Latest Interviews

Electric cars will come of age in 2018

The 2018 automotive landscape marked a global tipping point where electric vehicle costs fell below those of fossil fuel models, driven by halved battery prices, doubled driving ranges, and government mandates from nations like Britain and France to ban internal combustion engines by 2040. China's dominance in production and sales, combined with corporate commitments to fully electrify fleets, aims to disrupt global oil demand while introducing ethical supply chain challenges regarding cobalt extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Experts characterize this transition as an inevitable momentum that will eventually phase out the 1880s-era internal combustion engine, despite the trillions of dollars required to upgrade power grids and stabilize regions reliant on oil revenue.

Content Marketing Tips from Experts at First Round Capital and Andreessen Horowitz

Camille Ricketts, Sonal Chokshi, Craig Cannon

First Round Capital and a16z articulate a content philosophy that prioritizes strategic metrics and deep, long-form storytelling over vanity traffic, utilizing an editorial instinct honed through pattern recognition. These firms deploy a rigorous production workflow ranging from a three-tier interview framework to the use of "maker schedules" that protect creative energy while balancing reactive news with enduring "stock" projects. Their approach to audience growth relies on identifying niche "true fans" and leveraging proprietary data narratives to ensure utility, rejecting shallow advertorials in favor of authentic, emotionally resonant, or tactical advice.

A Conversation with Ray Dalio and Michael Milken

Ray Dalio, Michael Milken

Ray Dalio outlines his journey from a 1960s caddie to the architect of Bridgewater's "idea meritocracy," a philosophy forged after a costly 1982 sovereign debt mistake forced him to prioritize objective disagreement over ego. Drawing on historical cycles like the 1974 market crash and 1937 recession, Dalio warns of current parallels in wealth disparity and pension funding gaps while critiquing Bitcoin as a speculative bubble despite China's engineering strengths. His analysis concludes that future economic resilience depends on radical transparency, automation-ready skills, and recognizing that sustainable wealth is a byproduct of value creation rather than an end goal.

Wisdom and Worldviews: Perspectives from Asia's Leaders

Karen Davila, Ho Kwon Ping, Serge Pun, Teresita Sy-Coson

Featuring Ho Kwon Ping, Serge Pan, and Tessie Cason, this panel dissects the existential threats of event risk and premature deindustrialization facing Asian businesses amidst U.S. protectionism and rapid regional aging. The discussion highlights sector-specific pivots, such as the hospitality industry's shift to premium tourism and Myanmar's potential to leapfrog infrastructure development, while critiquing the critical misalignment between current educational outputs and the demand for vocational skills. Ultimately, the experts warn against Asian triumphalism, urging corporations to proactively manage automation's social impact and foster resilience through continuous upskilling rather than relying on the inevitable triumph of an "Asian Century."

Feeding the Planet: Innovations in Food and Agriculture

Sharanjit Leyl, Jeremy Coller, David Lee, Beverley Postma, Jason Strong

Addressing the projected demand of 2 billion additional people by 2030, a panel of investors and industry leaders including David Lee of Impossible Foods and Jeremy Grantham outlined a dual strategy combining radical plant-based disruption with incremental efficiency gains in existing livestock systems. The discussion highlighted that while biofortification by Harvest Plus offers a 1:17 return on investment to combat malnutrition, the global food revolution depends on achieving cost parity for technologies like heme-based meats and clean meat at scale. Ultimately, the consensus identified $65 trillion in responsible investment capital and a breakdown of institutional silos between finance, health, and agriculture as the necessary catalysts to drive this market-led sustainability transition.

Mr. Robot's Co-Producer and Writer - Kor Adana

Kor Adana, Craig Cannon

Former cybersecurity engineer turned television writer Sam Esmail, leveraging his real-world hacking experience to ensure technical authenticity in the series *Mr. Robot*, transitioned from corporate security to Hollywood by funding an unpaid entry with a three-year savings runway. His personal history of exploiting a school AS/400 system directly inspired the character Elliot Alderson, while his rigorous production methodology involves practical, pre-scripted animations and historical software verification to avoid syntax errors. Beyond the screen, this collaboration extended to complex Alternate Reality Games that integrated real-world puzzles and community engagement, blending the creator's expertise in network security with narrative demands to demystify technology for a global audience.

Talks at GS – Ambassador Christopher Hill: Then & Now – The North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Christopher Hill

North Korea has shifted from historical negotiation attempts to a strategy under Kim Jong-un that legally enshrines nuclear weapons to decouple U.S. forces from its allies while developing solid-fuel missiles capable of threatening the American mainland. Addressing this evolving threat requires a multi-pronged approach combining stringent U.S.-led sanctions, cyber operations, and renewed diplomatic efforts, all while navigating China's internal conflict between economic interests and security fears of regime collapse. Without sustained global cooperation and military reassurances for South Korea and Japan, the risk of miscalculation remains high as Pyongyang continues to advance its nuclear capabilities.

