Latest Interviews
Showing 1–15 of 22 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Goldman Sachs21 min
McLaren Racing's Lando Norris and Zak Brown: Building a High-Performance Team
Lando Norris, Zak Brown, Anthony Gutman
McLaren driver Lando Norris secured the 2025 Formula One World Drivers' Championship following a dramatic mid-season comeback, yet he recently missed a race start due to unprecedented power unit battery failures. As the team navigates 2026 regulatory changes that have widened the performance gap and altered vehicle dynamics, Norris and team principal Zak Brown are leveraging a collaborative "Papaya Rules" culture to translate driver feedback into rapid technical adaptations. This strategy aims to restore competitiveness against the "big four" constructors while ensuring the 900-person ecosystem maintains resilience against the complex, sophisticated nature of modern racing.
- Goldman Sachs33 min
Holocaust Survivors on Hope, Survival, and the Responsibility to Remember
Bernie Schanzer, Sheara Fredman
Brothers Henry and Bernie Shanzer recount their survival of the Holocaust as hidden children in Belgium and France, relying on their mother and four French rescuers who sheltered them from arrest and deportation during World War II. Despite their father's death in Convoy 27 and initial betrayal by a caretaker, the boys were saved through a network of false documents and hidden on farms before reuniting with their family in 1945, earning posthumous "Righteous Among the Nations" recognition for their saviors. The speakers emphasize the ongoing relevance of their testimony by linking historical persecution to modern anti-Semitic violence, urging the audience to maintain active vigilance and moral courage to prevent future atrocities.
- Goldman Sachs20 min
Iran Conflict: How Long, and How Bad?
Sanam Vakil, Dennis Ross, Kevin Donegan, Alison Nathan
Entering its fourth week, the Iran conflict has evolved into a regime-survival struggle where Tehran seeks to spread costs widely while the U.S. military targets Iran's missile capabilities and nuclear program. Strategic deadlock persists over the Strait of Hormuz, as limited convoy operations can only restore roughly 20% of normal oil flows despite rehearsed allied defenses. Panelists conclude that resolving this locked-in scenario requires a mediated outcome, though recent political assassinations and the need to rebuild Iran's collapsed economy complicate any immediate return to pre-conflict stability.
- Goldman Sachs23 min
Sentiment Shifts on AI Capex Spend
Tony Pasquariello, Joshua Schiffrin, Dominic Wilson, Josh
Global equity markets are diverging as overseas regions, particularly Japan and South Korea, surge to new highs while U.S. indices trade sideways amid intense skepticism regarding AI profitability and debt-fueled capital expenditure. This rally is driven by a structural expectation that artificial intelligence will ultimately induce disinflation, prompting investors to reallocate capital into non-U.S. assets even as the Federal Reserve holds rates steady through mid-year. Currency and bond markets are simultaneously adjusting to anticipated policy normalization, with a weakening U.S. dollar and steepening yield curves reflecting a consensus that growth in Asia will dominate the coming macro regime.
- Goldman Sachs22 min
AppLovin's Adam Foroughi: The Power of a Startup Mindset
AppLovin CEO Adam Farooqi leads the $200 billion mobile technology firm, which leverages a lean 400-person core team and advanced neural networks to dominate performance marketing and generate over $4 billion in annual EBITA. Following a near-total valuation collapse after its 2021 IPO, the company executed a strategic $5 billion share buyback program that restored over $100 billion in market value and drove stock prices to approximately $600 per share. Farooqi sustains this growth by enforcing a culture of extreme operational efficiency, mandatory AI integration for internal workflows, and direct personal oversight of all key hiring decisions.
- Goldman Sachs33 min
Axios’ Jim VandeHei on how to build a modern media company
Jim Vande Hei co-founded Politico and later Axios to fill a critical gap in political and business journalism by leveraging digital speed, a two-tiered revenue model, and a proprietary "smart brevity" style to outperform legacy media. The venture rapidly scaled from a team of three to a diversified enterprise encompassing niche B2B intelligence, local news operations, and an AI-driven communication subsidiary led by co-founder Roy Schwartz. Despite early skepticism from industry veterans, the company established a resilient culture built on aggressive hiring standards, direct feedback mechanisms, and a strategic focus on specialized content to ensure long-term viability in a fragmented media landscape.
- Goldman Sachs26 min
Will tariffs lead to a recession?
Paul Krugman, Jan Hatzius, Oren Cass, Allison Nathan
Prominent economists Paul Krugman, Jan Hatzius, and Oren Cass debated the Trump administration's historic tariff expansion, which Krugman identifies as an unprecedented economic shock and Hatzius projects will reduce GDP growth by two percentage points while raising recession probabilities to 45%. While Krugman warns that policy uncertainty will stifle business investment and Hatzius cautions that the Federal Reserve faces a difficult trade-off between inflation and stagnation, Cass argues the measures represent a necessary structural correction to global supply chains that will eventually stimulate domestic production. The panel concluded that although immediate data lags obscure the full extent of damage, the severity of the downturn will ultimately depend on the Federal Reserve's ability to balance conflicting price and employment mandates against a backdrop of rapidly shifting trade policy.
- Goldman Sachs22 min
FedEx founder & chairman Fred Smith on transforming global logistics
FedEx founder Fred Smith established a revolutionary hub-and-spoke logistics network grounded in military matrix management and the "People, Service, Profit" philosophy to scale operations globally while retaining key talent. Under his leadership, the integration of real-time tracking with a massive air and ground fleet enabled the company to handle approximately six percent of U.S. GDP and provide unique economic data insights into consumer trends. Today, Smith emphasizes that maintaining defensible competencies in artificial intelligence and digital transformation is critical for navigating the rapid market shifts that threaten legacy business models.
