Latest Interviews
Showing 4321–4335 of 5,336 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Milken Institute1h 1m
The Case for Investing in Migrants and Refugees
Caroline Fairchild, Kerry Kennedy, Jeff Maggioncalda, Gideon Maltz, Saed Moujtahed, John Kluge
A diverse panel of experts, including representatives from RFK Human Rights, the Tent Foundation, and Coursera, convened to address the global displacement of over 20 million people by analyzing root causes like geopolitical instability and highlighting the economic inefficiencies of current aid models. Speakers detailed how private sector innovations, such as Google's IT certification programs and Starbucks' hiring commitments, are successfully countering credential barriers while proving that refugees yield a two-to-one return on investment within five years. Despite significant administrative hurdles and inadequate government support, the consensus emphasizes a strategic shift toward impact investing, educational access, and sustained political advocacy to integrate refugees into global supply chains and economies.
- Milken Institute55 min
Lessons From the Great Recovery: How to Maintain Investment Momentum
Scarlet Fu, Thomas Finke, William Ford, Jonathan Lavine, Emmanuel Roman, Steven Tananbaum, Steve Tannenbaum, Manny Roman, Bill Ford, Tom Fink
Senior investment executives from PIMCO, Barings, and Bain Capital convened to analyze a late-cycle environment characterized by high valuations, rising volatility, and unsynchronized global credit cycles. While panelists identified critical risks including U.S.-China trade tensions, a potential wage-driven inflation spike, and the dangers of complacent leverage, they simultaneously highlighted opportunities in technology-driven digital transitions and Asian emerging markets. The consensus strategy emphasizes active management utilizing advanced data analytics to navigate complex credit structures, avoiding passive bets in illiquid assets or European high-yield debt while preparing for unforeseen macroeconomic dislocations.
- Milken Institute58 min
Innovating the Future of Food: Disruptors Leading a Health Revolution
Mehmet Oz, Matt Barnard, Nicolas Jammet, James Rogers, Tina Sharkey, Will Rosenzweig, Sasha, Jamie Shen
Leaders from Plenty, Sweetgreen, Appeal, and Brandless outlined transformative strategies to overhaul the food supply chain by replacing transport-heavy logistics with indoor farming, molecular shelf-life extension, and direct-to-consumer digital models. These innovators aim to slash the 33–50% industry food waste rate while shifting consumer behavior from health mandates to desirable palatability through technologies that eliminate the need for traditional cold chains. Collectively, the panelists advocate for modernized agricultural policies and supply chain redesigns that prioritize biodiversity and transparency over the current system's reliance on crops bred for durability rather than flavor.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Private Equity: Creating Value Against Increased Competition
Jim Moglia, Virginie Morgon, Jonathan Rotolo, Scott Sperling, David Wasserman, Andrew Weinberg
Private equity firms are navigating a high-valuation environment by prioritizing operational value creation through specialized teams and long-term partnerships rather than relying on traditional financial engineering. While capital structures evolve toward global, permanent funding and co-investment strategies, industry leaders emphasize disciplined stress testing and contrarian deal sourcing to mitigate risks from compressed exit multiples and rising interest rates. This strategic shift positions private equity as an essential orchestrator of economic growth, leveraging active management to capitalize on the divestiture of non-core assets by large corporations.
- Milken Institute59 min
Real Estate Outlook: A More Attractive Asset?
Erik Schatzker, Neil Bluhm, Robert Morse, Eyal Ofer, David Simon, Sam Zell, Bob Morris
A panel of prominent real estate executives, including Sam Zell and David Simon, identifies the current market as a late-cycle environment characterized by unprecedented capital inflows, compressed yields, and a looming oversupply of new construction. While experts debate the severity of the impending correction, they agree on specific pressures driving valuation disconnects, such as the aggressive bidding for select assets contrasting with public REIT discounts and significant oversupply risks in the office and industrial sectors. Looking forward, the group forecasts that technological disruptions in autonomous vehicles and shifting workforce dynamics will fundamentally reshape demand, necessitating strategic pivots toward mixed-use developments and the acquisition of distressed private assets.
