“Local travel, meaning travel 100 to 600 miles from where you live by car, is fairly robust and is almost back to pre‐COVID levels. … We're not seeing and won't see air travel, certainly not international air travel. … We’re not seeing it yet because people feel unsafe. Travel is probably one of the last to actually get back the robust growth.” As Chairman and Senior Executive of Expedia Group – which includes a dozen top online booking sites – Barry Diller knows travel trends. As Chairman and S...
Jun 16, 2020•20 min•Season 1Ep. 66
“In Africa the economy is also a patient. … We have a consortium in Ethiopia, for example – 12 businesses run by women who are pivoting and using their skills to now manufacture PPE. We’re doing the same in Ghana, working through a coalition … to get to 12,000 small businesses the financing they need.” Relatively new to the world of nonprofits, the MasterCard Foundation has had an outsized impact, especially in Africa. Led by President and CEO Reeta Roy, the organization has focused on financial...
Jun 15, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 65
“I thought a lot about it from the perspective of being a person who walks around with brown skin, a woman, a mother, but also someone who runs a company. … My mother used to tell me, ‘Mellody, you could be or do anything.’ … There's going to be a struggle. It's going to be super hard. People aren't going to treat you fairly, but you can still be or do anything. I actually believed her.” As president and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, Mellody Hobson is responsible for more than $10 billion in inve...
Jun 12, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 64
“I negotiated directly with Mr. Mnuchin. … He was fair. He was easy to communicate with. … Working with him, I was able to carve out and direct to these minority institutions, a sum of money that would give them the liquidity that they needed.” Rep. Maxine Waters has always been a champion of the underserved: as an assistant teacher in 1966 with the Head Start program in Watts, California; as a state legislator in the 70s and 80s, pushing for divestment in South Africa; and as a current 15-term ...
Jun 11, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 63
“The COVID-19 crisis has made me realize that if there's anything I really want to get done in my life, I need to get it done sooner. I am ratcheting up my activity. I'm doing what I call sprinting to the finish line now because I realize how fragile life really can be and this crisis brought it home to me.” After achieving financial success by co-founding and co-chairing the private equity firm The Carlyle Group, David Rubenstein is now redefining philanthropic success. His approach is what he ...
Jun 10, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 62
“We immediately went from working 100% from the office to 100% work from home; we’ll remain working from home at least through October as we see how the virus progresses and how we protect the health and safety of our employees as we start to reopen.” For PayPal president and CEO Dan Schulman, the health and wellbeing of his 25,000 global employees comes first. They, in turn, are then better able to provide for the 300 million consumers and 25 million merchants using PayPal’s platform. They were...
Jun 09, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 61
“It's really, to me, a trust factor. … Companies at that moment had huge, huge needs for capital to manage through the beginning of what they were seeing was going to be a significant downturn in their business. If we had closed the markets, they would not have been able to gain access to that capital when they needed it the most.” Early in the coronavirus crisis, Adena Friedman, president and CEO of Nasdaq, focused her energy on making sure companies and investors had uninterrupted liquidity to...
Jun 08, 2020•38 min•Season 1Ep. 60
“We're working well as an industry, not just within the airline industry, but across the hospitality sector. We want customers to feel confident. … People want to move; people want to get out. There's a cabin fever … and we want to make sure we're serving it safely.” Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines, remembers all too well how 9/11 affected his industry and his airline, which had to restructure and make difficult cost-cutting decisions. The coronavirus crisis posed a greater threat, but he’s c...
Jun 04, 2020•26 min•Season 1Ep. 59
“The unfortunate, almost-tragic, paradox of this situation is that 1.2 million healthcare professionals in the United States have lost their jobs because of the financial strains that have COVID pandemic put on healthcare organizations.” For the 99-year-old Cleveland Clinic, the care of their patients is equaled only by the emphasis they place on the health of their own workforce. Their thorough preparation and procedures have resulted in a less than 1% infection rate, compared to roughly 20% of...
Jun 03, 2020•20 min•Season 1Ep. 58
“In Macau, we put together a plan that when we would reopen, it would be one of the safest places people could go. Everything from thermal cameras to … PPE. Every customer's given a mask. … UV technology in public bathrooms. Electro‐mist spray throughout the facility. And lots of training for our people.” For Matt Maddox, CEO of Wynn Resorts, the safety and security of employees and customers is paramount. And thanks to the company’s global operations, he was able to learn what works in China an...
