Latest Interviews
Showing 6451–6465 of 9,969 transcripts.
Clear all filters- The Economist8 min
Covid-19: Bill Gates predicts the end of the pandemic
Bill Gates, Zanny Minton Beddoes
Bill Gates warns that the pandemic's global economic and health toll has surpassed earlier projections, prompting the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to pivot its resources toward financing the manufacturing and distribution of six promising vaccine candidates. While Phase III trials project 80% to 90% efficacy by September, Gates emphasizes that securing $10 billion to $12 billion is critical to overcoming current funding gaps and ensuring low-cost access for developing nations without which global herd immunity remains unattainable. He further cautions that achieving the estimated 30% to 60% vaccination coverage needed to halt transmission by late 2021 depends heavily on sustained US leadership, as the decline in multilateral cooperation and rising debt risks in emerging markets threaten to exacerbate existing inequalities and economic instability.
- Goldman Sachs9 min
The Business Case for Investing in Diversity
Goldman Sachs Asset Management integrates diversity and inclusion into its core investment thesis by linking team plurality and corporate ESG performance to superior financial returns and long-term GDP growth. The firm operationalizes this strategy through aggressive stewardship policies that have historically voted against boards lacking female representation, successfully prompting 40% of affected U.S. companies to add women to their leadership teams. Looking forward, GSAM prioritizes engaging companies on racial demographic disclosures and aligning portfolios with shifting millennial consumer preferences to secure addressable market growth.
- Goldman Sachs7 min
What Investors are Watching in Europe
Overseeing a global private wealth pool exceeding $350 trillion, investors leveraged flexible long-term horizons to navigate recent market uncertainty through strategic equity rebalancing and increased philanthropic giving. Driven by negative interest rates and distorted valuations, particularly in Europe, capital is increasingly migrating from public to private markets with a specific focus on expanding private debt allocations. Simultaneously, the intensification of ESG criteria and the European Green Deal's $8 trillion investment requirement are forcing wealth managers to integrate social and environmental factors into every aspect of their decision-making processes.
- Milken Institute1h 8m
Investing for Impact in Emerging and Frontier Markets
Glenn Yago, Bonnie Glick, Ambassador Gil Haskel, Strive Masiyiwa, Weldon Turner, Malado Kaba, Gil Haskel
Deputy Administrator Bonnie Glick of USAID and Ambassador Gil Haskell of MASHAV launched a strategic partnership to mobilize the $16 trillion U.S. institutional investor community for sustainable infrastructure and digital development in Africa and Asia. Panelists including Strive Masiwa and Weldon Turner emphasized that overcoming a "gap of trust" and standardizing regulatory approval processes are critical to unlocking the $12 trillion in business opportunities outlined by the Sustainable Development Goals. The initiative aims to transition from emergency aid to impact investment by integrating climate-sensitive agriculture, 5G infrastructure, and localized financial solutions to support the projected 2.5 billion people in these regions by 2050.
- Milken Institute45 min
Asia Impact: A New Blueprint for Healthcare Systems
Peggy Sito, Dr. Donald Li Kwok-Tung, Roberta Lipson, Grace Park, Jeff Chen
Hosted by the Milken Institute and South China Post, this webinar gathered global health leaders to analyze how the pandemic exposed critical gaps in primary care and accelerated digital health adoption across Asia. Experts highlighted that while China and Singapore successfully leveraged rapid testing and ten-fold telemedicine surges, the region must now integrate public health functions with family doctors to manage chronic diseases in an aging population. The session concluded with urgent calls for international digital health standards and InsurTech innovations to ensure equitable vaccine distribution and shift from reactive treatment to preventive, membership-based care models.
- Milken Institute55 min
Venture Philanthropy in Action: A Case Study of EB Research Partnership and ProQR
Kristin Schneeman, Michael Hund, Alex Silver, Daniel de Boer, Mark de Souza, Esther Krofa
In a 2020 webinar moderated by Michael Hund of the EB Research Partnership (EBRP), experts Alex Silver, Daniel DeBoer, and Mark D'Souza detailed EBRP's venture philanthropy model, which invests capital in for-profit enterprises to de-risk intellectual property in exchange for financial returns rather than traditional grants. The discussion highlighted a successful collaboration with ProQR Therapeutics that led to the rapid formation of Wings Therapeutics, a structure leveraging equity and milestone-based royalties to accelerate Epidermolysis Bullosa drug development by years. By prioritizing specialized legal counsel and strategic flexibility over standard nonprofit conventions, EBRP aims to catalyze over 30 clinical trials and shift rare disease treatment timelines from years to months while generating competitive financial returns.
- Goldman Sachs25 min
George Roberts, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of KKR
KKR co-founder George Roberts discusses the firm's unprecedented $18 billion deployment during the pandemic while highlighting a strategic pivot toward diversity mandates and venture philanthropy for reentry populations. Drawing on a 40-year partnership built on equal economics and shared values, Roberts emphasizes that investing success relies on interpersonal judgment and long-term adaptability rather than mere financial analysis. He further outlines KKR's ESG integration and investment philosophy, which aims to transform social enterprises into for-profit entities and encourages competitors to adopt sustainable practices for broader industry benefit.