- Y Combinator1h 14m
Fermat's Library Cofounders João Batalha and Luís Batalha
João Batalha, Luís Batalha, Mika, Timor, Francesc Campoy Flores, Mark Mandelmann
Fermat's Library is a browser-based platform founded by four MIT alumni that enables researchers to annotate academic papers using LaTeX and Markdown to simulate an offline journal club experience. The team has grown the site by hosting over 1,000 documents, including the most commented-on Bitcoin whitepaper, and deployed a Chrome extension for arXiv to facilitate real-time collaboration on preprints. By promoting open science principles and addressing systemic issues like the lack of incentives for negative results, the platform aims to evolve into a global "Stack Overflow for science" that supports peer review and knowledge discovery outside traditional paywalls.
- The Economist10 min
Can eco-tourism help save the ocean?
In Indonesia's Coral Triangle, the Mizzul Marine Protected Area transitioned from a poached wasteland to a thriving ecosystem through a private-enterprise model founded by Andrew and Marit Miners. This initiative employs over 200 locals in conservation and tourism roles, utilizing ocean rangers to enforce a no-take ban that has boosted shark populations by 25 times and increased marine biomass by 600%. By generating revenue that exceeds former fishing income, the project demonstrates a scalable financial argument for biodiversity protection that local communities now control.
- Milken Institute59 min
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Medicine: Hope or Hype?
Rick Berke, Rowan Chapman, Iya Khalil, Lloyd Minor, George Yancopoulos, Megan Zweig, Dan Furstenberg
Industry leaders and researchers convened to address the critical bottleneck of poor data quality in healthcare AI, noting that high-quality "big data" is essential for overcoming the limitations of existing Electronic Health Records and avoiding failures like those seen with IBM Watson. While venture capital has pivoted from high-risk clinical decision support to near-term applications in operational efficiency and medical imaging, participants advocated for long-term systemic reforms such as FDA mandates for molecular data collection and a $200 million biobank initiative to enable precise patient phenotyping. The panel concluded that bridging the gap between clinical trial success and real-world outcomes requires rigorous regulatory frameworks and collaborative investment to reduce physician burnout and improve drug development success rates.
- Y Combinator3h 39m
Female Founders Conference - New York
Jessica Livingston, Kathryn Minshew, Alex Cavoulacos, Mariya Nurislamova, Reshma Shetty, Shan-Lyn Ma, Reham Fagiri, Tiffani Ashley Bell, Alana Branston, Katherine Minshew, Kirsty Nathoo, Adora, Stephanie, Holly Liu, Sharon Pope, Kat Mignolet, Matthew, Carolyn
Y Combinator and a diverse panel of founders, including Jessica Livingston and representatives from Zola and Scentbird, convened to discuss scalable startup strategies that prioritize values alignment, efficient hiring, and rapid product-market fit validation. The discussion highlighted critical insights such as the dangers of bias in "culture fit" evaluations, the necessity of avoiding "crappy yeses" during fundraising, and the importance of maintaining founder-led scrappiness even after significant capital deployment. By contrasting successful pivots in sectors ranging from wedding registries to virtual data science, the event underscored that sustainable growth relies on unique founder traits and disciplined metric management rather than traditional VC heuristics or rapid scaling alone.
- Y Combinator1h 14m
Scott Aaronson on Computational Complexity Theory and Quantum Computers
Scott Aronson clarifies that quantum computing relies on choreographing destructive interference patterns to amplify correct solutions rather than simply testing all possibilities simultaneously, a capability that has shifted the field from theoretical impossibility to a rigorous engineering challenge requiring fault tolerance. He identifies the generation of untrusted random bits as a near-term application for 50–70 qubit devices and introduces shadow tomography, a technique merging differential privacy with quantum mechanics to estimate state properties efficiently. Furthermore, Aronson contextualizes these technical advances within broader computational limits regarding the P vs. NP problem, the holographic nature of spacetime, and the urgent need to align artificial intelligence with human values before addressing existential risks.
