Latest Interviews
Showing 16–30 of 123 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Goldman Sachs11 min
“We Like Bonds”
Goldman Sachs interprets recent U.S. labor data as a temporary distortion driven by the government shutdown, maintaining that the economy remains soft rather than collapsing while projecting only two Federal Reserve rate cuts throughout 2025. The firm advocates for an intermediate-duration bond strategy between two and five years to balance yield pickup against global term premium risks, avoiding the longer end of the curve despite tight corporate credit spreads. Market outcomes will likely pivot on whether AI-driven productivity achieves a disinflationary expansion or if a sharper labor deterioration prompts a more aggressive monetary response from the central bank.
- Goldman Sachs28 min
The US-China Tech Race
Mark Kennedy, Paul Triolo, Allison Nathan
The US-China technological rivalry spans four strategic arenas, with Washington retaining dominance in fundamental innovation and China leading in application, infrastructure deployment, and self-sufficiency efforts. While US export controls have stalled China's access to advanced EUV lithography and high-end GPUs, these restrictions are simultaneously accelerating Beijing's parallel development of domestic chip manufacturing and open-source AI models. This dynamic creates a potential future where the US owns core design standards while China controls physical hardware and global markets, though US leadership ultimately hinges on resolving domestic energy grid constraints and sustaining its talent pipelines.
- Y Combinator9 min
Transformers Explained: The Discovery That Changed AI Forever
This event traces the evolution of AI from early neural networks plagued by vanishing gradients to the 2017 introduction of the transformer architecture, which replaced sequential processing with parallel self-attention. Key milestones include the LSTM's ability to model long-range dependencies, Google Translate's adoption of attention-based sequence-to-sequence models, and the subsequent bifurcation of transformers into encoder-focused BERT and decoder-focused GPT series. These developments enabled the shift from single-task specialists to general-purpose large language models, establishing the foundation for current state-of-the-art systems like ChatGPT and Claude.
- Goldman Sachs20 min
Making Sense of Weak Job Growth Alongside Solid GDP Growth
Despite tariffs reaching eight times 2019 levels and a three-week government shutdown subtracting from growth, U.S. GDP resilience is maintained by a depreciating dollar, stable stock markets, and a productivity rebound to historical averages. Core inflation is projected to normalize toward the 2% target as supply chains recover, supporting the Federal Reserve's current expectation of three consecutive 25-basis-point rate cuts through the end of the year. While immigration drops have constrained labor supply and AI adoption remains limited to specific sectors, policymakers anticipate maintaining a moderate expansion path unless post-shutdown data reveals significant deviations from current forecasts.
- Y Combinator39 min
Startup Advice: AI GTM, Pivoting & How To Hire
Founders entering legacy industries must select a go-to-market model—typically software-first, full-stack, or acquisition-based—while rigorously tracking automation trajectories to secure software valuations from investors. Strategic execution requires prioritizing mid-market segments for faster feedback loops and securing empowered early adopters, as AI sales tools and high-level marketing hires only succeed after founders have personally mastered their own product-market fit. Ultimately, successful scaling depends on treating hiring as a failure-prevention necessity, leveraging open-source components to build enterprise trust, and maintaining the conviction to pivot when customer conviction indicates a "great" idea is absent.
- Goldman Sachs26 min
How Reliable is Economic Data?
Erica Groshen, Arthur Laffer, Alberto Cavallo, Joseph Briggs, Allison Nathan
Recent concerns regarding the reliability of U.S. economic data stem from funding cuts, a 15–20% staffing reduction at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the dismissal of its Commissioner by President Trump. Goldman Sachs research indicates that these operational constraints and declining survey responsiveness are increasing standard errors in key indicators like the CPI and JOLTS, creating a risk of data divergence. While current safeguards and institutional checks may prevent a total collapse of credibility, analysts warn that prolonged political interference and resource depletion could eventually erode market trust to the extent seen in Argentina.
- Y Combinator13 min
OpenAI vs. Deepseek vs. Qwen: Comparing Open Source LLM Architectures
OpenAI, Alibaba Cloud, and DeepSeek have each launched significant open-weight language models featuring distinct Mixture of Experts architectures and advanced long-context capabilities. While OpenAI's GPT-OSS prioritizes inference efficiency on consumer hardware, Alibaba's Qwen 3 introduces flexible dense and sparse variants with dual reasoning modes, and DeepSeek's V3.1 achieves superior memory efficiency through Multi-Head Latent Attention. Despite differing engineering strategies for scaling and alignment, all three families demonstrate comparable performance benchmarks derived from trillions of tokens and complex post-training pipelines.
