Latest Interviews
Showing 166–180 of 1,042 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Milken Institute1h 1m
Investing in Ukraine's Future | Global Conference 2025
Gillian Tett, Philip Bennett, Xavier Bettel, Wladimir Klitschko, Oleksandra Matviichuk, Yuriy Vitrenko
Panelists project a realistic three-year timeline for a peace deal, noting that Russia currently holds the initiative on ceasefire negotiations while Ukraine leverages its strengthened drone production. Key figures including Deputy Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and former Naftogaz CEO Yuri Vitrenko confirmed a U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal that aims to secure investment and serve as a precursor to an armistice, though legal complexities regarding Russian frozen assets remain a significant hurdle. Simultaneously, Nobel laureate Alla Aleksandr warned of impending impunity if war crimes are not prosecuted through a Special Tribunal, while the EBRD outlined a strategy to scale reconstruction investments to billions annually despite total costs estimated at $700 billion.
- Milken Institute59 min
Energy Transition to Energy Addition | Global Conference 2025
Daniel Yergin, Mohammad Abunayyan, Mohamed Al Hammadi, Ana Cabral Gardner, Amos Hochstein, Vineet Mittal
A high-level panel of energy leaders and policymakers warns that global energy discourse has pivoted from "transition" to "addition" as AI-driven demand accelerates, exposing critical bottlenecks in grid infrastructure and supply chain resilience. Key figures from the US, Middle East, India, and mining sectors agree that meeting these surging needs requires a diversified portfolio combining nuclear baseload, natural gas, and renewables while avoiding a "race to the bottom" in critical mineral standards. Strategic outcomes emphasize immediate investment in grid modernization, off-grid data center solutions, and an "alliance network" to decouple from single-source dependencies without triggering geopolitical isolation.
- Y Combinator1h 1m
Alexandr Wang: Building Scale AI, Transforming Work With Agents & Competing With China
Meta has committed to investing over $14 billion in Scale AI, valuing the company at $29 billion while appointing Alexander Wang to lead its new AI superintelligence lab. Under Wang's direction, Scale is pivoting from its origins in data labeling to building agentic workflows for enterprise and government sectors, leveraging proprietary data and specialized fine-tuned models to differentiate in a fragmented market. The partnership aims to accelerate scientific breakthroughs and develop military applications like the Thunderforge system, positioning the company to manage a future economy where human operators oversee swarms of autonomous AI agents.
- Milken Institute49 min
Author Talk: Kevin Kwan, "Lies and Weddings" | Global Conference 2025
Kevin Kwan, Curtis S. Chin, Chris Tucker, Tiana, John Panatti
Author Kevin Kwan returns to the Milken Institute Global Conference to discuss his latest novel, *Lies in Weddings*, which uses a family drama format to critique intergenerational wealth inequality and racial stereotypes. Kwan outlines the stalled progress of the *Crazy Rich Asians* film sequels while detailing the active development of an HBO Max series, a Broadway musical, and new film adaptations of his other works. He concludes by advocating for underrepresented creators to own production infrastructure to sustain diverse storytelling and shares insights on his upcoming film projects and new literary directions.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Strengthening Communities: Corporate Philanthropy, Social Capital, & Resilience | Global Conference
Melissa Stevens, Nicole Anderson, Lynette Bell, Mary Culler, C.D. Glin, Jean Oelwang
Representatives from PepsiCo, Truist, AT&T, Ford, and Virgin Unite convened at the Milken Institute's "Toward a Flourishing Future" conference to outline strategies for strengthening community resilience against a surge in global disasters and deepening social fractures. These leaders detailed a shift toward enterprise-wide mobilization that leverages corporate assets, data analytics, and long-term pre-competitive partnerships to address food insecurity, disaster recovery, and the digital divide. The panel emphasized that sustainable impact requires multi-year funding horizons, internal employee alignment, and the repositioning of trust as essential infrastructure for systemic change.