Jun 02, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 57
“This experience is a grand experiment in online work, online education, online shopping. You really couldn't have created a better experiment, and we're learning an awful lot. Not everything is working so well, and some things are working really well.” Ever since tinkering with punch-card computers at age 10, David Siegel has had a fascination with data. He co-founded and co-chairs Two Sigma, a data-focused financial services company, and he’s also chairman of the Siegel Family Endowment, which...
Jun 02, 2020•29 min•Season 1Ep. 56
“The fundamental decision that every society has to make is, can we suppress this virus forever if necessary? Can we afford to do that? … If you know that you're going to give up, there's no point to suppress for a while.” Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer is accustomed to seeing the big picture of a problem – and offering big solutions. In the case of COVID-19, he proposes a comprehensive “test and isolate” policy that would keep the infection rate low while allowing the economy to ramp ...
May 29, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 55
“Are we going to require the same level of evidence for a vaccine … before it is approved? Could we potentially begin to use it at the same time we're still studying it? Normally we would never do that, but it's this kind of translational innovation that this COVID crisis is making not only possible, but needed.” How do simple scientific observations – from the laboratory, clinic, or the community – become therapies and cures? It’s called translation, and since 2012, one of the 27 institutes and...
May 28, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 54
“In America, we don't look to the government alone to develop the solutions. We look to the creativity and ingenuity and vitality of the private sector, whether it's corporations or philanthropic organizations for many of those solutions.” In normal times, Brent McIntosh’s charge at the Treasury Department is to advance America’s economic interests abroad. Today, that mission includes extending a helping hand: McIntosh was instrumental in getting the G7, the G20, the World Bank and the IMF to re...
May 27, 2020•17 min•Season 1Ep. 53
“Public health will not be able to cope with this pandemic if it becomes a major crisis of the scale that we have seen in the West and in China. There's almost nothing we can do about it because we just don't have time. But it has been a massive wake-up call.” Strive Masiyiwa is in a race against the clock. The Zimbabwean-born businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist is working to shore up medical and food supply chains so African nations can manage a possible surge of coronavirus cases. Fo...
May 26, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 52
“Explain things in a credible way so that the public understands why they're being asked to do things. You can't force people – especially Americans – to do things they refuse to do.” When he retired from the U.S. House of Representatives after four decades of service, Henry Waxman was considered one of the most influential and effective legislators of his era. He championed such issues as the environment, clean energy, and government oversight, sponsoring 48 bills that made it into law. The con...
May 26, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 51
A Special Episode on Potential Breakthroughs in COVID-19 Research Coming from Cancer Research by the Prostate Cancer Foundation and FasterCures A video recording of this episode – with helpful graphics – is also available at mikemilken.com . For our 50th recording, Jonathan Simons (President and CEO, Prostate Cancer Foundation) and Esther Krofah (Executive Director, FasterCures) join Mike for a special discussion about how breakthroughs in cancer laboratories are advancing our understanding and ...
May 22, 2020•51 min•Season 1Ep. 50
“We spend numerous hours a day updating that tracker because what is critical is real-time information that researchers and scientists can respond to. … As I've been speaking to colleagues, ranging from NIH to these large companies, they're using that daily in their prioritization exercises to determine what they can accelerate and what the potential opportunities are.” Keeping track of rapid-pace global developments in treatments and vaccines for COVID-19 may seem to be an uphill battle. But si...
May 22, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 49
“Normally about 14,000 students live on our campus in our dormitories and that's down to I think less than about 900 students. … The campus has taken on an eerie feeling of really being abandoned.” Big changes are afoot at UCLA, America’s #1-rated public university. Chancellor Gene Block has already seen an 85% reduction of his on-campus workforce, and with a record of 5,000-plus classes currently being taught online, he anticipates further, more permanent alterations to the way students obtain ...
May 21, 2020•20 min•Season 1Ep. 48
“One day, for the first time in my 39 years, there were no patients in the emergency department. It was a Sunday morning. Never seen that in my life. … Heart attacks, strokes, mental illness – these people were not coming in. … There are a lot of deaths that are indirectly going to be associated with COVID-19 even though the patients never had the infection.” As the vice chancellor of UCLA Health Sciences and the CEO of UCLA Health, John Mazziotta helms one of the crown jewels of California’s fo...
