Latest Interviews

Will you be eating insects soon?

Jon Fasman

Facing a global population surge toward 10 billion, companies like Madagascar's Valala Farms and Canada's Aspire are scaling cricket protein production to provide a sustainable, high-efficiency alternative to traditional livestock. Driven by significant environmental benefits, such as reduced land use and carbon emissions, and supported by regulatory approvals in the EU and US markets, these initiatives aim to transform insect farming into a self-optimizing industry capable of meeting massive commercial demand.

Dead zones: how chemical pollution is suffocating the sea

Denise Breitberg, Ben Dwyer, Peter Thomas, Kate

Global ocean dead zones are expanding rapidly due to nutrient pollution and rising temperatures, causing massive marine mortality and creating a climate feedback loop through nitrous oxide emissions. While the Gulf of Marmara and the Gulf of Mexico face severe ecological and economic crises, Minnesota's adoption of precision farming and conservation incentives has demonstrated that reducing agricultural runoff is both financially viable and environmentally effective. Despite these proven solutions, widespread implementation remains stalled by cultural resistance, prompting the Economist Group to call for urgent government bans on raw sewage and structural reforms to agricultural practices.

The World Ahead 2022: five stories to watch out for

Major geopolitical and economic trends in 2022 include China's consolidation of power under Xi Jinping amidst US electoral shifts, alongside a global labor realignment driven by divergent preferences for hybrid work models. Simultaneously, technology sectors are racing to monetize the metaverse through massive corporate investments in virtual collaboration and entertainment, while the fashion industry leverages cultural momentum to elevate African designers into global markets. These developments converge with a renewed space race where geopolitical rivals and commercial entities compete to establish infrastructure and dominate tourism, marking a historic transition where civilian travelers outnumber government astronauts.

Can science help poor kids earn more?

Neuroscience research confirms that long-term child development benefits more from active conversational turns than passive vocabulary exposure, with data-driven "talk pedometer" interventions successfully increasing hourly word counts by 32% to help close the socioeconomic achievement gap. Despite these communication-focused successes, the persistent stagnation of educational disparities has sparked debate over Professor Catherine Page Harden's proposal to integrate genetic analysis into school policy for predicting academic outcomes. While proponents argue that genetic testing could enable targeted interventions to improve social mobility, critics warn of historical eugenics parallels and the ethical risks of reinforcing social hierarchies through genetic determinism.

How vegan burgers can help save the planet

Jon Fasman

Global food production now accounts for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, a trajectory that threatens to exceed climate targets unless current consumption habits shift away from animal agriculture. While plant-based alternatives and emerging cultured meat technologies offer substantial environmental benefits, their widespread adoption is hindered by high costs, limited scalability, and deep-seated consumer resistance to dietary change. Industry experts and researchers argue that bridging this gap requires not only technological innovation but also robust regulatory frameworks to support a just transition for livestock producers.

How to keep cool while the world gets hotter

Sarah El-Batouti, Eleni Miravili, Vijay Vaideswaran

Record-breaking heat waves and a growing reliance on fossil-fuel-powered cooling systems are accelerating a dangerous feedback loop, with global air conditioning usage projected to drive emissions up by 90% by 2050 if left unaddressed. To mitigate this crisis, innovators and policymakers are deploying a mix of passive building designs, natural cooling strategies, and urban greening initiatives in cities like Athens and Cairo to reduce temperatures without exacerbating the problem. Successful long-term outcomes depend on scaling affordable, low-energy technologies globally to ensure developing nations can meet cooling demands while avoiding high-end exclusivity and further environmental degradation.

Russia: how Putin is silencing his opponents

Putin

Following the 2020 attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny, the Russian Kremlin escalated repression by labeling his Anti-Corruption Foundation an extremist organization, resulting in over 11,000 arrests and the criminalization of dissent during the January 2021 protests. The state leveraged a rigged judicial system and pandemic protocols to systematically eliminate opposition figures, ensuring United Russia retained a supermajority that permitted constitutional changes extending Vladimir Putin's rule through 2036. Concurrently, intensified censorship against independent media and a massive political exodus have characterized an environment where economic decline and high fear of violence coexist with a government that prioritizes security spending to maintain a monopoly on power.

What’s the future of food?

Jon Fasman

With food production responsible for over one-third of global emissions and rising meat consumption in developing nations exacerbating the crisis, the industry is turning toward lab-grown meat, insect farming, and vertical agriculture to decarbonize supply chains. While these innovations face significant hurdles such as the high cost of synthetic growth media for cellular agriculture and the energy intensity of vertical farms, they offer precise bio-engineering advantages to address nutritional deficiencies and eliminate fertilizer runoff. Historical precedents suggest that despite current consumer resistance rooted in cultural traditions, these novel food systems will likely achieve widespread adoption as renewable energy reduces operational costs and scalability challenges are resolved.

