Latest Interviews

Future-Proofing Cities: Evolutions in Sustainability-Centric Urban Design | Asia Summit 2024

Erin Murphy, Stephane Asselin, Clarence Barboza, Skye d'Almeida, Andrew Hodgson, Shruti Narayan, Sarah Murphy, Andy Hodgson

Moderated by Sarah Murphy, a panel of experts from C40 Cities, Arup, and Cisco Systems examined critical sustainability challenges facing Southeast Asian cities, ranging from decarbonizing transportation to managing cyber threats against digital infrastructure. The discussion highlighted a structural financing gap between institutional investment preferences and the need for distributed green assets, proposing blended finance models and corporate partnerships to de-risk municipal projects. Key strategies for future-proofing urban centers included adopting circular economy principles, integrating climate goals into municipal budgeting, and leveraging nature-based solutions to address resilience against climate disasters.

Dueling Presidential interviews, SpaceX’s big catch, Robotaxis, Uber buying Expedia?, Nuclear NIMBY

Chamath, Jason, Friedberg, David Sacks

In a multi-segment broadcast, the hosts announced the nationwide Target launch of Supergut while dissecting recent political interviews and contrasting Polymarket's Trump victory probability with Nate Silver's toss-up assessment. The conversation shifted to technological breakthroughs, highlighting SpaceX's successful rocket catch and Tesla's unveiling of steering-wheel-free autonomous vehicles, before debating Big Tech's nuclear power investments and the potential Uber- Expedia acquisition. Finally, the panel addressed election integrity concerns, bureaucratic hurdles facing tech innovation, and confirmed the show's continuation regardless of the November 5th election results.

Innovations to Build Food Resiliency | Asia Summit 2022

Holly Freishtat, Beverley Postma, Ian Roberts, Pier Luigi Sigismondi, Sunny Verghese

Industry leaders from OLAM International, Dole, and Euler Group convened to address the deepening global food insecurity affecting 345 million people by outlining aggressive strategies to decarbonize agriculture and digitize smallholder supply chains. These executives detailed concrete commitments, including OLAM's accelerated net-zero timeline and AI-driven agronomy tools, Dole's direct sourcing shifts to bypass intermediaries, and Euler Group's push for rapid technology scaling in cellular agriculture. The panel concluded that overcoming the current crisis requires consolidated capital and mandatory transparency measures like carbon labeling to transform the sector from an extraction-based model to a resilient, inclusive ecosystem.

Transitioning to a Food Environment Built for Health | Milken Institute Global Conference 2023

Allison Aubrey, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, Nancy Dalton, Anthony Pratt, Craig Wichner, Dr. Kathleen Medina, Elizabeth Littlefield Jr., Eliza Bailey

A diverse panel of leaders from agriculture, technology, and food security organizations outlines a critical strategy to transition the U.S. toward a health-promoting food environment by addressing systemic failures like obesity, food waste, and monoculture dependency. Through proposed policy reforms—including cover crop incentives in the Farm Bill, permanent SNAP online access, and insurance-linked nutrition rewards—experts aim to shift subsidies from low-value commodities to nutrient-dense production while leveraging digital tools and behavioral science. The discussion emphasizes that immediate public-private partnerships are essential to reverse soil degradation, reduce methane emissions, and ensure universal access to nutritionally adequate food.

More gains ahead for US stocks?

David Kostin, Ryan Hammond, Alison Nathan

Goldman Sachs Research has raised its 2024 S&P 500 year-end target to approximately 6,000, citing an 11% earnings growth forecast for 2025 driven by solid macroeconomic data and semiconductor strength. While mega-cap technology stocks currently dominate the rally and trade at historic valuation highs, the firm identifies mid-cap equities as a key opportunity due to their 15x forward earnings multiple and superior performance track record during Federal Reserve rate cuts. Future market returns are expected to rely on fundamental earnings growth rather than further valuation expansion, though the outlook remains contingent on navigating immediate geopolitical risks and inflationary pressures that could limit further rate reductions.

Your money for a run? Campaign finance in America

Jason Palmer, Rosie Bloor, Adam O'Neill, Matt Steinglass, Dolly Setton

Kamala Harris has raised over $1 billion since July, significantly outpacing Donald Trump's fundraising despite analysts arguing that such financial disparities rarely shift outcomes among calcified voter bases. Meanwhile, the US political landscape remains shaped by small-dollar donor networks and corporate shifts toward Democrats, even as Republican donors express skepticism regarding the vice-presidential candidacy of JD Vance. Simultaneously, the Dutch coalition led by Geert Wilders faces domestic controversy and international criticism over its plan to declare a state of emergency to bypass parliamentary oversight amidst a severe asylum housing crisis involving 1,500 applicants on the MS Galaxy. This aggressive policy, intended to deter future migrants, has drawn warnings from experts that it mirrors authoritarian maneuvers seen in Hungary and threatens to undermine the rule of law. In the global architecture sector, a distinct trend separates the supertall construction boom in China and the Middle East from the regulatory and cultural resistance preventing similar developments across historic European cities. While engineering limits currently constrain height, the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia aims to reclaim the record as the world's tallest structure once finished.

