Latest Interviews
Showing 811–825 of 1,549 transcripts.
Clear all filtersIAC CEO Joey Levin: Why Value Investing is BS; The Most Insane Element of SPACs | 20VC #982
Joey Levin, CEO of IAC, critiques the SPAC mechanism as structurally flawed for established companies while arguing that current private valuations are artificially inflated compared to public markets. He advocates for a disciplined value investing strategy defined by capital deployment during downturns rather than rigid multiples, emphasizing organizational simplification and the rejection of "bailout mentality" in leadership. Levin further details a management philosophy rooted in hard work, long-term resilience, and the acceptance of difficult prioritization decisions to distinguish genuine opportunities from distractions.
- Goldman Sachs24 min
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon on the economy, markets and the firm's performance
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and economists reassess the 2023 macroeconomic outlook as a soft landing becomes more probable, citing stickier inflation and cautious CEO sentiment amid geopolitical and cyber risks. The firm reported a 10.2% return on equity for 2022, driven by strategic reorganizations that merged banking and asset management divisions to enhance market share and target $10 billion in fees by 2024. Looking ahead, leadership emphasizes a shift toward multi-year resilience and long-term growth in artificial intelligence and clean energy, with key financial details slated for an investor day on February 28, 2023.
- Y Combinator21 min
The Hard Conversations Founders Don't Want to Have
Michael Seibel, Dalton Caldwell
This session outlines the critical shift from superficial validation to high-stakes, uncomfortable dialogue between YC partners and founders, emphasizing that true advisory value lies in delivering honest feedback that prevents catastrophic errors. The discussion details how to navigate common "questions behind the questions" in founder interactions, manage co-founder conflicts through adapted communication styles, and maintain transparency with employees to prevent relationship fractures. Ultimately, the event establishes that effective leadership requires partners to leverage their own past mistakes to guide startups through difficult decisions without relying on infallible authority.
- Goldman Sachs31 min
Are we on the cusp of a generative AI revolution?
Eric Sheridan, Kash Rangan, Allison Nathan
Goldman Sachs experts predict a rapid 12 to 18-month acceleration in consumer-facing generative AI, shifting technology from predictive forecasting to autonomous content creation that drives enterprise productivity and labor market transformation. This evolution will consolidate market power among established cloud infrastructure giants while redefining search and software interfaces through conversational models and automated workflows across supply chain management and creative sectors. Although high development barriers and ethical safeguards will shape the landscape, the sector is projected to expand its global economic share by replacing traditional information retrieval with actionable, natural-language solutions that augment rather than solely replace human labor.
Zach Lawryk: The Ultimate Guide to Sales Engineering | E980
The evolving sales landscape necessitates a strategic pivot from controlling the process to buyer enablement, requiring Sales Engineers to act as technical experts who tie solutions to business value while Account Executives manage the final close. Organizations typically hire their first Sales Engineer when sales teams reach five to seven representatives or when deal complexity exceeds the sales rep's technical capacity, establishing a 5:1 ratio with a 70/30 compensation split to align incentives. Success in this model depends on hiring candidates who blend technical depth with sales empathy and adopting short-form, multi-channel content strategies to capture attention in a saturated digital environment.
- Goldman Sachs36 min
Emma Grede, CEO and Co-founder of Good American with Kim Posnett
Emma Greed leverages early-career naivety and a customer-centric strategy to co-found Good American and Skims, successfully filling a $10 billion market gap for inclusively sized apparel while prioritizing rigorous product quality over celebrity endorsements. As Chairwoman of the 15% Pledge, she mandates non-negotiable diversity across operations and supply chains, generating billions in opportunity for Black-owned businesses and driving record-breaking revenues like Skims' $100 million in six months. Greed's leadership philosophy rejects traditional work-life balance in favor of immediate community feedback and a resilient board structure, ensuring that corporate citizenship and inclusive sizing remain central to long-term brand survival.
- a16z21 min
Autonomy & Defense Policy in the 21st Century
Chris Brose, Mike Gallagher, Jacob Helberg
Chris Burrows and Gallagher argue that the wars in Ukraine and emerging threats in Asia necessitate a rapid industrial shift from expensive manned systems to scalable, expendable autonomous technologies to avoid strategic depletion against adversaries with superior economic capacity. They highlight critical vulnerabilities in the U.S. defense industrial base, specifically regarding unsustainable munitions consumption, reliance on Chinese-controlled supply chains for energetics and semiconductors, and the urgent need to modernize manufacturing through tools like the Defense Production Act. With the 2020s identified as a decade of maximum danger, particularly concerning Taiwan, the speakers advocate for immediate stockpiling, AUKUS collaboration on energetic materials, and policy reforms to bridge the capability gap before key strategic assets become operational in the late 2020s.