May 20, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 47
“Most times your right or your requirement for personal privacy trumps other kinds of needs. But a pandemic is … when it becomes quite clear that sometimes the needs of the collective, the needs of society, trump the needs of the individual.” As the CEO and Director of DBS Group, a financial services firm operating in 18 countries throughout Asia, Piyush Gupta is known for anticipating and staying ahead of current trends in banking. When the pandemic hit, DBS quickly built upon the digital platf...
May 19, 2020•26 min•Season 1Ep. 46
“The US and China, particularly in 2020, are on something of a collision course....We should confront where we must, we should cooperate where we can, and we should be clear-eyed that we're in for a period of real tension.” A retired 4-star, Admiral James Stavridis has not lost his focus on the future of geopolitics and American national security. Recently, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO has turned his attention to how a pandemic will alter the world order and how America might navi...
May 18, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 45
“In this fight, where we are today—this is May of 2020—there's a lot of other companies and a lot of other approaches that are trying to generate vaccines. I wish them all success, and we all need to be successful here. I have only two competitors in this race: the virus and the clock.” If developing a COVID-19 vaccine were a race, Tal Zaks and Moderna Therapeutics won the first leg. It took them only 63 days from the time the virus was sequenced until they had a new vaccine in human clinical tr...
May 15, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 44
“When I was working at ground zero, I saw a level of cooperation and willingness for everybody to sort of check their egos at the door because we knew that we were all facing an external threat. And that's exactly what we're seeing today. We're all in this together.” For Richard Hatchett, 9/11 changed everything. While serving as an oncology fellow in New York City, he quickly found himself on the front lines tending to the injured. He never looked back, shifting his focus to public health and t...
May 13, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 43
“We knew that some kind of pandemic has always been inevitable….What we didn't really predict was the magnitude of the impact, the stress on the healthcare system, shocks to markets and economies….How do we predict the new normal at speed and at scale?” Predicting the future isn’t what it used to be, especially with the inherent variables of a pandemic. For WorldQuant Predictive CEO James Golden, the current crisis means putting his company’s artificial intelligence, machine learning, and quanti...
May 12, 2020•25 min•Season 1Ep. 42
“Play is never canceled. You can cancel school, you can suspend retail stores or close movie theaters, but you cannot cancel play.” For Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz, taking the helm of one the world’s iconic companies two years ago was a privilege and a responsibility. In the age of COVID-19, he views the company’s mission as more important than ever to help children—and their parents—navigate the challenge. The company has even launched a special line of action figures called Thank You Heroes, which, ...
May 11, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 41
“You start by taking care of your people. Your people then can take care of their families and loved ones. That's how communities get taken care of. And that's kind of the building blocks that we see as being critical here.” For MassMutual’s Roger Crandall, leadership in times of a pandemic means more opportunities to help policyholders and employees create virtuous cycles. Under his stewardship, the venerable life insurance company has offered $3 billion of free life insurance to frontline work...
May 08, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 40
“I was deeply impressed. They managed much bigger volumes than in any normal period, and we were really very proud and still are very proud how our fixed income and equity traders managed these challenges, because it was certainly not an easy environment.” Thomas Gottstein became CEO of Credit Suisse on February 14, 2020. Within three weeks, the world had changed, and he found himself leading the storied firm through the uncharted waters of a pandemic. Moreover, Credit Suisse took a leading role...
May 08, 2020•14 min•Season 1Ep. 39
“One of the other things that has come to light with regards to COVID-19 are health disparities….in the infection rates and the hospitalization rates and in the death rates of certain communities.” As a young African American girl growing up in the early 1960s, Freda Lewis-Hall was accustomed to people telling her that she would never attain her dream of becoming a doctor. Today, she can look back at a 35-year career that included serving as Pfizer’s Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Of...
May 06, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 38
“The consumer is resilient. Vacations are mandatory. I believe the cruise business within a year will be back. I truly believe that. And I believe the [Las Vegas] Strip will be back within that period of time too.” As the founder of Diamond Resorts International and the former chairman of Brand USA—the nation’s first public-private partnership to promote tourism—Nevada native Stephen J. Cloobeck has led the hospitality industry through good times and bad. As he consults with companies and govern...
May 06, 2020•20 min•Season 1Ep. 37
