Conversations with Mike Milken

Just out of college in 1982, Peter Laugharn joined the Peace Corps, setting him on a lifelong journey of service. Today, with more than 25 years of leadership—including seven years at the Firelight Foundation and six years at the Bernard van Leer Foundation—Laugharn is President and CEO of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Established in 1944, the foundation administers the largest annual humanitarian award in the world and focuses on vulnerable populations, including the homeless in Los Angeles and children in Africa. 

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Todd Boehly strives for an organization as diverse as the holdings of Eldridge Industries itself. As co-founder, chairman, and CEO, he manages and builds companies in wide-ranging sectors including technology, credit, insurance, real estate, sports, and entertainment. His foray into film financing and distribution yielded a Best Picture Oscar for 2017’s Moonlight. His purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012 has resulted in seven consecutive division championships and two National League pennants.

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For more than three decades, Brian Cornell held executive roles in the consumer goods sector. But when he became chairman and CEO of Target in 2014, he says his business career really began. Because of the broad array of goods that Target sells, Cornell knows that his stores are vital to communities across America—especially during difficult times. He feels a special obligation to treat his 350,000 plus team members as extended family.

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With a career that effortlessly spans public and private sectors, including successful forays into entrepreneurism and philanthropy, Maria Contreras-Sweet is lauded for her ability to bring efficiencies and modernization to large scale organizations. Her tenure as the 24th Administrator of the Small Business Administration was noted for record-breaking results in lending, investments, and contracting. A proud immigrant, Contreras-Sweet has never forgotten her family’s journey nor the lessons it taught her.

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As President and CEO of TIAA, Roger Ferguson manages 1.1 trillion dollars in retirement funds and services spanning the academic, research, medical, and cultural fields. As one of only four Black CEOs currently leading a Fortune 500 company, he knows the importance of making capitalism work for everyone. And, as the former vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve who helped stabilize markets during 9/11, he has seen how resilient the system can be—even in the midst of a pandemic.

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Bob Pittman was 15 when he started in radio – and he never looked back. The Mississippi native and current Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia has been hailed as a visionary and belongs to multiple broadcasting and advertising halls of fame. He pioneered and led MTV, and served as CEO for AOL Networks, Six Flags Theme Parks, Quantum Media, Century 21 Real Estate, and Time Warner Enterprises. More recently, he led a group of founding partners in launching the Black Information Network (BIN) in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing.

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As a noted physician-scientist and nuclear medicine physician at the University of Melbourne in Australia, Michael Hofman has built a career on using the latest technology in the pursuit of better cancer treatments, especially those using positron emission tomography (PET) scans and precision medicine. COVID-19 is accelerating adoption of these approaches, and he sees other treatment trends on the horizon.

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It used to be the stuff of science fiction: A scientist discovers a way to edit genetic sequences in humans and plant life, creating new opportunities to eliminate diseases and famine. Except in Jennifer Doudna’s case, the CRISPR-Cas9 technology she co-invented in 2012 has already produced real-life benefits—along with a scramble to translate the game-changing process into more treatments and cures. In the meantime, it has shown promise in the fight against COVID.

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Anastasia Soare is living proof that one can achieve the American Dream by building a better eyebrow. After emigrating from Romania in 1989 with limited cash and English skills—but with a solid education in art—she applied da Vinci’s golden ratio to the sculpting of women’s brows. With clients such as the Kardashians and Oprah Winfrey, the plucky founder and CEO of Anastasia Beverly Hills was able to build a beauty empire that today sells more than 480 products in 3,000 stores and has more than 20 million followers on social media.

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As one of India’s most celebrated biopharmaceutical entrepreneurs, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has been committed to healing the sick since she was 25. In 2010, Time magazine named her one the 100 most influential people in the world. Today, the executive chairperson of Biocon is determined to make a difference through both her philanthropy and her company’s promising COVID-19 treatment. Sadly, she may become a test patient herself: shortly after this interview was recorded, she tested positive for the virus.

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Lady Nicola Mendelsohn is doing her part to make the world smaller and more accessible. As Vice President of Facebook for Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, her mission is to help bring connectivity – and prosperity – to the developing world. So far, she is succeeding: The Daily Telegraph has called her "the most powerful woman in the British tech industry,” and Queen Elizabeth awarded her the honorific of Commander of the British Empire in 2015.

