Latest Interviews

Financial Roadmap - Goldman Sachs 2020 Investor Day

Stephen Scher

Goldman Sachs has outlined a three-year strategic plan targeting a Return on Equity exceeding 13% and an efficiency ratio of 60% by driving revenue growth, reducing the cost of funds, and implementing a $1.3 billion expense initiative. The firm aims to lower its funding costs by diversifying liabilities to reach a 50% deposit mix and will allocate capital toward high-return opportunities while returning excess value to shareholders through flexible buybacks and dividends. Under this framework, the Global Markets segment seeks to lift its ROE to 10% while new consumer and transaction banking initiatives are projected to reach break-even status within the medium-term horizon.

Executing Our Strategy - Goldman Sachs 2020 Investor Day

John Waldron

John Waldron, President and COO of Goldman Sachs, outlines a strategic mandate to drive operational excellence and global client engagement through a three-pillar approach of strengthening the core franchise, investing for growth, and enhancing efficiency. The firm targets a return on equity exceeding 10% over the next three years by expanding investment banking coverage, unifying its alternatives platform, and implementing $1.3 billion in cost savings while reallocating resources toward technology and talent mobility. This comprehensive roadmap includes structural changes such as increasing engineering budgets, launching the Apple Card, and scaling the "One Goldman Sachs" philosophy to break down silos across 100 key client relationships.

Strategic Roadmap and Goals - Goldman Sachs 2020 Investor Day

Goldman Sachs is advancing a strategic transformation through its "One Goldman Sachs" initiative, which unifies siloed franchises to deliver holistic client solutions while targeting a Return on Equity exceeding 13% over the next three years. The firm is capitalizing on the digital revolution and sustainability themes by launching a $750 billion financing target and expanding into adjacent sectors like transaction banking and digital consumer finance to drive durable revenue growth. Guided by core values of partnership and integrity, the leadership team leverages its global scale and top-tier talent to optimize operational efficiency and maintain a CET1 capital ratio between 13% and 13.5% while executing long-term growth plans.

The Risk, Fear, and Preparation Behind Free Solo

Alex Honnold

Alex Honnold's two-year preparation for his free solo of El Capitan combined high-volume physical training and iterative mental risk assessment to achieve a historic, unroped ascent of the granite wall. This journey, captured in Jimmy Chin's Academy Award-nominated IMAX documentary, detailed not only the specific climbing strategies and speed records involved but also Honnold's evolution from a van-dwelling "dirtbag" to a philanthropist funding the Honold Foundation. The project highlights how Honnold balances extreme athletic performance with a deliberate shift toward solar energy initiatives, emphasizing that his radical lifestyle decisions were driven by a pursuit of mastery rather than conventional happiness.

Steve Lee: State of the Shell: PowerShell7

Steve Lee

The PowerShell team announced a strategic shift where Windows PowerShell 5.1 is now maintenance-only, while the primary focus moves to PowerShell 7 as a cross-platform Long-Term Servicing release aligned with the .NET yearly cycle. Significant technical improvements include the introduction of null propagation, parallel processing capabilities, and a new module management system designed to replace the deprecated v2 architecture. While legacy Windows-specific modules now access via implicit remoting, the product strategy excludes future in-box inclusion in Windows due to mismatched support lifecycles.

David Chalmers: What is Consciousness? | AI Podcast Clips

David Chalmers, Lex Fridman

The speaker defines phenomenal consciousness as subjective experience distinct from information processing, highlighting the unresolved "hard problem" of explaining how physical brain processes generate feeling. While the event traces the shifting medical consensus on infant pain and the logical expansion of consciousness to diverse entities, it critically examines competing theories like panpsychism, cosmopsychism, and Integrated Information Theory as potential solutions. Ultimately, the presentation contrasts these minority views against the orthodox scientific stance, arguing that consciousness may require treatment as a fundamental property of reality rather than a mere emergent byproduct of complex machinery.

Data Security and the Rise of Crypto

Diogo Monica, Jack Dorsey

Recent internet failures, including the Jack Dorsey SIM swap and the Capital One data breach, highlight critical vulnerabilities in centralized architectures that the cryptocurrency sector is now addressing through a $260 billion security-driven innovation engine. By prioritizing private key authentication and deploying zero-knowledge proofs, crypto technologies are actively replacing fragile phone-based 2FA and eliminating mass data breaches by ensuring sensitive information is never centrally stored or transmitted. This paradigm shift is simultaneously accelerating hardware advancements in secure enclaves and redefining data sovereignty to grant users direct control over their digital identities.

David Chalmers: The Hard Problem of Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #69

David Chalmers, Lex Fridman

Philosopher David Chalmers explores the Simulation Hypothesis and the Hard Problem of consciousness, arguing that reality remains valid within simulated environments and that subjective experience may arise from information processing patterns rather than biological substrates. He posits that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, potentially supporting panpsychism, and predicts that sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence will necessitate a new civil rights movement to protect sentient machines from harm. Chalmers further envisions a future where mind uploading and technological immortality expand human potential, creating a rich, meaning-filled existence distinct from a potential "zombie apocalypse" of non-conscious superintelligence.

