Latest Interviews
Showing 6046–6060 of 6,110 interview transcripts.
- Goldman Sachs9 min
Inventor Dean Kamen & Goldman Sachs' Don Duet: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Dean Kamen, Don Duet, Calvin Lully
A self-taught entrepreneur who entered the healthcare sector to solve fundamental problems rather than make incremental improvements, the speaker cites the iBot wheelchair as a breakthrough that overcame both physical and social barriers for users like Calvin Lully. Challenging the notion that education lacks teachers or resources, the speaker argues that engagement requires packaging learning through entertainment and elevating tech innovators as cultural heroes. While employing 600 engineers to define new markets, the organization intentionally avoids direct manufacturing, instead partnering with global incumbents to scale rare, world-changing innovations despite a high rate of experimental failure.
- Milken Institute55 min
Asia Summit 2014 - A Conversation with Robert Zoellick: U.S. Rebalancing Toward Asia
Robert Zoellick, Chan Heng-Chi, Manraj Sekh, Jared Carney Lightdale, Kevin Chen, Yanqing
Former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zellick addressed the strategic challenges of the current global order, analyzing the implications of Scottish independence on UK-US relations while advocating for a federalism model to counter insular fragmentation. He outlined a complex counter-ISIS strategy requiring local ground forces and regional partnerships to navigate the collapse of the Sykes-Picot system without overextending US domestic will. Furthermore, Zellick emphasized the necessity of advancing the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership to secure US leadership, urging the integration of rising powers like China into reformed multilateral institutions rather than isolating them.
- Goldman Sachs24 min
Congressman John Lewis & Lloyd Blankfein: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Former civil rights leader John Lewis traces his journey from a sharecropper's son in rural Alabama to a central figure in the 1960s nonviolent movement, detailing his collaboration with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and pivotal events such as the Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington, and the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" confrontation in Selma. These struggles directly catalyzed landmark federal legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Lewis credits for enabling the presidencies of Carter, Clinton, and Obama while warning that the unfinished work of racial and LGBTQ+ justice demands continued vigilance against modern legal setbacks.
- Goldman Sachs32 min
John C. Whitehead & Tom Brokaw: Talks at GS Session Highlights
John C. Whitehead, Tom Brokaw, Peter van de Ven
Goldman Sachs senior partner John Whitehead shared his classified D-Day experience where, to save his crew, he disobeyed orders and maneuvered his landing craft through enemy fire, a sacrifice he concealed for decades to avoid court-martial. This hidden act of courage foreshadowed his post-war humanitarian airlifts to Hungary and his unique consensus-based leadership philosophy at Goldman Sachs, which prioritized moral responsibility and team cohesion over rapid decision-making. Tanya Cushman's book *The Greatest Generation* finally brought these suppressed stories to light, revealing how the extreme pressures of World War II forged the ethical frameworks that defined Whitehead's public and private life.
- Goldman Sachs17 min
Lord John Browne with GS CIO Marty Chavez: Talks at GS Session Highlights
Lord John Browne, Marty Chavez
The event synthesizes global energy transition challenges with corporate diversity strategies, highlighting how technological innovation and capital investment drive renewable cost reductions while policymakers navigate the trade-offs between energy security and decarbonization. Speaker Lord Brown illustrates the psychological and productivity costs of hiding personal identities in conservative business environments, using his own experience with tabloid exposure to underscore the need for authentic leadership. He concludes by outlining seven specific elements for fostering inclusive cultures, emphasizing that effective diversity initiatives require top-down direction, senior leadership integration, and comprehensive policies that address gender, sexuality, and race simultaneously.
- Y Combinator22 min
Urska Srsen
Bellabeat, a Slovenian startup co-founded by Urska Sršin and Sandra Sršin, pivoted from a complex B2B patient monitoring system to a consumer wearable that allows expectant mothers to track health metrics and connect emotionally. Founded in 2012 and accelerated by Y Combinator in late 2013, the company has sold over 8,000 devices and secured seed funding shortly after its Demo Day presentation. Operating across European, American, and Australian markets, the firm aims to digitize prenatal care by integrating medical data into everyday lifestyle habits through a hardware and mobile app ecosystem.
- Y Combinator31 min
Alfred Lin with Justin Kan
Lin and Tony Hsieh launched LinkExchange in 1997 to solve traffic acquisition for web hosts, eventually selling the network to Microsoft for $265 million before co-founding an angel fund that pivoted to Telme Networks and Zappos during the dot-com crash. While leading Telme, Lin executed a strategic shift from a failing consumer portal to an enterprise SaaS model that generated $150 million in recurring revenue and an $800 million exit, whereas Zappos survived a liquidity crisis by enforcing profitability on the first order and pioneering rapid overnight fulfillment. This dual success story culminated in Zappos maintaining operational independence before its acquisition by Amazon, illustrating Lin's philosophy of prioritizing long-term cultural partnerships over short-term investor returns.