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Created in 2004 with broad bipartisan support, the Millennium Challenge Corporation is a US Government aid agency that seeks to reduce poverty in the developing world through economic growth. CEO Sean Cairncross is committed to working with governments that have a proven record of stability, good governance, and existing investments in their own people. He proudly points to the fact that MCC was recently ranked first among US aid agencies for transparency.

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When Precious Moloi began her career as a doctor in South Africa, she would eventually open the first women’s clinic in Johannesburg. After marrying Patrice Motsepe, they would become the wealthiest Black couple in South Africa, and the first on the continent to join the Giving Pledge. As a fashion entrepreneur, Dr Moloi-Motsepe has lifted young South African designers to international renown. And through the Motsepe Foundation, this Renaissance woman from Soweto has pledged millions to alleviate the continent’s COVID crisis.

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When he was managing Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), Hiro Mizuno recognized that his role went beyond fiduciary. After all, with $1.6 trillion in assets, the fund wasn’t merely a traditional asset manager—it was a major owner in the global capital markets, and its investment decisions had significant impact. The fund would need to play a greater stewardship role, he believed, and so GPIF increasingly considered environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in its investment decisions. And while he met resistance along the way, today his bold idea has gone more mainstream.

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With COVID striking at the heart of Liberty Media’s sports portfolio (Formula 1 and the Atlanta Braves), it’s understandable that President and CEO Greg Maffei injected competitive stakes into how his managers look at their respective businesses. Some of Liberty’s other holdings, such as Sirius XM, are more pandemic proof, while their digital commerce subsidiaries QVC, HSN, and Zulily have adapted more readily to the times.

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As the former Secretary of Finance for the Republic of the Philippines under two Presidents, Cesar Purisima is widely credited with turning the Philippine economy around and restoring investor confidence. His stewardship vastly increased government revenues, and set new records for investments in education, healthcare, and infrastructure. As a Founding Partner of IKHLAS Capital, he now extends his compassion to the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

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When William Lever packaged Sunshine—his first bar of soap—in the 19th Century, he couldn’t dream that his company would someday grow to include more than 400 brands, including Dove, Lipton, and Ben & Jerry’s. Today, Unilever CEO Alan Jope dreams of continuing that growth, as long as it is both responsible and sustainable.

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Since becoming CEO of Mastercard in 2010, Ajay Banga has seen his company’s annual revenues more than triple, from $5 billion to $17 billion. The company is also doing well by doing good: their Mastercard Foundation has provided scholarships, entrepreneurial grants, and a commitment to create 30 million jobs in Africa in the coming decade. It’s all part of what the Indian-born Banga calls a “decency quotient.”

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When Ursula Burns became CEO of Xerox in 2009, she was the first African American woman to reach that position at a Fortune 500 company. The daughter of a single mother growing up in New York City public housing, she rose through the ranks to also become that company’s chairman, and then held the same positions at VEON. In this wide-ranging conversation, she discusses a different way of thinking about equity.

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As the 11th Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley—and the first woman to hold that position—Carol Christ helms what U.S. News and World Report considers the world’s best public university. She sees her role as requiring both the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances as well as the steadiness to adhere to the university’s core values.

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As Chairman of Investments and Global Chief Investment Officer for Guggenheim Partners, Scott Minerd oversees more than $270 billion in assets. In this brief but wide-ranging conversation, he discusses what he inherited from three generations of entrepreneurs in the Minerd family, environmental stewardship, and the meaning of leadership.

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For Deepak Chopra, healing the world begins with healing individuals—and that can begin by integrating Eastern spiritual traditions and Western medicine. As the founder of the Chopra Foundation and Chopra Global—as well as the best-selling author of 90 books—Dr Chopra believes that breakthroughs in technology and medicine will help lead to harnessing the collective intelligence of humanity, resulting in positive changes on micro and macro levels.

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Whether she’s voting in the Security Council or leading the personnel at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. (USUN), Ambassador Kelly Craft is keenly aware of the national values she represents. For her, it’s a matter of humility—as when she played an integral role in renegotiating the NAFTA framework with our neighbors to the north and south.

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When Kenneth Lombard looks at our current confluence of crises, the Executive Vice President and COO of Seritage Growth Properties sees opportunities—especially in the hard-hit brick and mortar retail space. After all, as a past recipient of the National Inner City Economic Leadership Award, he has a proven record of revitalizing business opportunities in urban neighborhoods. He traces his optimism to a strong upbringing.

