Latest Interviews

Charles C. Mann - Americas Before Columbus & Scientific Wizardry

Charles C. Mann

The event examines historical contingency in colonial conquest and slavery through case studies of elite collaboration, epidemic-driven collapse, and the rise of Maroon societies. It contrasts technological divergences and "Wizard versus Prophet" debates on environmental limits with modern geopolitical shifts in the American West and Native sovereignty. Finally, the discussion evaluates future policy challenges regarding geoengineering, regulatory trade-offs, and the allocation of resources for critical human needs.

Is the war in Ukraine nearing its end?

On September 6th, Ukraine launched a surprise counterattack supported by an unprecedented flow of Western intelligence and weaponry, liberating over 8,000 square kilometers of territory and collapsing Russian defenses around Kharkiv. This strategic reversal has forced the Kremlin into defensive silence while exposing internal vulnerabilities, including rising nationalist discontent and a direct threat to Vladimir Putin's legitimacy. Although the offensive has shifted Ukrainian war aims toward reclaiming all pre-2014 borders, experts maintain that while military victory remains achievable, the immediate collapse of the Russian state remains unpredictable.

Swapping the Engine Out of a Moving Race Car with Ella Ehrlich

Ella Ehrlich, Ron Minsky

Jane Street engineers are modernizing the legacy Gord trading infrastructure by migrating its distribution layer to Kafka, implementing automated release pipelines, and refactoring data normalization to ensure high availability and scalability. These technical upgrades, which include shifting from push to pull-based data delivery and eliminating manual global deployment processes, directly support the system's goal of achieving 24/7 uptime without daily resets. Concurrently, the firm is expanding its engineering pipeline through targeted diversity initiatives like the Insight and InFocus programs, which have successfully raised female intern representation to 25% while establishing long-term relationships with underrepresented minority candidates.

Will Quist: Why 95% of Venture Capital is Not Really “Venture Capital” | 20VC #924

Will Quist, Harry Stebbings, Don Valentine

Will, a sixth-generation Bay Area native, launched SLO after a decade at Industry Ventures to challenge an industry he argues has abandoned true venture for consensus-driven growth capital. Operating with a "Special Forces" approach for early bets, the firm applies Charlie Munger's five enterprise value levers to identify founders and markets capable of converting hypotheses into first-party data. SLO remains a focused classic venture firm committed to avoiding multi-stage dilution while educating the market on which business models genuinely require venture funding.

Chris Kamara: The Untold Heartbreaking Story Of A Football Legend!

Chris Kamara, Stephen Bartlett

Football legend Chris Kamara discusses his life journey from overcoming severe racism and a turbulent childhood to navigating a broadcasting career, while addressing his recent diagnoses of an underactive thyroid and apraxia of speech. Despite facing significant health challenges that require intensive neurological therapy and cause severe anxiety, Kamara continues working in media after networks affirmed that even a reduced version of his output remains valuable. The conversation concludes with his reflection on family as his primary focus and a sponsorship feature for Huel ready-to-drink beverages.

Austin Vernon - Energy Superabundance, Starship Missiles, & Finding Alpha

Austin Vernon

Austin Vernon, a chemical engineer and software developer who maintains a pseudonymous identity, explores how falling space launch costs enable a new era of kinetic weaponry and how software complexity drives a shift toward vertically integrated manufacturing exemplified by Tesla. His analysis spans from the economic thresholds of CO2 electrolysis and the efficiency of small modular reactors to geopolitical realities in the Taiwan Strait, arguing that abundant, cheap energy will eventually trigger a carbon shortage rather than a surplus. Vernon concludes that sustainable investment alpha relies on labor-intensive operational insights and proprietary brands rather than public market data, emphasizing the critical role of technical depth in navigating complex physical systems.

Simon Sinek: The Advice Young People NEED To Hear | E176

Simon Sinek, Stephen Bartlett

Simon Sinek and Stephen Bartlett convene to critique the modern overemphasis on individualism, arguing for a necessary shift toward shared actualization and collective resilience to counter the growing fragility of Gen Z's workforce. They dissect critical workplace failures caused by fear and poor communication, advocating for "poly work" transparency and the replacement of the "employee" label with "team" to foster genuine psychological safety. Furthermore, the dialogue outlines actionable strategies for leaders to align career expectations, manage difficult feedback without immediate advice-giving, and balance traditional masculine decisiveness with empathetic female leadership.

Fernando Garcia, Co-Creative Director of Oscar de la Renta & Founder/Creative Director of Monse

Fernando Garcia, Susie Scherr

Former Oscar de la Renta principal designer Fernando Garcia and partner Laura Fernández founded the gender-neutral label Monse in 2016, leveraging a deconstructed aesthetic and social media strategy to fill a market void before García returned to Oscar de la Renta as co-creative director while retaining ownership of his separate brand. Since the 2014 announcement of his departure, the duo has cultivated a global clientele through a hybrid business model that balances 50% commercial safety with experimental risk, notably driving high-profile celebrity moments like Billie Eilish's viral Met Gala appearance. Their current approach prioritizes cultural adaptability and organic creative evolution, using a melting pot of diverse influences to disrupt traditional luxury norms and guide the brand's shift toward braver, individualistic dressing in the post-pandemic era.

