Latest Interviews
Showing 16–30 of 46 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Goldman Sachs21 min
The Fed's Tightrope: Inflation, Labor, and the Path Ahead
Rob Kaplan, Allison Nathan, Robert Kaplan
Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan warns that the Federal Reserve faces a difficult December decision on interest rates as conflicting signals from tariffs, immigration uncertainty, and recent government shutdowns complicate the labor market outlook. With inflation running above target and structural mismatches limiting the efficacy of monetary policy, Kaplan argues that immediate cuts carry risks and suggests waiting for clearer data on 2026 growth drivers like AI infrastructure and tax incentives. While political pressure for lower rates exists, Kaplan maintains that the Fed's independent culture remains robust, though he anticipates potential shifts toward long-term bond purchases to manage the balance sheet.
- Goldman Sachs18 min
China's Economy: Reasons for Optimism
The October 30 Trump-Xi summit established a reciprocal trade truce marked by U.S. removal of fentanyl tariffs and pauses on semiconductor rules in exchange for China halting rare earth restrictions, effectively shifting from previous U.S. dominance to a negotiation based on equal leverage. This de-escalation, combined with resilient high-tech exports and a revised 15th Five-Year Plan prioritizing technological self-reliance, prompted Hui Shan to revise China's real GDP growth forecasts upward to 4.8% for 2026 and 4.7% for 2027. While the agreement leverages mutual dependence to stabilize the economic relationship, its durability remains contingent on reconciling conflicting official reports and resolving the structural uncertainty between advanced manufacturing gains and immediate household consumption growth.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
The Rise of Secondaries: Unlocking Liquidity in Private Markets
Harold Hope, Alex Blostein, Allison Nathan
The global secondary private markets reached $650 billion in assets under management with a 15% annual growth rate, driven by $200 billion in projected transaction volumes and shifting demand for liquidity among institutional and retail investors. Market dynamics now favor a 50-50 split between LP-led and GP-led continuation vehicles, as general partners across the top 200 managers increasingly utilize these structures to retain trophy assets and mitigate vintage risk. While a $200 billion supply of dry powder currently creates a favorable supply-demand imbalance, the sector is evolving from a tactical tool to a core allocation strategy expected to accelerate further as turnover rates mature over the next decade.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
AI Exchanges: The Role of Data
Neema Raphael, George Lee, Allison Nathan
Nima Raphael, a 20-year Goldman Sachs veteran, details the industry's strategic shift from deterministic coding to probabilistic machine learning, emphasizing the critical role of proprietary enterprise data in driving innovation beyond consumer hype. He argues that future AI differentiation relies on overcoming public data saturation by leveraging trapped internal datasets through rigorous engineering and emerging agent-based automation. Raphael further warns that sustained value depends on distinguishing high-quality insights from synthetic data risks while preparing for new frontiers in video and robotics generation.
- Goldman Sachs30 min
The Healthcare Outlook: Macro Challenges and Biotech Innovations
Asad Haider, Amit Sinha, Allison Nathan
Following five years of underperformance driven by capital rotation into artificial intelligence and regulatory uncertainty regarding drug pricing, the U.S. healthcare sector is undergoing a structural correction characterized by a declining S&P 500 weighting and a shift in early-stage capital formation toward private markets. Despite these macro headwinds, specific innovation cycles in oral obesity treatments, oncology, and cardiovascular therapeutics are creating idiosyncratic opportunities, particularly within the mid-cap biotech space where investors are beginning to recognize potential for outsized returns on revenue. While large pharmaceutical firms report initial AI-driven cost savings, market participants remain cautious, awaiting tangible earnings improvements before fully re-rating assets in an environment defined by a looming patent cliff and reduced federal research funding.
- Goldman Sachs23 min
After a Summer of Stablecoins, What’s Next?
Brian Brooks, Barry Eichengreen, Allison Nathan
The U.S. "Genius Act" establishes a comprehensive federal framework for stablecoins that mandates full backing by high-quality assets like U.S. Treasury bills while subjecting issuers to national bank-style supervision. Key figures Brian Brooks and Barry Eichengreen debate the legislation's efficacy, with Brooks advocating for private innovation and treasury demand growth while Eichengreen warns of systemic risks to the singleness of money and potential taxpayer liabilities. Despite these conflicting views on financial stability, the regulatory clarity is expected to dismantle existing market monopolies and accelerate mass adoption across savings, remittances, and commercial payment sectors.
- Goldman Sachs23 min
AI Exchanges: Where Will the Power Come From?
Rebecca Kruger, Allison Nathan, George Lee
Hyperscalers and utilities are forging unprecedented partnerships to address the binding power constraint of AI infrastructure, as the sector's step-change demand outstrips the current grid's 40-year-old capacity and supply chain limitations. With nuclear and gas-fired assets facing severe construction bottlenecks and a critical mismatch between rapid data center deployment and decade-long power generation timelines, these entities are committing to billions in capital and ten-year contracts to ensure reliable baseload generation. This strategic realignment, supported by emergency permitting measures and advanced technologies like behind-the-meter generation, marks a decisive shift from two decades of flat energy growth to a new era of massive grid modernization and investment.
- Goldman Sachs20 min
Is a US fiscal crisis ahead?
