Latest Interviews
Showing 1–15 of 16 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Milken Institute39 min
International Security: Innovation, Investment, and Partnerships | Global Conference 2026
David Trulio, Christopher Coons, Eric Schmidt, Adam Smith, Chris Coons
Panelists including Eric Schmidt, Senator Chris Coons, and Representative Adam Smith argue that the war in Ukraine has exposed the critical need for the U.S. to replace expensive, traditional military assets with autonomous drones and AI-driven systems to secure a cost-effective deterrence against adversaries. To overcome entrenched bureaucratic inertia and fiscal constraints, the group advocates for bipartisan legislation like the SPEED Act, expanded co-production with international allies, and a workforce shift toward technical innovation over four-year degrees. These strategic adjustments aim to leverage the agility of private sector competitors against legacy defense primes while ensuring American technological leadership in an era of algorithmic warfare.
- Milken Institute21 min
A Conversation with Eric Schmidt | Global Conference 2025
Eric Schmidt analyzes the evolving Ukraine conflict as a volatile stalemate driven by massive drone production, automated sensor-to-shooter loops, and the obsolescence of traditional armored platforms like tanks and aircraft carriers. He contrasts Ukraine's rapid, two-week innovation cycles against the Pentagon's sluggish 16-year procurement process, arguing that rigid bureaucratic structures prevent the U.S. from adopting necessary autonomous systems. Schmidt concludes that to counter modern hypersonic threats and future high-intensity warfare, the U.S. must pivot from expensive stationary assets to affordable, internet-prosecuted robotic forces integrated with its domestic startup ecosystem.
- Milken Institute1h 3m
eSports: The Bumpy Ride to ROI
Ben White, Sam Englebardt, Peter Levin, Kristen Salvatore, Ari Segal, David Rockefeller Jr., Emily Fortuna, Amanda Han, Eric Schmidt, Ari Schwartzmann, Sam Nelsons, Chai, Peter Barron, Peter Barry Kaufmann, Kevin, Carlos, Paul
Industry leaders highlight that gaming now surpasses film and television in scale, with a user base of 2.6 billion driving a strategic shift for traditional media and sports organizations to secure the Gen Z demographic. Investment activity is surging as entities like Immortals Gaming Club adopt holding company structures to capture high valuations and leverage the mobile boom, while platforms like Twitch demonstrate superior engagement metrics that attract non-endemic advertising. Amidst these rapid expansions, the sector faces evolving structural debates regarding player welfare, the rise of influencer-driven brands over traditional franchises, and the impending need for standardized unionization and global regulatory frameworks.
- Milken Institute59 min
Hacked and Back: Cybersecurity Lessons From the C-suite
Dmitri Alperovitch, Sanford (Sandy) Climan, Christopher Krebs, Thomas Pritzker, Tom Pritzker, Sandy Kleiman, David Batts, Jr., Jeffrey Brown, David Brooks, Eric Schmidt, Alan Seales, Tom Ginsburg, Chris Collins, John McWhorter
This event analyzes the evolution of cyber threats from state-sponsored espionage to disruptive attacks like the 2017 NotPetya incident, highlighting the strategic responses of Hyatt and the Department of Homeland Security. Hyatt integrated cybersecurity into its core governance by allocating six percent of its IT budget and empowering its CISO to share threat intelligence with federal agencies within minutes of detection. The presentation further outlines critical lessons for the entertainment industry, emphasizing the need for robust data protection, cross-sector collaboration, and a culture that treats security as a continuous strategic imperative rather than a temporary IT function.
- Milken Institute59 min
Bridging the Gap Between the Military and Silicon Valley
David Sanger, Eric Schmidt, Norton Schwartz, Raj Shah
Led by Raj Shah, the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) successfully integrated commercial startup technologies like MIT-developed LiDAR quadcopters into military operations to bypass traditional acquisition cycles. Despite facing cultural barriers regarding risk aversion and bureaucratic compliance, the initiative has attracted significant venture capital investment while prompting recommendations for embedding computer science as a core DoD competency. Current leadership continues to pursue these structural reforms through iterative procurement models and data-driven soft power applications to maintain a strategic edge over global adversaries.
