Latest Interviews
Showing 151–165 of 243 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Goldman Sachs16 min
Boyan Slat: Combatting Plastic Pollution in the World’s Oceans
Founder and CEO Boyan Slat's organization is advancing a fleet of 60 passive, U-shaped floating barriers designed to remove 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within five years by leveraging natural ocean currents rather than traditional active fishing methods. Following a rigorous development cycle marked by early prototype failures and a $40 million capital raise, the system has evolved from inflatable chambers to solid pipe structures and is currently undergoing assembly at a facility near San Francisco for a targeted July launch. This initiative addresses an annual economic cost of $13 billion and a threat to 800 marine species by simultaneously targeting legacy accumulation in the Pacific and intercepting the roughly 2 million tons of river-borne plastic entering the ocean each year.
- Goldman Sachs17 min
Daniel Schwartz: The Millennial CEO Changing the Fast Food Industry
Daniel Schwartz, Jennifer Coppola
Daniel Schwartz, CEO of Restaurant Brands International, leads Burger King, Tim Hortons, and Popeyes by applying 3G Capital’s meritocratic ownership model to revitalize operations and accelerate young leadership. This strategy includes mandatory frontline shifts for executives, streamlined menus to boost profitability, and equity incentives that replace tenure-based promotion with performance-driven advancement. Under Schwartz’s direction, the parent company has shifted its product focus toward authentic ingredients while leveraging a generational mindset to drive technological self-disruption across the global foodservice sector.
- Goldman Sachs17 min
Deborah DiSanzo: Solving the World’s Health Problems of the Future
Deborah DiSanzo, Christina Minnis
Former healthcare executive Deborah DeSanza leads IBM Watson Health's initiative to integrate artificial intelligence and cloud computing with clinical expertise, achieving tangible results such as reducing breast cancer trial matching times by 75% at the Mayo Clinic and accelerating drug discovery from 18 months to under 12 weeks. By partnering with major industry consortia to aggregate millions of patient records, the organization aims to alleviate physician burnout caused by electronic health record burdens while lowering costs through real-world evidence generation. Under the strategic direction of IBM Chairman Ginni Rometty, this approach shifts the technology firm from legacy hardware to a dominant position in AI-driven healthcare solutions that prioritize patient data ownership and life-saving outcomes.
- Goldman Sachs17 min
John Avlon: Covering the Intersection of Politics and Power
Former speechwriter and *Daily Beast* Editor-in-Chief John Avlon applies a legacy of 9/11-era resilience and a nonpartisan but morally accountable framework to steer the publication's growth to 1.1 million daily readers while targeting powerful bullies and bigots. He warns that contemporary journalism must actively counter hyper-partisanship and misinformation, drawing on George Washington's Farewell Address to advocate for national unity and fiscal responsibility amidst the challenges of the current political climate. Avlon maintains that holding power accountable requires a clear mission to follow facts regardless of political preference, a principle that guided the newsroom's diverse hiring strategy and its coverage of high-stakes investigations like the Mueller probe.
- Goldman Sachs15 min
Talks at GS - Arianna Huffington: Thriving in the “Attention Economy”
Entrepreneur and author Arianna Huffington discusses her transition from founding The Huffington Post to establishing Thrive Global, driven by her personal burnout and a mission to debunk the myth that success requires sacrificing well-being. Highlighting the dangers of the attention economy and the toxic Silicon Valley "brilliant jerk" culture, she details her tenure on the Uber board where she enforced strict accountability measures, leading to leadership changes and a zero-tolerance policy for unprofessional behavior. Ultimately, Huffington advocates for systemic shifts in how organizations value sleep, creativity, and human dignity over short-term metrics and relentless productivity.
- Goldman Sachs18 min
Talks at GS – Dara Khosrowshahi: Uber’s Roadmap to the Future
Dara Khosrowshahi joined Uber to stabilize a crisis-ridden company and transform it into the world's largest transportation provider by leveraging a marketplace strategy across rides, food delivery, and micromobility. Strategic moves including the SoftBank investment, a pivotal settlement with Waymo, and leadership hires like Tony West have secured capital, resolved governance conflicts, and restored operational focus. The company now aims to integrate multimodal transport and cover 80% of the global population by combining direct operations with equity stakes in key regional markets.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
Talks at GS – Magic Johnson On “Over-Delivering” On And Off The Court
Magic Johnson, Earvin "Magic" Johnson
Magic Johnson transitioned from leading Michigan State to an NCAA title and cultivating a legendary rivalry with Larry Bird in the NBA to a distinguished business career driven by strategic mentorship and deep market insight. Following his 1991 HIV diagnosis, he credits his 26-year survival to a regimen of mental resilience, physical training, and medication adherence, while leveraging his public platform to launch ventures like Magic Johnson Theaters and invest in the Los Angeles Sparks and Dodgers. Johnson now focuses his legacy on creating economic opportunities for people of color in urban America, prioritizing societal impact over personal wealth accumulation.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
Talks at GS – Telling the Human Side of the Refugee Crisis: “This is Home”
Alexandra Shiva, Princess Firyal of Jordan
Princess Feryal of Jordan and filmmaker Alexandra co-produced a documentary that chronicles the lives of four refugee families in Baltimore, specifically juxtaposing a humorous couple against educated professionals to humanize the displacement crisis. The film explores complex themes such as the psychological erosion of dignity among unemployed men, the enduring longing for a homeland, and the critical role of grassroots community integration in fostering stability. Drawing on Princess Feryal's advocacy, the project serves as a catalyst for local mentorship and political engagement, urging audiences to support international refugees while highlighting the disproportionate burden on host nations like Jordan.