- Goldman Sachs22 min
Can the US consumer stay strong?
David Mericle, Kate McShane, Bonnie Herzog, Alison Nathan
Goldman Sachs Chief Economist David Miracle projects moderate U.S. consumption growth in 2024, attributing current resilience to strong household balance sheets while warning that unemployment risks could trigger a shift to job loss. Retail analysts Kate McShane and Bonnie Herzog observe a bifurcated consumer environment where spending prioritizes services and essentials while lower-income demographics defer discretionary purchases and trade down to private labels. Despite these pressures, the market faces further headwinds from a five-day shorter holiday shopping window, persistent price levels, and election uncertainty, leading management to adopt cautious strategies focused on revenue growth and value optimization.
- Goldman Sachs37 min
What’s ahead for retail: how retail CEOs are navigating a more complex environment
Tim Ingrassia, Vishaal Rana, Ted Decker, Dave Kimbell, Allison Nathan
Goldman Sachs analysts and retail leaders including Home Depot's Ted Decker and Ulta Beauty's Dave Kimball characterize 2024 as a pivotal shift where micro-level corporate strategies outweigh macroeconomic trends in driving performance. Private equity firms are increasingly targeting defensive sectors like collision repair while navigating debt constraints, forcing a consolidation of single-banner models and a reevaluation of Direct-to-Consumer valuation models that have shed 97% of their 2021 peak value. As interest rates remain elevated and geopolitical risks introduce new logistics costs, the market is prioritizing sustainable profitability over revenue growth, with physical stores re-emerging as critical drivers of customer lifetime value compared to digital-only channels.
- Goldman Sachs24 min
Mayors LaToya Cantrell, Eric Johnson, and Nan Whaley
LaToya Cantrell, Eric Johnson, Nan Whaley
Dallas, New Orleans, and Dayton mayors jointly addressed the compounding crises of the pandemic and civil unrest, implementing specific lockdowns, dual disaster declarations, and targeted equity initiatives to protect vulnerable populations. Each city deployed distinct economic recovery strategies, including Dallas's $15 million small business fund, New Orleans's French Quarter re-envisioning, and Dayton's focus on minority-owned enterprises, while collectively advocating for critical federal financial support. The leaders emphasized that these disruptions present a unique opportunity to enact systemic reforms and rebuild their municipalities with greater resilience and social justice in mind.
- Goldman Sachs21 min
Talks at GS – Alex Blumberg & Jacob Weisberg: The Power of Podcasting
Gimlet Media founder Alex Blumberg and Slate executive Jacob Weisberg chart the industry's evolution from legacy radio constraints to a decentralized audio ecosystem where *Serial* and *Start-Up* catalyzed a cultural shift toward intimate, on-demand storytelling. By prioritizing emotional connection over rigid formats and separating editorial integrity from branded content through transparent business models, these leaders established a framework that allows political and narrative podcasts to flourish without traditional FCC limitations. As the medium matures into a second golden age characterized by genre diversification and normalized consumption among younger demographics, their collaboration underscores the necessity of blending creative journalism with sustainable entrepreneurial strategy.
- Goldman Sachs16 min
Talks at GS – The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities & Race Relations in America
Stanley Nelson, Jr., Dr. Wayne Frederick, Johnny Taylor, Jr.
Documentary director Stanley Nelson and current Howard University president, the 17th and seventh Black individual to lead the institution, discuss the historical necessity and modern evolution of HBCUs, highlighting their role in transforming legal prohibitions against Black literacy into a premier engine for professional mobility. The conversation details how political pragmatism, exemplified by General Howard's 1867 chartering by President Andrew Johnson and Speaker Paul Ryan's restoration of federal funding cuts, has allowed 101 institutions to produce the majority of Black physicians and dentists despite a contemporary 40-year decline in Black male medical school applications. Ultimately, the speakers argue that maintaining access to these "unbridled opportunities" requires leaders to navigate complex political landscapes without compromising their identity, thereby ensuring HBCUs continue to provide the societal change that began during Reconstruction.
- Goldman Sachs11 min
Talks at GS – David Eagleman: The Neuroscience of Creativity
David Eagleman, David Rockefeller Jr., Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Levine Jr., Dan Coffey Jr., Dan Collins
This analysis redefines human creativity as an evolutionary advantage rooted in the prefrontal cortex's capacity for hypothesis testing rather than physical traits, identifying three universal cognitive operations—break, blend, and bend—as the fundamental drivers of innovation. By shifting educational and economic focus from rote memorization to cognitive flexibility, individuals and organizations can leverage the collective intelligence of 8 billion brains to navigate a transitioning creativity economy. Ultimately, success in this new era requires actively dismantling past successes and tolerating failure to generate novel solutions that artificial intelligence currently cannot replicate.
- Goldman Sachs12 min
Talks at GS – Eddie Huang: Food, Culture, Identity
Executive Producer and author Nahnatchka Khan reflects on her memoir *Fresh Off the Boat* and the television adaptation as pivotal moments in transitioning from defensive survival mechanisms to intentional identity formation. She critiques the show for diluting authentic Asian experiences into universal white narratives while rejecting the "model minority" stereotype through her personal journey of culinary preservation and leadership at her restaurant, Bauhaus. Ultimately, she advocates for a cultural shift that prioritizes shared humanity over differences, utilizing a management philosophy that blends high performance with deep personal care to foster genuine employee loyalty.