Latest Interviews
Showing 646–660 of 822 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Milken Institute53 min
Acid Rain to Asset Reign: The Business Case for Investing in Climate Change Technology
Spyros Kouvelis, Gísli Hauksson, Richard Mattison, Sabrina McCormick, Alisa Swidler, Peter, Abid Kamali, Hannah
A panel of experts and investors addressed the critical "valley of death" between climate policy and implementation by highlighting the shift of global investment gravity toward China and showcasing deep drilling technologies that could make geothermal energy viable worldwide. Case studies of the Lake Chad humanitarian crisis and the Belo Monte Dam illustrated the urgent need to link ocean conservation and robust ESG data to prevent massive financial and social losses. The session concluded with strategic recommendations for integrating these factors into fiduciary duties, utilizing the upcoming EU green taxonomy to de-risk private capital and align short-term market actions with long-term sustainable development goals.
- Milken Institute56 min
Transforming Healthcare with Technology
Andrew von Eschenbach, Michael Acton Smith OBE, Alex Beauvais, Sarah Haywood, Prasanth Manghat, Ben Maruthappu
The healthcare sector is undergoing a fundamental transformation driven by an aging global population and rising mental health concerns, shifting from acute, hospital-centric models to personalized, home-based preventative care. Digital innovations such as remote monitoring, gene editing, and consumer-facing apps promise significant cost reductions through value-based incentives, yet this progress is hindered by the digital divide among the elderly, fragmented legacy data systems, and a lack of rigorous regulation for unverified digital health products. To realize these benefits, the industry must bridge the gap between high-tech solutions and vulnerable demographics while establishing robust information governance to build public trust and ensure equitable, scalable outcomes.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Credit Market and Private Debt Predictions for 2018
James Mackintosh, John Francis Barry, Maria Cantillon, Nigel Walder, Adam Wheeler, Alex Vascovich
Leading private credit managers and investors convened to analyze a market characterized by compressed Eurozone yields, a structural exit of over-levered European banks from the mid-market, and a shift toward "covenant-light" products despite warnings about long-term insolvency risks. Panelists highlighted the $5.3 trillion US middle market opportunity and the strategic pivot toward SaaS while maintaining rigorous discipline against regulatory fragmentation and political uncertainties like Brexit. Looking ahead, the discussion underscored an expectation of sustained private debt growth driven by institutional yield hunger, even as experts cautioned that inexperienced entrants lacking robust downside protection could face severe losses when the credit cycle eventually turns.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
How Philanthropic Capital Can Spark 21st Century Innovations
Melissa Stevens, Joe Cerrell, Madeleine Clarke, Johan Eliasch, Igor Tulchinsky
Leading philanthropists from the Gates Foundation, WorldQuant, and Co-Impact convened to redefine "venture philanthropy" by shifting from traditional grant-making toward market-based strategies that crowd in private capital for global challenges like disease, conservation, and climate instability. Through case studies on contraceptive pricing, indigenous rainforest conservation, and data-driven healthcare analytics, the event highlighted how cross-sector partnerships can achieve measurable scale while emphasizing strict governance metrics to ensure sustainability. The dialogue concluded with a strategic call to prioritize sustainable energy, integrate governments into solution design, and navigate the risks of over-claiming impact to foster genuine systems change.
- Y Combinator1h 2m
There's an Art to Getting Brilliant People to Surprise Themselves - Kevin Slavin of The Shed
Kevin Kelly's peripatetic career bridges disparate fields, from bootstrapping the mobile game company Area Code to shaping the operational philosophies of MIT's Media Lab and New York's The Shed. His work redefines cultural institutions as "synchronizing signals" that counteract social fragmentation through adaptive architecture, such as The Shed's 120-foot moving shell, and digital strategies like total smartphone ticketing. Looking forward, Kelly advocates for a future where innovation emerges from cross-disciplinary agility rather than traditional domain expertise, a perspective he applies to his analysis of the nascent virtual reality industry.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Immigration, Workforce and the New Europe
Robert Guest, Elizabeth Collett, Paul Collier, August Hanning, Syed Kamall, Parag Khanna
Former German intelligence chief August Hanning, economist Paul Collier, and other global security experts convened to analyze the economic, political, and security dimensions of the European migration crisis. The panelists distinguished between refugees and economic migrants, arguing that Europe's disproportionate political focus has undermined global stability while driving polarization that empowered nationalist movements from the AfD to Trump. Ultimately, the discussion concluded that resolving displacement requires a fundamental shift from border-centric policies to investing in governance and economic development within origin countries to address the root causes of migration.
- Y Combinator57 min
Microbes, Robots, and Ambition - Robin Sloan on His Novel Sourdough
Robin Sloan, Kat Manalac, Craig Cannon
During a discussion on the intersection of artificial intelligence and literary craft, the author details the unprecedented creation of the *Sourdough* audiobook, which features machine-generated alien music synthesized from Croatian Klapa folk recordings. The conversation further examines the technical reality of the "Egg Problem" in robotics, the author's philosophy of viewing technological convergence as a cumulative "glorious crash" rather than an adversarial force, and the fragility of digital preservation in contrast to physical media. Looking toward the future, the author outlines plans to integrate text generation as a core stylistic tool in a new novel while reflecting on how current cultural narratives have shifted from Silicon Valley's early optimism to a more critical examination of power and labor.
- Goldman Sachs46 min
Talks at GS – Ron Chernow: Lessons in Leadership – The Unlikely Rise of Ulysses S. Grant
Ron Chernow, Ulysses S. Grant, Lloyd Blankfein
Biographer Ron Chernow reconstructs Ulysses S. Grant's arc from a failed businessman and dismissed officer to a strategic genius who secured Union victory and championed Reconstruction through the Department of Justice. Chernow utilizes Grant's presidency to challenge the "Lost Cause" narrative, highlighting the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and the unprecedented political representation of African Americans before the era's eventual collapse. While documenting Grant's tragic financial ruin and his unique psychological capacity for calm under fire, the work reframes the general as a modernizing leader whose legacy has surged from historical obscurity to the center of civil rights history.
- 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 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 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.
- Y Combinator1h 0m
Building Dota Bots That Beat Pros - OpenAI's Greg Brockman, Szymon Sidor, and Sam Altman
Greg Brockman, Szymon Sidor, Sam Altman, Craig Cannon
Future projections suggest that hardware scaling and brain-like specialized architectures will unlock qualitatively different model behaviors, while recent evidence indicates that optimizing basic algorithms and batch sizes offers more immediate impact than developing new model structures. Concurrently, the OpenAI Dota 2 project demonstrated that robust engineering infrastructure and reinforcement learning self-play enabled bots to master the game and defeat top professionals within weeks, revealing emergent tactics such as psychological baiting. These developments highlight a field where strong distributed systems engineering and bug-free code are becoming as critical as advanced theoretical knowledge, effectively bridging the gap between complex virtual simulations and real-world AI applications.
- Y Combinator1h 2m
Casey Neistat and Matt Hackett on Live Video's Struggle for Interestingness
Casey Neistat, Matt Hackett, Craig Cannon
The organization pivoted from failed raw live-streaming concepts to "Panels," a constrained product designed to foster articulate debate on daily news while employing strict moderation to mitigate online toxicity. This evolution reflects a broader hybrid strategy that merges media content creation with engineering rigor, overcoming cultural friction between newsroom and tech teams to build a sustainable "media plus product" model. Supported by CNN's long-term capital, the founders have transitioned from a survival mindset to a decade-long vision, prioritizing team stability and deep content development over immediate viral metrics.
- 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 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.