- Lex Fridman1h 42m
Sara Seager: Search for Planets and Life Outside Our Solar System | Lex Fridman Podcast #116
MIT planetary scientist Sarah Seeger launched her memoir *The Smallest Lights in the Universe* by merging her personal grief with a revised scientific framework known as the Seager Equation to estimate the prevalence of detectable life. She details how next-generation technologies, including the Starshade Project and Solar Gravitational Lens missions, aim to identify biosignatures like oxygen in exoplanet atmospheres within the coming two decades. Beyond the technical frontier, Seeger reflects on the human drive for connection and the philosophical necessity of finding purpose while confronting mortality.
- Lex Fridman2h 10m
Dileep George: Brain-Inspired AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #115
Vicarious and its researchers advocate for a recursive cortical network architecture that prioritizes biological plausibility through feedback loops and local learning rules rather than the massive scaling and backpropagation of current deep learning models. This approach has enabled the system to achieve state-of-the-art performance on CAPTCHAs and few-shot learning tasks by modeling the causal structure of the world instead of memorizing statistical correlations in text. By integrating perception, cognition, and language into a unified generative framework, the work challenges the limitations of feed-forward transformers and proposes a path toward true artificial general intelligence grounded in physical and temporal reasoning.
- Goldman Sachs12 min
Evolving Corporate Sentiment in Europe
European CEOs are transitioning from crisis management to growth-oriented strategies, marked by a resurgence in M&A activity and a renewed focus on strategic decision-making. Leaders are actively balancing operational shifts like remote work and return-to-office debates against major geopolitical risks and a heightened emphasis on ESG mandates and corporate purpose. This evolving landscape is fueled by improved confidence in EU leadership and a structural economic shift toward technology, healthcare, and renewable energy sectors.
- The Economist11 min
Covid-19: When will a vaccine be ready?
Slavia Chankova, Callum Williams
Global teams are racing to develop vaccines with an estimated 80% success probability, yet full worldwide distribution is projected to take at least two years due to significant manufacturing constraints. While the pandemic causes weekly economic losses of $200 billion to $250 billion, achieving herd immunity requires overcoming distribution inequities and public skepticism, with experts recommending that wealthy nations support GAVI to ensure access for developing countries. Industry and government leaders face a complex balancing act between incentivizing rapid innovation through potential profits and adhering to ethical protocols that prioritize healthcare workers, the elderly, and vulnerable populations.
- Goldman Sachs13 min
The Global R&D Landscape
While the United States maintains its global lead in absolute scientific research spending, it has slipped to eighth place in R&D intensity as nations like China, South Korea, and Israel accelerate their investment rates and educational pipelines. The U.S. research ecosystem increasingly relies on foreign-born talent for innovation, yet domestic funding remains narrowly concentrated in IT and pharmaceuticals compared to the manufacturing-focused strategies of European and Asian competitors. This shifting landscape underscores a growing reliance on international collaboration and public funding mechanisms to sustain the translational bridge between basic discovery and commercial application.
- Goldman Sachs29 min
Dominique Ansel, Author of "Everyone Can Bake"
Chef Dominique Ansel leveraged his Michelin-starred experience and mentorship-focused kitchen culture to pivot his business toward delivery and digital engagement during the pandemic, ultimately publishing *Everyone Can Bake* to teach foundational techniques through a "choose your own adventure" methodology. The event details his strategic evolution from the viral success of the one-flavor-per-month Cronut to recent adaptations like global recipe replication and specialized home-baking tutorials. Ansel emphasizes creating emotional connections through portable, multi-sensory desserts while demystifying the scientific precision required for baking.
- Goldman Sachs9 min
The Beauty Industry’s Next Steps
The beauty sector has rapidly accelerated its shift toward e-commerce and sustainable product lines as consumers adapted to home-bound lifestyles, fundamentally altering distribution patterns away from traditional travel retail. Despite these disruptions, M&A activity remains vigorous with major strategic buyers and private equity firms aggressively pursuing deals to modernize portfolios, ranging from high-revenue consolidations to sub-$100 million growth investments. Future industry success will depend on mastering omni-channel strategies that leverage digital dominance while capitalizing on emerging growth engines in Asian markets and expanded value chain opportunities.
- Goldman Sachs8 min
The Future of Robotic Surgery
Following a mid-year pandemic dip, robotic surgery volumes have recovered to 90% of normal levels, driven primarily by expansions into general surgery and hard tissue applications like knee replacements. Technological advancements in flexible instrumentation, augmented reality imaging, and 5G-enabled remote capabilities are accelerating the shift toward soft tissue procedures and reducing the need for in-person operating room personnel. Market projections indicate robust growth, with U.S. procedures expected to triple to 7 million by 2030, while the global sector is forecast to reach $24 billion through increased automation and partial robotic execution of surgical tasks.