Latest Interviews

Alfred Lin, Inside Sequoia: Launching $200M Seed Fund & $750M Venture Fund

Alfred Lin, Molly O'Shea

Sequoia Partner Alfred Lin outlines a rigorous investment philosophy focused on identifying statistical "outlier" founders while providing bespoke support that functions as both crisis intervention and strategic sparring. The discussion details how successful ventures like Kaoshi and Zipline navigated long gestation periods and executed high-stakes pivots, emphasizing that capital should only fuel validated product-market fit rather than masking weak unit economics. Lin further critiques the industry's obsession with revenue velocity, arguing that sustainable growth depends on intellectual honesty regarding revenue quality and the ability to systematize operations in an increasingly competitive technological landscape.

Women's Exercise Debate: The 7 Weight Loss Lies Women Believe!

Dr Mary Claire Haver, Dr Vonda Wright, Dr Natalie Crawford, Dr Stacy Sims, Steven

This presentation outlines a comprehensive health framework for women that prioritizes high-intensity resistance training and protein-rich nutrition to combat age-related muscle loss, cognitive decline, and metabolic disorders. Experts emphasize a polarized exercise strategy avoiding moderate intensity, alongside the management of environmental toxins and sleep hygiene to support hormonal balance and longevity. The talk concludes with actionable protocols for building muscle mass and bone density, stressing that functional healthspan is superior to aesthetic goals or simple weight loss.

A Conversation with Carlos Slim Domit | Global Investors' Symposium Mexico City 2025

Carlos Slim Domit, Michael Milken

A strategic analysis highlights Mexico's unique investment case, driven by a young demographic, robust STEM workforce, and geographic proximity to the U.S. market to boost infrastructure and manufacturing capacity. This growth is underpinned by a national goal to raise the investment-to-GDP ratio to 28% while leveraging telecommunications networks to foster digital inclusion and a digital-first philanthropic model. Together, these factors position North America as a dominant global economic bloc, merging U.S. technological innovation with Mexico's demographic vitality for long-term stability and expansion.

The Hard Part About Being Contrarian

OpenAI's launch faced intense skepticism from the academic establishment, which dismissed the venture due to the founders' youth and lack of peer-reviewed credentials despite their strategic pivot toward outcome optimization rather than publication volume. Similar to SpaceX's trajectory, the organization endured years of negative press and technical setbacks while maintaining a contrarian vision that eventually attracted a specific cohort of believers capable of validating the underlying reality. This journey underscores a broader principle where successful leaders must distinguish verifiable user problems from external expert consensus to effectively solve critical challenges.

Marc Andreessen: How Movies Explain America

Marc Andreessen, Katherine Boyle, Erik Torenberg

This analysis examines four seminal films to trace evolving cultural anxieties, using *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood* to reframe 1969's Manson Murders as a pivotal shift from counterculture optimism to conservative backlash that mirrors modern political cycles. It contrasts this with a satirical reading of *Tropic Thunder*, which critiques the pre-cancellation era's willingness to mock protected groups and veterans, and a historical critique of *Oppenheimer* that defends Lewis Strauss's security concerns over the film's moral framing of the nuclear age. Finally, the discussion explores *Fight Club*'s enduring ambiguity as a cultural prism, noting its reinterpretation from a 1990s anti-consumerist narrative into a contemporary right-wing allegory regarding masculinity and economic despair.

How will Japan's prime minister change her country?

Noah Sneider, Rosie Blau, Rosie Bloor

Sanae Takaichi has become Japan's first female Prime Minister, marking a strategic rightward pivot for the Liberal Democratic Party that has already fractured its long-standing coalition with Komeito. Her agenda combines aggressive defense spending, a revival of "Abenomics," and strict social conservatism, while navigating delicate tensions with the United States and historical disputes with Asian neighbors. Although her administration aims to address domestic inflation, the survival of her government faces significant uncertainty due to internal party fractures and public skepticism regarding her right-wing populist appeal.

Navigating Year-End Risks: Tariffs, Credit, AI and More

Dominic Wilson, Josh Schifrin, Tom

Panelists Josh Schifrin and Dominic Wilson assessed that U.S. economic stability remains intact despite a peaked credit cycle, projecting Federal Reserve rate cuts to 3% or lower by the end of the year driven by soft labor indicators and benign inflation. While equity valuations for AI leaders and corporate debt levels warrant monitoring, the consensus holds that strong balance sheets prevent a bubble scenario and that market volatility remains largely idiosyncratic rather than systemic. The discussion further noted that fiscal sustainability concerns are currently offset by tariff revenue expectations, allowing the bond market to continue its drift toward lower yields.

‘Culture is Everything’: Sixth Street’s Alan Waxman on Flexibility and Alpha

Alan Waxman, Allison Mass

In the September 2025 Goldman Sachs Exchange "Great Investors" episode, 6th Street Co-CEO Alan Waxman details how the firm's $115 billion assets under management operate through a unified "one team" culture that avoids silos and prioritizes liquidity management over credit exposure. Waxman outlines strategic advantages including the $30 billion TAL cross-platform vehicle and major investments in affordable housing recapitalization, AI business model dispersion, and the global sports ecosystem. The discussion further emphasizes a rigorous hiring standard that removes high-performing individualists to maintain collective responsibility, ensuring the firm can "face the tiger" during crises while systematically identifying relative risk-reward across asset classes.

