Latest Interviews
Showing 2596–2610 of 3,136 interview transcripts.
- The Economist8 min
Covid-19: Bill Gates predicts the end of the pandemic
Bill Gates, Zanny Minton Beddoes
Bill Gates warns that the pandemic's global economic and health toll has surpassed earlier projections, prompting the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to pivot its resources toward financing the manufacturing and distribution of six promising vaccine candidates. While Phase III trials project 80% to 90% efficacy by September, Gates emphasizes that securing $10 billion to $12 billion is critical to overcoming current funding gaps and ensuring low-cost access for developing nations without which global herd immunity remains unattainable. He further cautions that achieving the estimated 30% to 60% vaccination coverage needed to halt transmission by late 2021 depends heavily on sustained US leadership, as the decline in multilateral cooperation and rising debt risks in emerging markets threaten to exacerbate existing inequalities and economic instability.
- The Economist11 min
Covid-19: When will a vaccine be ready?
Slavia Chankova, Callum Williams
Global teams are racing to develop vaccines with an estimated 80% success probability, yet full worldwide distribution is projected to take at least two years due to significant manufacturing constraints. While the pandemic causes weekly economic losses of $200 billion to $250 billion, achieving herd immunity requires overcoming distribution inequities and public skepticism, with experts recommending that wealthy nations support GAVI to ensure access for developing countries. Industry and government leaders face a complex balancing act between incentivizing rapid innovation through potential profits and adhering to ethical protocols that prioritize healthcare workers, the elderly, and vulnerable populations.
- The Economist18 min
Olympic champion Edwin Moses on covid-19, race and trans athletes
Former Olympic hurdler and US Anti-Doping Agency chair Edwin Moses addresses critical challenges facing global sport, including the viability of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics amidst the pandemic and systemic doping in Russia. Moses argues that athletes possess a fundamental right to political expression on issues like racism while advocating for strict biological distinctions in competition, notably opposing forced medical interventions for intersex athletes like Caster Semenya. He concludes by emphasizing that the discipline and mental resilience cultivated through athletic participation serve as essential life skills for professional and academic success.
- Goldman Sachs8 min
Carbon Offsets and the Climate Transition
The carbon offset market functions as a temporary financial bridge for heavy industries unable to immediately decarbonize, offering compliance and voluntary options ranging from renewable investments to forestry projects. Despite growing shareholder pressure and expanded Scope 3 reporting mandates, the sector faces significant skepticism regarding pricing volatility, verification risks, and its inability to fundamentally shift business models. While Asian companies lag in adopting climate targets, global firms in steel, cement, and transportation face future margin contractions as carbon prices rise, necessitating a strategic pivot away from reliance on offsets toward genuine operational decarbonization.
- Dwarkesh Patel47 min
Tyler Cowen - The Great Reset
Tyler Cowen analyzes the accelerated arrival of the "Great Reset," attributing the crisis to regulatory failures and inflexible institutions while predicting a significant biomedical innovation burst alongside persistent risks of racial segregation and catastrophic nuclear conflict. He argues that despite severe threats to the American regulatory state, large corporations remain drivers of dynamism and that long-term human survival depends on maintaining liberal institutions over a 700-to-800-year horizon rather than relying on space expansion. Cowen concludes by weighing optimistic recovery scenarios against a pessimistic reality of psychological scarring, ultimately emphasizing that Earth remains civilization's only viable home due to the binding constraints of physics and the high probability of great-power conflict.
- The Economist10 min
Covid-19: what will happen to the global economy?
Zanny Minton Beddoes, Edward Carr
The pandemic has triggered the deepest global recession since the 1930s, establishing a permanent "90 economy" where behavioral shifts rather than lockdown mandates drive lasting contraction in sectors like tourism and manufacturing. While the United States has retreated from global coordination, China is expanding its digital financial influence, though a full displacement of the US dollar remains a prolonged process due to historical inertia. Concurrently, developing nations face acute vulnerability from debt burdens and export shocks, while youth unemployment risks causing long-term labor market scarring that necessitates diversifying supply chains rather than abandoning globalization.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
In Search for a Cure: Are We Nearing a Treatment for COVID-19?
Esther Kofa, Meg Terrell, Dr. Tony Fauci, Albert Bourla
The Milken Institute Summer Series concluded by analyzing the U.S. resurgence of COVID-19 infections and the global development of nearly 250 treatment compounds, featuring critical insights from Dr. Anthony Fauci and Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla. Dr. Fauci warned of severe fall surges driven by behavioral shifts while outlining a vaccine timeline with Phase III trials expected to begin in July, whereas Dr. Bourla detailed Pfizer's autonomous mRNA strategy aiming for safety and efficacy data by September. As the organization prepares its 23rd Global Conference for a likely online format in October, these discussions underscored the urgent need for robust public health protocols alongside rapid medical solutions.