- Milken Institute30 min
MIc'd Up | Part 2: Pedro Domingos in Conversation with Eric Schmidt
Led by industry leaders like Bill Gates and Pedro Domingos, the event examines how converging advances in algorithms, data, and computing are shifting machine learning from rule-based programming to generalized intelligence. The presentation details critical hurdles in generalization and the urgent global talent shortage, while outlining transformative economic shifts where traditional hardware models face commoditization and new crowdsourced learning ecosystems emerge. Looking five to ten years ahead, the discussion predicts a workforce evolution where humans act as strategic captains alongside AI systems, enabling universal programming capabilities that could unlock a $5 trillion new world economy.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
The Growing Drone Phenomenon: Creating Order Out of Chaos
Gary Shapiro, Russ Burns, Lisa Ellman, Dave Vos, David Windmueller, Eric Schmidt, Jure Vatsuri, Nick Smoot, Robert
Industry leaders and policymakers convened to discuss the rapid expansion of commercial drone technology, highlighted by early adopters like Clayco securing FAA exemptions to revolutionize construction efficiency and Google's vision for automated logistics. Participants outlined a roadmap for integrating unmanned traffic management systems that rely on automated data exchange rather than traditional air traffic control, while addressing regulatory challenges regarding privacy and property rights. The dialogue concluded with an emphasis on how these advancements will drive economic growth through cost savings, reduce carbon footprints via electric delivery models, and enable humanitarian applications in disaster response.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Lighting the Globe: Manoj Bhargava in Conversation with Sheryl WuDunn
Manoj Bhargava, Sheryl WuDunn, Eric Schmidt, John McCutchan, Raymond Santos, Jennifer Doyle, Sharon Chandran
Forbes billionaire and 5-Hour Energy founder Manoj Parga has launched "Stage 2," a venture dedicated to deploying low-maintenance, scalable technologies in water, energy, and health for underserved populations. The initiative introduces hardware like the $250 Free Electric bicycle to generate power for livelihoods, the energy-efficient Rainmaker desalination unit, and a medical patch for early disease detection, all designed to replace unreliable solar and complex medical diagnostics in rural areas. Parga explicitly rejects proprietary hoarding by offering to train competitors and sell production lines, prioritizing rapid global adoption of simple, functional engineering over traditional philanthropic overhead.
- Milken Institute54 min
The Art of Art Collecting
Don Marin, Eric Schmidt, Philippe Rigollet, Mitch Rales, Kavita
Former MoMA president Don Marin moderates a panel featuring Philippe Rigollet, Mitch Rales, and Kavita Pande to analyze the tension between the rapid global expansion of museums and the scarcity of historically significant artists. The experts debate the risks of institutions prioritizing commercial entertainment and high-frequency visitor numbers over artistic integrity, while highlighting a dramatic surge in collector investment where art now comprises up to 50% of net worth. Participants conclude that despite booming market values for specific African and contemporary works, only a tiny fraction of creators achieve the longevity required to shape art history.
- Milken Institute57 min
A Path Appears: A Conversation With Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Nicholas Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn, Steve Grove, Nick Kristof, Ashley, Derek McKesson, Dan Galpin, Esther Duflo, Brian Mulaney, Dan Pallotta, Eric Schmidt, Sheryl McCarthy, Nick Orloveyski
Google News Lab director Steve Grove facilitated a discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn regarding their book *A Path Appears* and its accompanying PBS documentary on transforming social vulnerability into opportunity. The speakers advocate for applying business principles and market incentives to poverty alleviation, citing evidence from randomized trials that effective interventions must measure outcomes rather than inputs and leverage corporate strategies to address systemic issues like missing girls and the "word gap." They further highlight the physiological benefits of philanthropy and argue that future social progress depends on a "double bottom line" model where for-profit enterprises and rigorous data measurement replace traditional charity to solve intractable challenges in education, health, and urban violence.
