Latest Interviews
Showing 871–885 of 1,076 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Milken Institute1h 0m
Creating Stronger Partnerships for Global Food Security
David Evans, Hunter Biden, Mpule Kuala Gopal, Greg Page, Axton Salim, John Pierre-Foiry, AJ Gandhi
Global food security faces a critical crisis where 8,000 daily child deaths and 160 million cases of stunting are exacerbated by record-level conflicts and climate change. To address these systemic gaps, major organizations like the World Food Programme and corporations such as Cargill are shifting from traditional philanthropy to integrated business models that leverage supply chains, impact investment, and digital technologies to support smallholder farmers. Strategic public-private partnerships, exemplified by initiatives like Project LaserBeam, are successfully scaling localized solutions for malnutrition while pioneering financial innovations to stabilize incomes and reduce post-harvest losses.
- Milken Institute1h 28m
The Global Economy: A Conversation With Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin
Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, Sheryl Sandberg, Eric Garcetti, Bob Rubin, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner
The Milken Institute Global Conference convened 3,500 participants from 55 countries to discuss U.S. economic recovery, gender inequality, and global leadership through a high-level panel featuring Bob Rubin, Hank Paulson, and Tim Geithner. The former Treasury Secretaries identified domestic political dysfunction as the primary barrier to addressing stagnant wages, unsustainable entitlements, and climate change risks, while emphasizing the necessity of renewed U.S.-China cooperation. Concurrently, the event highlighted Los Angeles as a hub for innovation and demographic diversity, celebrating its record-breaking female speaker representation alongside data-driven initiatives on successful aging and economic prosperity.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
Detroit: Changing a City's Fortunes
Kenneth Buckfire, Dan Gilbert, Kevyn Orr, Rick Snyder, Gillian Tedd, Ken Buckfire, Gene Sperling, John Kingston, Chris Reynolds, Johnny Siegel
Governor Rick Snyder appointed Emergency Manager Kevin Orr to address Detroit's $18 billion insolvency by prioritizing the restoration of basic municipal services through a Chapter 9 bankruptcy that legally restructured unfunded pension and retiree healthcare liabilities. The restructuring process, supported by Dan Gilbert's private sector revitalization and an $800 million Grand Bargain, secured 100% repayment for creditors while forcing public employees to accept reduced benefits in exchange for a stabilized city budget. This aggressive approach successfully shifted the municipal trajectory from rapid population decline to a downtown commercial boom, establishing a precedent for handling chronic insolvency through transparency and political courage rather than deferred solutions.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
#MIGlobalEntrepreneurs
Daniel Gorfine, Avid Larrazadeh, Lindy Fishburne, Troy Carter, Mikhail Namov, William Hurley, Jace Wilson, Ari Leighton
The Milken Institute Global Entrepreneur's Competition united four judges, including Avid Larrazadeh and Troy Carter, to evaluate five startups addressing critical gaps in health, finance, and media. Among the contenders presenting solutions from Digital Genius's AI automation to Honest Dollar's retirement platform, Mikhail Namov's Digital Genius secured the victory through its enterprise-grade conversational technology and significant traction with Fortune 500 clients. The event concluded with Daniel Gorfine highlighting how the winning innovation exemplifies the entrepreneurial spirit of curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy.
- Milken Institute57 min
Global Consumers: Riding the Wave of the World's Growing Middle Class
Mitch Barnes, Mark Klaus, Justin Leung, Vimal Shah, Amit Singhalai
Driven by rapid growth in Asia and the emerging potential of Africa, the global middle class is shifting toward markets where local firms outpace multinationals through agile, hyper-localized strategies. Successful entities now prioritize product adaptation, such as smaller packaging and culturally relevant flavors, while leveraging mobile technologies to bypass traditional infrastructure deficits. The summary highlights that future market leadership requires balancing global scale with deep regional integration, moving beyond one-size-fits-all approaches to address distinct demographic and economic realities.
