Latest Interviews
Showing 4441–4455 of 4,768 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Y Combinator28 min
Fundraising Panel at Female Founders Conference 2016
Talia Frenkel, Katelyn Gleason, Aarthi Ramamurthy, Liz Wessel, Kat Manalac, Caitlin Gleason
Four YC alumni from diverse sectors including healthcare, consumer goods, and job marketplaces share detailed accounts of their capital-raising journeys, which ranged from bootstrapping to securing multimillion-dollar rounds through persistent outreach and strategic narrative framing. The founders emphasize that overcoming investor skepticism requires deep domain expertise, a willingness to educate unfamiliar backers, and the resilience to handle rejection without compromising professional relationships. Ultimately, the discussion underscores that fundraising is an optional strategic tool rather than a mandatory industry norm, urging entrepreneurs to prioritize value creation and self-belief over blind adherence to Silicon Valley conventions.
- Milken Institute1h 3m
Reception | Celebrating Activist Women
Susan Santiago, Michael Milken, Shaun Robinson, Cher, John McArthur, Karen Weaver, Gary White, Katie O'Reilly
Hosted by Hyatt's first female SVP of Operations for the Americas, Susan Santiago, this Milken Family Foundation-sponsored event united activists like actress Cher, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, and industry experts to address the U.S. water infrastructure crisis. The panel revealed that approximately 7.3 million lead service lines remain nationwide, costing taxpayers roughly $10 monthly per family to replace, while highlighting the human failures and systemic neglect that drove the Flint tragedy. Participants emphasized that achieving universal clean water access by 2030 requires sustained public funding, strict regulation of private partnerships, and civic pressure to prioritize maintenance over reactive crisis management.
- Milken Institute59 min
A Conversation with Adm. Michael Mullen and Gen. Stanley McChrystal
Adm. Michael Mullen, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Susan Eisenhower, Stanley McChrystal, Michael Mullen
Admiral Mike Mullen and General Stanley McChrystal identify Russia as the primary military threat while warning that the United States faces a more insidious crisis through domestic fiscal insolvency, demographic shifts in the military, and deepening political polarization. The discussion advocates for a structural reduction of the active-duty Army to force public engagement in war and proposes congressional term limits and mandatory meetings to reverse the erosion of bipartisan cooperation. Ultimately, the speakers conclude that long-term national security depends less on military dominance and more on addressing economic inequality, restoring a shared sense of citizenship, and prioritizing diplomatic solutions over purely tactical military interventions.
- Milken Institute1h 6m
Priorities for the Next U.S. President
Jeff Green, Tillman Fertitta, Ellen Townsher, Frank Luntz, Mike Milken
Four former presidential candidates—Jeff Green, Tillman Fertitta, Ellen Townsher, and Frank Luntz—discussed hypothetical policy outcomes at the final session of the Milken Institute conference, moderated by Wolf Blitzer and Mike Milken. Each panelist detailed specific legislative achievements in their imagined administrations, ranging from Green's $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan and Guaranteed Minimum Income to Fertitta's elimination of corporate deficits and Luntz's failed VA reform efforts. The discussion highlighted divergent approaches to governance, with candidates sharing contrasting results on economic growth, foreign relations, and the practical challenges of implementing bold structural changes.
- Milken Institute1h 31m
Agent of Change: The California-Israel Global Innovation Partnership
Professor Itzik-Peterborg, Jay Keesling, Uri, Nati, Mark Gold, Yoram Cohen, Clive Kabat-Zinnick, David Blumberg
The California-Israel Global Innovation Partnership, established via a 2014 agreement between Governor Jerry Brown and the Israeli Prime Minister, facilitates the cross-border transfer of expertise in water, energy, and biotechnology to help California transition from a startup-centric to a scale-up economy. Key figures including Prof. Jay Keasling, Prof. Itzik Peterborg, and executives from Netafim demonstrated how synthetic biology, digital health solutions, and precision irrigation can decouple agricultural output from resource constraints while addressing California's fragmented governance and water scarcity crises. This collaboration leverages financial protocols and bilateral fellowships to deploy proven Israeli technologies globally, aiming to create a carbon-negative bio-economy and implement real-time conservation incentives that bridge the gap between policy fragmentation and sustainable infrastructure.
