Latest Interviews
Showing 3196–3210 of 3,244 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Goldman Sachs41 min
Speaker Series for Interns: Senior Economists from Global Investment Research
Jan Hatzius, Dominic Wilson, Allison Nathan
Jan and co-speakers assess the post-2009 global economy as significantly improved from a Depression scenario yet still hampered by insufficient stimulus, premature fiscal tightening, and slow central bank responses. While US growth is forecast to accelerate to roughly 2.7% by mid-2014 driven by housing and demographics, supporting equity upside despite rich valuations, Europe and Japan face subdued growth and inflation challenges requiring more aggressive monetary easing. The analysts predict the Federal Reserve will hold rates near zero until early 2016 due to hidden labor market slack, whereas emerging markets are navigating a painful 12-to-18-month correction phase before resuming their long-term role as primary global growth engines.
- Y Combinator19 min
Kathryn Minshew at Female Founders Conference 2014
Kathryn Minshew, Catherine Minshew
The Muse, a career discovery platform founded by CEO Catherine Minshew and co-founders Alex and Melissa, grew from a WordPress MVP to over one million monthly users by prioritizing product-market fit over perfection and securing Y Combinator funding after multiple rejections. The team achieved rapid distribution through zero-cost acquisition tactics, such as manual outreach to niche groups and frictionless referral tools, while maintaining a lean culture where leaders earn less than their employees to emphasize mission over profit. Their strategic shift from vanity metrics like video views to core indicators like job applications allowed them to validate demand with the target demographic and scale from a two-user beta to a sustainable global platform.
- 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.
- Milken Institute1h 9m
MI Breakfast With Bill Richardson, Moderated by Ambassador Charles Ries
Bill Richardson, Charles Ries, Mike Clowden, Kevin Blyer
Governor Bill Richardson and Ambassador Charles Reese joined Milken Institute and RAND for a joint breakfast in Santa Monica to launch Richardson's book, *How to Sweet Talk a Shark*, and outline future innovation summits. The discussion featured Richardson's firsthand accounts of negotiating hostage releases with dictators in North Korea, Sudan, and Cuba, while also detailing strategic lessons on ethics, translator reliability, and the necessity of personal rapport. The event further highlighted three upcoming initiatives: a Nobel Laureate conversation with Edmund Phelps, a biotech investor conference in New York, and a private California Summit for state-level policy reform.
- Y Combinator29 min
Office Hours at Startup School 2013 with Paul Graham and Sam Altman
Paul Graham, Sam Altman, George Saines, Nick Winter, Karen Cheng, Finbarr Taylor, Ryan Petersen
Three distinct startups presented during recent Y Combinator office hours: a multi-player coding game that faced viral server outages and plans to monetize through recruitment, a 100-day progress video tracker with a 4,300-person waiting list, and a digital customs brokerage replacing manual paperwork with a national web platform. The game team intends to open-source its code while refining its learning curve, the progress tracker will launch publicly with social features to leverage its high user engagement, and the customs firm targets a $3 billion market by charging a flat fee for electronic clearance. These ventures collectively demonstrate diverse approaches to product-market fit, ranging from leveraging community development for talent acquisition to modernizing legacy logistics operations through software automation.
- Y Combinator27 min
Ron Conway at Startup School 2013
Ron Conway, Jessica Livingston
SV Angel general partner Ron Conway outlines a human-centric investment philosophy where character and product focus are prioritized over immediate metrics, illustrated by landmark stakes in Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. The discussion highlights critical fundraising strategies, such as valuing strategic "value-added" investors over high valuations and maintaining rigorous hiring and firing discipline to ensure scalability. These insights are contextualized within the broader evolution of the tech industry from desktop to mobile, emphasizing how founder maturation and IP shifts continue to define successful ventures.
- Y Combinator28 min
Phil Libin at Startup School 2013
Evernote co-founder Phil Libin outlines the critical importance of selecting long-term co-founders and building products for personal necessity, a philosophy refined through previous ventures like Engine 5 and CoreStreet. Despite surviving a 2008 cash crisis after a legal structure error and a collapsed European investment, the company secured its future through a small emergency loan from an early user and strategic partnerships with investors who were genuine product fans. Libin concludes that the modern app economy validates this approach, where creating an "epic" product for oneself naturally attracts a global audience without requiring traditional market fit validation.
- Y Combinator36 min
Mark Zuckerberg at Startup School 2013
Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Sean Parker, David Zipursky
Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook from a Harvard dormitory to solve personal connectivity issues by prioritizing real identity and bidirectional friend networks over generic sign-ups, eventually outmaneuvering competitors at Yale, Stanford, and Columbia. The platform's rapid expansion was driven by a strategic focus on maximizing network effects and a "lockdown" response to threats like College Facebook, though the company still struggles to surpass regional rivals like VKontakte in markets with distinct legal environments. Zuckerberg's subsequent mission to connect the global unconnected population via Internet.org reflects his belief that successful startups require an irrational commitment to a core outcome while maintaining a culture that hires superiors and learns rapidly from errors.
- Milken Institute1h 14m
Innovate Like IDEO: Meet the Dynasts of Design
David Kelley, Tom Kelley, Patrick Adams, Mike Clouton
IDEO co-founders David and Tom Kelly argue that creative confidence, a universal trait combining ideation with the courage to act, can be rebuilt through guided mastery to overcome societal fear of failure. Their framework emphasizes radical collaboration, empathy-driven problem reframing, and strategic prototyping, exemplified by innovations like the low-cost Embrace incubator and the redesign of the computer mouse. By shifting focus from innate talent to disciplined practice and rapid iteration, the authors demonstrate how individuals and organizations can systematically unlock breakthrough solutions across diverse fields.
- Y Combinator38 min
Ron Conway at Startup School 2012
Ron Conway, the largest limited partner at SV Angel, leads an investment firm with a track record of funding roughly 650 internet startups including Google, Facebook, and Twitter by prioritizing founder character over traditional pattern recognition. His strategy relies on rapid assessment of entrepreneurial traits and exponential growth metrics, exemplified by his direct orchestration of Google's Series A funding and a "sight unseen" investment in Twitter driven by founder integrity. While acknowledging significant missed opportunities like Salesforce and Pandora, Conway predicts the internet remains in its infancy with vast potential for e-commerce integration, maintaining that the industry's focus must shift toward product quality and user satisfaction to capture future massive returns.
- Y Combinator32 min
Mark Zuckerberg at Startup School 2012
Launched in January 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, the service leveraged mandatory .edu email verification to establish high-quality identity networks within elite universities before scaling its infrastructure through immediate ad revenue. The team prioritized rigorous data integrity and biological social modeling over rapid expansion, resulting in explosive adoption rates that reached millions of users while maintaining a debt-free financial structure. This organic growth eventually forced a strategic pivot in the summer of 2004, as the founders relocated to Palo Alto and transitioned from a college project to a permanent enterprise after realizing part-time management could not sustain the scaling user base.
- Y Combinator26 min
Hiroshi Mikitani at Startup School 2012
Founded in 1997 by Hiroshi Mikitani with $200,000 in self-funded capital, Rakuten achieved profitability within two months and went public in 2000 by rejecting the traditional venture capital model. The company now commands 35–40% of the Japanese e-commerce market and operates 38 distinct businesses globally, expanding its ecosystem through strategic acquisitions like Kobo and a dedicated focus on shop-centric merchant services. Driven by a "merchant-first" philosophy and a recent mandate to adopt English as the official corporate language, Rakuten continues to pivot toward digital content sales and mobile commerce while maintaining strict cultural alignment across its international operations.