Latest Interviews
Showing 796–810 of 1,549 transcripts.
Clear all filters- a16z31 min
Global Investing in Tech: Pattern Recognition, Founder Traits, Momentum | Field Notes by Connie Chan
Investor Chris focuses on high-growth opportunities in emerging markets by leveraging on-the-ground intelligence to support mobile-first startups that address local logistics, finance, and retail challenges. He highlights successful strategies such as prioritizing cash payment acceptance, activating trusted community leaders over influencers, and cultivating deep local partnerships to navigate complex regulatory environments. While noting that AI adoption is occurring at parity with Silicon Valley, he warns that regulatory constraints and brain drain remain the primary threats to the region's demographic and technological potential.
- Goldman Sachs28 min
Navigating the ‘perfect storm’ in commercial real estate
Lotfi Karoui, Jeffrey Fine, Allison Nathan, Jeff Fine
Commercial real estate confronts a convergence of record-high interest rates, $1 trillion in impending debt maturities, and a bifurcated asset landscape that is driving a projected "right-sizing" of the sector. Goldman Sachs analysts and industry experts forecast a slow-burn crisis lasting four to five years, characterized by significant equity destruction in office properties and a heavy reliance on distressed small banks, while private credit markets struggle to fill the gap left by a 75% drop in CMBS issuance. Although a systemic 2008-style collapse is deemed unlikely due to tighter underwriting standards, the lack of an organized public-private partnership raises concerns about a messy unwind of distressed assets that could further erode valuations over the next 24 months.
- Y Combinator24 min
The Student's Guide To Becoming A Successful Startup Founder
Dalton Caldwell, Michael Seibel, Michael Sybil
The event outlines a strategic framework for high school entrepreneurs to leverage their high-risk, low-consequence environment for skill acquisition, emphasizing coding, design, and the execution of low-stakes side projects. It advocates for a long-term mindset where young people treat the "startup game" as a multi-year endeavor requiring patience, ethical integrity, and the development of empathy to navigate systemic credentials. By rejecting cynical narratives and adopting a grind mentality, aspiring founders can build the foundational power center necessary to transform early experimentation into sustained professional success.
David Marcus: How I Came to Lead PayPal; Why FB's Crypto Failed; How AI Fixes Inequality | E1001
Entrepreneur David Sacks discusses the collapse of Facebook's Libra project as a cautionary tale of political resistance to private global currencies while outlining his vision for LightSpark's open payment protocol to replace fragmented banking systems. He analyzes the evolving crypto and AI landscapes, advocating for regulatory clarity to foster institutional adoption and predicting that artificial intelligence will democratize innovation despite an impending economic recession. The narrative concludes with Sacks' leadership philosophy on hiring top talent and avoiding market saturation, emphasizing that the future of value transfer relies on interoperable infrastructure rather than speculative financial engineering.
- a16z24 min
Marketplace Tactics: Metrics, Growth vs. Focus, Business Strategy | Field Notes by Connie Chan
Deb Liu outlines Ancestry's aggressive expansion of its 40-billion-record database through AI, which slashed 1950 Census digitization from nine months to nine days and aims to automate family storytelling. She contrasts this technical scale with marketplace philosophy, emphasizing that sustainable growth relies on deep retention metrics and trust architectures rather than rapid, risky category expansion. The discussion concludes with executive leadership principles, noting that success requires proactive career advocacy, resilience against rejection, and a unified mission to connect people through technology.
- a16z40 min
Building Hardware and Taking on the Phone Giants with Carl Pei
Founded by Carl Pei, Nothing has successfully entered the highly concentrated smartphone market by validating its manufacturing and design capabilities through its prior Ear [1] earbuds line. The company differentiates itself via a unique transparent hardware aesthetic, a stakeholder-aligned community model, and a strategic focus on software innovation to eventually redefine mobile interaction. Despite facing severe supply chain disruptions and capital constraints, Nothing has sold over one million units and is now prioritizing survival while preparing to launch a new product category that integrates hardware, software, and AI.
- Goldman Sachs29 min
Samarth Kulkarni, CEO, CRISPR Therapeutics
Samarth Kulkarni, Dr. Sam Kulkarni
Dr. Sam Kulkarni of CRISPR Therapeutics outlines a pivotal industry shift where the convergence of delivery systems and genome-editing technology enables a transition from chronic symptom management to one-time curative procedures for rare and common diseases. By leveraging a highly specific RNA passcode to mitigate off-target risks, the company is advancing both ex vivo and in vivo therapies, successfully treating blood disorders while expanding into metabolic conditions and sustainable agriculture. This strategic execution has allowed CRISPR Therapeutics to raise $3.5 billion and maintain an aggressive R&D focus despite a broader biotech market correction, positioning the firm to deliver the first wave of permanent genetic cures within the next decade.