- Milken Institute55 min
The Business of Healthy
Jane Wells, Anu Chatterjee, Dr. Bill Dietz, Michael Johnson, Ryan Shadrick-Wilson, Tara Palmeri, Kathryn Hartmann, Kathy Hartmuth, Rachel Alters, Jeff Dunn, Dr. David Heber, Anu Srivastava, Anu Vatsalavanda, Eric Schmidt, David Levinson, Bill Alford Jr.
Major food corporations are pivoting toward fresh and healthy platforms through billion-dollar acquisitions and reformulation strategies, responding to consumer demand for organic and plant-based options while leveraging data showing significant sales growth in low-calorie segments. Public health projections warn that obesity rates will continue to rise without intervention, prompting government initiatives like school nutrition acts and corporate policy changes such as antibiotic bans to mitigate a crisis expected to surpass tobacco-related healthcare costs. Ultimately, the industry faces the dual challenge of overcoming affordability barriers in food deserts and adapting marketing tactics to normalize healthy choices among younger demographics.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Technology, Creativity, Values: What Drives the New Disruptors?
Andy Serwer, Brandon Beck, Brad Delson, Dave Gilboa, Payal Kadakia, Mike Shinoda, Eric Schmidt, Bradley Horowitz, Brad Lee O'
Four industry leaders from Riot Games, Linkin Park, ClassPass, and Warby Parker present a "New Disruptor" business model that replaces quarterly profit maximization with long-term stakeholder unity. By integrating employees, fans, and customers into a single ecosystem, these organizations leverage deep empathy and real-time feedback to achieve Net Promoter Scores in the high 80s and 90s. This strategy reframes relationships as the primary asset, enabling rapid organizational scaling while maintaining social missions that directly drive sustainable profitability.
- Milken Institute1h 5m
Look, Ma, No Hands! The Future of Cars
John Cassessa, Chris Gerdes, Raj Nair, Chris Urmson, Kevin Vincent, Eric Schmidt, Eric Schwartzmann, Eric Schuartzmond, Carl Harris, Joe Greener
Led by John Cassessa, a panel of industry and government leaders including executives from Ford, Google, and Stanford, along with NHTSA officials, confirmed that the automotive sector has reached a critical inflection point for autonomous vehicle adoption. The group outlined a roadmap where rapid technological progress in sensor integration and Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication will soon drive significant safety gains, fuel efficiency through platooning, and reduced traffic congestion. While timelines for widespread consumer availability vary between Google's near-term deployment and Ford's two-decade horizon, the panel emphasized that successful implementation depends on resolving regulatory mandates, ethical programming dilemmas, and shifting consumer trust levels.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Brand Battlefield: Mobile and Social Networks
Sean Amos, Josh Mandel, Bonin Bow, Jamie Goodfriend, David Rockefeller Jr., John McWhorter, Eric Schmidt, Josh Tenenbaum, Jimmy O., Kathleen King, Mike McDonald, Serena Rosso, Ron, Nick Smoot, Carolina Tolberti
The discussion highlights a decisive market shift where social media usage now surpasses television, driving 84% of purchasing decisions through peer influence while Millennials command $400 billion in projected spending. Brands like Mondelēz International are responding by realigning strategies toward mobile-first approaches and real-time engagement, exemplified by the Honey Maid campaign's rapid crisis-to-opportunity turnaround. This transformation is further fueled by organizational changes where executive sponsorship and machine learning empower sales teams to replace compliance silos with authentic relationship building.
- Milken Institute1h 23m
The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters
Gregory Zuckerman, Joel Kurtzman, Conrad Kieschel, Greg Zuckerman, David J., Eric Schmidt, John McCutchan, David Freeman, David Sanger
At a Milken Institute forum, author Greg Zuckerman and moderator Joel Kurtzman analyzed how unconventional entrepreneurs like George Mitchell and Harold Hamm drove a U.S. energy revolution, slashing import dependence from 40% to 14.5% through hydraulic fracturing innovations. This technological surge, powered by horizontal drilling and "slick water" fracking, transformed the nation into the world's top energy producer while generating millions of jobs and reshaping global geopolitical dynamics. Despite ongoing debates regarding environmental safety and seismic activity, the discussion emphasizes that these breakthroughs have provided a critical economic bridge toward future renewable energy adoption.