Latest Interviews

Addressing the Urban Housing Crisis

Gail Goldberg, Laura Archuleta, Christopher Hawthorne, Hessam Nadji, William Witte, Shawn Robinson, Dick Zyman, Josh Stevens

A comprehensive analysis of the global and Californian housing crisis highlights a critical shortage of 8.3 million U.S. units exacerbated by fragmented land-use policies, excessive approval timelines, and volatile funding mechanisms that have stalled job growth in tech hubs. While recent voter initiatives in Los Angeles and various counties demonstrate strong public support for housing bonds and transit-oriented development, systemic barriers such as prevailing wage mandates and the dominance of single-family home ownership continue to drive costs and restrict supply. Strategic solutions now focus on accelerating modular construction, reforming zoning to prioritize permanent affordability in master-planned communities, and shifting cultural paradigms toward rental tenancy to address the 9-to-11 trillion dollar investment gap required to close the housing divide.

MIc'd Up: Conversation with Robert Ballard, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Conversation with Katie Couric

Robert Ballard, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Katie Couric, Brian Sullivan, Buzz Aldrin

Oceanographer Robert Ballard contrasts the underfunded state of deep-sea exploration with NASA's space budget, highlighting discoveries of life origins at hydrothermal vents and the urgent need for sustainable aquaculture to address fishing depletion. Meanwhile, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reflects on his 50-year mentorship with John Wooden, detailing how their cross-racial friendship navigated civil rights challenges and shaped his conversion to Islam. Together, these perspectives underscore the importance of expanding human knowledge in both the unmapped depths of the ocean and the diverse landscapes of society.

Credit Market Outlook

Michael Milken, Mark Attanasio, George Hicks, Sir Michael Hintze, Joseph Naggar, Jim Zelter

Leading credit managers from Apollo, Crescent Capital Group, and GoldenTree warned that the global credit cycle is maturing and prone to a correction in 2018 due to excessive private equity leverage and a market overexposed to passive investment vehicles. To navigate an environment characterized by covenant-lite structures and rising interest rates, these panelists advocate for active management strategies focused on strict underwriting, floating-rate instruments, and distressed opportunities in Europe and emerging markets. By prioritizing complex origination and deep fundamental analysis over index-driven approaches, active managers aim to identify value in mispriced assets while mitigating the risks of an imminent market downturn.

MENA Region: New Tactics to Transform Economies and Accelerate Growth

Rana Foroohar, Yousef Al Otaiba, His Highness Prince Fahad Al Saud, Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, Mohammad Barraj, Prince Fahad Al Saud

Regional leaders and experts convened to outline a comprehensive strategy for economic diversification, highlighting the UAE's shift to a non-oil GDP and Qatar's 2030 vision while addressing a $260 billion financing gap for small and medium-sized enterprises. The panel emphasized leveraging technology and social media to drive female entrepreneurship and correct global narratives, alongside security reforms that prioritize addressing root causes of extremism over pure military intervention. Concluding with a call for intensified US-Europe-Arab collaboration, speakers urged the international community to support youth mobility, academic exchange, and internal regional partnerships to foster sustainable growth and "create hope."

Pivoting to Purpose: Defining the Next Chapter of Your Life (II)

Errol Barnett, Marc Freedman, Sherry Lansing, Philip Pizzo, Lynda Resnick, Mike Shaw

This panel discusses the "longevity revolution" driven by rising life expectancies and shifting demographics that render the traditional life stages obsolete, featuring insights from leaders like Sherry Lansing and Linda Resnick. The speakers highlight systemic ageism and gender bias while championing a new "encore career" model that leverages 250 million years of human capital for social impact. Furthermore, the discussion outlines a forward-looking framework emphasizing intergenerational synergy, purpose-driven living, and the creation of new social institutions to support a population increasingly defined by decades of post-retirement life.

Trusting Brands: Companies That Create and Inspire Change

Aimée Christensen, Joanne Bradford, David Denholm, Brian Norgard, Cameron Saul, Jeff Seabright

Representatives from SoFi, Kashi, Tinder, Bottle Top, and Unilever convened to discuss strategies for building trustworthy brands through radical transparency and collective action on social and environmental issues. The panelists detailed specific initiatives ranging from SoFi's policy advocacy for student loans and Unilever's supply chain transformations to Kashi's "Certified Transitional" mark and Tinder's expansion into older demographics. While consensus emerged on the necessity of long-term value creation over quarterly results, leaders also debated whether purpose-driven strategies must originate from top-level management or evolve through a "two-way street" with employees and consumers.

Digital Reality: How Interconnectedness Is Reshaping Our Lives

Kara Swisher, Michael Ferro, Bobby Kotick, Marne Levine, Evan Sharp

Leading technology and media executives, including Michael Ferrer, Bobby Kotick, Marnie Levine, and Evan Sharp, convened to challenge the narrative that digital platforms erode community by demonstrating how AI and data foster new forms of global connection. The panelists detailed distinct strategic pivots where Merrick Ventures leverages trusted journalism, Pinterest shifts toward decision-making search tools, Instagram integrates immersive business storefronts, and Activision Blizzard utilizes gaming to build global belonging. Ultimately, the group concluded that while automation poses risks to traditional employment, the convergence of visual data, machine learning, and new economic models offers significant potential for entrepreneurial growth and educational advancement if societal infrastructure adapts accordingly.

