Latest Interviews

Maverick Capital Co-CIOs on Finding the AI Winners

Ben Silver, David Tykocinski, Tony Pasquariello

Maverick Capital co-chief investment officers Ben Silver and David Tykoczynski discuss their complementary investment philosophies and a holistic risk management framework designed to navigate complex market dynamics. The discussion highlights strategic shifts in the artificial intelligence sector toward application-layer value while identifying significant undervalued opportunities in the healthcare equipment space driven by reshoring trends. Both executives also address structural risks in the geopolitical landscape and emphasize the long-term transformative potential of AI despite near-term valuation volatility.

Stanford MS&E435 Economics of the AI Supercycle | Spring 2026 | Building AI Factories

Chase Lochmiller, Apoorv Agrawal

Hyperscalers are pouring capital into AI infrastructure that rivals historic U.S. projects, driven by a shift in bottlenecks from chip availability to securing powered shells and skilled labor. In Abilene, Texas, Crusoe is deploying a 2.1-gigawatt campus hosting tenants like Oracle and OpenAI, where rapid construction faces significant wage inflation due to a scarcity of tradespeople and tripling costs for power equipment. While traditional hardware risks obsolescence, the economic model shows accelerated returns as managed services can halve the payback period to two years, even as the sector grapples with future challenges in labor supply and open-source competition.

Catalyzing Capital, Innovation, and Impact to Advance Women's Health | Global Conference 2026

Esther Krofah, Jill Biden, Diana Ramos, Kalahn Taylor-Clark, Afton Vechery

The Women's Health Network, comprising 170 organizations, launched a $1 billion funding initiative led by Merck's Health Catalytic Fund to address century-old data gaps and the $2 billion annual productivity loss caused by menopause. Driven by strategic partnerships like California's PRIMA screening tool and private sector innovations such as Modern Fertility, the coalition is leveraging artificial intelligence and capital to de-risk early-stage commercialization while targeting a 50% reduction in maternal mortality. This convergence of philanthropic resources and consumer demand aims to shift medical research from male-centric models to comprehensive care for the 51% of the global population that women represent.

Groww: If Your Customers Don't Love It or Hate It, You've Already Lost

Lalit Keshre, Jon Xu

Grow successfully pivoted from a failed robo-advisor hypothesis to an open investment platform in May 2017, achieving rapid product-market fit by offering zero-commission mutual funds and a frictionless user experience. Guided by a strict "design first" philosophy and a four-founder team aligned on immutable values, the company built a massive customer base through word-of-mouth rather than paid acquisition. Now India's largest publicly traded investment platform, Grow is currently expanding into sophisticated wealth management while leveraging AI tools to maintain its operational efficiency and deep customer connection.

Equities, Fed, BoJ, & you

Mark Cabana, Jill Carey Hall, Aditya Bhave, Oliver Levingston

Strategists from Bank of America Global Research analyzed mid-year market dynamics on June 12, highlighting a divergent outlook where bearish S&P 500 signals coexist with expectations for a Bank of Japan rate hike and a Federal Reserve pause. Jill's equity strategy warned of a potential 4% correction driven by extended valuations and sector dispersion, while advising a rotation toward undervalued mid-caps to avoid the rate sensitivity facing small companies. Concurrently, Aditya and Oliver outlined global monetary policy shifts, forecasting that a hawkish drift in Fed expectations and a dovish Japanese stance could reshape asset allocation amidst rising inflation and geopolitical uncertainties.

The Legacy Play: How Global Sport Shapes Cities, Economies, and Culture | Global Conference 2026

Willow Bay, Jack Alexy, Chris Brearton, Breezy Johnson, Lindsay Taylor, Trisha Worthington

The "Legacy Play" panel convened media leaders, philanthropists, and Olympic gold medalists to analyze the commercial disparities and technological advancements reshaping global sports. Discussion highlighted the United States' unique reliance on private funding compared to state-backed peer nations, while detailing how AI integration and evolving media strategies are democratizing access and enhancing athlete branding. Participants further emphasized the critical role of mental health support and sustainable venue legacies in ensuring long-term career viability and equitable growth for women's sports.

A Conversation with FIFA President Gianni Infantino | Global Conference 2026

Gianni Infantino, Jason Kelly, Johnny Infantino

The 2026 FIFA World Cup, a historic 48-team tournament hosted across 16 North American cities, is projected to generate $80 billion in economic impact and attract 7.5 million attendees while drawing 6 billion global viewers. FIFA President Gianni Infantino leveraged the event to outline a strategic pivot toward emerging markets, aiming to diversify global football revenue away from European dominance and establish a sustainable grassroots ecosystem that could elevate North American leagues to compete with European standards by 2031. Reinvesting tournament revenues into development for 150 countries, Infantino also announced his candidacy for re-election to oversee these commercial expansions and complete his governance reforms.

Why are young Indians joining the Cockroach Janta Party? | The Economist

Tom Sasse, Rosie Blau

Launched by Boston-based consultant Abhijit Dipka as a satirical response to a Supreme Court Justice's remark, the "Cockroach People's Party" evolved into a physical street protest in Delhi where 1,000 to 2,000 young Indians demanded the resignation of the Education Minister over exam scandals. While the movement has amassed millions of digital followers and frames the unrest as a reaction to systemic failure and economic stagnation, analysts caution that its impact is limited by a lack of organizational cohesion and the ruling BJP's continued popularity among the youth. Although street politics has historically driven change in India, observers suggest this specific mobilization remains in its infancy and lacks the sustained leadership necessary to challenge the government effectively.

