Latest Interviews

RAISE 2025: Building AI for Security-Minded Enterprises

A French math PhD turned AI leader leveraged their academic background to build the Llama family at Meta before joining Cohere to prioritize business traction and secure, localized enterprise solutions. The speaker details a strategy where data quality and strategic partnerships, such as those with Fujitsu and RBC, drive the development of models optimized for specific languages and industries rather than pursuing Artificial General Intelligence. By focusing on grounded generation and flexible hosting options, the organization ensures data sovereignty and verifiable outputs for regulated sectors while avoiding the inherent risks of trying to mimic human cognition.

RAISE 2025 : Fireside Chat with Amit Bendov, CEO & Co Founder of Gong

Amit Bendov, Brian Bauman, Amit Bhandav

Founded by Amit Bhandav to solve CRM data gaps, Gong.io leverages autonomous AI to capture sales communication and transform enterprise productivity from manual entry to instant, context-aware insights. Operating on a maturity scale between assisted and near-autonomous levels, the platform currently handles high-volume administrative tasks while preserving human judgment for high-liability decisions. As enterprise leaders demand integrated AI for revenue generation, Gong drives adoption by eliminating briefing bottlenecks for Fortune 500 clients while fostering a unique culture that prioritizes employee personal branding and deep client relationships.

A Contrarian Call on Europe

Mark Wilson, Chris Hussey

Despite a historic six-month equity rally, professional investors maintain a constructive stance with deployed capital levels indicating the market remains unsretched. The event highlights a divergence where European value stocks and small caps outperform US large-cap growth, while specific opportunities arise in Chinese AI and German domestic beneficiaries driven by defense spending. Participants further examine strategies to capitalize on compressed index volatility and persistent single-stock dispersion amidst upcoming inflation data and month-end rebalancing pressures.

How much protein do you really need?

Alok Jha, Tim Cross

A recent discussion detailed the physiological role of proteins as primary structural materials while analyzing dietary guidelines that range from the World Health Organization's 0.8 grams per kilogram recommendation to sports science suggestions of up to 1.6 grams per kilogram. The presentation highlighted that excessive protein intake above this threshold offers no additional muscle growth benefits and may pose kidney risks, particularly when derived from saturated fats and processed meats. Instead of prioritizing extreme dietary calculations, experts advised combining consistent strength training with enjoyable exercise routines to ensure long-term health and muscle maintenance.

What is the future of the UN?

Anton La Guardia, Jason Palmer

Amidst its 80th anniversary and severe funding crises driven by potential US abandonment, the United Nations faces existential threats from eroding border sanctity and budget cuts forcing agencies to reduce spending by up to one-third. While a French-led coalition recently recognized a Palestinian state to offer symbolic momentum, the organization's future remains uncertain as it navigates three divergent scenarios: becoming a rogue entity separated from Washington, decaying into a shrunken but bureaucratic shell, or being reshaped into a transactional tool for American leadership. Ultimately, experts warn that a strategic vacuum left by US withdrawal could allow Russia and China to dominate global diplomacy, despite the independent continuity of technical agencies like the ICAE and IAEA.

Will Fed Cuts Drive Stocks Higher?

Tony Pasquariello, Chris Hussey

The Federal Reserve signaled a trajectory of five rate cuts over the next few years while revising upward its growth and inflation expectations, a move Goldman Sachs views as consistent with its internal forecasts despite minor timing differences. Investment strategists advocate for a continued focus on US big-cap technology and Japan due to strong earnings momentum and shareholder reforms, while remaining cautious about European markets and potential valuation compression in the US. Market participants will closely monitor upcoming employment data and the evolving US labor landscape as volatility is expected to rise following the October earnings reporting season.

Conversation with Venezuelan Democratic Movement Leader María Corina Machado | Global Conference

María Corina Machado, Sara Eisen

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado frames the Maduro regime as a global criminal hub that threatens hemispheric security while outlining a strategy to restore a trillion-dollar economy through immediate U.S. partnership and debt restructuring. She asserts that her coalition won a historic election by 70 percent and is prepared to assume power to dismantle drug trafficking networks, re-establish financial ties with the IMF, and serve as a protective shield for the Americas. Machado emphasizes that this transition relies on aligning with a law enforcement approach to isolate the regime and leverage Venezuelan natural resources to rebuild the nation within days of taking office.

Are British spies ready for future global threats?

Rosie Blau, Shashank Joshi, Rosie Bloor

Outgoing MI6 Chief Richard Moore has identified China as the primary global security threat, directing the agency's expanding mandate toward countering Russian sabotage and Iranian nuclear proliferation alongside emerging technological risks. On October 1st, Blaise Matuloli assumes leadership as the service's youngest and first post-Cold War chief, leveraging her operational background in counter-subversion to navigate a complex landscape where traditional agent recruitment is increasingly hindered by digital surveillance. Facing a finite budget against limitless strategic demands, Matuloli must balance covert intelligence collection with active disruption operations while integrating human and technical capabilities through the newly formalized National Cyber Force.

