Conversations with Mike Milken

How should investors think about economic uncertainty in a changing global landscape? At the 2025 Milken Institute Global Conference, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent joins Michael Milken to discuss the policies shaping America’s economic direction from trade and taxation to deregulation and investment flows. The conversation examines market volatility, fiscal challenges, and the long-term outlook for growth, offering insights into why the U.S. economy continues to attract global capital despite ongoing uncertainty. Milken Institute Fireside Chats features candid conversations with global leaders across business, finance, health, philanthropy, and public policy. Recorded live at Milken Institute events around the world, each episode offers insight into the ideas, innovations, and leadership shaping economies and improving lives. Listen to Milken Institute Fireside Chats: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Iui3aVUAz1TsdVoVvD4b6

Milken Institute Fireside Chats features candid conversations with global leaders across business, finance, health, philanthropy, and public policy. Recorded live at Milken Institute events around the world, each episode offers insight into the ideas, innovations, and leadership shaping economies and improving lives. “You won’t lose your job to AI — you’ll lose it to someone who knows how to use it.” At the Milken Institute Global Conference 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sits down with Milken Institute Chairman Michael Milken to deliver a reality check on artificial intelligence. Huang explains why every job will be affected by AI, how productivity—not replacement—is the real disruption, and why adapting now is the difference between staying competitive and falling behind. This conversation cuts through the hype to focus on what AI actually means for workers, companies, and the future of the global economy.

“How do we think about building an inclusive product that represents what families look like today, which might be very different than what families looked like 200 years ago. We want voices from all over to help us shape that product.” With 20 years of experience in the technology sector – including stints at eBay, PayPal, and an executive position at Facebook – Deb Liu now leads the high-tech portal where access to 30 billion genealogical records can provide a deeper understanding of...

“We need to attack extreme poverty. Of course, the pandemic brought additional challenge to that. But, we provided emergency aid for an extensive part of our population, around 60 million people. Of course it's a fiscal challenge, but we did more on a relative basis than all the other countries.” As one of Brazil’s wealthiest men, André Esteves could easily keep his head down and just take care of business. But the senior partner of BTG Pactual – the largest investment bank in Latin...

“Asian Americans are now beginning to find our voice. We’re learning that we need to be full participants in our democracy. The rise in violence and hateful rhetoric against the Asian American community during the COVID 19 pandemic has brought this community to a greater realization of the need to participate more fully in our country’s institutions, and be more vocal and visible.” As the excited 8-year-old girl watched the land of her birth recede from her view as her cargo ship pulled...

“In protecting our business, we are not talking about protecting AB’s business, but everybody in the chain that was relying on AB to maintain their business continuity. And that came from the farmers to the people in our breweries, to the wholesalers that we service to the retailers that they service and for the consumers, that they would need to have some sense of normalcy.” An event like a pandemic can make one reexamine personal and professional priorities. For Brazilian-born Michel...

“We all have learned the things that a few months ago we thought were not possible were really possible. … As I think about manufacturing, I think about two big changes. First is the creation of more decentralized manufacturing networks, where companies will be able to produce closer … to where their customers will be. The second big change will be driven by personalization.” After launching his 30-year career at HP with an internship, Enrique Lores was named CEO in November 2019. In...

This Podcast Features: John Grisham Author Neal Kassell Founder and Chairman, Focused Ultrasound Foundation “Once I realized the potential of this non-invasive surgical procedure to save countless lives and improve the healthcare of millions of people, I realized how important this work can be and is.” —John Grisham Friends and neighbors for 25 years, author John Grisham and neurologist Neal Kassell are on a mission. Together, they are raising awareness – and funds – for a promising,...

“The crisis happened at a time of exponential change in technology that was already transforming the way we work, how we engage with clients, how we make decisions. … And then you instantly had behavioral change at a scale that we've never seen in the past.” Julie Sweet believes large companies should be flexible and light on their feet. Case in point: her own Accenture. When she became CEO of the multinational professional services company in 2019, she instituted sweeping changes to its...