- The Economist14 min
How to fix the United Nations
Marking its 75th anniversary amid severe geopolitical fragmentation, UN Secretary-General António Guterres identifies the unpredictable tripartite rivalry between the US, China, and Russia as a primary driver of Security Council paralysis on critical issues like the Israel-Palestine conflict and the war in Ukraine. Despite this institutional deadlock, the UN continues to deliver vital humanitarian aid to nearly 200 million people while prioritizing internal reforms to enhance efficiency and addressing the urgent need for governance frameworks in climate change and artificial intelligence. A global listening campaign conducted during the anniversary revealed a widespread public demand for accountability, prompting the organization to shift its strategic focus toward transparent dialogue rather than self-promotion.
- The Economist9 min
Covid-19: is working from home really the new normal?
The pandemic has accelerated a fundamental shift in the US labor market, transforming the remote work ratio from one in fifty to over one in three while forcing a reevaluation of the $10,000 annual cost per employee associated with traditional office leases. Tech leaders like Twitter and Facebook are institutionalizing permanent remote mandates, driving a transition from time-based industrial wages to function-based compensation even as urban productivity models face disruption from reduced office density and gendered employment impacts. Despite skepticism about replicating corporate culture and creativity online, future office spaces are expected to evolve from daily workstations into collaborative hubs that complement a decentralized, knowledge-based economy where remote eligibility remains highly variable across global regions.
- The Economist10 min
Covid-19: what you need to know about the second wave
Zanny Minton Beddoes, Slavea Chankova
Experts anticipate recurring, localized waves of the virus driven by specific vulnerable populations until a vaccine achieves herd immunity. Governments are expected to prioritize targeted restrictions over broad lockdowns to mitigate economic fallout, though compliance may wane as public fatigue sets in. Simultaneously, unprecedented scientific collaboration contrasts with weak multilateral coordination on trade and travel, while authoritarian regimes leverage the crisis to consolidate power and democratic institutions face heightened risks regarding civil liberties and election security.
- Milken Institute33 min
A Conversation with Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President and CEO James Bullard
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard explains that the U.S. economy is adapting to pandemic risks through endogenous behavioral changes rather than broad lockdowns, projecting output recovery to 90% of normal levels despite historical quarterly declines. Bullard contrasts his view of a new steady state with host Josh Barrow's concern over permanently lower living standards, while addressing the dual policy challenge of balancing business preservation with market dynamism. Furthermore, Bullard highlights the strategic necessity of preventing a secondary financial crisis and identifies eliminating racial unemployment gaps as a critical metric for ideal monetary policy outcomes.
- The Economist11 min
How to fix America's police
With police violence claiming roughly 1,000 lives annually and disproportionately affecting Black communities, the U.S. faces deep structural barriers to reform including militarized equipment, qualified immunity, and restrictive union contracts. While federal proposals face political hurdles and some jurisdictions like Camden have successfully reduced complaints through comprehensive policy overhauls, others such as Minneapolis are moving toward departmental dismantling. The future trajectory of these changes now depends heavily on electoral outcomes and the collective voter will to prioritize either punitive law enforcement or community-based public safety solutions.
- Goldman Sachs11 min
The Scale and State of the Semiconductor Industry
Facing a projected 10% semiconductor industry decline in 2020 driven by pandemic-induced global GDP contraction, market dynamics have diverged with robust cloud computing demand offsetting weakness in handsets and automotive sectors. While the supply chain demonstrated unexpected resilience outside of specific disruptions in Wuhan, Malaysia, and the Bay Area, geopolitical trade restrictions and US-China tensions continue to create significant regulatory uncertainty for major OEMs like Huawei. Simultaneously, competitive pressures have intensified as top buyers consolidate purchasing power and tech giants vertically integrate their chip designs, shifting the battlefield toward advanced manufacturing triopolies and diversified data center compute cycles.
- The Economist12 min
$1bn to save the ocean
Sir David Attenborough, Dr Suzanne Lockhart, Doug McCauley, Finn, Peter Thompson
*The Economist* convened five leading ocean thinkers to propose strategic allocations of a hypothetical one billion dollars, revealing distinct approaches from Sir David Attenborough's focus on high-seas treaty enforcement to Zafar Kizilkaya's investment in satellite monitoring and deep-sea research by Dr. Suzanne Lockhart. While Professor Doug McCauley advocates for battery innovation to halt deep-sea mining and Finn McCauley targets the immediate survival of the vaquita porpoise, UN Special Envoy Peter Thompson emphasizes that bridging the gap between scientific data and public understanding is a prerequisite for global action. Ultimately, the panel concludes that a single funding sum cannot resolve systemic issues, asserting instead that long-term ocean preservation requires reshaping human behavior through international collaboration and heightened visibility.
- Goldman Sachs8 min
The Evolution of Europe’s Tech Landscape
European technology companies have leveraged robust pre-existing infrastructure to maintain business continuity while accelerating market trends like e-commerce adoption and digital collaboration tools. This sector is simultaneously experiencing a surge in private unicorns and capital availability driven by returning executives and a shift toward ambitious global valuations. Although currently underweighted in public markets compared to the U.S., a wave of high-profile listings and deal activity across defensive, opportunistic, and strategic phases signals a maturing ecosystem.