Latest Interviews

How companies, private equity firms, and institutional investors are navigating the global economy

Jim Esposito, Alison Nathan

Goldman Sachs executive Jim Esposito outlines a global economic landscape marked by regional divergence, shifting private equity dynamics, and a pivot from "hard landing" fears to a "soft landing" consensus. While corporate balance sheets are historically strong and commodity prices signal recovery, the event highlights persistent risks stemming from geopolitical fragmentation, an anemic IPO market, and liquidity concerns within the unregulated non-bank sector. Esposito anticipates that despite these challenges and an approaching U.S. election, the financial system remains resilient due to post-2008 regulatory safeguards and continued private sector innovation.

All-In Summit: Tobi Lutke on consumer spending, teams, Amazon, AI, and more

Tobi Lutke, Chamath, Calacanis, Friedberg

Toby Luthie outlines Shopify's strategic focus on reducing entrepreneurial friction through AI tools like Sidekick and a neutral platform model that hosts diverse political and commercial entities. Despite processing half a trillion dollars in lifetime volume, the company prioritizes supporting independent founders over vertical integration, viewing partners like Amazon as growth multipliers rather than direct rivals. Luthie predicts that while economic downturns drive consumers toward cheaper alternatives, long-term success will increasingly depend on "brand trust" and the "courage" to innovate, which current regulations and legacy payment systems struggle to support.

All-In Summit: Ro Khanna on China, political reform, major challenges facing the US and more

Ro Khanna, Chamath, Calacanis, Friedberg, Jake

In a discussion on US-China relations and domestic policy, Congressman Ro Khanna addresses the historic low in diplomatic ties, the hollowing of the American industrial base, and the political paralysis caused by fear of being labeled unpatriotic. He advocates for government-led public-private partnerships to rebuild critical supply chains, challenges the defense budget's lack of accountability, and proposes structural reforms like term limits to restore civic trust. Khanna concludes that overcoming current polarization requires a common national mission focused on economic rebalancing and engaging the working class in swing states.

A conversation with Renaissance Technologies CEO Peter Brown

Peter Brown, Raj Mahajan

Peter Brown pioneered early generative AI and the Deep Blue chess machine at IBM before co-founding Renaissance Technologies' dominant quantitative trading strategy, where he served as sole CEO following a 2009 succession. Under his technical leadership, the firm transformed its operations by replacing manual processes with rigorous engineering and automated systems, allowing it to navigate major financial crises like the 2007 Quant Quake and 2008 collapse while maintaining strict scientific discipline. Brown's career trajectory illustrates a consistent philosophy that complex market dynamics and human intuition can be effectively reduced to computation and data-driven models.

Airbnb ft Brian Chesky - Battling a Copycat Clone and Rebuilding User Trust to Revolutionize Travel

Brian Chesky, Ellie Mertz, Alfred Lin, Rolof Puerta

Founded in 2008 by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb overcame early skepticism and a 2011 "ransack gate" crisis by establishing a robust trust infrastructure and a $50,000 damage guarantee. The company successfully defeated clone competitor Wimdu in a global expansion war while pivoting its business model to survive the 2020 pandemic, ultimately executing a high-valuation IPO in December 2020. Under Chesky's leadership, Airbnb transformed from a pre-revenue startup into a cash-flow positive unicorn by prioritizing community resilience and cultural connection over short-term liability avoidance.

NBA star Chris Paul says leadership is about building trust on and off the court

Chris Paul

Following the Juneteenth observance, 18-year NBA veteran Chris Paul discussed his memoir "61: Life Lessons from Papa" and his eight-year tenure as NBAPA president during an interview hosted by Goldman Sachs' Firmwide Black Network. The conversation detailed Paul's response to his grandfather's murder, his strategic evolution from a vertical scorer to a point guard, and his advocacy for HBCUs and underrepresented storytelling through his production company, ODIP. Paul emphasized that his leadership philosophy prioritizes direct communication and collective action over personal likability, reflecting his ongoing commitment to competitive play and social equity.

Critiquing Startup Mobile Apps with Glide CEO

Aaron Epstein, David Siegel

In a Design Review episode, host and David Siegel of Glide evaluated the mobile usability of five diverse applications to emphasize that software differentiation relies on rigorous design execution rather than code alone. The analysis critiqued Pearls for its effective thumb-zone optimization while exposing critical flaws in Blue Dot's color-coded status indicators and EdenCare's lack of native functionality. Ultimately, the discussion highlighted how context-aware interactions, visual hierarchy, and platform-specific standards determine whether apps like Duffle and Bold Voice succeed in engaging users or create friction that drives abandonment.