Who should fix climate change?

Sasha Nauta, Katrine Braik, Oliver Morton

The discussion establishes that democratic governments must lead climate action through policy intervention, citing Germany's solar subsidies as proof that state support is essential for market transformation where laissez-faire approaches fail. Corporate leaders are expected to integrate climate strategies into core business models rather than relying on individual goodwill, a shift exemplified by Tesla's high-margin entry strategy and Microsoft's commitment to offsetting its entire historical carbon footprint. By coupling sharp emissions reductions with economic growth, the event argues that prioritizing long-term systemic protection for vulnerable populations is the only viable path to a sustainable future.

Why Hedge Funds Are Turning to the Private Markets

Kristin Kramer, Freddie Parker, Allison Nathan

Hedge funds are rapidly expanding their private market exposure in 2021 by deploying $153 billion across 770 deals, driven by extended corporate lifecycles, soaring valuations, and the strategic need to secure IPO allocations. Predominantly led by equity long-short managers in the TMT and Healthcare sectors, these firms utilize late-stage investments to access high-disclosure environments while offering volatility dampening and lifecycle investment capabilities distinct from traditional private equity. This structural shift is reshaping capital market dynamics as investors adopt specialized vehicles like side pockets and hybrid funds to balance liquidity concerns against the permanent integration of private assets into public market strategies.

Tesla AI Day Highlights | Lex Fridman

Lex Fridman

Tesla's recent AI Day presentation detailed a fundamental shift from 2D image processing to direct 3D vector space prediction, leveraging multi-scale feature fusion and spatial RNNs to solve complex autonomous driving and robotics perception challenges. This technical evolution is powered by the in-house Dojo supercomputer and a self-supervised fleet auto-labeling system that continuously retrains neural networks on 10,000 GPUs to drive an infinite scaling loop for both vehicles and the Tesla Bot. The underlying architecture is designed to be transferable across domestic, factory, and humanoid applications, positioning the company as a potential competitor in large-scale AI training services beyond the automotive sector.

What is net zero?

Vijay Vaitheeswaran

Over fifty nations and major global entities have committed to the Paris Agreement goal of balancing greenhouse gas emissions with removals by the mid-to-late 21st century, a target essential for curbing the annual 40-billion-tonne carbon output of the current economy. While established methods like reforestation offer immediate relief, the strategy increasingly relies on unproven negative emission technologies to handle hard-to-abate sectors, creating a strategic risk that delayed emission cuts will be offset by future innovations. This transition faces significant hurdles, including disputes over accountability between historic and emerging emitters and the absence of universal accounting policies, leaving the achievement of net zero as a complex endeavor requiring unprecedented global cooperation beyond mere technological solutions.

Covid-19: why your life will never be the same again

James Francham, Tom

The Economist has developed a global normality index tracking behavioral shifts across 50 nations in transport, leisure, and business to quantify the transition from pandemic restrictions to post-pandemic norms. Historical precedents like the Black Death and the 1918 flu inform the analysis of how health crises drive structural change, while current data suggests a hybrid world is emerging where retail habits and office occupancy permanently settle between pre-pandemic levels and new digital realities. Although long-term outcomes depend on future vaccine efficacy, the index confirms that society is moving toward a "normality tracker" that captures simultaneous acceleration of remote work and revival of mid-century trends like drive-throughs.

Leaked tapes: Sacks vs. Jason origins | All-In After Party on Callin

Sacks, Jason, Chamath, Calacanis, Friedberg, Dylan, Henry, J.K.L., Tucker, Ringo

During a recent "All-In" episode, panelists David Sacks, Henry Blodget, and David Pakman publicly criticized host Jason Calacanis for aggressive, non-even-handed interruptions that forced complex arguments into soundbites while allowing Chamath Palihapitiya to speak without constraint. In defense of his style, Calacanis claimed the chaos prevents boring segments and drives the show's top ratings, a tension that necessitates the panelists' editing work to reconstruct coherent narratives. The discussion further covered Calacanis's beta app "Call In," a dispute over the financial compensation for editors, and an unresolved debate regarding the establishment of specific time limits for uninterrupted speaking.

Crypto: will the bitcoin dream succeed?

Mathieu Favas

This analysis examines Bitcoin's 2021 trajectory as a volatile investment asset rather than a functional currency, highlighting its extreme price fluctuations, low transaction efficiency compared to traditional payment networks, and massive environmental energy consumption. The discussion covers the decentralized architecture created by Satoshi Nakamoto, the lack of central bank safeguards, and the mixed adoption landscape where El Salvador legalized tender while regulators restrict institutional capital and criminals exploit the system. Experts remain divided on whether the capped supply of 21 million coins represents a nascent asset class comparable to gold or a speculative bubble destined to burst like historical financial manias.