Latest Interviews
Showing 706–720 of 757 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Goldman Sachs14 min
David Benioff - Behind the Scenes of HBO's 'Game of Thrones': Talks at GS Session Highlights
David Benioff, Stephen Friedman
Co-creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss transformed *Game of Thrones* into the world's largest television production by expanding George R.R. Martin's universe from six countries and thousands of extras while navigating the unprecedented challenge of original storytelling beyond published books. Despite initial pilot setbacks, the team secured unprecedented control from HBO to forge new narrative paths for Season Six and beyond, marking a shift toward a series they consider their most proud work. The collaboration remains defined by Martin's unique mentorship, which continues to influence the writers' approach to complex character dynamics and historical fidelity as the show prepares for its eighth and final season.
- Goldman Sachs12 min
Panel - Entrepreneurship and Building a Business: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Byron Dixon, Matt Riley, Lance Uggla, Michael Sherwood, Lance Ugler
Market.com CEO Lance Ugler, Daisy Group founder Matt Riley, and Microfresh leader Byron Dixon discussed how regulatory shifts and strategic location choices drive business growth while maintaining a "people first" culture. The panelists emphasized that true innovation involves changing operational methods rather than just products, highlighting intangible assets like work ethic and a family-like atmosphere as key competitive advantages. Despite the complexities of scaling publicly traded entities, the leaders stressed that remaining close to customers and staff is essential for sustaining long-term success and employee retention.
- Goldman Sachs9 min
Revolutionizing Cancer Treatment with Immunotherapy: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Giovanni Caforio, Laurie Glimcher, Jill O'Donnell-Tormey, Dr. Giovanni Coforio, Dr. Lori Glimcher, Jamie
Immunotherapy has emerged as a transformative cancer treatment by harnessing the patient's immune system to target mutated cells through checkpoint blockade, offering a personalized alternative to the non-specific toxicity of traditional chemotherapy. Clinical trials in melanoma and lung cancer have demonstrated that this approach yields response rates exceeding 60% and has nearly eliminated the need for first-line chemotherapy in these malignancies. Looking ahead, the field aims to expand these outcomes by addressing patient non-responsiveness through strategies that personalize therapy based on unique tumor genetic profiles.
- Goldman Sachs9 min
Mrs. Laura Bush - A Conversation on Empowering Women in Afghanistan: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Laura Bush, Mrs. Laura Bush, Manizha Naderi, Mrs. Bush, Manisha
Former First Lady Laura Bush launched her book *We Are Afghan Women*, which chronicles the struggles and resilience of 29 Afghan women alongside activist Manisha, who details the founding of a shelter network now serving over 21,000 survivors. The work highlights how marginalized women like Manisha transformed decades of conflict into progress, establishing educational systems and advocacy groups while noting that the nation's reconstruction may take another forty years. Bush emphasizes that female civic participation is a prerequisite for national stability, drawing parallels to the 1920 U.S. suffrage movement to advocate for patient, long-term investment in Afghan women's rights.
- Goldman Sachs11 min
Shaquille O’Neal: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Shaquille O’Neal, Tanya Cushman Reviewer, Peter van de Ven
LSU basketball alum and scholar Peter van de Ven, who transitioned from a struggling teen athlete to a doctorate holder in organizational leadership, discusses his unique philosophy of blending humor and seriousness to drive community revitalization in Newark. Through his "Impact Newark" initiative, van de Ven is working with local officials to prevent resident displacement by establishing apprenticeship programs that keep residents employed in their home city. His presentation also details personal anecdotes ranging from his recruitment by Coach Brown and a humorous 50% free-throw success rate to being distracted by Halle Berry during a professional game.
- Goldman Sachs15 min
Jamie Redford: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Jamie Redford launched his documentary *Resilience* at the Sundance Film Festival to expose the biological and societal impacts of adverse childhood experiences, a project developed alongside *Paper Tigers* to showcase a compassionate school model that significantly improved graduation rates and reduced violence. Driven by his family's history with organ donation and dyslexia, Redford utilizes the Redford Center's collaborative framework to produce purpose-driven films that link toxic stress to chronic disease and criminal behavior. These efforts align with the Sundance Institute's continued mission to amplify underrepresented global voices, ensuring diverse narratives reach audiences while demonstrating how stable adult relationships can alter life trajectories for traumatized youth.
- Goldman Sachs15 min
Kelly Holmes: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Kelly Holmes, Dame Kelly Holmes
Dame Kelly Holmes recounts her journey from a self-proclaimed clumsy student in Kent to a British Army Physical Training Instructor who defied a male-dominated military structure to become an elite athlete. After overcoming a decade of severe injuries, a depression diagnosis, and a strategic decision to prioritize the 1500m, she achieved the historic Olympic double by winning gold in both the 800m and 1500m at the 2004 Athens Games. Her narrative emphasizes how military discipline and resilience enabled her to conquer athletic setbacks and fulfill a childhood dream sparked by watching Sebastian Coe in 1984.