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For ten years, husband and wife Laura and John Arnold have grappled with some of society’s most intractable problems. Their Houston-based philanthropy, Arnold Ventures, addresses disparities in public finance, health, education, and especially criminal justice, where they hope their evidence-based approach will help drive needed reform.

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For Mark Cuban, fortune favors the bold—and there’s no time like the present. As a serial entrepreneur, investor on TV’s Shark Tank, and current owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, Cuban has always been a keen surveyor of the business landscape. He believes current technology such as robotics and artificial intelligence have enormous potential domestically, as long as we can ramp up our efforts.

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With the pandemic revealing greater inequities in existing economic systems, Robert F. Smith is determined to make a difference. He authorized one of Vista Equity Partners’ portfolio companies, Finastra, to process more than 86,000 PPP loans to bolster small businesses in struggling communities. Named by Forbes as one of the ‘100 Greatest Living Business Minds’, he is also a noted philanthropist: Last year, he famously paid off the student loans of the entire graduating class of the historically black Morehouse College.

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For struggling economies around the world, the IMF is a lifeline. Since 1944, it has promoted financial stability and sustainable growth to its 189 member countries with zero percent loans and reserves of more than one trillion dollars. As the Fund’s Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva’s mission is to bolster developing economies hit hard by the pandemic while seeking ways to increase equity and security for citizens of all nations.

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As CEO of one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For, Activision Blizzard’s Bobby Kotick will do whatever is necessary to keep his workforce healthy. After all, his 9,200 employees comprise the world’s most successful standalone interactive entertainment company, with such franchises as Call of Duty, Overwatch and World of Warcraft. With nearly 500 million active monthly players around the world, the company also finds itself as an accelerator of social change.

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Chevron has been weathering the vicissitudes of cultural and industrial shifts around the world since it was founded 141 years ago to provide a substitute for whale oil used in lamp lighting. Today, Chevron’s more than 48,000 employees around the world have emerged stronger than ever from a market that drove oil prices to less than zero, as well as a domestic landscape roiled by a resurgent pandemic and social upheaval.

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As the world struggles with the vagaries of a pandemic, Ravi Kumar S. is already planning for a transformed workplace. As President of Infosys, his effort begins with finding a new pipeline of formerly underserved workers and then training them for what’s ahead. For him, it’s a way to bring more equity to the workforce and help bring about the kind of world in which he wants his new daughter to grow up.

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Last year, the World Bank Group was busily working on two ambitious goals for its 189 member nations: ending extreme poverty within a generation and boosting shared prosperity. This year, it has announced it will provide up to $160 billion in financing for COVID-19 over a period of 15 months to help developing countries respond to the health, social, and economic impacts of the pandemic.

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When the pandemic hit in January, Al Kelly made a vow to have zero layoffs at Visa. Fortunately, as one of the world’s foremost purveyors of e-commerce, they soon found that 97% of their 20,000 employees were able to work from home, and they shuttered all but five of their 130 international offices. Now, as they continue to service 1.1 billion worldwide cardholders, they are partnering with federal, state, and foreign governments to distribute much-needed stimulus and relief funds.

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When David Panzirer was named a Trustee of the Helmsley Charitable Trust thirteen years ago, he knew little about being a philanthropist. Today, he helps to direct that fund’s $6 billion dollars toward initiatives that create greater healthcare access—both in rural America and sub-Saharan Africa—while ensuring better long-term outcomes. He is especially passionate about improving the lives of those with type 1 diabetes, a disease that hits very close to home.

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For 150 years, Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC has been a beacon of pediatric excellence. With Dr. Joelle Simpson as its Medical Director for Emergency Preparedness, they have partnered with philanthropists to provide free drive-through care and COVID-19 testing. Serving her community’s needs is rewarding; in today’s turbulent times, however, it can also be frustrating and overwhelming.

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As Chairman and Senior Executive of Expedia Group—which includes a dozen top online booking sites—Barry Diller knows travel trends. As Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC—which includes websites such as OkCupid, Tinder, and Match—he knows internet dating habits. As a legendary movie and television producer and executive, he knows what will entertain people. One thing he doesn’t know, however, is how this crisis will resolve.

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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 and education initiatives that have reached 33 million people throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Their latest initiative, Young Africa Works, helps young people, particularly young women, find secure and fulfilling work.

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As president and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, Mellody Hobson is responsible for more than $10 billion in investor assets. Despite the pandemic, the economy, and the civil unrest, she remains optimistic that the America her 6-year-old daughter will inherit will be safer, more secure and more just.

