Latest Interviews

Institute Chairman Michael Milken on Building Meaningful Lives

Michael Milken

At the 2017 Milken Institute Global Conference, the speaker delivered the first address of the decade under the theme "Building Meaningful Lives," arguing that access to capital serves as the primary engine for economic mobility and global prosperity. The presentation detailed a shift in the global economic landscape where private equity, technological innovation, and medical breakthroughs have driven job creation and health improvements despite stagnating median incomes and rising social isolation in the United States. By advocating for targeted investment in human capital across emerging markets and the development of new financial technologies, the Institute aims to expand economic opportunity to 90% of the world's population while transforming historical challenges like cancer into manageable conditions.

A Conversation with Steven Mnuchin, Secretary, U.S. Department of the Treasury

Steven Mnuchin, Mike, Marie, Maria

The administration is pursuing a comprehensive tax reform agenda that seeks to accelerate economic growth to 3% annually by consolidating the tax code into a flat 15% corporate rate, eliminating most deductions, and removing the SALT deduction to broaden the tax base. While maintaining a stated goal of not cutting taxes for the wealthy through the Mnuchin Rule, the Treasury Department is negotiating with legislative leaders on the remaining details and preparing to use Senate reconciliation if bipartisan support cannot be secured. This fiscal strategy is complemented by parallel efforts to deregulate financial and energy sectors, reform GSEs to remove taxpayer risk, and advance reciprocal trade policies to support long-term revenue generation.

Talks at GS – Eddie Huang: Food, Culture, Identity

Eddie Huang

Executive Producer and author Nahnatchka Khan reflects on her memoir *Fresh Off the Boat* and the television adaptation as pivotal moments in transitioning from defensive survival mechanisms to intentional identity formation. She critiques the show for diluting authentic Asian experiences into universal white narratives while rejecting the "model minority" stereotype through her personal journey of culinary preservation and leadership at her restaurant, Bauhaus. Ultimately, she advocates for a cultural shift that prioritizes shared humanity over differences, utilizing a management philosophy that blends high performance with deep personal care to foster genuine employee loyalty.

Scaling Growth | Gustaf Alstromer, YC Partner (formerly Airbnb) & Ed Baker (formerly Uber)

Gustaf Alstromer, Ed Baker

Ed Arons and Gustav Sorensen discuss their experience scaling growth teams at Uber, Airbnb, and Facebook, contrasting early viral tactics that exploited platform loopholes with sustainable strategies focused on retention and marketplace liquidity. The speakers detail how successful scaling requires aligning product and engineering functions, adapting paid acquisition to local constraints, and replacing short-term viral hacks with long-term investments in SEO, data science, and user experience optimization. Furthermore, they emphasize the necessity of institutionalizing experimentation to challenge assumptions, citing specific examples like copy adjustments in Japan and WeChat integration in China, while advocating for unified operational models that track acquisition, churn, and re-engagement separately.

How Should Business Schools Prepare Students for Startups? – Jeff Bussgang and Michael Seibel

Jeff Bussgang, Michael Seibel, Craig Cannon

YC CEO Michael Seibel and HBS lecturer Jeff Busgang debate the persistent gaps between MBA education and startup execution, identifying technical deficits, lack of commitment, and excessive research as primary reasons for high rejection rates. While Business Schools like Harvard are adapting through physical integration with engineering departments and new joint degrees, the traditional curriculum often fails to instill the immediate traction and hands-on coding skills required by venture capitalists. Ultimately, Seibel advises non-technical founders outside top hubs to prioritize working at early-stage startups over pursuing an MBA, citing real-world experience as superior preparation for building transformational ventures.

Caveat Configurator: How to replace configs with code, and why you might not want to

Jane Street engineers evolved from a naive dynamic plugin system plagued by versioning failures and tooling friction into a structured framework utilizing Config Generation and the centralized PlugD infrastructure to balance flexibility with safety. This transition replaced unmanageable runtime code execution with statically generated pure data files for standard cases, while reserving runtime plugins for scenarios requiring true dynamism under strict code review and library version management. By decoupling plugin distribution from application builds and enforcing mandatory testing, the firm successfully mitigates existential risks while allowing traders to safely deploy custom OCaml logic within production systems.

At the Intersection of AI, Governments, and Google - Tim Hwang

Tim Hwang, Craig Cannon

Tim Wong, Google's Global Public Policy Lead for AI and Machine Learning, navigates the intersection of technical security challenges, privacy constraints, and societal impacts like job displacement. He highlights critical tensions between de-biasing data and protecting minority privacy while emphasizing that current adversarial vulnerabilities limit high-stakes automation adoption. To address these issues, Google promotes global policy experimentation and educational reforms that shift computer science toward example-based learning and domain-specific expertise.