Benoît Dageville @ RAISE 2025: Zero to IPO and Beyond. From Startup to Snowfall Building Snowflake

Benoît Dageville, Roxanne Varza

After founding Snowflake in 2012 to decouple data storage and compute, co-founders Benoit Dageville and Thierry Kremer steered the company to the most expensive software IPO in history while rejecting acquisition offers to maintain their independent vision. Today, the enterprise serves thousands of clients including OpenAI and Disney by abstracting infrastructure complexity, a strategy that enables users to reduce processing times from weeks to minutes. The platform now leverages AI to ingest unstructured data and democratize analytics, allowing non-technical employees to access enterprise-grade insights without deep SQL expertise.

What the Weak Jobs Report Means For Markets

Rich Privorotsky, Chris Hussey, Rich Brovatsky

Following a disappointing U.S. jobs report that highlights labor market slowdowns and supply contractions, the Federal Reserve is expected to implement a 25 basis point rate cut in September rather than a larger adjustment. This data reinforces a strategic shift toward a barbell allocation combining emerging markets, specifically China, and high-quality assets while anticipating a weaker dollar. Despite underlying market fragility from technical oversupply and seasonal headwinds, the outlook remains cautiously optimistic as investors await further inflation data and geopolitical developments.

Why Are So Many Companies Going Bankrupt In 2025? - David Friedberg

David Friedberg, Chamath, Jason, Sax, Nick

S&P Global reports a record 446 large corporate bankruptcies through July 2025, a surge Chamath Palihapitiya attributes to the exhaustion of pandemic-era liquidity and rising interest rates that finally forced the liquidation of "zombie" businesses. While this correction disproportionately impacts retail and commercial real estate sectors facing refinancing walls, the event suggests a broader economic strength with Q2 GDP restated at 3.03% despite distressed market conditions. The discussion concludes with a warning that Federal Reserve policies may be delaying necessary adjustments, potentially prolonging the reallocation of capital away from struggling traditional assets toward more efficient sectors like data centers.

The Brutal Truth About Ending The Ukraine War - David Sacks

David Sacks, Chamath, Jason, Friedberg, Nick, Jake

President Trump is credited with reestablishing U.S.-Russian diplomatic channels to negotiate a comprehensive peace agreement grounded in Ukraine's exclusion from NATO, acceptance of territorial realities, and recognition that a return to pre-war borders is unfeasible. This initiative challenges the current Ukrainian leadership and European allies to align with a shifting public mandate that has seen willingness to continue fighting drop from 70% to 24% over two years. While strategic pressure on global oil markets and increased arms sales bolster the United States' leverage, the summit's success remains contingent on the Ukrainian elite's willingness to compromise on territorial and security concessions.

Every Investor Needs To Understand This Concept - David Friedberg

David Friedberg, Chamath, Jason, Nick, Zach

Venture capital returns are driven by power-law distributions where a small fraction of outliers generate the vast majority of value, a reality illustrated by companies like Palantir and Facebook that added trillions in market cap years after going public. While top-tier funds can achieve 30% internal rates of return compared to 10% for median performers, successful investing requires identifying these specific winners rather than indexing the market, as broader exposure often leads to negative returns. The industry is simultaneously shifting toward hybrid private-equity models with continuation funds and strip sales to manage liquidity, yet maintaining consistent alpha remains exceptionally difficult as successful firms transition into fee-gathering asset aggregators.

Why Meta Just Froze AI Hiring & What It Really Means - David Sacks

David Sacks, Chamath, Jason, Friedberg, JCal

Amidst a broader corporate restructuring, Meta has reportedly frozen hiring and downsized its AI division following a period of aggressive expansion and failed billion-dollar acquisition attempts. While early market valuations for super-intelligent startups remain speculative, enterprise adoption trends now favor specialized vertical applications over generalized models due to the high failure rates of broad implementations in large corporations. Industry experts characterize this shift as a healthy correction where value creation is moving toward deterministic, task-specific systems rather than relying on unproven single foundation models.

Is The AI Bubble About To Pop? - Chamath Palihapitiya

Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason, Friedberg

Amidst a roughly 10% market correction triggered by an MIT study revealing 95% of generative AI pilots fail and comments from Sam Altman regarding a potential bubble, investors are shifting from imminent AGI narratives toward viewing AI as an evolutionary tool. While 70% of budgets targeting sales and marketing face poor returns due to employee resistance and output quality, the highest value is currently realized in back-office automation, leading experts to predict a market consolidation similar to the early SaaS era. This sentiment shift is further cemented by over 1,000 pending state regulations and the realization that business value requires significant human oversight rather than the "rapid takeoff" previously projected.