
- Milken Institute40 min
MI Summit 2013 - London: Reviving and Recapitalizing Europe
Andrew Goldberg, Peter Guenter, Yann Le Pallec, Keith Savard, Howard Shore, Zak Summerscale, Jan Lepelik
J.P. Morgan's Andrew Goldberg, S&P's Jan Lepelik, and other panelists analyze the ongoing European sovereign and banking crisis, noting that while contagion risks have been contained, fundamental structural deficits and a persistent link between sovereign and bank stability remain unresolved. Experts including Peter Gunter of Sanofi and Keith Savard of the Milken Institute warn that austerity measures are proving self-defeating, arguing that sustainable recovery requires Germany to reflate spending and the EU to address weak consumer demand alongside labor market imbalances. Ultimately, the panel concludes that achieving the necessary political and fiscal integration to stabilize the Eurozone is a multi-decade project fraught with uncertainty, as current divergence between Northern and Southern member states threatens the long-term viability of the monetary union.
- Milken Institute29 min
Charles Elachi on Curiosity rover's journey to Mars
The Curiosity rover successfully executed a fully autonomous landing on Mars by surviving a seven-minute descent that reduced its velocity from 13,000 mph while navigating the planet's thin atmosphere without real-time ground control. Engineers overcame the spacecraft's massive 10-fold weight increase compared to previous rovers by deploying a supersonic parachute followed by a novel "Sky Crane" maneuver that lowered the vehicle via cable 30 feet above the surface. This unprecedented feat, achieved by a young team of engineers using simulations based on actual telemetry, delivered the rover to within two kilometers of its target and marked a significant advancement in navigation technology.