- Goldman Sachs48 min
10,000 Small Businesses - New York Conference: Michael Bloomberg and Lloyd Blankfein
Michael Bloomberg, Lloyd Blankfein, Warren Buffett, Dr. Michael Porter, Mike Bloomberg, May Gorilla, Pete Wendell, Theresa Lawrence, Rhonda Jackson, Jessica Johnson, Ray Rupp, Kenneth Coates, Jason Burns, Navjot Vajwa, Raj Thakur, Elizabeth Colon, Reece Powell, Saudia Davis, Amy Voloshin, I.M. Tucker, Brian Custer, Mike Brown, Male Presenter 1
The 10,000 Small Businesses initiative functions as a practical "mini-MBA" that has enabled graduates like Maya Gorilla and Reece Powell to achieve average revenue growth of over 60% and significant job creation across 23 cities. By fostering peer learning and strategic insights from leaders such as Mike Bloomberg and Lord Blankfein, the program addresses critical hiring challenges while empowering immigrant entrepreneurs to scale operations and secure major contracts. This evolving network now supports remote participation at Babson College and has cultivated a robust alumni community where members actively transact business to drive economic expansion.
- Milken Institute59 min
Why Tomorrow Won't Look Like Today: Things that Will Blow Your Mind
Eric Anderson, John Kelly, Eric David, Richard, Michael, Dr. John Kelly III
Representatives from Planetary Resources, Organovo, and IBM outlined a synergistic future where autonomous asteroid mining provides raw materials, 3D bioprinting creates regenerative medical tissues, and cognitive computing manages the data complexity of both sectors. The panel highlighted specific milestones, including near-term propellant depot launches in 2016, commercial drug-testing liver models, and AI systems designed to personalize cancer treatments. Validated by major investors like Larry Page and Richard Branson, these converging technologies aim to fundamentally transform global resource availability, healthcare outcomes, and the economics of deep-space exploration.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
The Upside of Aging: A Conversation in the Pavilion
Mike Morseberger, Barry Rand, Frida Lewis, Steve Knapp, Mark Friedman, Hasi Cohen, Henry Cisneros, Bob Wheelan, Brooke, Jeff Schatz, Andrew, Rita, Gary, Britta
This panel identifies the global demographic shift toward an aging population as a critical challenge comparable to climate change, highlighting that current societal structures fail to utilize the substantial human capital of older adults. Experts argue that sustainable solutions require integrating age-friendly urban planning, reforming higher education to serve lifelong learners, and implementing financial policies that secure retirement and workforce participation. Ultimately, the discussion advocates for a cultural transition from viewing aging as decline to recognizing it as a generative force, with predictions of widespread adoption of "village" support networks and expanded health technologies within the next decade.
- Milken Institute59 min
What's Silicon Valley Got to Do With It?
Alec Ellison, Andrew Auerbach, Eric Drummond, Kate Mitchell, John Ruffalo, Eric Schmidt, Andrew Lovett
A panel consensus establishes that while Silicon Valley remains the global leader in technology clustering and venture capital, its unique managerial ecosystem is difficult to replicate, forcing other regions to leverage distinct local assets rather than attempting direct imitation. Success outside the Valley depends on aligning specific industry strengths—such as clean tech in Colorado, agtech in St. Louis, or software in Provo, Utah—with appropriate capital types and a culture that tolerates risk and embraces immigration. Looking ahead, the innovation center of gravity is shifting toward life sciences and regional verticals, with emerging hubs in the Rocky Mountains, New England, and Israel positioned to capitalize on these specialized sectors and evolving government tax policies.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Are Renewables Still Relevant?
