Latest Interviews
Showing 451–465 of 1,549 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Milken Institute43 min
A Conversation with Citadel CEO Ken Griffin | Global Conference 2025
Ken Griffin critiques current U.S. fiscal policies and immigration frameworks, warning that regressive tariffs and restrictive visa rules threaten to erode national flexibility while failing to retain the international scientific talent essential for future growth. He advocates for aggressive K-12 and higher education reforms driven by school choice and data transparency to dismantle systemic inefficiencies, citing Success Academy and his own Harvard philanthropy as models for overcoming institutional inertia. Looking forward, Griffin aims to mobilize an estimated $150 billion in generational wealth to fund private-sector innovations and inspire a new era of scientific ambition similar to the 1960s space race.
- Goldman Sachs25 min
Wise Founder Taavet Hinrikus on Europe’s Tech Renaissance
Taavet Hinrikus, Clif Marriott
Tavit Tammemäe catalyzed Estonia's transformation into a European tech powerhouse by co-founding Skype, which triggered a wave of successful exits, and later launching the fintech unicorn Wise. Transitioning from operator to investor, he founded Plural in 2021 alongside four other former European CEOs to deploy €500 million in Fund II toward complex, high-impact sectors like defense and healthcare AI. The firm targets "obsessed" founders capable of building $100 billion companies, aiming to replicate the scalability of Skype and Wise within the European market.
- Sequoia Capital34 min
How AI is Reinventing Software Business Models ft. Bret Taylor of Sierra
Bret Taylor, Ravi, Robin Wright, Clay, DAN GALPIN, BRETT HESTERBERG
Brett Taylor, formerly CTO of Facebook and current leader of Sierra, outlines a transformative vision for the AI sector where specialized, outcome-based agents replace traditional websites and software subscriptions. Taylor advises entrepreneurs to evolve beyond personal technical expertise to avoid stagnation, emphasizing that the next trillion-dollar opportunities lie in vertical-specific solutions that deliver tangible business results rather than generic productivity tools. Through Sierra's innovative pricing model that charges only for autonomous resolutions, the company exemplifies a strategic shift toward selling outcomes, positioning startups to outmaneuver legacy incumbents struggling to adapt their business models to this new era.
- Goldman Sachs22 min
AI Exchanges: How tech giants are navigating the AI landscape
Eric Sheridan, Allison Nathan, George Lee
Major technology giants are sustaining record capital expenditures through 2025 to solidify AI infrastructure dominance, with Goldman Sachs projecting this peak intensity to slow in 2026 despite tariff-related cost increases. Executives from Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon characterize the sector as being in the early innings of a third computing shift, prioritizing defensive positioning and infrastructure monetization over immediate application-layer profitability. Although investor sentiment remains bifurcated by macroeconomic risks, current valuations reflect a strategic reliance on these incumbents' unprecedented balance sheet scale to navigate the transition from raw training to commercial deployment.
- Milken Institute30 min
A Conversation with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang | Global Conference 2025
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang frames AI as a $100 trillion industrial revolution that creates "AI factories" to automate labor and reintegrate millions of workers into the global economy. Operating as an end-to-end infrastructure provider, the company builds massive, gigawatt-scale systems while arguing that unrestricted global chip trade is essential for establishing dominant U.S. standards. Through a culture of perpetual resilience and a focus on "Physical AI," NVIDIA aims to close the technology divide and drive GDP growth across healthcare, manufacturing, and robotics sectors.
- a16z26 min
Modernizing Warfare and Beyond
Liz McNally, Qasar Younis, Erin Price-Wright
The Defense Innovation Unit is accelerating the integration of dual-use commercial technology into the Department of Defense by partnering with companies like Applied Intuition to prototype and field software at scale. This strategy leverages new congressional flexibility and the Commercial Solutions Opening model to bridge the gap between agile industry innovation and military needs, addressing critical challenges in the Indo-Pacific against China's advancing autonomy capabilities. By prioritizing "dual fluency" talent and a venture-first procurement approach, DIU aims to modernize the defense industrial base and ensure the U.S. maintains a technological edge in software-defined warfare.
- Milken Institute23 min
A Caregiving Conversation with Patrick Dempsey | Global Conference 2025
Founded by Patrick Dempsey following his mother's prolonged battle with ovarian cancer, the Dempsey Center provides free holistic care to cancer patients and their families across 32 states and four countries. The organization operates on a wraparound model that pairs medical treatment with services like nutrition counseling, yoga, and peer support while advocating for systemic insurance reforms to cover alternative therapies. Dempsey leverages his acting platform to expand the center's reach and fundraising efforts, aiming to reduce wait times for immediate intervention and establish a culture of caregiving that addresses the root causes of rising cancer rates.
- a16z37 min
What Is an AI Agent?