- a16z21 min
Easing the Housing Crisis by Building Better Tools
Adena Hefets, Katherine Boyle, Peter van de Ven
Founded by Adina Cushman to address the 80% of Americans unable to secure traditional mortgages, Divi operates a "Run to Own" rent-to-own model that allows customers to purchase equity in homes within 20 metro areas. The program targets non-salaried workers and underrepresented minorities by capping annual price appreciation at 6% and covering all maintenance costs to prevent predatory practices while building ownership over a three-year period. Cushman projects a near-term market correction of 10-15% but anticipates a healthier, supply-constrained recovery driven by remote work migration trends, while actively engaging regulators to establish new industry standards.
- Goldman Sachs24 min
A Conversation With Will Ahmed, Founder and CEO of WHOOP
Founded by Will Ahmed at Harvard's Innovation Labs, Whoop utilizes a wearable sensor capturing up to 1,000 times more physiological data than competitors to generate recovery scores that track metrics like heart rate variability and sleep quality. This continuous monitoring has enabled medical breakthroughs in predicting preterm birth and detecting COVID-19 infections before symptoms appear, while the company's subscription model and endorsement-free strategy secured adoption by elite athletes such as LeBron James. By shifting healthcare from a curative to a preventative model, the technology now guides users toward lifestyle improvements and has facilitated life-saving interventions for conditions like heart attacks through early anomaly detection.
- Goldman Sachs26 min
Will Guidara, Restaurateur and Former Co-Owner of Make It Nice Hospitality Group
Over an eleven-year tenure from 2006 to 2017, Will Guidara elevated Eleven Madison Park from a two-star brasserie to the world's number one restaurant by pioneering his "unreasonable hospitality" philosophy that prioritizes guest emotional connection over culinary perfection alone. Guidara dismantled rigid hierarchies and implemented radical operational strategies, such as the "Dream Weaver" role and a proactive dessert trolley, which drove a 300% increase in dessert sales and secured a four-star rating from critic Frank Bruni. This transformative leadership not only navigated the 2008 recession through community building but also established a cultural framework that continues to redefine industry standards by empowering staff to create personalized guest experiences.
The Ultimate Guide for Building a Two-Sided Marketplace | a16z's Jeff Jordan
This event analyzes the critical mechanics of successful marketplaces, emphasizing how aggregating fragmented supply creates defensible moats while avoiding the channel conflicts inherent in owning inventory. Participants examine unit economics and capital efficiency, contrasting sustainable models with long payment-to-execution cycles against capital-inefficient strategies that fuel destructive price wars. The discussion further details how specific cohort retention metrics and strategic timing can determine whether a platform overcomes the cold start problem or succumbs to negative network effects.
- Y Combinator29 min
The Secrets To Setting Smarter Goals
Michael Seibel, Dalton Caldwell, Michael Saibo
Founders who establish goals lacking strategic substance or rely on vanity metrics often incur "stupid prizes" such as loss of control, unsustainable burn rates, and irreversible reputational damage. The event details how aggressive targets, fake success narratives, and unethical shortcuts lead to catastrophic outcomes including board intervention, mass layoffs, and customer fraud. Conversely, the analysis emphasizes that disciplined, reality-based goal setting transforms founders into effective execution machines while fostering a culture of genuine organizational growth.
- Goldman Sachs21 min
Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan, Co-founders of Chief
Carolyn Childers, Lindsay Kaplan, Asahi Pompei
Co-founded by Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan, Chief is a unicorn-level professional network that connects female executives through hyper-curated peer groups to combat the projected 200-year timeline to gender parity in senior leadership. Operating on a B2B model where most members are employer-sponsored, the platform bypasses traditional networking by facilitating deep cross-industry connections that address the unique isolation and compounded pressures faced by women at the apex of their careers. With membership spanning 80% of Fortune 100 companies and a 60,000-person waitlist, the organization is rapidly expanding its international presence while driving strategic shifts in workplace culture through its distinctive, non-gendered branding.
- Goldman Sachs24 min
Asset Allocation Outlook for 2023: Greater Diversification and Divergence
Christian Mueller-Glissmann, Alison Nathan
Goldman Sachs analyzes 2022's market turbulence, where real yield spikes and inflation-driven volatility caused equities and crypto to decline while commodities and the US dollar surged, fundamentally breaking traditional asset correlations. Looking ahead to 2023, the firm forecasts a high probability of recession and persistent market volatility as investors shift from the "TINA" narrative to seeking reasonable fixed income alternatives and real assets. Strategically, the outlook suggests avoiding overvalued cyclical equities while capitalizing on valuation discounts in international markets and a potential rotation away from the US dollar as it peaks.
- Goldman Sachs25 min
Irving Fain CEO/Founder, Bowery Farming
Bowery Farming is leveraging proprietary hardware and deep learning software to cultivate pesticide-free produce in climate-controlled indoor facilities, achieving ten times the productivity per square foot while mitigating risks from climate change and global supply chain fragility. The company currently supplies fresh leafy greens and herbs that reach consumers within 48 hours of harvest, retaining significantly higher nutritional value than conventionally shipped goods, and plans to expand its portfolio to include strawberries and tomatoes alongside geographic growth. By automating the entire agricultural lifecycle from seed to shipment, Bowery creates a scalable model that hedges against drought and geopolitical instability, positioning indoor farming as a critical solution for feeding a growing global population on shrinking arable land.