- Goldman Sachs18 min
Ric Burns: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Producer Rick Burns presents his new film *The Pilgrims* to dismantle the national myth of Plymouth as the birthplace of American democracy by highlighting its origins as a failed religious separatist experiment. The narrative centers on Governor William Bradford's manuscript, which documents the colony's catastrophic mortality, its opportunistic alliance with the surviving Wampanoag, and its eventual economic salvation through the beaver fur trade rather than democratic ideals. Burns argues that a 19th-century reprint of this lost history transformed a desperate 17th-century survival story into the definitive, yet distorted, foundation of American national identity.
- Goldman Sachs15 min
Panel - The Changing Media Landscape: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Jacki Kelley, Meredith Kopit Levien
Bloomberg COO Jackie Kelly and NYT Revenue Head Meredith Levien discussed strategies to sustain global, fact-checked journalism by shifting from traditional print monopolies to multi-platform digital models that prioritize trust over speed. Both executives highlighted distinct operational adaptations, such as Bloomberg's training of "ambidextrous journalists" for cross-format reporting and the NYT's time-specific content briefings, alongside a strict two-source verification protocol to differentiate their brands in a saturated market. While acknowledging the obsolescence of formats like the Sunday paper, the leaders emphasized that maintaining newsroom stability and adapting to evolving consumer needs are critical for remaining relevant in an industry defined by rapid change.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
Linda Hirshman: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Linda Hirschman's book chronicles the strategic "affectionate alliance" between Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, detailing how their collaboration secured the 14th Amendment's application to sex discrimination through cases like *United States v. Virginia*. A pivotal moment occurred in 1996 when O'Connor delegated the court's opinion in that landmark case to Ginsburg, who had previously led the litigation campaign to establish this legal precedent. Their partnership, characterized by distinct Republican and Democratic backgrounds but shared discipline, reshaped constitutional law by demonstrating that diverse judicial perspectives fundamentally alter legal reasoning and outcomes.
- Goldman Sachs17 min
Peter Diamandis: Talks at GS Session Highlights
XPRIZE, Planetary Resources, and Singularity University represent a converging ecosystem of innovation that leverages competition, asteroid economics, and exponential technologies to solve previously stuck problems. These entities have successfully deployed merit-based prize models and data-intensive strategies, such as genome sequencing and infrared asset detection, to drive breakthroughs in space mining and human longevity. By incubating startups with billion-person impact goals and harnessing competitive instincts for technical challenges, this network aims to accelerate the technological singularity while avoiding reliance on traditional linear research methods.
- Goldman Sachs13 min
Eddie Jones: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Former South African and Japanese rugby coach Eddie Jones transitioned his leadership style from dictatorial instruction to fostering disciplined initiative during his tenure with Japan, where he successfully guided the team from a historical one-match record to a World Cup quarterfinal appearance. His operational philosophy prioritizes continuous improvement and absolute effort over immediate results, utilizing strict protocols like canceling sessions without full commitment and validating tactical knowledge through frequent testing. By eliminating external distractions and building trust through consistent actions, Jones enabled players to operate autonomously, ultimately creating a self-sustaining culture capable of reaching their collective optimum without constant supervision.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
Admiral Eric Olson: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Eric Olson, Admiral Eric Olson, Jack
Former Navy SEAL Admiral Eric Olson, the first four-star officer to command U.S. Special Operations Command and a key architect of the Osama bin Laden raid, analyzes the geopolitical evolution of ISIS and the strategic posture of Al-Qaeda. Drawing on his historic career, Olson argues that defeating transnational terrorist networks requires eradicating radical Sunni theology through Muslim leadership rather than relying solely on military force, while also highlighting the necessity for difficult international coalitions in an era of shifting state and non-state power dynamics. Olson further details the operational culture of USSOCOM and the rigorous psychological selection process that identifies leaders capable of adapting to complex battlefield terrains where traditional victory conditions no longer apply.
- Goldman Sachs16 min
Jeff Jonas, IBM Fellow: Talks at GS Session Highlights
IBM Fellow Jeff Jonas pioneered Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness (NORA) technology, a system initially deployed for casinos to identify professional cheaters that later evolved into the G2 platform for processing billions of records across diverse domains. This agnostic architecture has enabled critical applications ranging from modernizing US voter registration and securing the Malacca Strait to optimizing asteroid collision predictions through a "space-time box" methodology that drastically reduced computational requirements. Jonas's approach prioritizes privacy by design and data tethering to ensure record integrity, while leveraging the principle that broad data integration often outperforms increasing algorithmic complexity for detection and prediction tasks.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
Marc Morial, CEO of the National Urban League: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Mark Morial, leader of the National Urban League, warns that institutions failing to diversify their workforces face exclusion of top talent and declining economic competitiveness amidst shifting demographic realities. The organization addresses these gaps through a network of 90 affiliates providing direct services to hundreds of thousands of individuals while tracking racial equity via its annual "State of Black America" report. Morial emphasizes that despite glacial progress in closing status gaps between white and minority populations, corporate and civic leaders must prioritize diversity to ensure long-term sustainability.