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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 congresswoman and chair of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, where she’s been working across the aisle to help those affected by the pandemic. Losing her own sister to COVID-19 has only made her more determined to defeat the virus.

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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 calls “patriotic philanthropy,” which is focused on giving his time, considerable energy and expertise, and financial support to causes that help remind people of the history and heritage of the nation. He chairs nonprofits including the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian Institution, and he personally helped finance the restoration of the Washington Monument.

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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 among the first non-bank companies able to deploy funds through the Paycheck Protection Program, speeding vital loans to those who needed them most.

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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 meet the challenges ahead. And throughout the crisis she’s observed a growing trend toward what she calls “cooperative capitalism,” a blend of creative problem solving and altruism she has observed in many sectors.

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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 confident his airline will bounce back and return to flying 200 million passengers a year.

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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 all healthcare workers throughout the rest of Ohio.

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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 and apply it to an accelerated reopening schedule in the United States.

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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 supports organizations that help prepare society for the impact of technology. He spoke with Mike Milken on Monday, May 18, 2020.

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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 up.

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How do simple scientific observations—from the laboratory, clinic, or the community—become therapies and cures? It’s called translation. Since 2012, one of the 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health has been dedicated to doing just that. As director of NCATS, Christopher Austin oversees a vast ecosystem of research, analysis, and innovation to accelerate cures and therapies to those who need them most.

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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 relax debt service payments from struggling nations so they could focus on caring for their citizens.

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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. For Masiyiwa, the stakes could not be higher.

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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 congressman chaired the first hearing on HIV/AIDS in 1982, as well the tobacco industry hearings 12 years later, demonstrating a commitment to public health that continues to this day.

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The roundtable features six scientists, from academic medical research institutions and the biopharmaceutical industry, sharing their insights on the TMPRSS2 gene’s role as the doorway through which the SARS-CoV-2 virus enters the lung.

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Keeping track of rapid-pace global developments in treatments and vaccines for COVID-19 may seem to be an uphill battle. But since February, Esther Krofah’s team at FasterCures has been producing exactly that: a real-time tool that, as of late May 2020, is monitoring development of more than 200 treatments and 140 vaccines.

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Big changes are afoot at UCLA, America’s number one-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 higher education.

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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 formidable medical research and health care ecosystem. When the crisis erupted, his hospitals prepared to be a major hub for the region’s most challenging cases. Fortunately, that anticipated influx never came; however, for UCLA and for hospitals and patients everywhere, Dr. Mazziotta sees consequences that will reverberate for years.

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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 platform Gupta had already implemented. 

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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 navigate the crisis.

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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 trials. So impressed was BARDA—the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority—that they awarded Moderna $483 million to begin producing the vaccine should it gain FDA approval.

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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 toward helping as many people as possible deal with external threats. Today, as CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), he coordinates between multiple sectors to ensure that emerging vaccines are safe, effective, and readily available to all who need them.

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“Play is never canceled. You can cancel school, you can suspend retail stores or close movie theaters, but you cannot cancel play.”

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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 quantitative finance approaches to the test as never before.  

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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 workers—a program he hopes to expand. 

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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 in developing and executing its nation’s rescue package.

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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 Officer, where she was a passionate advocate for health equity and improved outcomes for all patients. 

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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. 

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When Steven Rosenberg joined the National Cancer Institute more than 45 years ago, he was determined to prove that a patient’s own immune system could be used to fight cancer. His interleukin-2 therapy was approved by the FDA for cancer in 1992, leading to many more advances and resulting in thousands of lives extended and saved. 

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For David Solomon and Goldman Sachs, helping small enterprises navigate the crisis requires access—to expertise, education, and capital. The firm continues its 10,000 Small Businesses program and has pledged more than half a billion dollars to support community lenders. 
 
These days, Solomon’s particularly focused on creating outcomes that are sustainable and equitable: “Whenever you go through a crisis,” he tells Mike, “disadvantages are amplified. We continue to try to find ways that we can make sure that resources, including capital and business allocation, are directed to women-led businesses.”

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When Vivek Ramaswamy was only 28, he founded the pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences. When COVID-19 hit New York City, his wife was a frontline medical worker—and pregnant with their son. The child was born healthy, but his wife and father-in-law soon tested positive for the virus. They are still recovering. 

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“The first genome sequence of the virus that was published on January 12th online was done on Illumina machines, and so we have been working on this outbreak [since] well before it became a pandemic.”

