Latest Interviews

Claire McDonnell and Jennifer Kim on Building an Inclusive Company Culture

Claire McDonnell, Jennifer Kim, Kat Manalac

Founders Jennifer Kim and TruLink CEO Isaac demonstrate that treating culture and Diversity & Inclusion as survival mechanisms drives superior long-term performance and retention compared to relying on tangible perks. Implementing specific tactics such as TruLink's "no blame" protocols and Lever's diverse interview panels allows early-stage companies to mitigate bias while fostering psychological safety. These strategies are supported by resources from organizations like Project Include and Capra Capital, emphasizing that intentional cultural design is a critical competitive advantage for sustainable growth.

Steve Coll: The Fight for the Future of Afghanistan

Steve Coll, Steve Kahl

Former Washington Post correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Kahl presents a critical analysis of U.S. strategic failures in Afghanistan, arguing that recurring misjudgments by three administrations resulted in ambiguous objectives and an inability to distinguish between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Kahl evaluates recent tactical shifts under the Trump administration as insufficient for winning the war, citing data that shows no significant change in territorial control despite increased troop pressure and policy hardening. The discussion concludes by examining how these historical policy errors inform the current evolution of journalism education at Columbia University, which is increasingly prioritizing data analysis and accountability reporting over traditional narrative styles.

Boyan Slat: Combatting Plastic Pollution in the World’s Oceans

Boyan Slat, Cliff Marriott

Founder and CEO Boyan Slat's organization is advancing a fleet of 60 passive, U-shaped floating barriers designed to remove 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within five years by leveraging natural ocean currents rather than traditional active fishing methods. Following a rigorous development cycle marked by early prototype failures and a $40 million capital raise, the system has evolved from inflatable chambers to solid pipe structures and is currently undergoing assembly at a facility near San Francisco for a targeted July launch. This initiative addresses an annual economic cost of $13 billion and a threat to 800 marine species by simultaneously targeting legacy accumulation in the Pacific and intercepting the roughly 2 million tons of river-borne plastic entering the ocean each year.

Anne Wojcicki : How to Build the Future

Anne Wojcicki, William Brangham, Dr. Kathleen King

Anne Wojcijk founded 23andMe to democratize genomic data by shifting healthcare incentives from illness monetization to preventative health, despite initial skepticism from medical professionals regarding direct-to-consumer genetic testing. Overcoming early market volatility and a regulatory transition, the company now boasts a community of over five million customers and has secured FDA approvals to leverage its massive dataset for drug discovery and large-scale intervention studies. This persistent execution of a decade-long vision aims to eventually enable personalized longevity strategies by linking genetic profiles with environmental factors like diet and exercise.

James Forman, Jr.: Rethinking Race and Criminal Justice Reform

James Forman, Jr., Cork Golumbik, James Swarman Jr.

Yale Law professor and former prosecutor James Swarman Jr. leverages his dual legal experience and background as the child of SNCC civil rights leaders to expose the internal tensions within Black political thought that fueled the rise of mass incarceration. He critiques how historical misallocations of federal resources and selective enforcement policies, such as the race-targeted "Operation Ceasefire," created collateral consequences that disproportionately punished Black communities while failing to address root causes like addiction and economic disparity. By analyzing individual case studies like that of Dante, Swarman argues against categorical legislative exclusions of "violent offenders," advocating instead for personalized rehabilitation approaches that recognize the complex narratives behind criminal behavior.

Daniel Schwartz: The Millennial CEO Changing the Fast Food Industry

Daniel Schwartz, Jennifer Coppola

Daniel Schwartz, CEO of Restaurant Brands International, leads Burger King, Tim Hortons, and Popeyes by applying 3G Capital’s meritocratic ownership model to revitalize operations and accelerate young leadership. This strategy includes mandatory frontline shifts for executives, streamlined menus to boost profitability, and equity incentives that replace tenure-based promotion with performance-driven advancement. Under Schwartz’s direction, the parent company has shifted its product focus toward authentic ingredients while leveraging a generational mindset to drive technological self-disruption across the global foodservice sector.

Cost vs Quality in Edtech – Keith Schacht, Avichal Garg, and Geoff Ralston

Keith Schacht, Avichal Garg, Geoff Ralston

Avicii and Keith Peltz examine the evolution of EdTech since 2011, analyzing how the industry's historical struggle with the "cost versus quality" trade-off and misaligned venture capital expectations for growth curves have shaped current market dynamics. They identify a pivotal structural shift where high-speed internet access and teacher-led adoption are dismantling the "free school" barrier, enabling companies like Mystery Science to prove that superior digital products can succeed in the mass market. The founders conclude that future innovation will likely bypass traditional public systems to focus on "learning companies" addressing individual outcomes, job training, and adult self-directed education rather than relying on institutional bureaucracy.

Effective Programming: Adding an Effect System to OCaml

This presentation details a comprehensive framework for algebraic effects that separates effect specification from implementation by treating operations like concurrency and state as explicit, resumable interruptions. It contrasts this approach with traditional monads to eliminate boilerplate and demonstrates a full conversion of the OCaml standard library, introducing syntax for tracking purity, region-based locality, and effect polymorphism directly in the type system. The work culminates in a runtime model where effect handlers manage heap-allocated call stacks while future extensions aim to enforce region safety and support multi-handler compositions for complex scenarios.