Ali Velshi, James Cameron, Richard Saines, Richard Sandor, Jigar Shah
A global panel of energy experts and investors characterizes the current shift toward renewable power as a fundamental restructuring of the energy delivery system, driven by $100 billion in annual solar investments and a transition from centralized fossil fuel generation to distributed smart grids. While consensus confirms renewables as the dominant source of new capacity, significant debate persists regarding the long-term stability of natural gas as a bridge fuel and the fragility of political support compared to permanent legislative mandates. The discussion further highlights that despite abundant capital, the industry faces a bottleneck in finding investable projects and must overcome utility opposition and aging infrastructure to meet the critical 2030 emissions deadline without relying solely on federal policy.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
The Natural Gas Economy
Brian Sullivan, Ralph Eads, John Hickenlooper, Stephen Green, Fred Krupp
This industry forum examines the U.S. shale gas sector's critical pivot toward wet gas extraction and LNG exports while addressing the economic and regulatory challenges posed by price volatility and fragmented state laws. Participants discussed the necessity of balancing environmental mandates, such as Colorado's strict methane limits, with the political imperative to maintain thousands of high-paying jobs and ensure affordable energy for consumers. The consensus among energy leaders and policymakers emphasizes that a stable, transparent regulatory compact is essential to unlock the industry's remaining potential and facilitate a natural gas transition from coal.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Inequality and Mobility in America
Jared Bernstein, Edward Conard, Robert Doerr, Chrystia Freeland
Distinguished economists Jared Bernstein, Edward Conard, and Chrystia Freeland debated the primary drivers of rising U.S. income inequality, with Bernstein attributing it to structural policy failures and financialization while Conard cites global talent shortages and labor supply shifts. The panel further contested empirical data regarding stagnant wages and mobility rates, with Freeland emphasizing the political risks of extreme disparity and Robert Doerr highlighting family structure as a key poverty determinant. To address these challenges, the group proposed divergent solutions ranging from Conard's trade deficit reduction and immigration reforms to Bernstein's full-employment agenda and Freeland's call for inclusive capitalism and universal social safety nets.
- Milken Institute59 min
Four Ways Stem Cells Will Change the Face of Medicine
John Thomas, Eugene Brandon, Paula Cannon, Jill Helms, Alison Watry
Established in 2010 via Proposition 71, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has allocated over $2.2 billion to fund 65 entities, effectively bridging the "Valley of Death" between speculative research and commercial viability for incurable diseases. Recent breakthroughs include Dr. Eugene Brandon's encapsulated stem cell therapy for Type 1 diabetes, Dr. Paula Cannon's HIV-editing gene therapy trials, and Dr. Jill Helms's bone regeneration protocols using Wnt3a protein. Despite surging public support and promising clinical timelines for 2020 and beyond, the initiative faces a critical sustainability challenge as its $3 billion fund approaches depletion within three years while the NIH withdraws early-stage regenerative support.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
Investing in Students
Sean Green, Mike Cagney, Dave Girard, Bob Whelan, David Bergeron, Bill Bennett, Tony Miller
Addressing the $1.3 trillion U.S. student loan crisis, panelists including David Bergeron and industry leaders from SoFi and Upstart proposed shifting from traditional lending to investment-based models like Income Share Agreements and equity financing. These alternative structures aim to align educational costs with future earnings and force institutions to accept financial consequences for poor student outcomes, thereby challenging the cultural resistance to viewing higher education as a quantifiable investment. While innovative platforms have demonstrated low default rates through community accountability and flexible repayment terms, the discussion concluded that widespread adoption remains hindered by federal regulatory ambiguity and institutional reluctance to forfeit guaranteed federal protections.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Food Security: How to Feed an Ever-Hungrier World
Glenn Yeager, Ken Quinn, Akinwumi Adesina, Claudia Garcia, Doron Gow, Mark Kahn, Mike Vellings
Organized by the Milken Institute and the World Food Prize, this high-level panel convened global leaders to strategize on feeding 9 billion people by 2050 through policy shifts, technological innovation, and private capital deployment. Key presentations detailed Nigeria's success in attracting $4 billion in private investment, highlighted the resource efficiency of aquaculture and genetic advancements like non-GMO polyploidy, and emphasized the critical role of venture capital in scaling ag-tech solutions. Ultimately, the discourse underscored the necessity of integrating digital interventions, infrastructure improvements, and nutritional science to overcome climate volatility and bridge the gap between current production and future global demand.