Sequencing DNA quickly and cheaply has revolutionized medicine with new cures and therapies that have extended and saved lives. As president and CEO of Illumina, Francis deSouza has been at the forefront of these advances and is leading his company toward new applications that can help fight a pandemic. 

He and Mike discuss how to get the world back to work, how many genomes may actually be present in our bodies, and a novel way of safeguarding the world’s data: “DNA has been optimized by nature to be the best storage medium out there and it's only a matter of time before we use it ourselves for the data that we generate.”

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“As we began to see in January the evolution of this virus...we began reorienting ourselves to our inpatient responsibilities and to the potential that the nation would need us to be its backstop in a healthcare system.”

Dr. Richard Stone’s job title is as clear and direct as the man who occupies it. As the executive in charge of the Veterans Health Administration, the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system, he carries the awesome responsibility of protecting the health of 9 million veterans and 360,000 employees. 

A combat veteran himself, he offers simple advice to address a worrying trend: “Early on in this pandemic, we began to see veterans canceling their mental health visits….If you know any family member, any friend, who is going through intense social isolation, pick up the phone today.”

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If you’ve never heard of Alibaba, chances are you aren’t one of the 700 million active annual consumers living in China who rely on the company for e-commerce, online auctions, technology and business services, entertainment, and even grocery shopping. Keeping Alibaba’s 100,000 employees healthy is a priority for co-founder Joe Tsai, and he’s wary of going too fast, too soon.

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With more than two-thirds of his 1,500 KinderCare centers now closed, Tom Wyatt feels it is his civic duty to keep the remaining ones open to serve the children of parents who must work—including those on the frontlines. That sense of responsibility—to community and to nation—is to be expected from Wyatt, who left his highly successful leadership career in retail to pursue a calling in early childhood education.

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Putting patients first—in this case, young patients who often require special care and immediate attention—has long been Kurt Newman’s priority at Children’s National. This conviction has held true through the unprecedented health and economic challenges presented by the coronavirus crisis.

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A month after what would have been opening day, the national pastime remains in limbo. For Commissioner Rob Manfred, deciding when to play ball this year means reflecting on the example set by his predecessor after 9/11, when baseball helped bring Americans together. Just like then, he tells Mike, “baseball can be kind of an important milestone in the return to normalcy.”

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Under Robert Bradway’s leadership, Amgen is aggressively pursuing SARS-CoV-2 on a number of fronts. Some of their efforts build on past successes, focusing on antibodies and the immune system. Another looks to the small island nation of Iceland for genetic clues about the virus’s mutations and spread.

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As CEO of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, Vas Narasimhan knows what a unique moment in history this is. That’s why he’s spending hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development to attack COVID-19 from a variety of angles. Among these are protease inhibitors, monoclonal antibodies, and “glue degraders” that help dissolve critical proteins in the virus.

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 Jeff Skoll knows pandemics. More than a decade ago he launched an organization whose current name reflects its mission: Ending Pandemics. Skoll, who once served as eBay’s first president, also sounded the alarm (presciently, it now seems) when he produced the 2011 film Contagion, which anticipated the global upheaval caused by a pathogen originating from a wet market half a world away.
 
From his years studying what could go wrong with a virus like COVID-19, Skoll clearly sees the challenges ahead: “We literally need something like 22 million tests a day to truly open up the country and be safe,” the soft-spoken Canadian tells Mike. “And cumulatively, I believe that there are no more than 22 million tests that have been done all over the world.”

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As two-term governor of Florida, Rick Scott led his state through crises including hurricanes, mass shootings, and the Zika virus. Now, as a US Senator, he’s helping see the nation through COVID-19. While the roles are different, Scott’s philosophy is the same: he spends his days listening and helping people solve their problems. 
 
A champion of small business and entrepreneurship, his focus today is on reopening the nation safely, and he’s identified the immediate challenge: “The biggest thing we've got to chip away at right now, I think, is we’ve got to figure out this testing...because it's going to be hard to get this economy going without it.”

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Senator Harry Reid knows about handling adversity. Born during the Great Depression, he grew up in a shack in Searchlight, Nevada with no indoor toilet, telephone, or hot water. He fought—literally, as an amateur boxer—to earn money to advance himself. As a law student at George Washington University, he moonlighted as a gun-carrying security guard at the US Capitol Building. Reid never forgot his humble beginnings, which may be why he has always championed the underdog. 
 
