Latest Interviews
Showing 6271–6285 of 6,382 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Milken Institute1h 5m
2015 CA Summit - Notice to Proceed: Clearing a Path for Infrastructure Financing
Dale Bonner, Samara Barend, Teveia Barnes, Marc Levine, Dean Palumbo
A panel of California Assemblymember Mark Levine, I-Bank official Tavia Barnes, and industry leaders from AECOM and Plenary addressed the state's $64 billion infrastructure maintenance gap and the political hurdles hindering effective public-private partnerships. The discussion highlighted the need for legislative reforms to accelerate project timelines, the adoption of innovative financing tools like third-party verification and tax-exempt bonds, and the potential of technology to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency. Speakers emphasized that while local agencies are successfully leveraging private capital for delivery, the state must overcome risk aversion and bureaucratic delays to meet the 2.5% GDP investment benchmark required for adequate infrastructure growth.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
John Kufuor, Former President of the Republic of Ghana: Talks at GS Session Highlights
This address examines Ghana's pivotal role as the first independent sub-Saharan nation while detailing the economic transformation achieved between 2001 and 2009 through market-oriented reforms that stabilized currency, doubled cocoa output, and eliminated extreme poverty. The narrative highlights the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to heal decades of military instability, successfully restoring confiscated assets and ensuring political accountability. By contextualizing these domestic successes within the broader evolution of the African Union toward democratic governance, the speaker presents Ghana as a benchmark for continental progress toward transparency and sustainable development.
- Goldman Sachs16 min
John Amaechi, Former NBA Player, Author and Executive Coach: Talks at GS Session Highlights
After a stranger's unexpected encouragement led John to basketball despite zero prior experience, he overcame a catastrophic hand injury by retraining as an ambidextrous player. His career strategy evolved from a naive focus on athletic height to a disciplined approach designed to counteract his own laziness and align with a broader goal of becoming a psychologist. John now leverages his unique background to advocate for workplace inclusion, arguing that teams only achieve greatness when members feel safe revealing their full identities beyond their professional roles.
- Goldman Sachs12 min
Neil Berg, Composer, Lyricist and Producer: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Neil Berg, a playwright who abandoned a planned career in law to pursue musical theater after an emotional breakthrough during his university years, discusses the rigorous demands of the industry and the necessity of treating art as an unavoidable calling. His current project, the rock musical "The 12" about the apostles, won the 2015 Henry Award following a difficult collaborative evolution with Tony winner Robert Schenken that required discarding existing compositions to align on a strict book-first structure. Berg further outlines essential mechanics for musical storytelling, emphasizing that successful productions rely on the precise alignment of approximately 50 collaborators and the strategic use of opening songs to establish character desires within the first ten minutes.
- Milken Institute1h 36m
Between Debt and the Devil: Money, Credit and Fixing Global Finance
Adair Turner, Mike Clouden, Matt Miller, Lord Adair Turner
Lord Adair Turner, former chairman of the UK Financial Services Authority, argues in *Between Debt and the Devil* that the global economic stagnation following the 2008 crisis stems from a failure to regulate private credit creation, which has shifted predominantly toward real estate speculation rather than business investment. He advocates for radical policy reforms including significantly higher bank capital requirements, strict lending limits on property markets, and the adoption of "overt money finance" to escape persistent low-growth equilibriums. Turner warns that without these structural adjustments and a reintegration of banking realities into macroeconomic models, advanced economies face continued inequality and the risk of social instability.
- Milken Institute1h 17m
The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers
Gillian Tett, John Seely Brown, Conrad Kieschel
The event examines the "Silo Effect," a cognitive and organizational fragmentation that drove failures ranging from the 2008 financial crisis to Sony's missed digital opportunity, while offering proven strategies to dismantle these barriers. It details how intentional physical design, data integration in New York City, and cultural shifts at organizations like the Cleveland Clinic and Facebook foster necessary "productive friction" to restore holistic vision. Ultimately, the discussion emphasizes that overcoming rigid classification requires leadership to prioritize unstructured collaboration and individual efforts to consume diverse perspectives to prevent future catastrophic breakdowns.