Noam Shazeer: How We Spent $2M to Train a Single AI Model and Grew Character.ai to 20M Users | E1055

Noam Shazeer, Harry Stebbings

Noam Shazeer, CEO of the full-stack AI platform Character.ai, leads a direct-to-consumer initiative processing 450 million daily messages by leveraging neural language modeling to deliver flexible superintelligence to 20 million users. The company distinguishes itself through a B2C strategy that encourages user-driven innovation, successfully adapting to unexpected adoption trends where users employ AI characters for emotional support and companionship rather than pre-defined enterprise tasks. While prioritizing data privacy and treating hallucinations as creative features for engagement, Shazeer positions the platform at the forefront of an emerging technological wave comparable to the invention of electricity, where massive computational scale drives human-level conversation.

The economic potential of closing gender and racial gaps

Sharon Bell, Gizelle George-Joseph, Alison Nathan

Goldman Sachs economists Sharon Bell and Giselle George-Joseph present new research demonstrating that Higher Education, particularly HBCUs, and women's labor force participation are critical drivers of inclusive growth. Their findings reveal that HBCUs disproportionately produce Black STEM graduates and facilitate upward mobility at twice the rate of non-minority institutions, while closing global gender gaps in education and employment could boost worldwide GDP by 5% to 6%. Based on these data, the authors recommend targeted policy reforms for family-friendly support and equitable funding alongside private sector initiatives to broaden leadership pipelines and provide unrestricted resources to underfunded institutions.

The music industry’s turning point

Lisa Yang, Alison Nathan

Goldman Sachs projects the global music industry will exceed $150 billion by 2030, driven by a resilient 8–10% annual growth rate fueled by streaming expansion, vinyl resurgence, and rising demand in non-English markets. The report identifies critical structural shifts including planned subscription price increases, the emergence of "superfan" monetization strategies, and ongoing debates over AI integration and royalty reforms to address revenue concentration among the top 5% of artists. While live events have fully recovered from pandemic losses and independent artists gain ground, the sector faces a turning point where major labels must leverage multimedia licensing and global regional trends to sustain growth despite increasing content volume and commercialization barriers.

BlackRock’s Rick Rieder on his career, the markets, and investing in the current environment

Rick Rieder, Tony Pasquarello

BlackRock's Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income, Rick Reeder, outlined a market strategy prioritizing carry and equity convexity while predicting Federal Reserve rate cuts in the latter half of 2024. Reeder attributes the resilience of the U.S. economy to a service-heavy structure and deleveraged private sectors, positioning the nation to absorb a $30 trillion debt load through nominal GDP growth. On the technological front, he directs BlackRock's capital toward businesses with proprietary data to capitalize on AI advantages, cautioning that only early-stage private investments currently avoid portfolio skew.

Chasing Silicon: The Race for GPUs

Guido Appenzeller

A severe global shortage of AI compute capacity, where demand exceeds supply by tenfold, is forcing startups to navigate complex procurement hurdles and strategic investment partnerships to secure production-level hardware. Guido Appenzeller advises founders to carefully evaluate whether to rent specialized cloud infrastructure or own assets, while leveraging open-source models and local edge computing to mitigate the performance gaps of current closed systems. This shifting landscape is driving a fundamental transformation in software construction, creating a "Cambrian explosion" of opportunity for entities that can effectively manage the new technical stack required for neural network-based problem solving.

Tim Urban explains his writing process

Tim Urban, Harry Stebbings

A content creator outlines a disciplined methodology for producing high-impact long-form articles by targeting an educated, curious audience with a focus on transforming intellectual curiosity into structured narratives. The process involves a rigorous research phase aimed at achieving intuitive understanding rather than total expertise, utilizing a multi-format approach to validate concepts before drafting 2,000 to 3,000 words daily. Motivated by internal excitement and a shift away from chasing viral metrics, the writer employs strict deadlines and specific digital tools to maintain a high-density output that balances depth with accessibility.

Startup Experts Share Their Investor Horror Stories

Founders recount numerous instances of investor misconduct, including deliberate power plays and unprofessional behavior that test patience, while experts categorize investors by their capacity to provide speed, value, or detrimental distraction. Strategic guidance emphasizes prioritizing "A-grade" partners who move quickly over those who demand ego validation, urging teams to rely on community feedback rather than singular investor opinions to navigate the fundraising landscape. As the venture capital market shifts from status-driven games toward meritocracy, founders are increasingly empowered to reject bad capital and focus on building products that truly serve users.

Corporate Credit Concerns

Boaz Weinstein, Lotfi Karoui, Alyssa Nathan, Latvi Karwi

Goldman Sachs Chief Credit Strategist Latvi Karwi projects a benign credit outlook with default rates stabilizing near historical averages, while Saba Capital's Boaz Weinstein warns that tight spreads fail to price in significant macroeconomic uncertainty and rising bankruptcy risks. The discussion highlights a structural divergence where leveraged loan issuers face immediate floating-rate pressure despite investment-grade fundamentals, alongside a growing schism in default rates between public and private credit markets. Consequently, investment strategies are split between capitalizing on carry in fixed income versus rotating into U.S. Treasuries to hedge against the technical risks of rapid spread widening and potential valuation compression.