Latest Interviews
Showing 646–660 of 1,042 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Milken Institute58 min
Alternative Small Business Financing: Keeping California on Top and Sharing the Wealth
Carolyn Karo, Autumn Burke, Manny Fernandez, Chris Hameetman, Victor Parker, Richard Swart
California's 2016 dominance in U.S. alternative financing, capturing 41% of the market and 58% of funds, is driven by the state's tech wealth effect and university density, yet this success masks severe structural biases where 99% of capital flows to graduates of top universities and only 4% reaches female minority entrepreneurs. While Regulation Crowdfunding has helped California lead the nation with nearly $8 million in offerings, industry experts warn that high compliance costs and low funding caps currently disadvantage early-stage startups outside of software, prompting calls for legislative reforms that include interstate exemptions and tax incentives. To maintain competitiveness against other states and prevent capital flight to Initial Coin Offerings, panelists recommend leveraging data science for risk assessment, introducing revenue-share instruments, and expanding financial literacy education to underserved communities.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Tech or Bust: Maintaining California's Edge in the Workforce
Patt Morrison, Marcie Jastrow, Shawn Layden, Tobias Sherman, Jay Tucker, Jeff Wong
A panel discussion highlighted how California's dominance in video games and film is eroding due to global competitors offering superior financial incentives and the state's high cost of living driving talent away. Experts emphasized an urgent need to address critical infrastructure gaps and a finite labor shortage by expanding early education initiatives and diversifying recruitment beyond traditional tech hubs. Recommendations include establishing integrated academies to teach adaptable skills, fostering inclusive internships for underserved communities, and leveraging virtual reality to sustain future industry growth.
- Milken Institute1h 3m
Big Cities, Big Data: How "Smart Cities" Improve Lives & Save Money
Sean Arian, Lilian Coral, Stephen Engblom, Robert Garcia, Rohit Gupta, Steve Swartz
Hosted by Sean Arian at the LA Chamber of Commerce, the "Big Cities, Big Data" panel featured long-term strategies from Los Angeles, Long Beach, and private sector leaders to transform municipal operations through data-driven equity and efficiency. Speakers detailed how officials like Mayor Robert Garcia and former Chief Data Officer Lillian Corral restructured procurement, launched real-time transparency tools, and utilized philanthropy to bridge digital divides while shifting from asset acquisition to service models. The discussion concluded with a consensus on the urgent need to integrate governance across silos, adopt user-centric design, and establish living labs to foster sustainable civic innovation.
- Milken Institute59 min
California's Solutions to Health Care
Anna Gorman, Kimberly Evon, Yiwen Li, Josh Ofman, Hugh Waters, Claudia Williams, Kim Avon
A multi-stakeholder panel addressed California's $378 billion chronic disease burden and an impending home care workforce crisis by advocating for a transition from volume-based to value-based care models. Industry leaders and policymakers highlighted precision medicine, targeted genomic testing, and community health workers as critical strategies to reduce inefficiencies while opposing direct price controls that might stifle innovation. The consensus emphasized establishing a common data infrastructure and robust payment reforms to enable California to lead the nation in preventative care and universal access.
- Milken Institute1h 14m
Made in California: Presentations from California Grown Startups
Dorothy Rothrock, Ian Coll McEachern, Gordon Fowler, Gabe Grifoni, Susie Harborth, Stella Kramer, Carmen Palafox, Dolly Singh, Ken Sunshine
Leaders from Make in LA, The Glue Factory, and BioLabs San Diego convened to address critical workforce shortages in California's manufacturing and biotech sectors while analyzing the rise of hardware-enabled startups and fragmented funding landscapes. The session featured five case studies illustrating this shift, including Vector Space Systems' launch vehicle innovation, Sangenomics' personalized probiotic therapy, and Thesis Couture's engineering-driven footwear. Presenters highlighted a strategic pivot from traditional networking to resource access, emphasizing the need for specialized incubators to support solopreneurs and the convergence of software with IoT and frontier technologies.