Michael Mignano: How I Founded Anchor; Why TikTok could be a $2 TRILLION Company | 20VC #923

Michael Mignano, Mike Mignano

Venture partner Mike Volpi joins Lightspeed Venture Partners in New York to lead its new consumer team, leveraging his extensive experience to advocate for greater industry candor and transparency in founder-investor relationships. Drawing on his background with Anchor and past angel investments, he plans to execute early-stage capital deployments within 60 days while focusing on defensible social media innovations and direct creator monetization tools. His strategy emphasizes moving beyond traditional social graphs toward recommendation engines, aiming to help startups navigate the shift from viral hype to sustainable, algorithm-driven growth.

How Inflation, Rates and Recession Are Reshaping the Real Estate Market

Jeff Fine, Nora Creedon, Allison Nathan

Goldman Sachs identifies a structural shift in real estate where post-pandemic inflation and tighter credit markets have dismantled the asset class's historical role as a universal hedge, necessitating a move toward selective investment in sectors like residential and logistics. While public market REITs face significant dislocations from rising rates and recession fears, the firm highlights opportunities in private distressed assets and evergreen capital structures that leverage specific regional inefficiencies. The outlook for the coming decade demands a departure from broad market exposure, favoring assets with strong pricing power and limited supply constraints over traditional growth cycles.

Cliff Asness, Founder, Managing Principal, and Chief Investment Officer of AQR Capital Management

Cliff Asness, Sharmeen Mosavar Ramani

AQR Capital Management applies an "applied academia" framework to quantify investment returns, leveraging factors like value and momentum to explain historical outperformance and structuring portfolios to align with client risk tolerance rather than traditional hedge fund fee models. Managing significant volatility through co-designed products, the firm recently capitalized on a resurgence in value trends while warning that these premium returns may normalize over the next two to three years. Founder Cliff Asness anticipates a long-term consolidation in active management but maintains that human error is essential for market efficiency, advising professionals to prioritize intrinsic interest over cyclical industry trends.

4 Moments On The Diary Of A CEO That Changed My Life | E175

Mo Gawdat, Africa Brooke, Bear Grylls, Mel Robins

This session explores the biological mechanisms of neuroplasticity and nervous system regulation, detailing how repetition rewires the brain for survival or growth over periods ranging from twenty-one days to twenty-one months. It further examines the intersection of trauma, sexual shame, and relationship dynamics, contrasting transactional pornography models with tantric practices that prioritize emotional connection and explicit communication. Finally, the event defines resilience as a universal muscle built through repeated failure and outlines practical strategies for emotional regulation to restore a grounded baseline amidst high-pressure environments.

John Vervaeke: Meaning Crisis, Atheism, Religion & the Search for Wisdom | Lex Fridman Podcast #317

John Vervaeke, Lex Fridman

This dialogue dissects the modern "meaning crisis" as a historical deficit of wisdom and community structures that previously sustained human purpose. The speaker argues that meaning arises from transjective relationships and that cultivating it requires "ecologies of practice," including meditation, flow states, and collective dialogue to overcome self-deception. By redefining truth as a dynamic conformity between mind and reality, the discussion advocates for a shift from egocentric illusions to finite transcendence grounded in love and shared human experience.

What Basic Game Theory Teaches Us About Startups

Dalton Caldwell, Michael Seibel

This analysis defines zero-sum games as extractive scenarios where one participant's gain equals another's loss, contrasting them with positive-sum activities that create enduring value through mutual benefit. The discussion highlights how cognitive biases and systemic incentives often drive individuals toward high-risk zero-sum behaviors like gambling and leveraged trading, resulting in catastrophic failures rather than sustainable learning. Ultimately, the framework argues that societal progress and personal well-being depend on prioritizing positive-sum interactions that solve real problems, as reliance on extraction leads to long-term instability and unhappiness.

E94: NFT volume plummets, California's overreach, FBI meddling, climate change & national security

Chamath, Calacanis, Friedberg, David Sacks

David Sachs and Chamath Palihapitiya analyze market bubbles driven by collective belief and social capital while dissecting the economic fallout of California's $22 fast-food minimum wage law, which they argue will accelerate automation and harm labor markets. The hosts further critique federal election interference following Mark Zuckerberg's admission that the FBI pressured Facebook to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story, and they warn that aggressive climate policies without hydrocarbons risk global economic collapse. Ultimately, the discussion concludes by linking these domestic failures to a renewed Cold War, citing the abandonment of arms control treaties and the Soviet Union's economic demise as cautionary tales for modern governance.