- Goldman Sachs41 min
Speaker Series for Interns: Senior Economists from Global Investment Research
Jan Hatzius, Dominic Wilson, Allison Nathan
Jan and co-speakers assess the post-2009 global economy as significantly improved from a Depression scenario yet still hampered by insufficient stimulus, premature fiscal tightening, and slow central bank responses. While US growth is forecast to accelerate to roughly 2.7% by mid-2014 driven by housing and demographics, supporting equity upside despite rich valuations, Europe and Japan face subdued growth and inflation challenges requiring more aggressive monetary easing. The analysts predict the Federal Reserve will hold rates near zero until early 2016 due to hidden labor market slack, whereas emerging markets are navigating a painful 12-to-18-month correction phase before resuming their long-term role as primary global growth engines.
- Milken Institute1h 6m
A Thousand Hills to Heaven: Love, Hope, and a Restaurant in Rwanda
Josh Ruxin, Kathy Eldon, Alissa, Skip Reimer
At a Milken Institute summer forum, Healthbuilders director Josh Ruxin and Creative Visions Foundation founder Kathy Eldon discussed Rwanda's decade-long economic transformation from post-genocide devastation to a stable, high-growth hub driven by public-private partnerships. Ruxin detailed how his organization's model of transferring fully funded, government-operated health centers to local communities, alongside social enterprises like the "Heaven" restaurant, has spurred private investment and reduced poverty without traditional aid dependency. The speakers concluded that Rwanda's strict anti-corruption governance and focus on sustainable infrastructure offer a replicable blueprint for development, urging international observers to shift their perspective from humanitarian aid to direct economic engagement.
- Lex Fridman10 min
Ryan Hall: Principles of Jiu Jitsu | Take It Uneasy Podcast
The speaker argues that grappling mastery relies on a principle-based approach grounded in constant physical laws rather than the invention of isolated techniques. By prioritizing foundational stability and avoiding cognitive clutter from excessive technical minutiae, practitioners can distinguish between valid discoveries and irrelevant details within evolving combat systems. This philosophy posits that while rules and psychological factors vary across disciplines, the underlying physics of human movement remain immutable, making the search for universal principles a catalyst for scientific progress.
- Lex Fridman9 min
Ryan Hall: Value of Competition | Take It Uneasy Podcast
The speaker argues that competitive martial arts serves as the ultimate test of self-defense capability and self-mastery, asserting that a gold medal holds no value if it cannot be applied against larger opponents in unstructured environments. Emphasizing that maximum preparation is non-negotiable, the discourse highlights how long-term sacrifice and the courage to face harsh self-analysis distinguish high achievers like Randy Couture from those who merely simulate effort. Ultimately, the presentation frames discipline as the true path to liberty, utilizing historical and philosophical references to demonstrate that winning requires paying the price of emotional resilience and unwavering focus.
- Milken Institute1h 19m
The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State
John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge, Skip Reimer
John Micklethwaite and Adrian Wooldridge argue that the West faces a critical Fourth Revolution in governance driven by fiscal unsustainability, technological stagnation, and intense competition from an increasingly efficient Chinese state. They propose replacing the bloated "nanny state" with technocratic safeguards, consumer choice mechanisms, and private sector management techniques to restore democratic legitimacy and economic vitality. Without adopting these reforms to shrink and modernize government, the authors warn that Western nations risk losing the ideological contest for freedom and liberty to rival authoritarian models.
- Milken Institute1h 3m
The Data Science Revolution
Tim O'Reilly, Frank Adante, Tim Donke, Keith Collins, Michael Woods
At the 2014 O'Reilly Strata conference, industry leaders from Rubicon Project, eBay, SAS, and IASDI discussed how big data is shifting from simple volume analysis to complex, real-time applications across sectors like agriculture, healthcare, and advertising. The panel highlighted a technical pivot toward in-memory computing and algorithmic cross-pollination to operationalize insights while addressing critical challenges in data privacy, security, and the distinction between correlation and causality. Ultimately, the event concluded that the future of data science relies on enterprises owning their processing while trusting "black box" algorithms to drive predictive maintenance, precision medicine, and automated decision-making.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Secrets to a Healthy Life: Freda Lewis-Hall and Pattie Sellers
Freda Lewis-Hall, Pattie Sellers, Seth Ginsburg
During discussions regarding a potential $100 billion Pfizer-AstraZeneca merger, Chief Medical Officer Frida Lewis-Hall outlined her role in overseeing global patient safety and clinical data integrity while addressing the healthcare system's critical fragmentation. She advocates for a shift toward individualized health management where patients act as "CEOs" of their own medical records to bridge gaps in continuity, emphasizing specific metrics like waist circumference and the need for comprehensive family history. Looking ahead, Lewis-Hall calls for intensified collaboration across the public and private sectors to combat the looming economic crisis of Alzheimer's disease and to integrate AI-driven diagnostics into preventative care strategies.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
A Conversation with Cherie Blair: Empowering Women, Driving Growth
Cherie Blair, the first woman from her family to attend university and a former Queen's Counsel, leads the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women to empower female entrepreneurs in Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East through business training and mentoring. By addressing the critical "mid-range capital gap" that hinders women's access to $10,000–$100,000 in funding, the Foundation has already supported over 100,000 women across 50 countries, with partnerships including Google and Bank of America enhancing professional growth and job creation. Blair advocates for structural political and cultural shifts to overcome systemic barriers, citing Rwanda's high female parliamentary representation as a model for improving global economic inclusion.