- 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.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
Nick Bollettieri, Tennis Legend: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Nick Bollettieri, Antonio Estevez
Founded in 1978, the Bollettieri Tennis Academy established the world's first full-time boarding school model by fusing intensive court training with a military-inspired academic curriculum to cultivate elite athletes. Legendary coach Nick Bollettieri attributes the success of ten world number ones, including Serena and Venus Williams and Andre Agassi, to his psychological mastery and the evolving necessity of peak physical fitness in modern tennis. Bollettieri now asserts that while innate talent remains irreplaceable, contemporary dominance relies on multidisciplinary support teams and strategic adaptation to equipment changes.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
Bob Colacello, Journalist: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Former *Vanity Fair* correspondent Bob Colacello recently presented his biographical works on Andy Warhol and the Reagans during a Goldman Sachs "Talks at GS" session, dissecting the strategic construction of Warhol's celebrity and Nancy Reagan's pivotal behind-the-scenes influence on Cold War diplomacy. Colacello reveals that Warhol leveraged his commercial art background and religious aesthetic knowledge to secularize icons like Marilyn Monroe, while simultaneously exposing how Nancy Reagan orchestrated the personal rapport between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that facilitated the Geneva summit. The presentation concludes by ranking Nancy Reagan among history's most influential first ladies, comparable to Edith Wilson and Eleanor Roosevelt, for her quiet but decisive management of her husband's political agenda and inner circle.
- Goldman Sachs16 min
David Adjaye, Architect: Talks at GS Session Highlights
David Adjaye, Val Carlotti, Tim McGillen
Award-winning architect David Ajayi is designing the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, a 400,000-square-foot facility authorized by George W. Bush and set to open in Washington D.C. in 2016. The design rejects a fixed signature style in favor of an inverted pyramid silhouette inspired by West African shrines, positioning the museum as a narrative transition between the National Mall and the Washington Memorial grounds. This project embodies Ajayi's philosophy of "democracy of knowledge" by utilizing public structures to destigmatize community access while reframing the African-American experience as central to American identity.
- Goldman Sachs11 min
Kenneth Langone & Neal Goldman on Building Successful Relationships: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Kenneth Langone, Neal Goldman, Ken, Neil
Relationship Science (RELPSY) leverages a proprietary social graph to map connections between 4 million individuals and 1.5 million organizations, replacing manual networking with automated pathways for wealth management, private equity, and non-profit sectors. Building on the legacy of Capital IQ's data utility, the platform introduces event-to-opportunity triggers and personalized intelligence to facilitate strategic introductions based on real-time financial filings and news. While the tool eliminates the friction of identifying mutual contacts, its effectiveness remains contingent on user execution and an ethical approach to relationship building that prioritizes client needs over immediate revenue.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
Muhammad Yunus and Andrea Jung of Grameen Bank: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Muhammad Yunus, Andrea Jung, Dina
Professor Muhammad Yunus founded Grameen Bank to pioneer a global microfinance movement that empowers the rural poor, a model now expanded in the United States under Andrea Jung's leadership at Grameen America. This U.S. branch utilizes a group-based lending structure to provide no-collateral loans to unbanked women, achieving a 99.6% repayment rate while transforming borrowers into financially literate citizens with improved credit scores. Beyond immediate lending, the organization drives long-term economic development through social enterprises like Grameen Shakti and anticipates accelerating impact by integrating mobile technology with traditional microfinance strategies.
- Goldman Sachs16 min
Deepak Chopra, M.D.: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Dr. Chopra synthesizes decades of medical observation and modern research on the microbiome to define well-being through five interconnected pillars, while advocating for the use of biosensors and biofeedback to objectively measure and regulate physiological stress. He argues that accessing a "ground state" of infinite potential through meditation allows individuals to transcend cultural conditioning and adopt enlightened leadership qualities such as deep reflection and authentic presence. These principles are presented as a business imperative, demonstrating that focused eight-hour workdays, adequate downtime, and the cultivation of meaning directly enhance organizational efficiency and counteract the detrimental effects of multitasking.
- 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.
- The Economist8 min
America's elderly prisoner boom
Samuel Baxter, Phillip Burdick, Glenn Crites, Dr. Steed, Glenn Kreitz
The rapid aging of the U.S. prison population has sparked the "Goldcoats" volunteer program at facilities like California Men's Colony, where elderly inmates provide low-cost peer care and protection to their vulnerable, prematurely aging counterparts. This initiative addresses critical health and safety gaps caused by dementia and predation while offering participants like life-sentence prisoner Samuel Baxter a mechanism for mutual survival and future security. Simultaneously, grief counselor Philip Burdick supports terminally ill inmates through hospice services, highlighting a systemic shift where legislative reforms have concentrated aging, high-risk populations in state prisons without adequate external resources for release.