Latest Interviews
Showing 721–735 of 3,058 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Y Combinator43 min
Sam Altman: The Future of OpenAI, ChatGPT's Origins, and Building AI Hardware
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman projects that superintelligence will arrive within two decades while declaring the current era the optimal moment to launch companies due to the convergence of reasoning models, falling costs, and new hardware. He outlines a strategy where OpenAI serves as a platform for third-party innovation rather than building all applications, emphasizing the imminent release of powerful open-source models and the integration of AI into robotics and energy infrastructure. Altman further advises founders to prioritize velocity and unique concepts over established pedigrees, warning that the path to success requires immense resilience against skepticism while pursuing radical technological abundance.
- Milken Institute58 min
AI and Digital Transformation's Impact on Investing | Global Conference 2025
David Steinberg, Jim Breyer, Dipanjan "DJ" Deb, Greg Emerson, Dennis Gada, Jodie Wallis, Shanali Basak
A panel of industry leaders including Jodi, Dennis, DJ, Greg, and Jim established a consensus that organizations must adopt a hybrid "build, buy, and partner" strategy, favoring external foundational models while retaining in-house development for specific strategic assets. The discussion highlighted acute shortages of top-tier mathematical talent and warned of critical risks ranging from quantum decryption threats to deepfake fraud, necessitating robust, materiality-based governance frameworks. Looking forward, experts predicted AI will act as a catalyst for enterprise transformation and private equity value creation, though they cautioned that true value lies in revenue growth rather than mere productivity gains or marketing hype.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Investing in Ukraine's Future | Global Conference 2025
Gillian Tett, Philip Bennett, Xavier Bettel, Wladimir Klitschko, Oleksandra Matviichuk, Yuriy Vitrenko
Panelists project a realistic three-year timeline for a peace deal, noting that Russia currently holds the initiative on ceasefire negotiations while Ukraine leverages its strengthened drone production. Key figures including Deputy Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and former Naftogaz CEO Yuri Vitrenko confirmed a U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal that aims to secure investment and serve as a precursor to an armistice, though legal complexities regarding Russian frozen assets remain a significant hurdle. Simultaneously, Nobel laureate Alla Aleksandr warned of impending impunity if war crimes are not prosecuted through a Special Tribunal, while the EBRD outlined a strategy to scale reconstruction investments to billions annually despite total costs estimated at $700 billion.
- The Diary Of A CEO2h 28m
DEBATE: Feminist Women Vs Non-Feminist Women
Deborah Frances-White, Louise Perry, Erica Komisar
Panelists including Erica Komisar, Louise O'Connell, and Deborah critique modern feminism for promoting hedonism and institutional daycare, arguing these trends have triggered a mental health crisis, collapsing birth rates, and the alienation of young men into the "Manosphere." The discussion contrasts "maternal feminism," which elevates motherhood, against second-wave ideologies that devalued traditional caregiving, highlighting biological needs for consistent attachment in early childhood and the harmful effects of the sexual revolution's illusion of consequence-free intimacy. To address these divergences, the speakers propose policy shifts such as single-income family subsidies and educational reforms that respect neurodevelopmental differences, warning that continued demographic decline could empower conservative rivals while urging progressives to avoid fueling anti-feminist narratives.
- Y Combinator40 min
Andrej Karpathy: Software Is Changing (Again)
The presentation outlines the evolution of software from human-written code to neural network weights and finally to natural language prompts, establishing Large Language Models as a new operating system layer. It details the current infrastructure challenges, cognitive limitations such as hallucination and memory loss, and the strategic shift toward "partial autonomy" systems that maintain human oversight through granular verification loops. Ultimately, the industry faces a transitional decade requiring developers to rewrite existing codebases for agent interaction while managing new risks associated with centralized intelligence infrastructure.
- Milken Institute59 min
Energy Transition to Energy Addition | Global Conference 2025
Daniel Yergin, Mohammad Abunayyan, Mohamed Al Hammadi, Ana Cabral Gardner, Amos Hochstein, Vineet Mittal
A high-level panel of energy leaders and policymakers warns that global energy discourse has pivoted from "transition" to "addition" as AI-driven demand accelerates, exposing critical bottlenecks in grid infrastructure and supply chain resilience. Key figures from the US, Middle East, India, and mining sectors agree that meeting these surging needs requires a diversified portfolio combining nuclear baseload, natural gas, and renewables while avoiding a "race to the bottom" in critical mineral standards. Strategic outcomes emphasize immediate investment in grid modernization, off-grid data center solutions, and an "alliance network" to decouple from single-source dependencies without triggering geopolitical isolation.
- Y Combinator1h 1m
Alexandr Wang: Building Scale AI, Transforming Work With Agents & Competing With China
Meta has committed to investing over $14 billion in Scale AI, valuing the company at $29 billion while appointing Alexander Wang to lead its new AI superintelligence lab. Under Wang's direction, Scale is pivoting from its origins in data labeling to building agentic workflows for enterprise and government sectors, leveraging proprietary data and specialized fine-tuned models to differentiate in a fragmented market. The partnership aims to accelerate scientific breakthroughs and develop military applications like the Thunderforge system, positioning the company to manage a future economy where human operators oversee swarms of autonomous AI agents.