Why Africa, Why Now: Investing in the World's Next Growth Engine | Global Conference 2026

British Robinson, Runa Alam, Qahir Dhanani, Courtney Powell, Ethiopis Tafara, Meg Whitman, Samaila Zubairu

A diverse panel of experts from the World Bank, IFC, and leading private equity firms outlines Africa's shift from a resource-dependent economy to a consumer and technology-driven powerhouse with a projected workforce of 2.5 billion by 2050. Participants highlight that superior recovery rates, decoupled sovereign risk, and undervalued assets make the continent a high-return destination, prompting a strategic pivot toward private equity, green energy supply chains, and fintech. Consequently, institutional investors are urged to bridge local capital gaps through Public-Private Partnerships and to align pension fund mandates with infrastructure projects that address the urgent need to employ the continent's massive youth population.

How Meesho Became India’s Biggest Shopping App

Vidit Aatrey, Ankit Gupta

Founders Vidit Aatja and Sanjeev Bikhchandani established Meesho in 2016 to connect rural Indian sellers with consumers, eventually pivoting from a WhatsApp-based social commerce model to a direct-to-consumer app after Jio's data cost reduction enabled mobile app adoption. This bold 2021 strategic shift, which terminated the platform's core business to launch a native application, secured Meesho's dominance in the Indian market by capturing over 50% of the country's online commerce volume by 2026. Today, the company serves 250 million unique consumers and is deploying its proprietary "Vani" voice AI agent to further democratize e-commerce for rural users with low digital literacy.

Reinventing Play: The New Frontier of Gaming Technology and Creation | Global Conference 2026

Geoff Keighley, Johanna Faries, Laura Miele, Gregory Milken, Donald Mustard, DAN GALPIN, MANO MARKS, LAURA MURPHY

Industry leaders Johanna Levinson, Gregory Melkin, Donald Mustard, and Laura Miele convened to outline the gaming sector's transition from episodic releases to continuous live-service models driven by AI adoption and transmedia expansion. The panelists agreed that while mobile platforms retain the largest user base, the market is shifting toward flexible pricing strategies and global partnerships that allow small teams to compete with AAA studios through democratized development tools. Furthermore, the consensus emphasizes a strategic pivot where creative integrity and long-term cultural relevance now outweigh short-term monetization, as publishers integrate mobile, cloud, and social features to sustain player engagement across diverse hardware ecosystems.

Startup School is back!

YC Startup School functions as a high-impact incubator for smart, ambitious founders by exposing attendees to elite peers and high-profile experts like Fei-Fei Li and John Preskill. This immersive environment demystifies the Y Combinator application process while validating the attainability of entrepreneurship, a shift that often prompts participants to abandon traditional employment paths. Consequently, the program frequently serves as the primary catalyst for launching ventures, fundamentally altering the trajectory of those who attend.

Payroll call

Sphia Salim, Zviya Salim, Aditya Abbas, Shruti Mishra, Alex Cohen, Mark Havana, Bruno Brasenia

The June 5th release of U.S. payroll data significantly surpassed consensus expectations with 120,000 private sector jobs added and upward revisions of 93,000, driven primarily by leisure, hospitality, and local government roles. This strength shifted risk distributions toward a hawkish stance for the Federal Reserve, yet strategists maintain that a June rate hike remains unlikely due to stable unemployment and wage growth, anticipating that Chair Jerome Powell will address inflation concerns at upcoming Senate testimony. Consequently, the dollar rallied against major currencies while two-year Treasury yields jumped over 10 basis points, though market pricing for pre-midterm rate increases may overestimate immediate policy action given lingering skepticism about Chair Powell's timeline.

The Economics of AI Usage and What's Next For SaaS | Benedict Evans on a16z

Benedict Evans, Erik Torenberg

Benedict Evans analyzes the rapid transition of agentic coding into a definitive product-market fit, noting how massive CapEx investment by major tech firms is currently creating a disequilibrium between supply and demand. He argues that while foundation models may eventually become low-margin commodities akin to mobile infrastructure, the immediate future involves significant adoption challenges and a divergence between deep workflow integration and superficial usage. Ultimately, Evans suggests that AI will drive profound economic restructuring and invisible automation, though the primary financial value will likely accrue to application-layer companies rather than the model providers themselves.

Why Secondary Markets Are Eating the IPO | All-In Liquidity Secondary Markets Panel

Brad Gerstner, Gavin Baker, Kelly Rodriques, Chamath, Jason, Friedberg, Naval, Thomas Lafont, Keller

In Q1 2025, the private market established secondary trading as a primary exit mechanism for late-stage companies like Anduril and SpaceX, with employee transactions accounting for 31% of primary venture activity as shares shifted to a premium valuation. Institutional players such as Schwab and Vanguard are democratizing access through regulated interval funds, prompting a structural shift where venture capital firms actively manage capital recycling to return liquidity to limited partners. While panelists identify AI infrastructure and space logistics as key investment areas within a "parabolic" but fundamentally sound market, they also warn of emerging regulatory pressures and the risks of retail investors lacking the discipline to navigate cyclical drawdowns.