- Milken Institute59 min
Blockchain for Social Impact
Matthew Spence, Brian Forde, Hugh Gordon, Robert Hertzberg, Lily Liu
This panel explored blockchain technology as a distributed ledger enabling immutable public records, contrasting proof-of-work and proof-of-stake consensus models while highlighting applications in land titling, identity verification, and healthcare data sovereignty. Senator Robert Hertzberg announced upcoming California legislation to establish a regulatory framework, aiming to modernize government infrastructure and rebuild public trust alongside international initiatives in nations like Estonia and Georgia. Despite security vulnerabilities and market volatility, the discussion emphasized blockchain's potential to revolutionize micropayments, decentralized capital formation, and the global freelance economy through tokenization and reduced intermediaries.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
Sustainable Solutions For a Green Future
Tracy Gray, Tom McGrath, Nancy Pfund, Dakota Semler, Azita Yazdani, Richael Young
Moderator Tracy Marder convened a panel featuring investment leaders Nancy Fund of DBL Partners and Tom McGrath of Vital Clean Tech Ventures to explore how impact capital drives innovation in sectors like transportation, energy storage, and agriculture. The discussion detailed specific breakthroughs from founders including Michelle of Mammoth Trading, Dakota Simler of Thor Trucks, and Azita Yazdani of Exergy Systems, who presented data-driven solutions for groundwater management, electric heavy-duty logistics, and decentralized water recovery. Ultimately, the session emphasized the necessity of long-term policy stability and equitable workforce development to scale these technologies toward the $1.3 trillion annual sustainable energy investment required by 2030.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
Women Leading a Wellness Revolution
Joyce Chang, Nancy Brinker, Alexia Brue, Donna Karan, Melanie Whelan
Moderated by Joyce Chang, a panel of industry leaders including SoulCycle CEO Melanie Whalen and Susan G. Komen founder Nancy Brinker explored how community building drives success across wellness, fashion, and healthcare sectors. The discussion highlighted specific organizational strategies such as SoulCycle's referral-based growth and Urban Zen's integrated care models, while identifying systemic barriers like transportation gaps and the need for user-owned health data. Ultimately, the group advocated for a future where wellness is accessible to all, emphasizing the role of conscious consumerism and educational integration in preventing chronic disease and fostering global connection.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Driving the Digital Health Revolution
Indu Subaiya, Paul Chew, Karen DeSalvo, Esther Dyson, Cindy Elkins, Donald Jones, Don Jones
The digital health sector is pivoting from episodic treatment to preventative "generating health" models, driven by a projected shortage of 40,000 primary care physicians by 2030 and the need to address social determinants that account for 80% of health outcomes. Companies like Omada Health and Way to Wellville are disrupting traditional fee-for-service structures by implementing value-based payment reforms that leverage behavioral design, remote coaching, and community-led interventions to achieve measurable clinical results. Despite significant funding and technological advancements in AI and connected devices, widespread adoption faces critical hurdles including regulatory lag, the digital divide, and the need for new data ownership frameworks to support equitable population health management.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Raising an Active Generation
Sean Gregory, Mark Abbott, Eric Boerwinkle, Bruce Y. Lee, Kathleen Tullie
Discussions highlight how a $15 billion youth sports industry and restrictive school policies have created significant health disparities and participation gaps for children in lower-income neighborhoods. To address these systemic barriers, stakeholders including the MLS, Reebok, and corporate partners are deploying grassroots solutions such as free mini-pitches, sampling-based training programs, and mobile donation initiatives to increase accessibility and physical literacy. These strategic shifts prioritize unstructured play, injury prevention, and inclusive recreational leagues to counteract burnout and ensure long-term retention across diverse communities.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
Women Leading a Wellness Revolution
Joyce Chang, Nancy Brinker, Alexia Brue, Donna Karan, Melanie Whelan