Can the China Rally Continue?

Stratford Dennis, Chris Hussey

Stratford Dennis outlines a bullish strategy for Chinese equities and Brazil, anticipating a 30% upside in Chinese tech driven by attractive valuations and a 15% yield advantage in Brazil due to an upcoming interest rate cycle. While policymakers target 5% GDP growth despite US-China trade tensions, Dennis warns that a potential data vacuum from the US government shutdown could eventually widen risk profiles for emerging markets. To capitalize on these conditions, the firm is hedging against trade deal failures and executing specific trades in Brazilian equity upside calls while maintaining a light global position in Brazil.

Steve Bannon: Trump will have a third term

Steve Bannon, Trump, Zanny Minton Beddoes, Ed Carr

Steve Bannon articulates a vision for a MAGA revolution that replaces corporate control with an "entrepreneurial capitalism" dominated by populist nationalists, asserting the movement must seize and permanently defend state institutions regardless of legal or economic pushback. He predicts Donald Trump will secure a third presidential term in 2028 by redefining constitutional constraints and positions the United States as the catalyst for a global wave of right-wing victories in nations like the UK, France, and Germany. This strategy frames the current era as an existential political war where the movement will not compromise, arguing that radical action is necessary to avoid elite-managed decline and ensure the preservation of national sovereignty.

Joe Manchin Exposes The Chaos Inside Biden’s White House

Joe Manchin, Biden, Chamath, Jason

Senator Joe Manchin details his legislative history, including his advocacy for the 60-vote filibuster to force compromise and his contentious negotiations with the Biden administration over inflation and the Build Back Better bill. He contrasts his collaborative relationships with Donald Trump and Bill Clinton against what he perceives as President Obama's abandonment of Appalachia and President Biden's drift toward the progressive left, while also reflecting on past regrets regarding military policy and abortion rights. The former Eagle Scout outlines his philosophy on work requirements and entitlements, calling for term limits and open primaries to reduce polarization while predicting that a divided government in 2026 could help cool partisan tensions.

Marc Andreessen & Amjad Masad on “Good Enough” AI, AGI, and the End of Coding

Marc Andreessen, Amjad Masad, Erik Torenberg

Replit's advanced AI Agent functions as an autonomous programmer capable of architecting, coding, and deploying full-stack applications in under thirty minutes while maintaining logical coherence over extended sessions through multi-agent verification loops. The platform abstracts technical complexity via natural language interfaces and Reinforcement Learning from code execution, enabling non-experts to produce production-ready software with database integration and Git accessibility. Founder Amjad Masad's unique trajectory from early programming exploits to industry leadership underscores the platform's core philosophy of democratizing engineering skills and challenging traditional educational pathways.

Inside Coatue: $70B Hedge Fund’s AI & Retail Strategy

Michael Barton, Molly O'Shea

Michael, an asset manager at CodeTwo, discusses the firm's pivot toward retail-driven intelligence and deep AI integration following lessons from Melvin Capital's 50% loss during the GameStop short squeeze. Leveraging real-time data from platforms like Wall Street Bets and Reddit, CodeTwo successfully predicted growth accelerators for companies like AppLovin and Meta by capitalizing on AI-enhanced ad engines and identifying human content as a critical licensing asset for AI training. The discussion further outlines a strategic shift where software roles face automatable transformation, prompting internal efficiency upgrades and a hybrid public-private tracking approach to navigate extreme market volatility driven by AI narratives.

Reinventing Delivery with Instant Drone Transport ft Zipline's Keller Cliffton -

Keller Cliffton, Roelof Botha, Keenan Wyrobek, Ryan Oxenhorn, Maggie Jim, Alfred Lin

Zipline CEO Keller Clifton transformed his company from a failed consumer robotics venture into the world's largest autonomous logistics network by pivoting to medical supply delivery in Rwanda, where a partnership with the government addressed critical health crises caused by poor infrastructure. After securing NASA collaboration and achieving a historic U.S. regulatory milestone for nationwide Beyond Visual Line of Sight flights, the organization scaled to serve over 5,000 facilities globally while introducing a novel string-based urban delivery system. This evolution, driven by the founders' persistence through early investor skepticism and technical failures, established a resilient infrastructure that now connects remote hospitals and urban centers alike.

Oz Pearlman (Mentalist): This Small Mistake Makes People Dislike You! They Do This, They’re Lying!

Oz Pearlman, Steven

Former Wall Street executive Oze Perlman leverages three decades of mentalist training to teach professionals how to decode behavior, enhance memory, and master persuasive communication without literally reading minds. His approach emphasizes shifting focus from self to the other person by utilizing specific tactics such as non-threatening body language, active listening loops, and the ethical application of misdirection to build deep rapport. By treating observation and recall as a rare superpower, Perlman guides executives to overcome the fear of rejection and institutionalize habits that drive quantifiable success in both business and personal relationships.