Latest Interviews
Showing 121–135 of 1,099 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Milken Institute29 min
Conversation with DFC CEO Ben Black and EXIM Bank President John Jovanovic | Future of Finance 2026
Ben Black, John Jovanovic, Matthew Aleshire
John Yovanovitch of the Export-Import Bank and Ben of the Development Finance Corporation are leading a coordinated push to reindustrialize the U.S. economy by deploying over $160 billion in authorized capital to secure supply chains and counter Chinese influence. Their agencies are prioritizing strategic sectors such as critical minerals, energy, and advanced mobility while removing investment barriers in high-income allies to mobilize private capital globally. This bipartisan initiative aims to create domestic manufacturing jobs and establish long-term market stability by exporting American financial services alongside physical infrastructure projects.
Sequoia’s Alfred Lin: $10T Companies Are Coming
Sequoia Capital partners discuss a critical shift from legacy strategies to an AI-driven future, emphasizing that companies failing to recognize this paradigm shift face existential risk while their own portfolio valuations have surged to billion-dollar benchmarks. The firm reports distributing $43 billion to limited partners since 2020 and highlights how AI tools have enabled top engineers to triple output, fundamentally altering development cycles from years to days. Ultimately, Sequoia remains optimistic about automating mundane tasks to free human capital for strategic work, while refining its investment thesis to target founders with unique "spikes" capable of leveraging these new technological efficiencies.
Thomas Laffont, Coatue - Anthropic, Citrini Paper, AI Volatility & Next Mag 7
Thomas Lafont and the Kotu firm, managing over $100 billion in assets, predict that private AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic will dominate the next major market indices as SaaS valuations face re-rating pressures from decelerating growth. While anticipating significant IPOs within 24 months and a shift toward "Big Fucking Ideas" that expand total addressable markets, Lafont argues that AI will enhance engineering productivity rather than reduce headcount, following a historical model of market expansion similar to the introduction of ATMs. The firm actively applies these insights by integrating coding-first AI tools into their due diligence while advocating for democratized access to private equity to capture the exponential growth of early adopters like Clock Code.
- Goldman Sachs31 min
Lloyd Blankfein on His Memoir, Risk Management and Leadership
Lloyd Blankfein, David Solomon
Former Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein details his tenure from 2006 to 2018, contrasting the firm's unique partnership culture with post-IPO public market pressures while outlining specific strategies that enabled survival during the 2007–2008 financial crisis. He attributes this resilience to rigorous mark-to-market accounting and a proactive risk-management focus on tail events, rather than predictive foresight, alongside a leadership philosophy centered on "managing down" to foster collective ownership. Blankfein's memoir, "Streetwise," further examines his journey from Brooklyn public housing to Wall Street, the firm's expansion into philanthropy through 10,000 Women, and the deliberate preservation of Goldman Sachs' distinctive internal culture amidst structural evolution.
- Milken Institute27 min
Conversation with SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig | Future of Finance 2026
Paul Atkins, Michael Selig, Michael Piwowar
SEC Chairman Atkins and CFTC Chairman Selig are dismantling a fragmented regulatory landscape by establishing a joint taxonomy and "truce" to clearly distinguish tokenized securities from digital commodities while preventing duplicative enforcement. The agencies are simultaneously modernizing capital formation through disclosure streamlining, approving perpetual crypto futures, and accelerating on-chain settlement to reverse declining IPO trends. These collaborative initiatives aim to provide statutory durability in a post-Loper Bright environment by fostering a single primary regulator framework that retains global liquidity and innovation.
Revel: The $1B Startup Rewriting Hardware Control
Scott Morton, Dylan Field, Molly O'Shea
Founded by former SpaceX engineer Scott Morton, Revel is a platform that replaces obsolete legacy control software with modern tools to accelerate hardware testing frequency by up to tenfold. The 15-month-old company recently closed a $150 million Series A led by Index Ventures and Redpoint, achieving a billion-dollar valuation after securing high-conversion pilots with clients like Impulse and Astromechanica. Revel aims to democratize hardware engineering by enabling generalists to manage critical systems in aerospace and energy sectors while expanding into wastewater infrastructure and major industrial partnerships.
Inside Opendoor HQ on Earnings Day (Office Tour + Live Stream)
Kaz Nejatian, Michael Judd, Molly O'Shea
Opendoor is reshaping its corporate identity under CEO Kaz Nejatian and former CEO Keith Raziani by adopting a militant "Open Army" culture and pioneering live, digital-first investor relations on platforms like Robinhood. This strategic pivot accompanies a technical overhaul where leadership prioritizes core stability over cosmetic improvements, resulting in a ten-week mortgage product launch and a hybrid design system strategy. By expanding from simple transactions into a comprehensive home-moving ecosystem, the company aims to empower average Americans through high transparency and merchant services that mimic Shopify's model.
- Goldman Sachs32 min
Board Governance in 2026: AI Oversight, Activism, and Delaware’s Edge
Larry Cunningham, John F.W. Rogers
The University of Delaware's John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance marked its 25th anniversary by unveiling the book *Boardroom Legacy*, which contextualizes John L. Weinberg's 1948 thesis on board stewardship through contributions from fifteen scholars and support from Goldman Sachs. Symposium speakers highlighted Weinberg's prescient advocacy for independent audit committees and CEO oversight while discussing modern governance challenges, including SEC Chair Paul Atkins' intent to reform shareholder proposal processes and the persistent market dominance of Delaware's legal infrastructure. Additionally, the event explored Warren Buffett's enduring influence on corporate succession planning and capital allocation strategies, cementing the center's role as a hub for bridging historical governance principles with contemporary regulatory and strategic realities.