The Future of Food Retail | Global Conference 2024

Holly Freishtat, Jason Buechel, Nancy Dalton, Rodney McMullen, Leslie Sarasin

Retail leaders including Kroger's Rodney McMullen and Amazon's Nancy Dalton discuss a fundamental shift where food retailers evolve into healthcare hubs by integrating nutrition data, expanding SNAP access, and treating food as medicine to combat chronic disease. The industry is simultaneously restructuring supply chains from "just-in-time" to resilient models while deploying hyper-local AI for personalized assortments and launching urban "Daily Shop" formats to serve diverse consumer needs. These strategic pivots aim to align 82% of retailers with dietitian-led wellness programs, reduce a third of global food waste, and build a "healthiest workforce" through data-driven benefits that address the intersection of convenience, health, and sustainability.

Google NotebookLM’s Raiza Martin and Jason Spielman on the Potential for Source-Grounded AI

Raiza Martin, Jason Spielman, Sonya Huang, Pat Grady

Google's Notebook LM, developed by a lean team within Google Labs, is an AI-powered research tool that utilizes the Gemini 1.5 Pro model to generate realistic, two-host podcast-style audio summaries grounded strictly in user-uploaded documents. This source-grounded approach has driven viral adoption across educational and corporate sectors, with early users reporting up to a tenfold increase in efficiency when digesting complex materials like investment memorandums or training manuals. Currently in an experimental preview phase, the product aims to evolve from familiar audio formats into broader writing and code generation capabilities while addressing gaps in native collaboration features.

Young Leaders Conversation: Defining the New Age of Asia's Creative Economy | Asia Summit 2024

Phoebe Lai, Reta Lee, John Penotti, James Shin, Rochelle

Moderated by Rochelle Lee, this panel explored the strategic pivot of Asia's creative economy as James Shin and John Penelty advocate for private financing and proprietary ownership to secure long-term value amidst a streaming market shifting from growth-at-all-costs to profitability. The discussion highlighted how regional hubs like Singapore are leveraging tax incentives to host culturally specific storytelling, while new brand-underwriting models and AI-driven pre-visualization tools are accelerating production efficiency and reshaping talent management. By prioritizing original content over established IP retreads and adapting to emerging demographics in Africa and Southeast Asia, the panel outlined a roadmap for navigating a post-strike industry defined by transparency and diverse distribution channels.

The Asia Pacific Investment Outlook | Asia Summit 2024

Tim Dattels, Abdulla Al-Kuwari, Patrick Graham, Munirah Khairuddin, Eli Lee, Matthew Michelini

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The Uncertain Art of Accelerating ML Models with Sylvain Gugger

Sylvain Gugger, Ron Minsky, Jeremy Howard, Mark Mandelmann, Mark Mirchandani, Francesc Campoy, Gabriel Sanchez

Former fast.ai co-author Jeremy Howard discusses his transition from mathematics education to optimizing machine learning infrastructure at Jane Street, highlighting breakthroughs in learning rate schedules and image resizing that previously secured top benchmark placements. He details the development of the Hugging Face Accelerate library, a lightweight tool designed to abstract complex hardware parallelism and eliminate boilerplate code for training across diverse GPUs and TPUs. The discussion further explores the architectural constraints of financial data, the dominance of PyTorch's iterative execution model, and Jane Street's rigorous approach to reproducibility and custom model development for high-frequency trading.

Riding the Waves of Credit: Strategies for an Uncertain Future | Asia Summit 2024

Sharon Chen, Matthieu Boulanger, Patrick Dennis, Katherine Grawe, Joshua Pack

A disjointed panel discussion involving numerous unidentified speakers and audience members covered fragmented topics ranging from real estate and banking to pandemic recovery without establishing a cohesive narrative or actionable conclusions. The dialogue featured conflicting data points, such as a $4 to $5 billion market figure and a claim regarding New York office locations, alongside frequent expressions of uncertainty that prevented the synthesis of specific insights on economic cycles or global geopolitics. Ultimately, the session failed to produce definitive resolutions or forward-looking statements, ending abruptly with unresolved questions and incoherent remarks.

Global Investment Outlook | Asia Summit 2024

Martin Soong, Jeffrey Jaensubhakij, Jenny Lee, Todd Sisitsky

A panel hosted by the head of the American Foundation in London brought together four experts and advisors to discuss fragmented topics ranging from uncertain Asian economic forecasts to the undefined role of AI in business. Participants cited vague numerical figures and generalized concerns about wealth balance and social inclusivity without establishing concrete investment strategies, policy frameworks, or measurable outcomes. The dialogue ultimately failed to provide definitive market trends or implementation plans, concluding with general expressions of gratitude rather than specific forward-looking milestones.

How Do Billion Dollar Startups Start?

This presentation challenges the myth of immediate startup success by highlighting how companies like Airbnb and Solugen evolved through pivots, garage origins, and intense founder commitment rather than initial perfection. Speakers emphasize that YC investors prioritize traits such as grit, bias for action, and transparent communication over polished products or perfect financials. Ultimately, the discussion argues that building billion-dollar enterprises requires an outlier mindset where founders embrace uncertainty and iterate relentlessly to find product-market fit.

The Growing Need for Digital-Centric Mental Health Strategies | Asia Summit 2024

Jean Liu, Wendy Chapman, Prem Kumar Nair, Lee Cheng, Ramesh Rajentheran

Driven by post-pandemic policy shifts and substantial public investment, the mental health sector faces a critical need to regulate an oversaturated market where 75% of the 20,000 available digital apps lack clinical evidence. Industry leaders and governments are responding by establishing interoperability standards and hybrid care models that integrate telehealth with physical facilities to overcome privacy barriers and low user retention rates. Looking ahead, artificial intelligence and immersive technologies are poised to scale workforce capacity and enable personalized, proactive treatment, provided that robust data governance frameworks are successfully implemented to ensure patient safety and trust.