Asia's Rising Stars: Leading for 2037

Rahul Malhotra, Allen Law, Quek Kon Hui, Ramon Fernando D. Rufino, Isaiah Schulze

Four prominent Asian business leaders, Con Hui Quek, Alan Law, Raymond Rufino, and Isaiah Schultz, convened to discuss the critical transition from legacy family ownership to professional management structures across real estate, hospitality, and private equity sectors. The panel detailed strategic pivots toward frontier markets in Southeast Asia and developing nations, emphasizing how technology, sustainability initiatives like green building councils, and rigorous merit-based governance are driving regional expansion while avoiding saturated or high-valuation markets like China. By integrating philanthropy with core investment thesis and prioritizing middle-class infrastructure over luxury projects, these figures outlined a roadmap for long-term business longevity and societal impact in a rapidly evolving Asian economy.

Business Sustainability: Chasing the Triple Bottom Line

Robin Hu, Achal Agarwal, Sophia Cheng, Hiromichi Mizuno, Pier Luigi Sigismondi, Peter Wayman, Christopher, Mr Lee, Benway Prosser, Andrew Cross

Industry leaders from the Government Pension Investment Fund, Unilever, Cathay Financial Holdings, and Kimberly-Clark convened to discuss the integration of ESG strategies into core business models, citing specific financial wins such as Unilever's $200 million in cost savings and GPIF's $10 billion allocation to sustainable indices. While panels highlighted that sustainability drives brand equity and talent acquisition, they also noted critical challenges regarding the standardization of Social Return on Investment metrics and the tension between short-term shareholder pressure and long-term value creation. The consensus reached was that aligning investors, companies, and consumers on shared values transforms sustainability from a cost center into a primary driver of innovation, risk mitigation, and superior financial returns.

Global Cities Roundtable: Economic Dynamics from China to California

Henny Sender, Kevin Klowden, Perry Wong

A panel discussion analyzes urbanization as a critical economic strategy for China, contrasting its infrastructure-led growth model with the bureaucratic and political obstacles hindering modernization in the U.S. and India. The conversation highlights divergent regional trajectories, noting how cities like Guiyang and Shenzhen have successfully reinvented themselves through strategic investment and entrepreneurial flexibility while others face stagnation from structural rigidity or talent outflows. Ultimately, the analysis emphasizes that long-term viability depends on a city's capacity to continuously adapt its industrial base and governance to evolving technological and global market demands.

Japan's Renewal: The Fight to Stay Ahead

Kotaro Tamura, Daisuke Iwase, Takumi Shibata, Keiko Tashiro

A panel of experts analyzed how Japan is leveraging a 4% annualized growth rate and aggressive corporate governance reforms to stabilize its economy amidst heightened North Korean missile threats and strategic US-China tensions. The discussion highlighted how severe labor shortages are driving rapid automation adoption and innovative aging solutions, such as elderly care robotics and policy shifts, which are creating new investment opportunities in fintech and medical technology. Furthermore, the event detailed a tourism boom targeting 40 million visitors that is not only boosting per-capita consumption but also fostering a renewed sense of national confidence while serving as a diplomatic bridge with regional neighbors.

The FinTech Revolution: What's Next?

Dan Murphy, Chen Long, Jonathan Larsen, Simon Loong, Sopnendu Mohanty, Ning Tang

A global fintech shift is underway as Asia leads investment and adoption while traditional banks increasingly collaborate with technology firms through "front-end, back-end" partnerships to address B2B inefficiencies. Strategic priorities are pivoting from consumer retail to complex value chains and R&D-driven innovation, driven by the urgent need to resolve identity friction and serve unbanked populations in emerging markets. Despite robust growth in financial inclusion, industry experts caution that legacy security vulnerabilities and the regulatory challenges surrounding decentralized currencies like Bitcoin remain critical hurdles to long-term maturity.

China's Trade-Off: The Outlook on Investment

Kevin Lu, Wei Sun Christianson, Kenneth Gaw, Richard Hu, Weijian Shan, Jing Ulrich

Leading financial executives from Partners Group, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan convened to analyze the shifting dynamics of Chinese foreign direct investment, noting a 2017 policy reversal that incentivizes capital inflows despite persistent barriers in financial ownership and exit mechanisms. Panelists discussed how structural challenges, including succession issues in the private sector and tightening geopolitical scrutiny on outbound deals, are reshaping investment strategies toward sectors like technology and consumer finance. Strategic forecasts predict China's transformation into the world's largest consumer market by 2040, driven by a growing middle class and a shift in elite talent from engineering to finance.

Communicate with Users, Build Something They Want - Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt

Ryan Hoover, Craig Cannon

Ryan Hoover secured Y Combinator investment by validating Product Hunt through manual outreach and email lists before engineering resources were committed, eventually launching the platform as a global hub for product discovery. The company is now shifting its strategy to monetize by introducing the "Ship" paid tool for creators while expanding its angel fund "Weekend Fun" to invest in remote work and voice technology. Operating a distributed team of 17 across nine time zones, Product Hunt focuses on asynchronous collaboration and strategic pivots like dropping podcast discovery to align with its core product recommendation model.

Gender at Work: Why We’re Still Struggling to Get It Right

Rich Ditizio, Stacey

Drawing on three decades of experience in financial services, a former private bank CEO outlines the strategic shift from corporate tolerance to genuine inclusion, arguing that true progress requires normalizing women in leadership through structural and cultural change rather than isolated interventions. The presentation highlights persistent gendered double standards in workplace perception and calls for men and boys to lead the normalization of female colleagues and leaders to dismantle historical barriers. Participants engaged in this discourse by identifying specific workplace challenges facing women and aggregating actionable insights to shape future programming.