Kenneth Rogoff, Niall Ferguson, Allison Nathan, Ken Rogoff, Neil Ferguson
Economists Ken Rogoff and Niall Ferguson argue that the United States faces an unsustainable fiscal trajectory driven by rising global interest rates and a critical threshold where sovereign debt servicing costs have surpassed defense spending. They warn that without political reforms or productivity breakthroughs from artificial intelligence, the nation risks a rapid financial crisis involving inflation or a permanent erosion of the dollar's reserve currency status. This convergence of historical parallels and modern geopolitical fragmentation suggests the U.S. must navigate a difficult choice between austerity, higher inflation, or diminished global influence within the coming years.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
A German economic revival?
The new German coalition government has enacted legislation to unlock €500 billion for infrastructure and committed to raising defense spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2030, while simultaneously implementing reforms to boost economic competitiveness. These structural shifts occur amidst significant external pressure from U.S. tariff proposals that threaten the Eurozone's GDP and force multinational corporations to restructure supply chains, particularly within the automotive and chemical sectors. Despite macroeconomic headwinds and elevated valuations in European markets, robust M&A activity persists as companies accelerate digital transformation and restructuring to navigate a volatile geoeconomic landscape without an imminent recession on the horizon.
- Goldman Sachs25 min
How Goldman Sachs’ John Waldron is navigating “a more uncertain time”
Goldman Sachs reports that the U.S. economy remains resilient against recession fears despite April tariff shocks, though persistent fiscal deficits and policy uncertainty continue to constrain corporate capital investment and global capital allocation. The firm has moderated its own risk positioning while anticipating a resurgence in capital markets activity this summer, provided no further exogenous policy disruptions occur. Leadership is simultaneously pivoting toward operational excellence and technology infrastructure to stabilize revenue streams and navigate a volatile environment defined by shifting interest rates and tariff trajectories.
- Goldman Sachs16 min
Will legal challenges end the trade war?
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade blocked most of President Trump's sweeping tariffs in a May 29, 2025 ruling, determining that the executive branch lacked the intelligible limits required to impose duties on Canada, China, and Mexico under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. While the administration plans to appeal to the Supreme Court and may shift toward temporary Section 122 tariffs or sector-specific Section 301 investigations to maintain revenue, the decision significantly alters the legal landscape by invalidating the broad, unlimited authority claimed by the previous strategy. This pivotal judgment introduces substantial market uncertainty regarding future tariff levels and fiscal projections, as analysts anticipate a transition from across-the-board rates to more restrictive, country-specific measures.
- Goldman Sachs24 min
How AI, tariffs, and the energy transition are reshaping infrastructure investing
Large institutional investors have allocated 6% to 7% of assets to infrastructure, a sector that generated nine percent returns since 2022 while evolving from traditional transport dominance to focus on energy transition and digital assets like AI-driven data centers. Goldman Sachs identifies key opportunities across four segments, noting that solar plus storage is now cost-competitive and that European markets are gaining traction due to Germany's massive infrastructure plan, despite geopolitical and liquidity risks in specialized areas. To capitalize on these secular trends in decarbonization and digitalization, investors utilize closed-ended funds targeting mid-teens returns or evergreen vehicles for long-term capital appreciation.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
Equity risks and alts opportunities
David Kostin, Padi Raphael, Allison Nathan
The Professional Investor Forum gathered advisors managing $1.3 trillion to analyze a U.S. market recovering to pre-tariff levels despite a 50% recession probability, as first-quarter earnings beat expectations by 12% before new April policy shifts. Goldman Sachs forecasts a recession-free 2025 baseline, though participants anticipate earnings compression in the second quarter if tariffs are implemented. Consequently, investment strategies are pivoting toward private market allocations and equal-weighted indices to mitigate concentrated stock risk while managing capital flows repatriated from Europe and steady inflows from Asia.
- Goldman Sachs22 min
AI Exchanges: How tech giants are navigating the AI landscape
Eric Sheridan, Allison Nathan, George Lee
Major technology giants are sustaining record capital expenditures through 2025 to solidify AI infrastructure dominance, with Goldman Sachs projecting this peak intensity to slow in 2026 despite tariff-related cost increases. Executives from Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon characterize the sector as being in the early innings of a third computing shift, prioritizing defensive positioning and infrastructure monetization over immediate application-layer profitability. Although investor sentiment remains bifurcated by macroeconomic risks, current valuations reflect a strategic reliance on these incumbents' unprecedented balance sheet scale to navigate the transition from raw training to commercial deployment.
- Goldman Sachs26 min
Will tariffs lead to a recession?
Paul Krugman, Jan Hatzius, Oren Cass, Allison Nathan
Prominent economists Paul Krugman, Jan Hatzius, and Oren Cass debated the Trump administration's historic tariff expansion, which Krugman identifies as an unprecedented economic shock and Hatzius projects will reduce GDP growth by two percentage points while raising recession probabilities to 45%. While Krugman warns that policy uncertainty will stifle business investment and Hatzius cautions that the Federal Reserve faces a difficult trade-off between inflation and stagnation, Cass argues the measures represent a necessary structural correction to global supply chains that will eventually stimulate domestic production. The panel concluded that although immediate data lags obscure the full extent of damage, the severity of the downturn will ultimately depend on the Federal Reserve's ability to balance conflicting price and employment mandates against a backdrop of rapidly shifting trade policy.