In this episode, the man from Searchlight talks about his life and accomplishments in the healthcare sector including the doubling of the NIH budget, the creation of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), and most famously, his shepherding and eventual passage of the Affordable Care Act.

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In 1980, Steve Ballmer left Stanford’s MBA program to become Microsoft’s 30th employee. Thirty-four years later, he retired as CEO and promptly channeled his formidable energy into a variety of interests, including USAFacts.org, which makes government data accessible and understandable.

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The story is familiar, even mythic: brilliant young student builds out a new technology in her garage and changes the world. But Judy Faulkner never made it to Silicon Valley. The medical software company she founded in a Madison basement four decades ago remains in Wisconsin—while Epic’s importance to the world of health care continues to grow.

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From serving as a frontline physician treating HIV patients in Uganda, to overseeing new therapies for a leading biopharma company, to running a renowned health sciences university, to heading the world’s largest philanthropy – Sue Desmond-Hellmann has seen it all.

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Since taking the helm of the largest nonprofit for Americans 50 and older, Jo Ann Jenkins has built a culture of community among her staff, 60,000 volunteers, and her organization’s 38 million members. Recently, this has been made easier by the fact that years ago she implemented powerful two-way communication infrastructure for her employees that could be quickly repurposed to include her constituents. Now, AARP hosts massive, weekly tele-townhall calls that help its members navigate today’s unique challenges.

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For EY’s 300,000 global employees – including 25,000 in China – the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted what it means to serve clients as trusted advisors and help them navigate an uncertain world. For Carmine Di Sibio, it’s also meant seeing to the wellbeing of a massive, global and highly mobile workforce.

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When Groupon founder Eric Lefkofsky’s wife was diagnosed with cancer, he found the lack of data maddening. Outside of her hospital it was the 21st century, but once he passed through the doors he felt he was being ushered two or three decades into the past.

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Margaret “Peggy” Hamburg has devoted her life to elevating the best in public health while anticipating the worst. As New York City Health Commissioner, she curtailed the spread of tuberculosis. She served as senior scientist for the Nuclear Threat Initiative. After the attacks on the World Trade Center, she redoubled her efforts to help create a world safe from chemical and biological weapons. And, as one of the longest-serving FDA commissioners, she modernized food safety regulations and implemented the Tobacco Control Act. Forbes magazine named her one of the world’s most powerful women.

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That’s Eric Schmidt’s bold plan to put a stop to the pandemic so we can start to return the nation to some semblance of normalcy. Schmidt, who led Google from a startup to one of the largest and most influential companies in the world, now chairs the Defense Innovation Advisory Board, part of the US Department of Defense.

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Long before Andrew von Eschenbach served as Commissioner for the FDA, he was crucial to Mike Milken’s decades-long efforts to transform biomedical research and speed delivery of cures to the world. Both men had lost their fathers to cancer and together were determined to prevent other families from similar fates. In this episode, they speak candidly and passionately about the job ahead.

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Dubbed the ‘Cancer fighting power-couple’ by the Washington Post, James Allison and Pam Sharma have dedicated their careers to cancer treatment and research. They currently work as immunologists and oncologists at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston (Jim is executive director of the center’s Immunotherapy Platform), where they’ve had to make serious provisions to accommodate COVID-19 patients.

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When it comes to COVID-19, Lynn Goldman sees the big picture. Unsurprising, really, given her years in government (former assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention at the US Environmental Protection Agency) and academia (Dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University), not to mention her career as a pediatrician and environmental epidemiologist.

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In the midst of a public health crisis, David Baltimore can be trusted to offer reason and rational thinking when the climate is so often dominated by misinformation and distrust.

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That’s Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky talking about the $1 billion partnership his company formed with BARDA, the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. The company is ramping up so that if the accelerated clinical trials are successful, J&J will be prepared to produce and ship by early 2021.

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Following a conference in Boston, Arie Belldegrun—oncologist, businessman, biopharmaceutical leader—contracted COVID-19, as did his wife. However, while he suffered the widely-reported symptoms, she did not.

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Few Americans have been on the frontlines of this pandemic longer than Rod Hochman. Back in January, his team at Providence St.Joseph, Seattle, identified and treated the very first case of COVID-19 in the country.

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Francis Collins was born for big science. After a successful 13-year effort leading 2,400 scientists in six countries to crack the human DNA instruction book, the one-time leader of the Human Genome Project now is now directing the largest biomedical research agency in the world to tackle COVID-19.

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