Moderated by Joyce Chang, a panel of industry leaders including Donna Karan, Nancy Brinker, Alexia Brew, and Melanie Whalen convened to redefine the wellness movement as a collaborative force driven by community accountability and shared impact. The discussion highlighted distinct strategies for systemic change, from SoulCycle's peer-driven transformation model and Well and Good's democratization of health journalism to Susan G. Komen's focus on closing care access gaps and Urban Zen's integration of holistic care within commercial and healthcare frameworks. Ultimately, the group agreed that the future of wellness relies on shifting resources from reactive "sick care" to preventative lifestyle solutions supported by clean data and scalable community networks.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Innovators Improving Access: Creating Healthier Links in the Food Chain
Kevin Boylan, Matt Barnard, Lee Anne Grant, Dariush Mozaffarian, Sam Polk, Josh Stevens, Simone Friedman, Jeffrey Davis, Ambassador Compson
Leading entrepreneurs from Everytable, Plenty, Day2, and Brandless, alongside Tufts University Dean Dr. Dari Mozaffarian, convened to debate scalable solutions for a U.S. food system that drives 70% of annual deaths through diet-related chronic disease. The panelists presented contrasting strategies ranging from Everytable's dual-tier pricing and Plenty's water-efficient vertical farming to Day2's machine learning-driven personalized nutrition, while challenging the federal government's $46-to-one research funding disparity between nutrition and pharmaceuticals. Ultimately, the discussion highlighted a critical pivot toward integrating healthy food into healthcare infrastructure and expanding global operations to address the 1,400 daily cardiovascular and diabetes deaths attributed to dietary factors.
- Milken Institute54 min
A State of Emergency: Integrative Approaches to Addiction and the Opioid Epidemic
David Beier, Jerome Adams, Terry McAuliffe, Lori McFarling, Tom Moriarty, Nora Volkow, Tammy Wincup
A federal and state coalition deployed 14,000 officials alongside private sector partners like CVS and Discovery Education to address the opioid crisis through prevention economics, educational outreach, and prescription limits that reduced Virginia's over-prescriptions by one-third. Initiatives including a new data-sharing compact among 46 governors and the Surgeon General's social capital report aim to leverage granular prescription analytics and community resilience to cut costs associated with incarceration and unemployment. These coordinated efforts target the multifactorial nature of the epidemic by embedding science-based prevention in classrooms, enforcing seven-day prescription caps, and expanding safe disposal programs to recover from 64,000 overdose deaths recorded in 2016.
- Milken Institute46 min
The Future of Health: A New World of Collaboration
Michael Milken, Francis Collins, Lynn Goldman, Bob Hugin
The National Institutes of Health, alongside corporate leaders like Celgene and academic institutions such as GW School of Public Health, is driving a decade-long strategic shift toward cross-sector collaboration to address mounting global health crises including opioid addiction, rising obesity-related cancers, and antimicrobial resistance. Key initiatives such as the Accelerating Medicines Partnership and the "All of Us" research program are deploying hundreds of millions in combined public and private funding to accelerate therapeutic discovery, leverage genomic data, and implement preventive structural interventions. This coordinated effort aims to reverse declining U.S. life expectancy trends and reduce the $4 trillion annual economic burden of chronic disease by aligning industry innovation cycles with public health objectives.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Boundless Potential: How Unlocking Big Data Can Change Health
Dan Diamond, Murray Aitken, Aneesh Chopra, Martin J. Murphy, Robin Thurston
Industry leaders from Quintiles IMS, Helix, and the Obama administration convened to evaluate big data's transition from hype to a tangible reality that is currently constrained by fragmented data, misaligned financial incentives, and a cultural gap in healthcare adoption. The panel highlighted Project Data Sphere, which has grown into the world's largest open-access cancer trial database to enable synthetic control arms that could halve trial timelines and improve survival rates for small cell lung cancer. Looking forward, experts discussed how lowering sequencing costs, blockchain privacy tools, and shifting toward value-based payment models aim to overcome current silos and empower consumers to drive precision public health initiatives.