Latest Interviews
Showing 151–165 of 200 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Milken Institute59 min
Leading a Healthy Life
Paula Zahn, Rip Esselstyn, Michael O. Johnson, Erik Oberholtzer, Dean Ornish, Shazi Visram
Dr. Dean Ornish leads a panel demonstrating that integrated lifestyle interventions involving plant-based nutrition, stress management, and social connection can reverse chronic conditions ranging from heart disease to prostate cancer while simultaneously reducing long-term healthcare costs. The discussion identifies structural barriers such as food deserts and industrial subsidies as primary obstacles, proposing community-based solutions like affordable plant foods and distributed health platforms to ensure equitable access. Ultimately, the group concludes that individual behavioral choices, driven by the joy of living rather than fear, serve as the definitive determinant of health and can override genetic predispositions to prevent premature mortality.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
A Conversation with Sherry Lansing
Sherry Lansing, Stephen Galloway
Former 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures chairman Sherry Lansing spent 25 years leading Hollywood's most prominent studios, producing blockbusters like *Titanic* and *Forrest Gump* while overcoming gender bias and high-pressure production crises. In 2003, she transitioned from film to philanthropy, founding the Sherry Lansing Foundation to advance cancer research and education after a pivotal meeting with Jimmy Carter. Now 72, Lansing reports greater authenticity and joy in her charitable work than in her decades of studio management, with plans to remain active until age 100.
- Milken Institute1h 40m
Asia Summit 2015 - AIIB and the Evolving Multilateral Lending Landscape
Mike Milken, Lee Kuan Yew, Jin Li-chun, Tommy Koh, Jin Tong, Tadashi Maeda, Clive Kerner, Elena Okorochinko
At a Milken Institute discussion, AIIB President-designate Jin Li-chun outlined the bank's lean, clean, and green operational framework designed to complement existing multilateral development banks in addressing a global infrastructure financing gap of $2 trillion annually. With 57 provisional founding members approved and a target to operationalize by year-end, the institution plans to leverage a 2.5 gearing ratio to reach $250 billion in lending capacity while offering flexible financing stages to bridge the $8 trillion Asian infrastructure demand projected for 2030. Although major economies like the United States and Japan remain cautious, stakeholders including rating agencies and the IFC view the AIIB as a strategic partner capable of enhancing credit quality and mobilizing private capital for sustainable development.
- Milken Institute1h 4m
Who Gets What — and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design
Alvin Roth, Dan Ariely, Peter Purcell
Nobel laureate Al Roth explains how market design distinguishes between commodity and matching mechanisms to address structural frictions like exploding offers and congestion that cause real-world inefficiencies. By applying these principles to complex systems, he has facilitated life-saving kidney exchanges and proposed regulatory shifts for high-frequency trading and healthcare to align incentives with social welfare. Roth argues that intentional institutional redesign, rather than reliance on price signals alone, is essential for optimizing outcomes in labor, criminal justice, and education sectors.
- Milken Institute43 min
Commercial Diplomacy: A Conversation With U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, acting as the chief commercial advocate, outlined a strategy to bridge the business community and the administration by prioritizing legislative reforms on trade promotion, patent litigation, and corporate taxation to restore global competitiveness. The Department leverages its four-pillar framework to maximize data utility from agencies like the National Weather Service while deploying 108 Export Assistance Centers and diplomatic missions to advance U.S. interests in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Simultaneously, the administration focuses on critical infrastructure cybersecurity standards and international tax reform to unlock trillions in stranded capital and stimulate domestic investment.
- Milken Institute51 min
Fountain of Age: Unlocking the Secrets of Longer Life
Dr. Craig Venter, Dr. Peter Diamandis, Paul Irving
Human Longevity, Inc. is executing a strategy to sequence one million human genomes and integrate multi-omics data, including microbiome and neuroimaging, to enable predictive modeling that identifies complex genetic traits and anticipates diseases like dementia decades before onset. By leveraging machine learning to correlate vast datasets with phenotypic markers, the company aims to shift healthcare from reactive treatment to preventative intervention while addressing significant privacy challenges through advanced security protocols. The initiative projects to revolutionize the global economy by extending healthy lifespans, potentially unlocking trillions in capital and redefining retirement, provided society navigates the associated ethical frameworks regarding genetic data and discrimination.
- Milken Institute59 min
The Learning Gap: Creating the Workforce Industry Needs
Giselle Fernandez, Felix Ortiz III, Eloy Ortiz-Oakley, Chris Romer, Raul Valentin, Judy Woodruff
A diverse panel of education leaders and industry experts identified a critical national skills gap where 75 million Americans lack qualifications for middle-skill jobs, creating a mismatch between over 1 million unfilled openings and millions of unemployed individuals. Key figures including Felix Ortiz III, Raul Valentin, and Chris Romer argued that bureaucratic educational rigidity, outdated funding models, and insufficient employer engagement are exacerbating this crisis, which they characterize as a national security threat and an economic imperative requiring a shift toward competency-based outcomes. To resolve these barriers, the group proposed a new "employment triangle" that ties state funding to graduation rates, leverages data to align curricula with labor demands, and establishes hybrid credentialing systems to support lifelong learning and demographic surges.