Guido Appenzeller, Matt Bornstein, Yoko Li
Industry experts define AI agents as multi-step systems capable of dynamic reasoning and tool usage, distinguishing them from simple prompt wrappers despite widespread marketing inflation. Current market adoption is constrained by data silos, security gaps in authentication, and the technical difficulty of enabling non-deterministic models to interact reliably with fragmented user environments. Ultimately, the field is shifting toward specialized workflows and multimodal capabilities, with agents expected to become invisible infrastructure within two to five years rather than standalone products.
- a16z21 min
How to Enable a Manufacturing Renaissance
Bryon Hargis, Chris Power, Ian Cinnamon
Amid a strategic space race against China, Los Angeles-based startups Apex and Hadrian are scaling satellite manufacturing and automated defense production to counter rapid geopolitical shifts and a domestic labor crisis. Despite facing significant regulatory hurdles regarding energy infrastructure and permitting, these companies are successfully attracting top software talent to traditional aerospace roles by merging Silicon Valley innovation with industrial capacity. Their unified efforts aim to establish a resilient, onshored U.S. industrial base while pressuring policymakers to streamline export licensing and incentivize skilled trade careers.
- Goldman Sachs37 min
Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman on the future of public markets
Adena Friedman, John Waldron, Allison
Led by CEO Adena Friedman, the NASDAQ has evolved from a US electronic stock exchange into a global technology platform supplying critical infrastructure to 130 markets while prioritizing liquidity, transparency, and anti-financial crime solutions. The organization recently navigated record trading volumes and leverages hybrid cloud architecture and generative AI to enhance market resilience, with a specific strategic focus on the anti-financial crime sector following the Verifin acquisition. Looking forward, leadership advocates for structural regulatory reforms to reverse the decline in public listings and attract capital back to public markets against the backdrop of rapid private market growth.
- a16z27 min
Biotech CEO on where we are in the fight to cure cancer
Former Halozyme CEO Jonathan Lim leverages his experience scaling biotech startups to lead Araska Therapeutics, a company targeting the historically undruggable RAS pathway with a pipeline including the pan-RAF inhibitor Naporafenib. Concurrently, his family office, City Hill Ventures, manages a diversified portfolio of life sciences assets and media projects that parallel the high-risk, high-reward dynamics of pharmaceutical development. Lim's strategy emphasizes capital preservation and the combination of novel molecular glues with standard therapies to drive long-term remission rates beyond current limits in pancreatic, lung, and colon cancers.
- a16z44 min
The Software Crisis Behind America's Infrastructure
Leila Hay, Phillip Buckendorf, Leonard J. Kosinski
ASI Co-founders Philip and retired General Leo Leo address the United States' critical software crisis by merging commercial aviation technology with Department of Defense logistics to replace fragmented legacy systems. Their strategy establishes a unified "collective logistics" framework that leverages AI-driven predictive capabilities to secure supply chains against cyber threats and geopolitical instability. By standardizing software stacks across the private and public sectors, the organization aims to rapidly modernize military infrastructure and maintain U.S. power projection capabilities by 2034.
- a16z34 min
What Comes After Mobile? Meta’s Andrew Bosworth on AI and Consumer Tech
Meta envisions a post-smartphone era driven by AI-powered AR glasses like Orion, which aim to replace touch interfaces with natural interaction modalities while leveraging open-source models to accelerate innovation. This strategic pivot shifts the market from app-centric selection to AI agent orchestration, though widespread adoption faces significant hurdles regarding hardware constraints, regulatory privacy concerns, and the societal acceptance of always-on devices. By rejecting passive technological evolution, the company positions these developments as a generational opportunity to fundamentally redesign human-computer interaction despite the risks of social backlash.
- a16z27 min
Powering the Next Big Things
Erin Price-Wright, Doug Burgum
Secretary Doug Burgum chairs the newly formed National Energy Dominance Council alongside Energy Secretary Chris Wright to address a declared national energy emergency driven by the AI arms race and threats from China and Iran. The administration is implementing a regulatory overhaul that utilizes AI to accelerate permitting from years to weeks, establishes Freedom Zones with guaranteed 30-day approvals, and deploys the Defense Production Act to modernize critical mineral mining and electricity generation. This strategy prioritizes abundant, reliable fossil fuel and nuclear power to support the tech sector's $300 billion infrastructure investment while explicitly excluding subsidized renewable sources.
- a16z21 min
Mobilizing the American Industrial Base
This analysis argues that the U.S. defense industrial base has stagnated due to a 1990s consolidation that created monopolies and a bureaucratic procurement system that stifles innovation by prioritizing rigid regulations over visionary leadership. Speakers critique current strategies for relying on legacy manufacturing processes and call for a paradigm shift toward high-risk, high-reward projects that emulate historical "heroes and heretics" who bypassed rules to ensure victory. To address these failures and secure AI-driven autonomy, the proposed solution involves implementing integrated software platforms like Palantir to shorten feedback loops and empowering practitioners to design both the technology and its oversight rather than waiting for external regulators.