- The Economist38 min
James Comey on emails, the "American giant" and the end of Donald Trump
James Comey, Donald Trump, Anne McElvoy
Former FBI Director James Comey articulates his judgment that President Trump is morally unfit for office while asserting the FBI remains a rock-solid, unpoliticized institution despite intense scrutiny. He reflects on the contentious October 28 decision regarding the Clinton email investigation and expresses skepticism about the North Korean denuclearization deal, maintaining high confidence that the Mueller probe will uncover criminal facts regardless of political fallout. Looking ahead to his public policy course at the College of William & Mary, Comey emphasizes that ethical leadership is defined by rigorous truth-seeking processes rather than outcomes, arguing that American democratic values may ultimately strengthen through a necessary national reassessment.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Entitlements: A Collision Course With Fiscal Reality
Josh Barro, Jared Bernstein, Andrew Biggs, Chris Hughes, Maya MacGuineas, Eric Schmidt, Andrew McAfee, Jonathan Zittrain, Jared King, Nancy Gertner, David Rockefeller, Anne Coughlin, Eric Schwartzman
A panel of experts including Andrew Biggs and Jared Bernstein addressed the actuarial insolvency of Social Security and Medicare, evaluating revenue increases and benefit adjustments to close the projected 75-year shortfall. The discussion extended to expanding income support through a modernized Earned Income Tax Credit while contrasting these proposals with healthcare reforms aimed at reducing drug costs and leveraging public options. Panelists concluded that political constraints and intergenerational inequities currently prevent necessary fiscal adjustments, creating a gap between public demand for services and willingness to fund them.
- Y Combinator26 min
Announcing Work at a Startup
Jared Friedman, Matt Long, Craig Cannon
Scheduled for July, the Work at a Startup conference reunites Y Combinator partners Justin Kahn and Sam Altman with over 80% of the accelerator's hiring companies for a scaled event featuring 35 pitches across software, robotics, and deep tech. Attendees will engage directly with startups ranging from unicorns like Instacart to early-stage hardware firms offering roles in AI, DevOps, and co-founder positions, while also viewing live hardware demonstrations from entities such as Starsky Robotics. The gathering addresses critical market trends including remote work expansion, equity transparency, and the shifting definition of startup engineering to counter traditional compensation gaps.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
Global Capital Markets
Gerard Baker, Mary Callahan Erdoes, Michael Corbat, Joshua Friedman, Scott Minerd, Ning Tang
Prominent financial leaders from Guggenheim, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, and Citigroup convened to analyze a 2018 global economy characterized by synchronous growth amidst rising debt levels, regulatory shifts, and structural market vulnerabilities. Key speakers warned that the rapid transition from quantitative easing to tightening, combined with the dominance of passive investing and record corporate leverage, creates significant risks for volatility and liquidity disruptions in coming years. The discussion further highlighted that while geopolitical tensions and trade deficits remain contentious, the most immediate threats to stability stem from a "fast speed, slow speed" trading dynamic and a labor market nearing critical constraints.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Beyond "Brotopia": Leaders Challenging the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley
Emily Chang, Bo Young Lee, Erin McPherson, Kara Nortman, Elaine Paul, Melissa Waters
Panelists define "Brotopia" as a subtle, bias-driven culture that excludes diverse thinkers and marginalizes women through microaggressions and heteronormative social dynamics. Industry leaders from Uber, Lyft, and Hulu demonstrate specific counter-strategies, including auditing hiring language, institutionalizing sponsorship over mentorship, and recruiting from historically Black colleges to dismantle systemic barriers. Despite these efforts, data reveals persistent disparities where women receive only 2% of venture capital and represent just 6% of Fortune 500 CEOs, necessitating radical policy shifts and individual self-reflection to achieve genuine equity.