- Milken Institute57 min
A Path Appears: A Conversation With Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Nicholas Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn, Steve Grove, Nick Kristof, Ashley, Derek McKesson, Dan Galpin, Esther Duflo, Brian Mulaney, Dan Pallotta, Eric Schmidt, Sheryl McCarthy, Nick Orloveyski
Google News Lab director Steve Grove facilitated a discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn regarding their book *A Path Appears* and its accompanying PBS documentary on transforming social vulnerability into opportunity. The speakers advocate for applying business principles and market incentives to poverty alleviation, citing evidence from randomized trials that effective interventions must measure outcomes rather than inputs and leverage corporate strategies to address systemic issues like missing girls and the "word gap." They further highlight the physiological benefits of philanthropy and argue that future social progress depends on a "double bottom line" model where for-profit enterprises and rigorous data measurement replace traditional charity to solve intractable challenges in education, health, and urban violence.
- Milken Institute48 min
A Conversation With Ben Horowitz
Ben Horowitz discusses the unexpected broad resonance of his book *The Hard Thing About Hard Things* while detailing the dramatic $2.8 billion valuation of Slack, which emerged from a $18 million failure at TinySpec. He analyzes modern market dynamics, arguing that Silicon Valley avoids bubbles due to lower capital requirements and cloud infrastructure, while noting that regulatory gaps in private markets pose significant risks to liquidity and valuation. Additionally, Horowitz outlines a non-quota hiring strategy that eliminated unconscious bias to achieve 53% female representation and debunks the notion of a ride-sharing monopoly by highlighting driver saturation and the imminent disruption of self-driving technology.
- Milken Institute46 min
Engaging a Curious Mind: Brian Grazer Talks With Bob Iger About Life, Listening
Brian Grazer, Bob Iger, Robert Iger
Producer Brian Grazer attributes his success in film and television to a disciplined practice of seeking diverse conversations, ranging from political leaders like Vladimir Putin to scientists like Jonas Salk, which consistently reshape his creative perspectives. This approach, which he details in *A Curious Mind*, treats curiosity as a strategic superpower that has directly influenced major projects such as *Apollo 13* and *Empire* by connecting disparate experiences into coherent narratives. Executives like Bob Iger have adopted similar metrics for leadership, prioritizing authentic curiosity in hiring and strategic decision-making to navigate complex market dynamics.
- Milken Institute1h 6m
Dealing With China: A Conversation With Henry Paulson
Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson details his tenure managing the 2008 financial crisis, highlighting real-time policy pivots involving Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers that prevented total economic collapse. He further outlines his strategic engagement with China, noting the establishment of the Strategic Economic Dialogue which secured long-term climate cooperation while navigating tensions over human rights and intellectual property theft. Looking forward, Paulson advises prioritizing pragmatic economic linkages and institutional influence, such as joining the AIIB, to manage the complex spectrum of U.S.-China relations amid rising geopolitical and structural challenges.
- Milken Institute1h 23m
The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters
Gregory Zuckerman, Joel Kurtzman, Conrad Kieschel, Greg Zuckerman, David J., Eric Schmidt, John McCutchan, David Freeman, David Sanger
At a Milken Institute forum, author Greg Zuckerman and moderator Joel Kurtzman analyzed how unconventional entrepreneurs like George Mitchell and Harold Hamm drove a U.S. energy revolution, slashing import dependence from 40% to 14.5% through hydraulic fracturing innovations. This technological surge, powered by horizontal drilling and "slick water" fracking, transformed the nation into the world's top energy producer while generating millions of jobs and reshaping global geopolitical dynamics. Despite ongoing debates regarding environmental safety and seismic activity, the discussion emphasizes that these breakthroughs have provided a critical economic bridge toward future renewable energy adoption.
- Milken Institute1h 16m
Uncharted: Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture
Erez Aiden, Jean-Baptiste Michel, Skip Reimer
This analysis of a 5-million-book corpus derived from Google Books reveals how irregular verbs have regularized, collective memory decays faster than ever, and the time for technological adoption has plummeted from 65 to 26 years. Researchers also quantified the suppressive power of regimes like Nazi Germany and modern China through automated detection of n-gram frequency drops while demonstrating that cultural inertia allows for predictable long-term language trends. Ultimately, the study advocates for democratized big data access to objectively track public sentiment, career fame trajectories, and potential algorithmic biases across diverse fields.
- Milken Institute1h 17m
Son of a Gambling Man: My Journey from a Casino Family to the Governor's Mansion
Bob Miller, Joel Kurtzman, Mike Milken
On January 21, 2014, Harvard researchers Aris Aydin and Jean-Baptiste Michel will discuss *Uncharted Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture* alongside former Nevada Governor Bob Miller, who remains at the venue to sign copies of his autobiography. The event contextualizes Miller's career within the broader evolution of Las Vegas, tracing its transformation from a mob-influenced gambling hub into a globally recognized economic leader through the strategic visions of figures like Bugsy Siegel, Howard Hughes, and Steve Wynn. By detailing shifts in financing, regulatory oversight, and infrastructure, the session highlights how legal enforcement and corporate innovation drove Nevada's diversification beyond gaming into fields such as biotechnology, mining, and tech.
- Milken Institute56 min
A Conversation with Edmund Phelps, Moderated by Peter Passell
Edmund Phelps, Peter Passell, Krishna Kumar
Co-hosted by RAND and the Milken Institute, this event featured Nobel Laureate Edmund Phelps arguing that a shift from individualism to corporatism since the 1930s has stifled indigenous innovation and halved US productivity growth rates. Phelps highlighted that while established corporations currently leverage regulatory protections to block startups, China is matching historical US innovation rates through technological diffusion and grassroots experimentation. He concluded that reversing the stagnation requires a fundamental cultural shift that prioritizes individual creativity and risk-taking over traditional conformism, as standard economic policies alone cannot restore economic dynamism.