- Goldman Sachs17 min
Talks at GS – Virginie Morgon: A Global Outlook on the Future of Finance
Virginie Morgan assumes the CEO role at private equity firm Eurasio in March, overseeing a strategic pivot from a France-centric model to a global expansion that prioritizes annual process reinvention and US market integration. Her macroeconomic outlook anticipates strong growth in Europe, China, and the US through 2018, though she flags late 2019 as a potential period of vulnerability. Concurrently, Morgan enforces a rigorous diversity mandate requiring female candidates for every hire and immediate intervention against disrespectful behavior, grounding her leadership in a personal ethic of self-respect and proactive career visibility.
- Goldman Sachs9 min
Talks at GS – Rajeev Misra: Creating Capital for the Future
The SoftBank Vision Fund, a $100 billion vehicle that channels all SoftBank Group investments, targets late-stage private market leaders with a mandate to back 100 companies globally over three years. Its strategy prioritizes massive capital deployment to accelerate "winner-takes-all" expansion in China, India, and the U.S., often encouraging portfolio firms to raise more funds than initially planned to secure immediate global dominance. To ensure long-term liquidity and returns, the fund prefers IPOs or debt market access over secondary sales, aiming to validate its portfolio companies through public market performance within its 14-year maturity term.
- Goldman Sachs16 min
Talks at GS – Juan Enriquez: The Future of Humankind
Juan Enriquez posits that humanity has transitioned from natural selection to "human selection," granting the power to deliberately program the genetic code of all species and establishing the bio-economy as the dominant global force for the coming century. This biological revolution promises to eradicate diseases, regenerate complex organs, and replace animal agriculture through synthetic alternatives, while simultaneously raising ethical questions that Enriquez addresses by advocating for a 25% protected reserve of nature on Earth or in space. Looking further ahead, Enriquez predicts that non-invasive neural interfaces will soon bridge human consciousness with machines and that extraterrestrial life will likely be detected within five years, fundamentally altering our understanding of biology and our place in the universe.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
Talks at GS –Jayne-Anne Gadhia: Driving Gender Equality in Business
Jayne-Anne Gadhia, Sir Richard Branson
Upon returning to Virgin Money in 2006, CEO Jane-Anne Gaddier orchestrated a high-stakes acquisition of the distressed Northern Rock under Richard Branson's direction, transforming the brand into a safe, long-term legacy asset. Gaddier subsequently led a rigorous gender equality initiative that dismantled structural barriers by rejecting bonus data skewed against women and enforcing aggregate statistical parity in pay distributions. Her leadership also established a culture prioritizing output over presence and leveraging the Virgin platform to support executive civic engagement through strategic institutional and spousal support systems.
- Goldman Sachs18 min
Talks at GS – Scooter Braun: Disrupting the Music Industry
Scooter Braun leverages a "why not" philosophy to transform from an underdog college promoter into a global music mogul who discovered Justin Bieber on YouTube and secured Psy's "Gangnam Style" by honoring the artist's original language. His management strategy emphasizes translating creative genius for corporate partners, most notably negotiating a landmark partnership between Kanye West and Adidas that produced the brand's best-selling footwear. In a defining demonstration of his resilience, Braun proceeded with a high-risk benefit concert in Manchester following a 2017 terror attack, successfully rallying 60,000 attendees and 22 of the 23 victim families as a defiant response to violence.
- Goldman Sachs7 min
Talks at GS – Haim Saban: The Life of a Media Mogul
Haim Saban leveraged his early success in music and animation to create the Power Rangers franchise, a global phenomenon that generated over $10 billion in merchandise and led to the strategic acquisition of the Fox Family Channel. His 2001 investment in the bankrupt German broadcaster KirchMedia secured significant political backing from leaders such as Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, becoming a highly profitable venture with symbolic importance in post-war Germany. Throughout his career, Saban balanced these massive commercial achievements with a steadfast personal focus on family and active advocacy for the U.S.-Israel alliance.
- Goldman Sachs15 min
Talks at GS – Jeff Orlowski: Exploring the Global Effects of Climate Change
Director Jeff Walowski, whose documentary *Chasing Coral* premiered on Netflix in July 2024 after an official selection at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, utilizes time-lapse photography to reveal the accelerating global collapse of coral reef ecosystems. The film details how rising ocean temperatures have triggered the third mass bleaching event in history, threatening the food security and homes of hundreds of millions of people in low-lying island nations within the next three decades. While documenting these catastrophic shifts, Walowski frames the crisis as a reversible "planetary bankruptcy" issue, arguing that a rapid transition to sustainable practices can restore Earth's ecological balance without sacrificing economic growth.