- Goldman Sachs25 min
Fundamentals Still Matter: Lone Pine’s David Craver
David Craver, Tony Pasquarello
David Craver of Lone Pine Capital argues that structural shifts in market volatility and valuation norms have created a favorable environment for duration-based fundamental investors who focus on secular growth themes. Leveraging deep private market insights and a concentrated strategy, the firm maintains a bullish stance on AI infrastructure as a generational platform shift while anticipating a mid-term phase where established incumbents leverage technology to drive efficiency. Craver emphasizes that his investment discipline relies on rigorous fundamental analysis and the flexibility to adapt when facts evolve, positioning the firm to capitalize on the predicted disruption in top market cap names by 2035.
- Goldman Sachs25 min
‘Affordability’: Consumer Concerns and Government Proposals
David Mericle, Alec Phillips, Allison Nathan
Amidst a persistent housing affordability crisis driven by regulatory constraints and construction labor shortages, the administration has relied on reactive executive orders to utilize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac capacity rather than enacting comprehensive legislative reforms. While these measures aim to modestly lower mortgage rates through increased mortgage-backed security purchases and a ban on institutional single-family home purchases, they fail to address the root causes of supply scarcity or deliver immediate price relief for homeowners. Future policy focus is expected to shift toward zoning incentives and speculative tariff rebates, though significant progress remains hindered by the need for congressional approval and the long-term nature of structural housing deficits.
- Y Combinator23 min
OpenClaw Creator: Why 80% Of Apps Will Disappear
Raphael Schaad, Peter Steinberger
Launched in 2025, the open-source OpenClaw project has rapidly accumulated over 160,000 GitHub stars by introducing a local-executing personal AI agent capable of autonomously controlling hardware and synthesizing private data. Creator of the "swarm intelligence" philosophy, the project distinguishes itself through a unique security architecture that isolates user memory in local markdown files and employs a proprietary `soul.md` file to maintain core personality traits against external manipulation. As the technology evolves toward multi-agent negotiations and the obsolescence of traditional applications, OpenClaw positions itself as a value-retention model where specialized bots manage distinct domains while the primary asset remains the user's locally stored data memory.
- Goldman Sachs24 min
Inside the Future of Payments: Adyen CEO
Pieter van der Does, Clif Marriott, Cliff Marietta
Founded by the creators of iDeal, Adyen transitioned from a payment intermediary to a direct acquiring system, now processing $900 billion annually through a unified platform that combines online and in-store payments with AI-driven authorization optimization. The company distinguishes itself by rejecting acquisition-heavy growth in favor of a single technology stack and a disciplined culture that prioritizes collective success, allowing it to offer financial services like loans while excluding cryptocurrency due to client demand. Looking forward, Adyen aims to leverage its global infrastructure and banking licenses to bridge physical and digital shopper identities, anticipating a regulatory landscape that must adapt to the speed of artificial intelligence in fraud prevention.
- a16z41 min
How Truemed Is Incentivizing Americans to Invest in Prevention
The speaker identifies a structural U.S. health crisis driven by decades of corporate governance prioritizing shareholder value, which led to the systemic replacement of whole foods with subsidized, inflammatory ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup and soybean oil. This deterioration is exacerbated by inadequate chemical regulation, aggressive ag-chemical lobbying, and a medical paradigm focused on acute disease management rather than preventive lifestyle interventions. As a countermeasure, the discussion highlights TrueMed's model of leveraging tax-advantaged funds for nutrition and fitness tools, while advocating for subsidy reform and metabolic psychiatry to shift the system toward human enhancement and long-term wellness.
- Goldman Sachs27 min
Implications of an “Americas First” Foreign Policy
Hal Brands, Mauricio Claver-Carone, Allison Nathan
The Trump administration has announced a 2026 foreign policy shift known as the "Donro Doctrine," which prioritizes direct resource control and territorial expansion in the Western Hemisphere over traditional diplomatic stability. This neo-mercantilist strategy targets specific outcomes including the strategic takeover of Venezuelan oil, the acquisition of Greenland, and the renegotiation of USMCA to favor U.S. equity over trade, while actively countering Chinese and Russian influence through military and economic coercion. Critics warn that this move toward hard power and border redrawing risks eroding the post-1945 international order, potentially triggering global instability and market volatility as U.S. forces intercept shadow fleets and intervene in regional sovereignty disputes.
- a16z36 min
Ben Horowitz and David Solomon: The Sweetest Macro Spot in 40 Years
Ben Horowitz, David Solomon, David Haber
Goldman Sachs is expanding its balance sheet to between $2.5 and $3.5 trillion by shifting to a stable deposit model, while simultaneously deploying $6 billion in technology to automate operations and drive efficiency. Concurrently, Andreessen Horowitz has solidified its position as the largest U.S. venture firm by capturing 18.3% of capital in 2025, leveraging AI to scale investments from 15 to 150 major successes annually. These strategies converge within a stimulative macroeconomic environment characterized by fiscal support and deregulation, which is expected to trigger record M&A activity and accelerate the public listings of AI-driven companies despite lingering geopolitical risks.