- Milken Institute59 min
Countdown: Improving Military Readiness for the 21st Century| Global Conference 2025
Susan Eisenhower, Joe Dunford, Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, Mara Karlin, Kevin Rudd, James Stavridis
Amidst a volatile global environment dominated by nuclear competition between the U.S., China, and Russia, American military leaders warn of critical readiness deficits stemming from budget stagnation, aging infrastructure, and a shrinking recruitment pool. While the U.S. retains a strategic advantage through its alliance network, the lack of direct crisis communication channels with Beijing and China's rapid modernization create urgent risks of miscalculation and escalation. Experts argue that restoring competitive advantage requires a substantive 3% to 5% real budget increase and a fundamental strategic shift from counter-terrorism to multi-domain great power conflict.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Addressing the Financial Headwinds Faced by Gen Z and Millennials | Global Conference 2025
Cheryl Evans, Kahlil Byrd, Catherine Collinson, Alexis Crow, Dorothy Kelly, Sylvia Kwan, Dot Kelly
This event convenes financial experts to analyze the structural erosion of intergenerational mobility and the acute debt burdens facing Gen Z and Millennials amidst shifting macroeconomic headwinds. Speakers highlight the convergence of student loan defaults, AI-driven workforce disruptions, and a growing distrust of traditional financial institutions as primary drivers of contemporary wealth inequality. The discussion concludes by outlining adaptive strategies for wealth preservation, including policy interventions for loan forgiveness, values-based investing, and the urgent integration of financial literacy to mitigate long-term economic vulnerability.
- Milken Institute57 min
Crypto's Wild Ride: The Great Debate | Global Conference 2025
Nicole Valentine, Sebastian Bea, Zoe Cruz, Dante Disparte, Mary-Catherine Lader, Caroline D. Pham, Ivan Soto-Wright
Industry leaders and regulators converge to redefine digital assets from speculative experiments into essential global infrastructure, with figures like Zoe Cruz and Dante Disparte highlighting stablecoins as the "digital dollar" for cross-border payments. Regulatory shifts led by CFTC Chair Caroline Pham establish a dual-track framework that separates fraudulent unbacked tokens from tokenized real-world assets to unlock a projected $2 to $5 trillion market by 2030. The consensus among panelists from Coinbase, MoonPay, and Uniswap foresees a 2025 pivot where automated financial protocols and Bitcoin as a strategic reserve become invisible yet ubiquitous utilities replacing legacy banking rails.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Europe Reimagined: Investment, Innovation, & Competition for Future Markets | Global Conference 2025
Daniel Finkelstein, Matthieu Courtecuisse, Mathias Dopfner, Timo Haas, Martha Lane-Fox, Heiko Thoms
Over 30 pharmaceutical companies warned of a €100 billion capital flight unless the EU addresses regulatory uncertainty, prompting officials like Heiko Toms to propose "Omnibus" packages that prioritize competitiveness over the Green Deal. Panelists including Matthias Döpfner and Axel Springer CEO highlighted a critical 30% AI productivity gap driven by risk-averse culture and rigid labor markets, calling for a €500 billion infrastructure fund to unlock domestic capital and correct market fragmentation. Meanwhile, defense leaders outlined a strategy to triple German spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2029, framing dual-use technology integration as essential for both national sovereignty and civilian economic revival against global competitors.
- Sequoia Capital54 min
Google I/O Afterparty: The Future of Human-AI Collaboration, From Veo to Mariner
Thomas Iljic, Jaclyn Konzelmann, Simon Tokumine, Sonya Huang
Google Labs presented a unified vision for AI development featuring Thomas Morton's Wisp and Flow video generation tools that merge cinematic production with interactive gaming, alongside Jacqueline Kanzelman's Mariner project which automates complex browsing tasks through screenshot-based reasoning. Complementing these capabilities, Simon Takamine detailed Notebook LM's evolution into a dynamic personal knowledge platform offering diverse content formats and mobile integration. Collectively, these updates signal a strategic shift from static media consumption to interactive, co-created experiences driven by state-of-the-art multimodal models expected to define 2025 applications.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Building Businesses for Impact and Purpose | Global Conference 2025
Devi Brown, Jessica Alba, Mark Hyman, Moj Mahdara, Pritika Swarup, Quentin Vennie
Leaders from Honest Company, Function Health, Procti Beauty, Equity, and Kinship Ventures discuss pivoting from advocacy or individual care to scalable, for-profit models that democratize access to ethical health and wellness solutions. The panel highlights critical strategies for maintaining brand integrity during rapid expansion while leveraging technology to reduce preventive care costs, such as Function Health's $4.99 MRI offering and the shift toward predictive, data-driven healthcare. By addressing systemic barriers in supply chains and investor expectations, these founders aim to transform wellness from a luxury for the few into an accessible necessity for diverse communities, including marginalized populations historically excluded from the industry.
