Latest Interviews

Economies of sail: migrant-smuggling entrepreneurs

Rosie Bloor, Joel Budd, Noah Snyder, Oliver Morton, Rachel Dobbs, Ainsley Johnston

An analysis of global security and environmental trends reveals that UK migrant smuggling networks have fragmented into professionalized, decentralized supply chains that evade traditional law enforcement decapitation tactics, while simultaneous extreme wildfires in South Korea and Japan signal accelerating climate impacts in high-latitude regions. Parallel to these physical shifts, international public opinion is undergoing a rapid polarization driven by US political changes, characterized by a sharp decline in favorable views of America across traditional allies like Canada and European nations. These converging dynamics suggest a global landscape where adaptive criminal markets, climate-fueled disasters, and fractured diplomatic trust are reshaping security challenges and cross-border perceptions.

Startups that make it are rare. You can do it alone, but with a good co-founder you can go farther.

The discussion emphasizes that successful startups depend on highly aligned co-founders capable of navigating critical challenges, rejecting the notion that working alone is a safer alternative to partnership. This perspective aligns with the Renee Adler philosophy that all business problems are ultimately people problems, requiring founders to actively manage conflict and collaboration to secure necessary capital and talent. Ultimately, founders who refuse to engage in these essential interpersonal dynamics risk ceding market dominance to competitors who are willing to "play to win" by building strong teams and resources.

Unbundling the BPO: How AI Is Disrupting Outsourced Work

Steph Smith, Kimberly Tan

A $300 billion Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market dominated by firms like Accenture and Wipro is undergoing a fundamental transformation as Voice AI and autonomous browser agents dismantle traditional reliance on human labor. By enabling near-zero latency processing of unstructured data across sectors ranging from healthcare to logistics, these AI-native technologies offer founders a pathway to create new value by automating complex workflows previously inaccessible to small and medium enterprises. As the industry evolves over a two-to-three-year horizon, success will depend on strategically targeting high-impact use cases where AI can flatten operational costs while navigating the structural inertia of legacy labor-heavy models.

All-In Live from Austin: Colin and Samir, Chris Williamson, and Bryan Johnson

Colin, Samir, Chris Williamson, Bryan Johnson, Friedberg, Jason, Chamath

Major legacy media giants are aggressively reorganizing their strategies to compete with an independent creator economy that now dominates connected TV viewership through superior algorithmic retention and authentic long-form content. Top creators are increasingly rejecting traditional media deals to retain full intellectual property ownership, pivoting instead toward lean business models that prioritize direct product sales, high-value physical events, and 360-degree brand partnerships. This structural shift is further accelerated by new monetization vectors such as health-focused consumer goods and experimental physiological research, which collectively challenge the historical dominance of legacy broadcast networks.

Can the Military Move at Startup Speed? How the Army and Navy Are Rebuilding

Alex Miller, Justin Fanelli, Leila Hay

DoD leadership is dismantling legacy Cold War-era acquisition structures to replace rigid, decade-long procurement cycles with agile "Military Moneyball" approaches that prioritize speed and overmatch over incremental improvements. By leveraging Software Acquisition Pathways, OTAs, and direct startup partnerships, the Army and Navy are accelerating capability delivery from eighteen months to three while consolidating legacy systems to fund disruptive technologies like AI and autonomous swarms. This strategic pivot aligns military "outcome-driven" metrics with commercial venture speed, enabling rapid fielding of solutions ranging from mobile command apps to counter-drone networks without traditional bureaucratic barriers.

Bain Capital’s David Gross on global opportunities and private equity’s evolution

David Gross, Alison Mass

Bain Capital Co-Managing Partner David Gross outlined a bullish macro strategy targeting Japan's fragmented buyout market, Germany's divestiture wave, and India's stabilizing governance structure while leveraging a dedicated macro team to identify investable themes. To sustain competitive advantage, the firm is scaling its operational capabilities with 130 value creation professionals and deploying a venture arm to integrate disruptive technologies like AI across its portfolio. This approach, underpinned by Bain's private partnership model and disciplined valuation entry, has enabled distribution yields exceeding 30% in North America and positions the firm to navigate current cyclical lows toward a recovery in deployment and liquidity.

How Robin Hood CEO Rich Buery is addressing NYC’s rising poverty rates

Rich Buery, Richard Buery, Tony Pasquariello

The Robin Hood Foundation addresses New York City's rising poverty rate, which has surged to 25% due to expiring pandemic benefits and rising living costs, by deploying a $129 million investment strategy in 2024. This approach combines direct funding for high-impact interventions like the CUNY ASAP program with advocacy for systemic changes and the exploration of AI solutions to expand economic opportunity. Led by CEO Rich Beery, the organization utilizes evidence-based research and public-private partnerships to prioritize early childhood education and policy reforms that yield measurable long-term societal benefits.