Building Your Board | Glenn Kelman

Glenn Kelman, Selina Tobaccowala, James Slavitt, Jeff Markowitz, Mark Singer, Emily Melton, Austin Ligon, Reed, Julie Bornstein, Bob Milad, Jason, Janie, Scott, Chris Roski

Redfin CEO Peter van de Ven transformed his company's governance by shifting board relations from adversarial to collaborative, implementing strict communication protocols and off-site retreats to foster honest dialogue and strategic alignment. To ensure operational efficiency, the firm recruited board members based on peer-scale experience and mission alignment rather than corporate prestige, resulting in employed agents who are three times more productive than industry standards. This deliberate restructuring of founder-board dynamics and executive accountability has enabled Redfin to maintain higher Net Promoter Scores while generating hundreds of millions in annual revenue.

The Impact Investing Summit

Matthew Bishop, Lisa Ashford, Mark Campanale, Mark Goldring, Lutfey Siddiqi, Matthew Spencer, Tristram Stewart, Rod Schwartz, Arthur Wood, Mel Tam

In an Oxford-style debate regarding the primary agent for climate action, Lisa Ashford and Mark Campanali argued that investors and bankers can bypass political inertia to drive rapid decarbonization, while Matthew Spencer and colleagues contended that social movements and government policy are essential to establish the regulatory frameworks that make green investment viable. Despite pro-market arguments citing market failures and capital efficiency, the opposition team successfully countered by highlighting historical precedents where moral pressure and state intervention preceded financial shifts. Ultimately, the side opposing the motion won by persuading the audience to view political and social activism as the necessary "generals" that guide the "cavalry" of private capital.

Rick and Morty Writer: Ryan Ridley

Ryan Ridley, Craig Cannon

Creator Ryan Ridley, drawing on early exposure to comedy legends at his father's club and formal training within Chicago's digital video scene, helped pioneer the unique voice of *Rick and Morty* by blending dark sci-fi tropes with a collaborative, writer-driven approach that prioritized personal creative satisfaction over market trends. The show's development involved rigorous internal debates on lore and character design, such as the scale of Meeseeks or the logic of the Citadel of Ricks, while relying on universal human fears and specific genre subversions to distinguish its humor from predecessors like *Futurama*. Ultimately, Ridley's strategy of making content for a self-curated audience of one, combined with Justin Roiland's distinct vocal performance and Dan Harmon's vision, facilitated the series' global success and continues to influence Ridley's current work on high-status animated projects.

Scaling Product | Fireside with Joe Gebbia and Reid Hoffman

Joe Gebbia, Reid Hoffman

Airbnb achieved product-market fit by abandoning scalable code solutions in favor of manual, non-scalable actions, such as founders personally photographing listings to overcome trust barriers and reduce user friction. To sustain hyper-growth while maintaining culture and empathy, the company institutionalized practices like hiring for future needs, training core values interviewers, and mandating that employees regularly experience the platform as travelers and hosts. This strategic focus on deep user connection and operational realism eventually enabled the expansion from a simple room-rental service to a comprehensive travel ecosystem featuring Experiences and a global network of professional photographers.

Talks at GS – Julia Steyn: Car Sharing and the Future of Auto

Julia Steyn, Michael

GM is pivoting from a traditional manufacturing model to a service-oriented strategy through its Maven brand, which targets younger urban demographics with integrated car-sharing and rideshare solutions. CEO Mary Barra oversees this multi-billion dollar investment in artificial intelligence, autonomous technology, and electric vehicles to address the mismatch between slow automotive engineering cycles and rapid consumer tech adoption. The initiative aims to secure lifetime customer value by adapting to shifting urban habits while acknowledging that personal vehicle ownership will persist in rural markets.

Erin Frey on Therapy

Erin Frey

Erin, co-founder and CEO of KIPP, details a personal case study demonstrating how structured therapy effectively restored her cognitive clarity and leadership confidence after chronic stress impaired her decision-making. By reframing catastrophic thinking through scientific frameworks, she overcame performance barriers that were previously hindering her ability to navigate high-stakes investor interviews. Her experience underscores a broader recommendation for founders to treat mental health maintenance as a critical operational asset, advocating for early intervention to prevent performance degradation and normalize therapeutic care as a standard business practice.

Ben Huh on Therapy

Ben Huh, Ben Ha

Ben Ha, founder of Cheeseburger Network and Y Combinator special projects lead, advocates for proactive mental health support to maintain high-performance states rather than reacting to crises. Drawing on his own experience with coaches Jerry Colonna and Khalid Halim, Ha emphasizes a strategy grounded in radical honesty and the "so, so, so what?" mantra to strip away emotional reactivity and clarify core motivational drivers. He asserts that investing in regular therapy yields a significant return on investment for startup founders by optimizing decision-making capabilities and preventing costly burnout.

Scaling Culture | Jason Kilar, former Hulu CEO

Jason Kilar

Jason, a corporate culture expert with twenty years of scaling experience at Disney, Amazon, and Hulu, argues that organizational values must be codified into repeatable mechanisms to survive growth beyond fifty employees. He details how Disney relied on explicit behavioral modeling and dedicated training institutions, while Amazon utilized written leadership principles and tangible awards to dismantle bureaucracy and enforce "Disagree and Commit" protocols. Additionally, Jason explains how Hulu leveraged provocative cultural documents to repel misaligned candidates and rigorously terminated high performers who violated core tenets, demonstrating that good intentions alone cannot sustain culture at scale.