- Goldman Sachs10 min
The Fed Cut Playbook
Josh Schiffrin, Mike Washington
Josh Schifrin identifies weaker-than-expected non-farm payroll revisions as the dominant economic signal, creating a high probability for a 25 basis point Federal Reserve rate cut in September while ruling out a larger 50 basis point move. Although the US dollar faces structural headwinds from lower short-term rates and fiscal deficits, Schifrin expects equities to continue rising driven by AI catalysts and economic resilience, recommending a strategic long position in five-year Treasuries to capitalize on anticipated easing and hedge against potential volatility. This outlook sets the stage for a critical early September payroll report to guide the Fed's data-dependent trajectory for the remainder of the year.
Nuclear Race to Power Superintelligence
Isaiah Taylor, JC Btaiche, Packy McCormick, Molly O'Shea
Jensen Huang identifies affordable power capacity as the primary bottleneck for AI scaling, while Isaiah Taylor of Valor Atomics and JC of Fuse outline US strategies to close the nuclear deployment gap with China through modular fission and high-power fusion technologies. These companies are leveraging new Department of Energy testing authorities to accelerate reactor safety validation, aiming to mass-produce clean energy that could comprise 75% of the global mix by 2050. Concurrently, the discussion highlights how physical hardware manufacturers can differentiate themselves from AI-generated content by leveraging unique operational narratives to secure brand identity in an increasingly automated market.
- Goldman Sachs16 min
The Surprising Implications of an Aging Population
Global median ages are rising rapidly across both developed and emerging economies as increased longevity and declining fertility rates drive a peak in the world population around 2075. This demographic shift presents a projected 15% decline in the working-age ratio for developed nations, though the immediate economic crisis is mitigated by a 12% extension in effective working lives since 2000. Consequently, markets are adapting not through a simple shift to elderly-specific goods, but via a prolonged lifecycle consumption model where society extends all life stages while boosting female labor participation.
- a16z14 min
The Ultimate AI Video Stack: Up-to-Date Best Tools to Make Content With AI
Justine, a partner at A16C and the "Venture Twins" creator, outlines a comprehensive workflow for early-stage AI video production that leverages Google Flow for text-to-video generation and Cling 2.1 for consistent character animation. The presentation details how Hedra facilitates precise lip-syncing with voice cloning capabilities while Higgs Field and Crea manage specialized visual effects and multi-model comparison to refine output quality. By synthesizing these distinct tools into a unified pipeline, creators can currently overcome limitations in audio generation and scene continuity despite the field remaining in its nascent, rapidly evolving stage.
- Goldman Sachs25 min
Is Fed independence at risk?
Richard Clarida, John Cochrane, Alison Nathan
The Trump administration is actively pursuing legal challenges to overturn the *Humphrey's Executor* precedent, aiming to eliminate "for-cause" protections for Federal Reserve officials and subject them to direct presidential removal. While structural checks like the Federal Open Market Committee's voting system and Senate confirmation remain, this strategy threatens to destabilize financial markets by introducing uncertainty over the central bank's ability to maintain price stability. Experts warn that removing these independence safeguards could distort inflation expectations and encourage mission creep, as the Fed faces pressure to expand beyond its statutory mandate into areas like climate risk and housing policy.
- Milken Institute58 min
New Horizons for Accelerating Drug Repurposing
Dr. David Fajgenbaum, Ray, Kristen, Marianne Clancy, Christine Colvis
Hosted by TRiN and Faster Cures, this webinar featured experts from EveryCure, CURE HHT, and NCATS to examine strategies for accelerating the repurposing of existing drugs for rare diseases. Presenters detailed how AI-driven knowledge graphs and patient-led advocacy successfully navigated financial, intellectual property, and regulatory hurdles to secure approvals for conditions like Castleman's disease and Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia. The session concluded with a consensus that generating clinical evidence and securing payment pathways are more critical than intellectual property protection for bringing generic therapies to new indications.
- The Economist21 min
Over the Yoon: South Korea ousts president
Rosie Bloor, Noah Snyder, Duncan Robinson, John Fasman
South Korea's Constitutional Court has upheld the impeachment of President Yoon Suk-yeol for declaring martial law, mandating a snap election within 60 days that leaves opposition leader Lee Jae-myung as the frontrunner amid deepening economic and geopolitical instability. While the ousted president faces a separate criminal trial for insurrection that could carry a life sentence or death penalty, the nation's conservative factions remain fragmented and vulnerable to shifting US trade policies and alliance strategies. This constitutional crisis has simultaneously depressed market confidence and complicated the path toward stabilizing the economy amidst intensifying external pressures.
- a16z23 min
How to spot an AI Deepfake
Over 90% of security attacks now target human behavior, with AI-driven social engineering tactics like deepfakes and voice cloning surging to affect millions globally and enable sophisticated impersonations of corporate leaders and government officials. Experts warn that while current losses are financial, these threats pose imminent risks to critical infrastructure and human safety, driven by open-source models that allow adversaries to automate attacks without significant cost barriers. To counter this evolving landscape, organizations must shift from static compliance training to continuous, adaptive simulations and deploy defensive AI agents capable of countering automated offensive operations.