Latest Interviews

Talks at GS – Henry Kravis: 40 Years of Innovation in Finance

Henry Kravis

Founded in 1976 by Henry Kravis, George Roberts, and Jerry Colbert, KKR operates as an independent private equity firm distinguished by a long-term investment horizon and a decadal "first day" mindset designed to prevent organizational stagnation. The firm prioritizes active value creation over static financial modeling, leveraging a unique culture of full profit sharing and a leadership philosophy that warns against arrogance while focusing on the 20% of business levers that drive the majority of outcomes. As the firm manages a global portfolio of over 130 companies, its partners emphasize that success relies on identifying evolving market realities rather than adhering to rigid projections, a strategy supported by their enduring partnership and adherence to rigorous operational discipline.

Talks at GS – David Eagleman: The Neuroscience of Creativity

David Eagleman, David Rockefeller Jr., Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Levine Jr., Dan Coffey Jr., Dan Collins

This analysis redefines human creativity as an evolutionary advantage rooted in the prefrontal cortex's capacity for hypothesis testing rather than physical traits, identifying three universal cognitive operations—break, blend, and bend—as the fundamental drivers of innovation. By shifting educational and economic focus from rote memorization to cognitive flexibility, individuals and organizations can leverage the collective intelligence of 8 billion brains to navigate a transitioning creativity economy. Ultimately, success in this new era requires actively dismantling past successes and tolerating failure to generate novel solutions that artificial intelligence currently cannot replicate.

Returning ISIS fighters: How should governments deal with them?

James Mattis, Usama Hasan, Bashar al-Assad, Vera Mironova

With the territorial collapse of the Caliphate, approximately 6,000 European nationals have returned from Syria, creating urgent security challenges for Western governments that must balance due process against the high risks of prison-based radicalization and unmonitored reintegration. While nations like the United Kingdom and France utilize citizenship deprivation and incarceration, pilot programs in Denmark attempt to mitigate threat levels through rehabilitation and social support, a strategy critics argue lacks sufficient evidence given the severe potential for lone-wolf atrocities. Governments now face a resource-constrained dilemma in allocating limited surveillance manpower to specific high-risk individuals versus preparing for a strategic shift by ISIS toward increased global terrorism.

Talks at GS – Dan Weiss: A Museum for the 21st Century

Dan Weiss

Danish El-Kholy, the fifth president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, oversees a global institution with a $320 million budget and 7 million annual visitors while navigating complex debates on repatriation and public monuments. He defends the museum's object-centered preservation mission against political pressures and advocates for historical labeling over the removal of controversial statues to foster civil discourse. El-Kholy concludes by urging leaders to prioritize integrity and ownership of errors, emphasizing that success often relies on acknowledging the role of luck alongside professional responsibility.

Talks at GS – Dr. Paula Johnson: Advocating for Freedom of Speech and Diversity on Campus

Dr. Paula Johnson, Edith

Biomedical research highlights significant disparities in heart disease and neurologic conditions between sexes, necessitating an interdisciplinary approach that integrates sociology, economics, and epigenetics rather than treating biology in isolation. Simultaneously, experts advocate for intentional leadership and data-driven goals to dismantle silos between sex, gender, and race while promoting free speech as a shared value essential for mutual learning across differences. This dual focus calls for conditions where dialogue assumes the potential for understanding opposing viewpoints, ensuring that advancing gender equality and protecting democratic discourse proceed in tandem.

Talks at GS – Icarus: Uncovering a Scandal of Olympic Proportions

Bryan Fogel, Dan Cogan, David Fialkow

Director Brian Fogel launched a documentary project that evolved into a high-stakes thriller after scientists suggested anti-doping tests were easily bypassable, leading him to partner with Russian whistleblower Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov. Their collaboration produced the record-breaking film "Icarus," which exposed Russia's state-sponsored doping program and forced Rodchenkov into exile following threats from Vladimir Putin's regime. This pivotal case study demonstrates how a sports investigation transformed into a survival narrative, ultimately setting market benchmarks for documentary valuations and catalyzing the shift toward streaming platforms as the primary distributor for the genre.

The Balfour Declaration's impact, 100 years on

Jeremy Berkovits, Ahmad Shakarneh, Ahmed Shikane

The 1917 Balfour Declaration established a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine while promising to protect the rights of existing non-Jewish communities, yet British policy reversals and subsequent conflicts failed to satisfy either side. Following the 1948 establishment of Israel and the 1949 armistice, the resulting displacement of 700,000 Palestinians, known as the Nakba, initiated a century of wars, occupation, and diplomatic impasses. Despite the coexistence efforts of dual-national staff at the American Colony Hotel, the Declaration's original promise remains unfulfilled for Palestinians, leaving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict intractable with no Palestinian state established.