YC SUS: Kat Mañalac and Eric Migicovsky discuss Week 2 SUS Lectures

Kat Mañalac, Eric Migicovsky

Founders are advised to prioritize rapid MVP validation and recurring launches over perfectionism to maximize market discovery and gather authentic user feedback. Strategic distribution requires targeting accessible micro-communities and non-scalable manual hacks before scaling, while pricing and feature decisions must rely on real customer interactions rather than hypothetical surveys. Ultimately, sustainable growth depends on securing early revenue from niche customers to fund development, treating failed hypotheses as necessary pivots, and aligning product iteration with specific geographic or sector constraints.

Charity: how effective is giving?

Hilton Douglas, Paul Tudor Jones, Anand Giridharadas, Michael Bloomberg, Charles Koch, David, Rufus, Danny Chivers, Jennifer Johnston, Sarah

Record levels of wealth concentration have driven a surge in modern philanthropy where donors like Mark Zuckerberg and Michael Bloomberg demand immediate, tangible results from their multi-billion dollar pledges. While this trend has fueled record-breaking foundation spending and specific successes like the retirement of 289 coal plants, it simultaneously faces criticism for allowing billionaires to influence social policy while potentially perpetuating the economic inequalities they aim to fix. Alternative models such as effective altruism and the Funding Network seek to democratize giving through data-driven efficiency and live auctions, yet they struggle against declining donor participation and accusations that such structures undermine democratic principles.

Diego Saez Gil - How Pachama Uses Tech to Solve Climate Change

Diego Saez Gil, Gustav Alströmer, Mark Mandelmann

Diego Saez-Gil founded Pachama to solve the high costs and slow timelines of traditional carbon verification by deploying satellite imagery and AI for forest conservation. The platform connects corporate buyers with reforestation projects, leveraging partnerships with major satellite providers to certify under $1.5 million in carbon credits at a fraction of the historical cost. Backed by investors like Uber co-founder Ryan Graves, the company aims to scale a global marketplace that combines climate action with biodiversity tracking while advocating for stricter carbon regulations.

Karlie Kloss, Model and Founder of Kode With Klossy

Karlie Kloss

Supermodel Karlie Kloss leveraged her early fashion success to pivot toward technology, founding the "Code with Klossy" scholarship program that has since taught over 2,500 girls in 25 U.S. cities to code. Expanding her influence beyond modeling, she now hosts *Project Runway* and uses her 8.5 million social media followers to advocate for women in leadership while mentoring the next generation of innovators. Her career trajectory, driven by a desire to bridge the gap between creative industries and technical education, emphasizes vulnerability and continuous learning to dismantle barriers for young women.

The Career Changing Magic of Strategic Compartmentalization

Susan Rice, Kathryn Haun

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice leverages her tenure as the youngest Assistant Secretary of State and UN Ambassador to articulate a leadership philosophy forged through early mentorship warnings about collaboration and the resilience cultivated during her parents' public custody battle. Her career is defined by decisive crisis management during events like the 1998 embassy bombings and a recent strategic pivot addressing China's technological threats through a unified "triumvirate" of government, academia, and industry. Currently serving on Netflix's board while maintaining a flexible portfolio career, Rice continues to advocate for leaders to prioritize operational fortitude over likability and to build inclusive teams capable of navigating complex geopolitical challenges.

YouTube Algorithm Basics (Cristos Goodrow, VP Engineering at Google) | AI Podcast Clips

Cristos Goodrow, Lex Fridman

YouTube's recommendation engine leverages collaborative filtering and vector-based user profiling to construct a dynamic "related graph" that clusters content by behavior rather than explicit programming. The system prioritizes long-term user satisfaction through evolving metrics like watch time and five-star surveys while employing rigorous A/B testing to mitigate clickbait and gaming. By balancing metadata signals with real-time engagement data, the algorithm adapts to bilingual preferences and individual viewing histories to maximize content retention and diversity.

Cristos Goodrow: YouTube Algorithm | Lex Fridman Podcast #68

Cristos Goodrow, Lex Fridman, Christos Goudreau

Christos Goudreau outlines YouTube's strategic evolution from a simple video host to a global, second-largest search engine that prioritizes long-term user satisfaction over immediate engagement metrics. The platform employs a hybrid human-AI moderation system and a sophisticated recommendation engine driven by collaborative filtering to balance creator freedom with societal responsibility while actively suppressing clickbait. Despite current limitations in computer vision, the service continues to refine its algorithm to support diverse content discovery and educational outcomes, aiming to replace traditional television with personalized, on-demand access.