Space Travel: From Mars to the Stars

Buzz Aldrin, Yuri, Dan, May

Prominent figures including Buzz Aldrin, Yuri Milner, and Dan Goldin convened to advocate for a shift toward private-sector-driven space exploration to overcome current stagnation and accelerate a permanent human presence on Mars by 2039. The discussion highlighted Milner's $100 million commitment to the Breakthrough Starshot initiative, which aims to launch gram-scale probes to Alpha Centauri, alongside Aldrin's proposal for a global coalition to reduce costs and establish infrastructure. Panelists concluded that securing humanity's long-term survival requires expanding beyond Earth's carrying capacity through unified international efforts and technological innovation in both near-term lunar capabilities and century-scale interstellar travel.

Part 2: Global Capital Markets

Mohamed El-Aryan, Thomas Fink, Scott Miner, Arunma Otec, David Solomon

Prominent financial leaders including David Solomon, Mohamed El-Erian, and Arunma Otec discuss post-election market volatility and the critical need for tax reform and deregulation to sustain reflationary growth. The panel emphasizes that while current optimism is high, success depends on reconciling strong equity performance with weak GDP data and executing complex legislative compromises on corporate tax rates and regulatory frameworks like the Volcker Rule. Furthermore, experts warn that long-term prosperity requires addressing structural challenges such as the digital divide, workforce readiness for automation, and coordinated global monetary policies to manage currency dynamics amidst geopolitical instability.

Institute Chairman Michael Milken on Building Meaningful Lives

Michael Milken

At the 2017 Milken Institute Global Conference, the speaker delivered the first address of the decade under the theme "Building Meaningful Lives," arguing that access to capital serves as the primary engine for economic mobility and global prosperity. The presentation detailed a shift in the global economic landscape where private equity, technological innovation, and medical breakthroughs have driven job creation and health improvements despite stagnating median incomes and rising social isolation in the United States. By advocating for targeted investment in human capital across emerging markets and the development of new financial technologies, the Institute aims to expand economic opportunity to 90% of the world's population while transforming historical challenges like cancer into manageable conditions.

Caveat Configurator: How to replace configs with code, and why you might not want to

Jane Street engineers evolved from a naive dynamic plugin system plagued by versioning failures and tooling friction into a structured framework utilizing Config Generation and the centralized PlugD infrastructure to balance flexibility with safety. This transition replaced unmanageable runtime code execution with statically generated pure data files for standard cases, while reserving runtime plugins for scenarios requiring true dynamism under strict code review and library version management. By decoupling plugin distribution from application builds and enforcing mandatory testing, the firm successfully mitigates existential risks while allowing traders to safely deploy custom OCaml logic within production systems.

Rick and Morty Writer: Ryan Ridley

Ryan Ridley, Craig Cannon

Creator Ryan Ridley, drawing on early exposure to comedy legends at his father's club and formal training within Chicago's digital video scene, helped pioneer the unique voice of *Rick and Morty* by blending dark sci-fi tropes with a collaborative, writer-driven approach that prioritized personal creative satisfaction over market trends. The show's development involved rigorous internal debates on lore and character design, such as the scale of Meeseeks or the logic of the Citadel of Ricks, while relying on universal human fears and specific genre subversions to distinguish its humor from predecessors like *Futurama*. Ultimately, Ridley's strategy of making content for a self-curated audience of one, combined with Justin Roiland's distinct vocal performance and Dan Harmon's vision, facilitated the series' global success and continues to influence Ridley's current work on high-status animated projects.

Fake News: Negotiating Politics and Society in a Post-Truth World

Willow Bay, Rebecca Blumenstein, Campbell Brown, Stephen Hayes, Scott McClellan, Jon Steinberg

A panel of industry leaders and academics convened to analyze the drivers of the fake news crisis, attributing its proliferation to Facebook's engagement-focused algorithms, the decline of local journalism jobs, and a polarized political culture that normalizes dishonesty. In response, the tech giant has pivoted its mission to support authentic reporting by launching the Facebook Journalism Project, removing over 30,000 malicious accounts, and committing to a workforce of 3,000 content managers to surpass the staff sizes of major news organizations. While rejecting government regulation in favor of market-based solutions and advertiser pressure, the group emphasized a multi-pronged strategy involving new revenue models, mandatory media literacy education, and collaborative product development to restore public trust and combat misinformation.

A Conversation with the 43rd President of the United States George W. Bush

George W. Bush, Michael Milken

Former President George W. Bush discusses the Bush Institute's multifaceted mission, highlighting the enduring legacy of PEPFAR in reducing global HIV transmission and the organization's contemporary focus on leadership development through the Presidential Leadership Scholars program. The dialogue further addresses critical domestic policy priorities, including education reform grounded in accountability, the economic necessity of immigration reform, and veteran support initiatives designed to mitigate post-traumatic stress. Throughout the exchange, these initiatives are framed as strategic imperatives for national security, extending from the treatment of HIV in Namibia to the diplomatic assessment of Russian leadership.

An AI Primer with Wojciech Zaremba

Wojciech Zaremba, Craig Cannon

OpenAI founder Wojciech Zaremba details the organization's mission to develop artificial general intelligence through robotics manipulation and deep reinforcement learning, while highlighting the significant hurdles in defining real-world rewards compared to digital game environments. He contrasts narrow, supervised learning successes in commercial applications with the theoretical complexities of general AI, noting that current deep learning architectures struggle to match human learning speeds without massive computational resources. Zaremba concludes by predicting that rapid automation will necessitate societal shifts like Universal Basic Income and recommends specific educational resources for those seeking to understand these emerging technologies.