- Milken Institute1h 7m
Tom Hanks and Brian Grazer: A Conversation With Two Hollywood Icons
Tom Hanks, Brian Grazer, Gordon
Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer, whose extensive career spans blockbusters like *Apollo 13*, *A Beautiful Mind*, and the *Da Vinci Code* trilogy, champions a production philosophy rooted in active curiosity and collaboration with diverse figures ranging from Nobel laureates to hip-hop artists. By strategically merging non-fiction memoirs, adapting content for evolving streaming platforms, and partnering with Tom Hanks to develop projects such as *Empire* and *Cast Away*, Grazer has consistently prioritized themes of respect, mental health advocacy, and ethical storytelling. This approach has not only yielded significant commercial successes and critical acclaim but also established a legacy of identifying and elevating global talent while engaging audiences with complex social and philosophical questions.
- Goldman Sachs10 min
Christy Turlington Burns - Advancing Global Maternal Health: Talks at GS
Established in 2010 by Christy Turlington-Burns following her own postpartum hemorrhage, the organization Every Mother Counts leverages the documentary *No Woman, No Cry* to address preventable maternal mortality driven by barriers in transportation, education, and medical supplies. While Turlington-Burns extends this advocacy to the United States through the CNN series *Giving Birth in America* to highlight domestic disparities in care access and Medicaid reimbursement, the initiative remains focused on a global statistic that 98% of maternal deaths are avoidable. Her approach combines personal experience with public health expertise to confront systemic failures in both developing nations and the U.S., where the country's maternal mortality ranking has notably declined despite high provider density.
- Milken Institute1h 11m
Treasury's War on Terror: What It Means for Banking and Global Commerce
Staci Warden, Timothy Adams, Christine Duhaime, John Dye, Matthew Epstein, Farley Mesko
At the 2016 Milken Institute Global Conference, panelists analyzed how the U.S. Treasury's aggressive post-9/11 sanctions strategy inadvertently triggered widespread financial de-risking and excluded unbanked populations. Experts highlighted the inefficiency of current anti-money laundering regimes, noting that banks spend vast resources on broad compliance rather than targeting the estimated 0.1% of illicit flows actually detected. The discussion concluded by proposing a shift toward technology-driven intelligence, collaborative law enforcement models, and unified regulatory guidance to restore financial inclusion while surgically targeting known bad actors.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Investing in Infrastructure: Closing the Trillion-Dollar Gap
Andrew Clairaut, Kathy Hahn, Sudhir Hari, Scott Mackin, Greg Smith
A projected $90 trillion global infrastructure funding gap by 2030 persists due to a mismatch between long-term institutional mandates and the scarcity of bankable projects in both developed and emerging markets. While pension funds prioritize low-risk, regulated assets in OECD nations, private equity firms employ multilateral de-risking and hard currency strategies to target higher returns in developing regions where political and regulatory hurdles often stall deal execution. Bridging this deficit requires a shift from purely public funding to coordinated private mobilization, necessitating standardized concession frameworks and active stakeholder management to overcome sovereign default fears and political volatility.