The Best of Both Funds: Public and Private Markets Outlook | Global Investors' Symposium Hong Kong

Chery Kang, Aaron Costello, Janet Perumal, Kevin Sneader, Howe Chung Wan

Global investors face a revised macroeconomic landscape characterized by downward GDP revisions, elevated recession probabilities, and a structural shift toward higher interest rates and fiscal activism. Amidst escalating trade tensions and geopolitical instability, market concentration risks in US tech giants have prompted recommendations to underweight equities in favor of non-US value sectors, private credit, and defensive hedge fund strategies. While artificial intelligence evolves from hardware to application-focused deployment, the prevailing directive emphasizes active portfolio management to neutralize passive index risks and prepare for potential volatility without abandoning market exposure.

What Founders Can Do To Improve Their Design Game

Aaron, Raphael Schaad

Raphael Schad argues that successful startups require the intersection of design, business, and technology, urging designers to learn coding to bridge the gap between concept and execution. His startup Cron exemplifies this approach, having evolved into Notion Calendar following an acquisition that validated the power of founders who can build their own product visions. As artificial intelligence reshapes product categories, Schad emphasizes that the ability to create interactive prototypes and understand technical constraints remains a critical competitive advantage for modern founders.

Inside Varda’s Space Factory | Delian Asparouhov, Founders Fund & Varda

Delian Asparouhov, Molly

Varda Aerospace has transitioned from an MVP demo to a high-cadence manufacturing operation, securing its first major revenue recognition with a commercial-pharmaceutical mission and launching a dedicated Department of Defense contract. Founders Fund co-founder Delian Liu projects an aggressive schedule of monthly launches and landings while leveraging Rocket Lab's platform to focus engineering resources on re-entry vehicles and drug reactors. The company currently operates a 60,000-square-foot facility in El Segundo with 115 employees and is navigating complex regulatory hurdles by targeting landing zones in Australia to bypass US military range scarcity.

The Top 100 GenAI Products, Ranked and Explained

Anish Acharya, Olivia Moore

The latest Gen AI 100 report reveals a rapidly evolving ecosystem where 17 new companies have entered the web rankings and consumer adoption lags model development by six to twelve months, creating a dynamic transition from infrastructure to application. Distinct performance metrics highlight that high-traffic apps do not always correlate with revenue, while Chinese models and Deep Seek's rapid rise illustrate how shifting copyright landscapes and reasoning capabilities disrupt established players like ChatGPT and Runway. Success in this fragmented market increasingly relies on solving specific pain points and prioritizing user stability over technical novelty as low-code tools enable non-technical founders to launch disposable software at scale.

DoorDash CEO: Customer Obsession, Surviving Startup Death & Creating A New Market

Garry, Tony Xu

DoorDash was founded on the principle of empowering physical businesses after observing a macaroon store owner's inability to fulfill delivery requests, leading to a validated strategy that prioritized suburban markets and a diverse driver workforce over traditional high-density city centers. The company weathered critical operational crises, such as the 2013 Stanford delivery delays and persistent investor skepticism, by establishing a customer-obsessed culture that later enabled it to surpass competitors during the 2020 pandemic through strategic commission cuts and industry-wide support. Today, DoorDash employs over seven million drivers and commands approximately 60% of the U.S. food delivery market share while maintaining its long-term mission to grow the GDP of every city.

Perplexity's competitive advantage against Google comes down to user obsession and product taste.

Aravind Srinivas

Future competitive differentiation hinges on an obsession with the user and strong product taste, a combination currently held exclusively by Google among major entities. Despite generating $200 billion in annual search revenue alongside $100 billion from YouTube and Cloud, the company faces structural conflicts where advertising interests often overshadow search utility. While search remains the sole high-margin profit driver, other divisions face distinct financial constraints, with Cloud only recently achieving profitability and YouTube unable to reach high margins due to creator payouts and subscription ad exclusions.

Medal of Honor Recipients share their stories of courage and leadership

Command Master Chief Britt Slabinski, Captain Florent Groberg, Matt Gibson, Britt Slabinski, Florent Groberg

Goldman Sachs hosted a special session featuring Medal of Honor recipients Britt Slabinski and Flo Groberg to discuss how military principles of courage, resilience, and teamwork apply to high-performing corporate environments. Drawing from their combat experiences in Afghanistan and subsequent careers, the speakers emphasized that exceptional leadership requires prioritizing team success over individual glory and maintaining human connection even as AI integrates into operations. Their insights provided a framework for organizational culture by advocating for leaders to operate with conviction and compassion, ensuring employees feel valued and aligned with a clear mission.

AI Exchanges: CIO Marco Argenti on the future of AI in the workplace

Marco Argenti, George Lee, Allison Nathan

A Goldman Sachs-led panel analyzes the rapid acceleration of AI reasoning models against the persistent "value gap" created by legacy systems and the behavioral friction of retraining human workflows. While "de novo" enterprises advance faster due to agile structures, the firm is actively cultivating "mindful disruptors" and embedding specific cultural judgment into agents to manage risks like hallucinations and data exfiltration. The dialogue concludes that future success relies on a hybrid workforce where AI agents provide elastic capacity and mechanical execution, leaving high-level creativity and professional oversight to human leaders.