- Goldman Sachs35 min
Bain Capital’s Stephen Pagliuca on private equity and the Boston Celtics
Steve Pelyuka, former Co-Chair of Bain Capital, traces the evolution of private equity from a localized boutique to a global vertical industry while detailing his strategic pivots in the Boston Celtics and Atalanta BC ownership. He outlines how modern investment resilience relies on high equity stakes, low-covenant lending, and a decade-long horizon to navigate elevated interest rates and geopolitical decoupling. Complementing these financial insights, Pelyuka emphasizes the critical role of A-plus management teams and data-driven analytics, citing his work on the Celtics' "Basketball Intelligence Agency" and the firm's enduring focus on healthcare and AI sectors.
- Goldman Sachs27 min
Michael Horvath, CEO and Co-Founder of Strava
Strava CEO Michael Horvath and co-founder Mark Gainey transformed a rejected 1994 concept into the world's largest human movement database, now serving over 100 million users across 50 sports. Since Horvath's 2019 return to lead a strategic pivot toward subscription revenue, the platform has more than tripled its paying subscribers and doubled its community size. Leveraging this data, the company now drives public infrastructure improvements through its Strava Metro tool while positioning itself as the central hub for the convergence of healthcare, wellness, and fitness.
- a16z40 min
Unlocking Creativity with Prompt Engineering
Guy Parsons and other experts describe prompt engineering as a rapidly evolving creative discipline where users must master natural language mapping to guide AI models trained on vast image archives. While tools like Dolly and Midjourney offer distinct capabilities for generating commercial assets and exploring novel aesthetics, practitioners face stochastic variability and technical limitations such as hand generation failures that require iterative refinement or post-processing in traditional software. The field is poised to bifurcate into generalist users and specialist "10x" experts who craft hidden, complex prompts to unlock high-fidelity outputs for enterprise applications ranging from e-commerce to game development.
- Goldman Sachs25 min
Jimmy Chin, Mountain Athlete, Photographer, Filmmaker
Jimmy Chin, an Oscar-winning filmmaker and elite mountaineer, explores the ethical complexities of documenting extreme climbing while sharing insights from his survival of a massive avalanche and his seven years living in a car in Yosemite. Through his work capturing Alex Honnold's free solo ascent, Chin established a guiding principle that prioritizes the safety of the athlete over production demands, treating his role as a friend rather than just a director. He further details how high-altitude alpinism relies on embracing failure to refine strategy, utilizing the mantra "slow is fast" to manage fear and make rational decisions in life-threatening situations.
- Goldman Sachs27 min
Marc Rowan, CEO and Co-Founder of Apollo Global Management
Apollo Global Management, led by CEO Mark Rowan, leverages its $550 billion in assets across retirement services and alternative investments to pursue a 2026 goal of reaching one trillion in capital by exploiting liquidity gaps and bank disintermediation. While the firm has paused new acquisitions to prioritize operational efficiency and digital transformation, it continues expanding its workforce to support a strategy that aligns incentives through significant ownership stakes in portfolio companies. This approach targets structural market shifts toward indexation and fintech disruption, aiming to cultivate a leadership culture grounded in judgment and organizational momentum to attract top talent.
- Goldman Sachs25 min
Is it time to invest in emerging markets?
Kay Haigh, Hiren Dasani, Alison Nathan
Despite projected tepid headline earnings growth, emerging market equities are poised for a recovery driven by structural gains in non-commodity sectors and a faster-than-anticipated Chinese economic reopening. This optimism is bolstered by resilient fundamentals in markets like India and Mexico, which offer double-digit earnings growth forecasts alongside attractive valuations trading at a significant discount to U.S. counterparts. While sovereign debt risks persist in fiscally weak nations like Ghana and Zambia, investment strategies are shifting toward high-quality corporate debt and equity leaders in consumer, financial, and technology sectors benefiting from stabilizing liquidity conditions.
- Bank of America26 min
Changing the Game: Holly O’Neill & CVS Health Chief Customer Officer Michelle Peluso
Holly O’Neill, Michelle Peluso, Telebah Woods, Taliba Woods
In the inaugural "Game Changers" episode, Bank of America's Holly O'Neill interviews CVS Health's Michelle Peluso to explore a customer-centric leadership philosophy built on a "learn-it-all" mindset and the integration of high-tech and high-touch strategies. Peluso details how CVS Health addresses the U.S. mental health crisis by combining virtual and physical care while citing Nike and Chewy as benchmarks for innovation and emotional connection in retail. Complementing this business discussion, a separate segment features Taliba Woods, who highlights the critical role of homeownership in generational wealth creation and shares her journey advancing financial literacy within multicultural communities.
- Y Combinator20 min
The REAL potential of generative AI
HumanLoop empowers the "next million developers" to customize raw Large Language Models for specific business needs by mitigating hallucinations through factual context injection and refining brand voice via fine-tuning. The platform supports the entire development lifecycle, from prototyping prompt iterations to evaluating subjective outputs using dynamic production feedback, enabling differentiation without relying on expensive proprietary hardware. By addressing the technical hurdles of instruction tuning and Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback, the service aims to accelerate the transition of software roles from boilerplate coding to high-level specification writing ahead of anticipated AGI timelines.