- Milken Institute49 min
Author Talk: Kevin Kwan, "Lies and Weddings" | Global Conference 2025
Kevin Kwan, Curtis S. Chin, Chris Tucker, Tiana, John Panatti
Author Kevin Kwan returns to the Milken Institute Global Conference to discuss his latest novel, *Lies in Weddings*, which uses a family drama format to critique intergenerational wealth inequality and racial stereotypes. Kwan outlines the stalled progress of the *Crazy Rich Asians* film sequels while detailing the active development of an HBO Max series, a Broadway musical, and new film adaptations of his other works. He concludes by advocating for underrepresented creators to own production infrastructure to sustain diverse storytelling and shares insights on his upcoming film projects and new literary directions.
- Milken Institute21 min
Part 1: A Conversation with The Carlyle Group's David M. Rubenstein | Global Conference 2025
David M. Rubenstein, Melissa Stevens
Jefferson Exchange co-founder Jeffrey Rubenstein addresses the critical threats facing U.S. philanthropy, including politicized historical preservation, potential tax policy changes, and declining civic literacy. He advocates for redefining the sector by honoring the percentage of wealth given rather than absolute sums, promoting in-person historical engagement to counter a crisis where nearly all states fail citizenship tests. Furthermore, Rubenstein highlights the strategic value of soft power assets like pandas while emphasizing that the upcoming 250th anniversary should prioritize deep constitutional understanding over superficial celebration.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Strengthening Communities: Corporate Philanthropy, Social Capital, & Resilience | Global Conference
Melissa Stevens, Nicole Anderson, Lynette Bell, Mary Culler, C.D. Glin, Jean Oelwang
Representatives from PepsiCo, Truist, AT&T, Ford, and Virgin Unite convened at the Milken Institute's "Toward a Flourishing Future" conference to outline strategies for strengthening community resilience against a surge in global disasters and deepening social fractures. These leaders detailed a shift toward enterprise-wide mobilization that leverages corporate assets, data analytics, and long-term pre-competitive partnerships to address food insecurity, disaster recovery, and the digital divide. The panel emphasized that sustainable impact requires multi-year funding horizons, internal employee alignment, and the repositioning of trust as essential infrastructure for systemic change.
- Milken Institute59 min
Countdown: Improving Military Readiness for the 21st Century| Global Conference 2025
Susan Eisenhower, Joe Dunford, Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, Mara Karlin, Kevin Rudd, James Stavridis
Amidst a volatile global environment dominated by nuclear competition between the U.S., China, and Russia, American military leaders warn of critical readiness deficits stemming from budget stagnation, aging infrastructure, and a shrinking recruitment pool. While the U.S. retains a strategic advantage through its alliance network, the lack of direct crisis communication channels with Beijing and China's rapid modernization create urgent risks of miscalculation and escalation. Experts argue that restoring competitive advantage requires a substantive 3% to 5% real budget increase and a fundamental strategic shift from counter-terrorism to multi-domain great power conflict.
- Milken Institute27 min
Rebuilding Communities After Disaster with José Andrés & Jennifer Siebel Newsom | Global Conference
José Andrés, Jennifer Siebel Newsom
Following the Los Angeles fires, World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés bypassed bureaucratic hurdles to deploy local restaurants and volunteers, providing immediate nourishment and childcare while revitalizing the affected community's economy. Beyond immediate relief, the organization critiques federal policy gaps by advocating for universal school meals and a dedicated national food security advisor to address long-term hunger and rural instability. This response positions California's integrated disaster model as a blueprint for national resilience, emphasizing that food policy must be central to building a society capable of self-sufficiency.
- Milken Institute18 min
Better in Bed: Sleep Smarter Tonight with The Sleep Doctor | Global Conference 2025
Dr. Michael Breus, Rachel Goldstein, Dr. Michael Bruce
Dr. Michael Bruce clarifies the distinction between clinical sleep doctors and researchers while outlining diagnostic innovations like home sleep tests and non-CPAP therapies for sleep apnea and insomnia. He details behavioral protocols for nighttime waking, including the 4-7-8 breathing technique to lower heart rates for unconsciousness and the benefits of Non-Sleep Deep Rest as a sleep alternative. The discussion concludes by linking genetic chronotypes to daily scheduling and highlighting the specific hormonal balance required for successful intimacy, noting that current common habits often conflict with biological optimization.
- Sequoia Capital38 min
OpenAI Codex Team: From Coding Autocomplete to Asynchronous Autonomous Agents
Hanson Wang, Alexander Embiricos, Sonya Huang, Lauren Reeder
OpenAI has rebranded its Codex system into an agentic coding suite specifically RL-tuned to autonomously execute complex enterprise development tasks like debugging, testing, and deployment within isolated cloud environments. Internal adoption data indicates that professional engineers now leverage the tool to generate multiple parallel code iterations daily, effectively shifting their primary responsibility from writing code to validating agent outputs. This strategic pivot aims to redefine 2025 as the "year of agents" by lowering barriers to bespoke software creation while anticipating a market where human developers manage high-level workflows through future interfaces that blend in-IDE pairing with long-running background automation.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Addressing the Financial Headwinds Faced by Gen Z and Millennials | Global Conference 2025
Cheryl Evans, Kahlil Byrd, Catherine Collinson, Alexis Crow, Dorothy Kelly, Sylvia Kwan, Dot Kelly
This event convenes financial experts to analyze the structural erosion of intergenerational mobility and the acute debt burdens facing Gen Z and Millennials amidst shifting macroeconomic headwinds. Speakers highlight the convergence of student loan defaults, AI-driven workforce disruptions, and a growing distrust of traditional financial institutions as primary drivers of contemporary wealth inequality. The discussion concludes by outlining adaptive strategies for wealth preservation, including policy interventions for loan forgiveness, values-based investing, and the urgent integration of financial literacy to mitigate long-term economic vulnerability.