Facial recognition technology will change the way we live

In 2018, advancements in machine learning and the integration of biometrics into consumer smartphones propelled facial recognition from niche development to mainstream adoption. While commercial applications expanded globally from tracking retail habits in the West to managing a 700 million-person database in China, researchers warned that the technology's ability to covertly identify individuals and infer personal attributes poses significant threats to privacy and civil liberties. Consequently, the year emerged as a critical juncture for establishing regulatory frameworks to balance security benefits against the risks of non-consensual surveillance.

Transforming cities with technology

Fabio Duarte, Caitlin Dolkaert, Nick Mokua

With global urbanization driving 900 million people into slums and cities consuming three-quarters of world energy, the smart city sector is surging toward a $1.5 trillion valuation by leveraging real-time data networks. Innovators in Seoul, Nairobi, and Boston demonstrate this shift by deploying integrated sensor systems to optimize transportation, coordinate emergency services, and detect public health crises through sewage and infrastructure monitoring. These initiatives prioritize using data to "make people smarter," directly addressing affordability, traffic gridlock, and opioid surges without relying solely on hardware deployment.

Talks at GS – Edward Norton: Capitalism and Creative Disruption

Edward Norton

In a discussion spanning his activist family lineage and career in entertainment, actor Edward Norton analyzes the necessity of treating ecological services as a financial asset class to drive sustainability. He contrasts the late-1990s studio system's willingness to risk new voices, exemplified by *Fight Club*, with the modern disruption caused by streaming services that have dismantled traditional DVD revenue models. Norton further details his transition to founding EDO, a data science firm applying finance-grade ROI analytics to media to replace outdated engagement metrics and align ad spend with actual audience action.

Electric cars will come of age in 2018

The 2018 automotive landscape marked a global tipping point where electric vehicle costs fell below those of fossil fuel models, driven by halved battery prices, doubled driving ranges, and government mandates from nations like Britain and France to ban internal combustion engines by 2040. China's dominance in production and sales, combined with corporate commitments to fully electrify fleets, aims to disrupt global oil demand while introducing ethical supply chain challenges regarding cobalt extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Experts characterize this transition as an inevitable momentum that will eventually phase out the 1880s-era internal combustion engine, despite the trillions of dollars required to upgrade power grids and stabilize regions reliant on oil revenue.

Gender at Work: Why We’re Still Struggling to Get It Right

Rich Ditizio, Stacey

Drawing on three decades of experience in financial services, a former private bank CEO outlines the strategic shift from corporate tolerance to genuine inclusion, arguing that true progress requires normalizing women in leadership through structural and cultural change rather than isolated interventions. The presentation highlights persistent gendered double standards in workplace perception and calls for men and boys to lead the normalization of female colleagues and leaders to dismantle historical barriers. Participants engaged in this discourse by identifying specific workplace challenges facing women and aggregating actionable insights to shape future programming.

Talks at GS – Nitin Nohria: The Responsibility of Leadership

Nitin Nohria, Lloyd

Harvard Business School has evolved from a domestic management focus into a global leadership institution defined by its mission to cultivate individuals with both professional competence and the character to inspire trust. Dean Nitin Nohria emphasizes that this dual focus is critical to avoiding organizational fragility while asserting that profitable, self-sustaining enterprises offer a superior path to social dignity than traditional philanthropy. This strategic shift aligns with changing student demographics who increasingly prioritize meaningful impact and work-life balance, often favoring smaller firms over large corporations to mitigate perceived institutional risks.

Talks at GS – Richard Armstrong: Redefining Beauty Through Art

Richard Armstrong

Since 2008, Director Richard Armstrong has steered the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum toward a mission prioritizing imagination and the human "quest for beauty" within Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic spiral structure. The institution attracts over one million annual visitors who engage with a curatorial model that rejects rigid data-driven education in favor of challenging, high-risk artistic proposals vetted through a hierarchical directorship process. This approach positions the museum as a sanctuary for eccentricity, aiming to foster visual acuity and societal diversity against the backdrop of modern digital consumption.

Highlights | A Conversation with George W. Bush

George W. Bush, Michael Milken

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice outlined her multifaceted career initiatives, ranging from a $15 billion HIV/AIDS strategy that prioritized local agency over paternalism to the creation of the Presidential Leadership Scholars program designed to cultivate community-based problem solvers. Her presentation also detailed a personal artistic endeavor to portray veteran trauma and a defense of the No Child Left Behind Act against critics of federal educational accountability. Furthermore, Rice warned that modern populist anti-immigrant sentiments echo the protectionist Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the late 1920s, which historically exacerbated the Great Depression, while asserting that universal freedom remains the most reliable path to lasting peace.