- Milken Institute56 min
Entertainment: Riding the Global Wave
Les Moonves, Jeff Schell, Melody Hobson, Richard Lovett
Media executives detailed the sector's pivot from platform-centric models to content-driven ecosystems, highlighted by CBS's revenue exceeding expectations and its strategic repositioning as a global content-first company. In parallel, NBCUniversal's acquisition of DreamWorks Animation underscored the industry's consolidation trend, driven by the necessity for scale to handle international promotion and expand into theme parks and consumer products. Key figures further noted that diverse storytelling and direct-to-consumer distribution strategies have become essential financial imperatives for capturing the rapidly growing Asian and Latin American markets.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
Election 2016: Navigating the Fault Lines
Candy Crowley, Evan Bayh, Eric Cantor, Jason Grumet, Chris Krueger
The analysis predicts a decisive Republican nomination for Donald Trump in Indiana, while the Democratic primary remains a statistical tie between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton driven by divergent spending strategies and structural superdelegate advantages. Underpinned by deep economic anxiety over stagnant wages and rising costs, the event frames the general election as a polarized referendum where Clinton faces a narrow path to victory in the Rust Belt and Trump must overcome significant headwinds with female voters. Expert assessments conclude that regardless of the winner, the presidency will face severe legislative gridlock, with the Supreme Court vacancy serving as the immediate and most critical policy priority for the incoming administration.
- Milken Institute57 min
Marketing in the Digital Age: A Conversation with John Sculley and David A. Steinberg
John Sculley, David A. Steinberg, Peter L. Hopkins
Former Pepsi CEO John Scully and Zeta Interactive discuss the critical industry shift from mass-media brand campaigns to data-driven, attribution-based marketing that directly correlates ad spend to sales outcomes. This transformation is powered by Zeta's proprietary database of 350 million individuals, which enables real-time "fast data" analytics to replace traditional agency models while adhering to strict privacy standards and opt-in regulations. Looking ahead, the speakers predict that surviving organizations must pivot toward adaptive innovation and the "experience internet," where future success depends on customer lifecycle management rather than broad advertising budgets.
- Milken Institute58 min
How Do We Value Art?
Jane Nathanson, Deborah McLeod, Timothy Potts, Philip, Lucienne, Martha Minowski
Art leaders including MOCA co-founder Jane Nathanson, Gagosian Director Deborah McLeod, and Getty Director Timothy Potts debate the shifting balance between passion-driven collecting and financial investment at a Los Angeles forum. Participants analyzed market dynamics from the $60 billion global fine art volume to the specific challenges of the antiquities trade, emphasizing rigorous due diligence and the curatorial role of auction houses like Sotheby's. The consensus highlighted a strategic pivot where museums act as cultural anchors driving tourism while collectors increasingly adopt contrarian investment strategies to navigate the cyclical nature of contemporary art valuations.
- Milken Institute1h 5m
Can We Afford to Cure Disease?
Caroline Pearson, Gregg Alton, Peter Bach, Anthony Barrueta, Roy Beveridge, Tony Beretta, Pablo Legoreto
A 2015 panel discussion highlighted a five-fold surge in media mentions of prescription drug prices driven by high-cost therapies for hepatitis C and cancer, while analyzing the structural inefficiencies of the current U.S. market. Experts including Dr. Peter Bock and representatives from Humana and Gilead debated the necessity of value-based frameworks and potential policy interventions to address disparities where inflation-adjusted treatment costs rose from $50,000 to $250,000 per life-year gained. The consensus pointed toward a future shift toward outcomes-based payment models to balance pharmaceutical innovation with the financial sustainability of a healthcare system consuming 18% of U.S. GDP.
- Milken Institute58 min
The Climate Change Agreement: What's Next?
Aimée Christensen, Richard Friend, Hua Jingdong, Fred Krupp, Franklin Orr, Amy Christensen
Building on the Paris Agreement's global framework, 195 nations have committed to Nationally Determined Contributions while specific initiatives like Mission Innovation and the Breakthrough Energy Coalition mobilize 28 investors and 20 governments to double energy R&D funding. Despite these financial mechanisms and a 50% drop in renewable energy costs, current trajectories still project a 2.7°C temperature rise, necessitating an additional $770 billion in annual capital to bridge the gap toward carbon neutrality by 2050. Success now hinges on dismantling regulatory barriers, expanding carbon pricing markets, and addressing the social risks that could push 100 million more people into poverty without targeted climate resilience strategies.