“Diagnosis goes hand in hand with vaccination, and of course with therapies as well. What CRISPR is doing is providing for rapid turnaround testing at a lower cost and higher throughput than we've had with other technologies. We'll see that happening in various testing labs, certainly around the U.S. And the nice thing about that is it really does go hand in hand with these vaccines that are coming forward.” When Jennifer Doudna first spoke with Mike on the podcast four months ago, she was...

“The process of digitization – whether that was e-commerce in retail, or online gaming for media, online streaming in the media business, digital platforms for the public sector – was already underway. But it enormously accelerated with the pandemic.” In his two years as CEO of Google Cloud, Thomas Kurian has seen revenues for his company’s services soar more than 40 percent. The Indian-born former president of Oracle believes that the “new normal” of telecommuting will continue to help...

“The bigger part of our response over the next year, and then really over the next five years, is how do you really help countries get bigger private sectors, more jobs, including jobs for women and education for girls.” When David Malpass began his five-year term as president of the World Bank Group in 2019, he could not foresee that months later his institution would face its greatest test since the post-World War II era. Since its founding in 1947, the World Bank has had one mission: to...

“When we get out of this pandemic, I suspect people are going to want to flock to the movie theaters. But they're also going to say, I still want my content delivered. So, the movie industry is going to face a decision. Do they offer it both ways – on your iPad the same day as the release in the theater? What's the model? They're determining that as we speak. And I think COVID has upended the movie business even more than usual.” Most actresses who come to Hollywood don’t end up running a...

“It has been a year of terrible tragedy. … And yet, it's also been a year of heroism: the first responders, the healthcare providers, putting themselves at risk to try to help those who are suffering. But I also think there are heroes that have risen to this challenge in the research community, in the business community.” When NIH Director Francis Collins first spoke with Mike in April of 2020, he was marshalling an army of researchers among his 6,000 research scientists to tackle the...

Sir Andrew Witty President, UnitedHealth Group; CEO, Optum; Co-Leader, COVID-19 Vaccine Development, World Health Organization George Yancopoulos President and Chief Scientific Officer, Regeneron Esther Krofah Executive Director, FasterCures “Are we willing to do for life sciences and global defense what we were willing to do for the financial environment in the 2008 financial crisis? Because if you compare the trillions of dollars committed to stabilize the financial systems to the...

“The efficacy of these vaccines is spectacular. It's 95%, the same whether you are an African-American or Hispanic or over 65 years old. … Remarkably, these two vaccines developed in different companies, two different continents, give incredibly similar results, totally independent, which is also enhancing the likelihood that these data absolutely are real.” In a triumph of modern science and leadership, millions of highly effective doses of COVID-19 vaccines are currently being...

Albert Bourla Chairman and CEO, Pfizer Alex Gorsky Chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson “I think history has shown us to have major leaps forward almost after every crisis. Whether it's a war, a natural disaster, or frankly a big challenge such as going to the moon, these kinds of inflection points force us to go in new directions to collaborate and to accelerate technological breakthroughs.” – Alex Gorsky Two of the most important CEOs in the world today – Pfizer’s Albert Bourla and...

Sarah Murdoch Co-Chair, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) Kathryn North Director, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI); David Danks Professor of Child Health Research, University of Melbourne Hamish Graham Paediatrician and Senior Research Fellow, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI); University of Melbourne; Royal Children’s Hospital “With COVID, there's been this renewed focus on the importance of medical research. … With more funding and with philanthropic...

“The UAE was among the first countries in the world to make sure it implemented and successfully executed a testing policy. We ramped up on capacity, on ICU space, on respirator supplies. And that resulted in one of the lowest mortality rates in the world.” As the Group CEO and Managing Director of Mubadala Investment Company, H.E. Khaldoon Khalifi Al Mubarak is responsible for creating sustainable financial returns for Abu Dhabi, overseeing more than $230 billion in assets across 50+...

Himisha Beltran Medical Oncologist, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Felix Feng Radiation Oncologist and Vice Chair for Translational Research, UCSF Department of Radiation Oncology Christopher Haiman Genetic Epidemiologist and Professor of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC Deborah Scher Executive Advisor to the Secretary, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Jonathan Simons President and CEO, Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) “The road to curing COVID runs right...