- Milken Institute57 min
From Experience to Excellence: Women Redefining Business and Financial Wellness | Global Conference
Sheryl WuDunn, Sheila Marcelo, Lauren Miller Rogen, Penny Pennington, Michele Trogni, Michelle Choney
This panel convened financial leaders, health innovators, and care advocates to address systemic failures in institutions designed around male lifespans, highlighting that women over 45 now launch businesses at twice the rate of men despite facing significantly higher chronic illness rates and lower retirement savings. Through initiatives by Zinnia, Edward Jones, Hilarity for Charity, and Ojai.ai, the discussion proposed a holistic framework integrating financial longevity, AI-driven household management, and brain health education to transition from "work-life balance" to comprehensive power. The resulting strategy advocates for redesigned risk profiles, early protective insurance planning, and intergenerational conversations to secure the $10 trillion in assets currently held by women against the projected demographic shifts in caregiving and wealth transfer.
- Milken Institute1h 13m
The Milken-Motsepe Prize in FinTech Pitches and Grand Prize Ceremony | Global Conference 2025
Milken, Motsepe, Emily Musil, Meghan McCormick, Precious Moloi-Motsepe, Sam Njuguna, Ola Oyetayo, Jonathan Wilson
The 2025 Milken-Motsepe Prize awarded $2 million to ten semi-finalists to support African-led FinTech innovations targeting underbanked populations, with Virto securing the $1 million grand prize for its cross-border payment infrastructure. Key figures including Mike Milken and Patrice Motsepe emphasized the program's role in leveraging Africa's demographic growth and entrepreneurship to catalyze follow-on investment and impact over one million lives since its inception. Building on this momentum, the initiative launched a new accelerator and announced an upcoming challenge cycle in AI and Manufacturing to further address financial inclusion and infrastructure gaps across the continent.
- Milken Institute1h 3m
Business and the Global Economy: Driving Growth and Innovation | Global Conference 2025
Conrad Kiechel, Gerard Baker, Ajay Banga, Mariam bint Mohammed AlMheiri, Rich Lesser, Gilberto Tomazoni, Jerry Baker
At the 28th Milken Institute Global Conference, panelists led by World Bank officials and BCG executives discussed strategies to navigate global trade fragmentation and a looming labor surplus in developing nations. The discussion highlighted the critical need for public-private partnerships to fund infrastructure and energy grids capable of supporting both AI adoption and agricultural transformation. Experts concluded that while geopolitical tensions threaten traditional globalization, targeted regional integration and regulatory reforms can unlock new growth vectors for the global economy.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Trust, Truth, and Democracy | Global Conference 2025
Sewell Chan, Max Boot, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Oliver Darcy, Kevin Merida, Jessica Yellin
In a panel featuring journalists such as Max Boot and Kevin Merida, experts analyzed the dual pressures of the Trump administration's legal warfare against the media and billionaire owners' conflicting business interests that threaten editorial independence. The discussion highlighted how algorithmic polarization and the decline of local news have eroded public trust to just 10%, forcing the industry to pivot from mass-reach reporting to collaborative, niche-focused strategies. To navigate this fragmented landscape, the group concluded that future solutions require non-profit structural support, rigorous journalism literacy education, and a strategic emphasis on tangible policy impacts rather than political spectacle.