3D Home Printing for the Developing World – Alexandria Lafci and Brett Hagler of New Story Charity

Alexandria Lafci, Brett Hagler, Craig

New Story, a Y Combinator alumni non-profit, partners with local governments and impoverished families to deliver dignified housing in Haiti, Latin America, and emerging markets. The organization transitioned from traditional aid models to a transparent crowdfunding strategy that funded 100 homes in 92 days, before launching a 3D-printing initiative with partner Icon to drastically reduce construction costs and time. This technological pivot now targets global scalability through open-source templates and community-driven micro-economies that empower residents to co-design their own homes.

Amy Chua: Political Tribalism and American Foreign Policy

Amy Chua, Rob Mass

Yale Law professor Amy Chua analyzes global and domestic group dynamics through her concept of the "supergroup," contrasting the United States' unique ability to balance national unity with subgroup flourishing against the assimilationist models of France and China. She attributes rising U.S. political polarization to demographic shifts that have created defensive tribalism between coastal elites and the white majority, a division she attributes to a rhetorical shift from universalism to identity politics. Chua concludes by proposing practical remedies such as a national service "gap year" to foster intergroup interaction and arguing that allowing controversial speech prevents extremism from festering in epistemological silos.

André Aciman: The Meaning and Message of 'Call Me By Your Name'

André Aciman, Pablo Salame

Author and distinguished CUNY professor Andre Aciman discusses the autobiographical origins of *Call Me By Your Name*, explaining how his fragmented Egyptian-Italian-American identity and childhood obsessions shaped the novel's exploration of ambiguous desire and the "San Clemente syndrome." He details the adaptation process by director Luca Guadagnino, noting how the film condensed written dialogue into improvisational screen time while preserving the story's core tension between articulation and the unspoken. Aciman further reflects on the work's emotional resonance, arguing that the text captures the universal human tendency to mourn a fabricated fantasy of what "might have happened" rather than accepting the reality of the present.

Breaking Down HackerRank's Survey of 40,000 Developers with Vivek Ravisankar

Vivek Ravisankar, Hari, Paul Bouquet, PG, Sam, Jessica, Akshay, Shiv, Nicola, Ritika, Mark Mandelbaum Kosinskiy

HackerRank co-founder Vivek Desai recounts the company's evolution from a failed educational venture to a global platform that connects over 3.4 million developers with employers through verified coding assessments rather than traditional resumes. As the first Indian-based Y Combinator company, the team overcame logistical hurdles to establish a market shift toward skill-based hiring, effectively reducing bias and replacing abstract brain teasers with practical problem-solving challenges. Recent data from their community highlights key industry trends, including a surge in self-taught programmers, the rising demand for Python and Go skills, and a corporate move toward prioritizing work-life balance and remote talent acquisition.

Deborah DiSanzo: Solving the World’s Health Problems of the Future

Deborah DiSanzo, Christina Minnis

Former healthcare executive Deborah DeSanza leads IBM Watson Health's initiative to integrate artificial intelligence and cloud computing with clinical expertise, achieving tangible results such as reducing breast cancer trial matching times by 75% at the Mayo Clinic and accelerating drug discovery from 18 months to under 12 weeks. By partnering with major industry consortia to aggregate millions of patient records, the organization aims to alleviate physician burnout caused by electronic health record burdens while lowering costs through real-world evidence generation. Under the strategic direction of IBM Chairman Ginni Rometty, this approach shifts the technology firm from legacy hardware to a dominant position in AI-driven healthcare solutions that prioritize patient data ownership and life-saving outcomes.

John Avlon: Covering the Intersection of Politics and Power

John Avlon

Former speechwriter and *Daily Beast* Editor-in-Chief John Avlon applies a legacy of 9/11-era resilience and a nonpartisan but morally accountable framework to steer the publication's growth to 1.1 million daily readers while targeting powerful bullies and bigots. He warns that contemporary journalism must actively counter hyper-partisanship and misinformation, drawing on George Washington's Farewell Address to advocate for national unity and fiscal responsibility amidst the challenges of the current political climate. Avlon maintains that holding power accountable requires a clear mission to follow facts regardless of political preference, a principle that guided the newsroom's diverse hiring strategy and its coverage of high-stakes investigations like the Mueller probe.

How does sci-fi influence the real world?

Martin Cooper, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Paul McAuley, Syd Mead

Prominent innovators like Martin Cooper, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk have directly translated science fiction concepts from works such as *Star Trek* and *Blade Runner* into tangible technologies ranging from mobile phones to Mars colonization efforts. By examining the mechanical viability strategies of designers like Sid Mead and the ethical warnings embedded in narratives about AI and virtual reality, industry leaders utilize the genre to anticipate both technological trajectories and societal risks. Ultimately, the event highlights how a sci-fi foundation drives real-world innovation while serving as a crucial cautionary framework for navigating future ethical dilemmas.