“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 one’s unique heritage. With 20 million users worldwide, Ancestry is the largest for-profit company of its kind. As the daughter of Chinese immigrants, Liu knows how her company’s services can transcend matching names to data.

“What we build at Ancestry is not just a tool to share information,” she tells Mike, “but it's really about storytelling and actually building something that hopefully you'll give to your children and your grandchildren someday… It's really the story of all the people who made decisions, just like my parents leaving their home to go to another country. It's those stories that actually make us who we are today.”

“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 America, with more than $70 billion of assets under management – is determined to give back. As a board member of Conservation International, he champions protecting the Amazon and its extraordinary biodiversity. As a philanthropist, he and his partners are empowering the next generation of Brazilians by building a new university, the Institute of Technology and Leadership.

“Our corporate sector needs coders, programmers, data scientists, and we need to help provide this kind of qualified labor force,” he tells Mike. “But, beyond teaching technology, the intention here – and that's why it has ‘leadership’ in the name – is also teaching that you only create wealth if you work very hard, wake up very early in the morning. And you don't need government for that.”

“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 major motion picture studio. But in 1980, Sherry Lansing became the first woman to do so, first leading 20th Century Fox, then Paramount Pictures for more than 12 years. She had a hand in over 200 films including “Forrest Gump,” “Braveheart,” and “Titanic.” Since her retirement, she has embarked on what she calls an “encore” career of philanthropy. The Sherry Lansing Foundation is dedicated to cancer research, health, public education, and encouraging seniors to pursue their own encore careers. 

“Every project I've ever worked on was hard and took a long time,” she tells Mike. “And one of the traits you have to have in any job is resiliency. And you also have to believe in something outside of yourself, that what you're fighting for is worth fighting for. It's worth the time, it's worth the effort. If you don't have that belief, you will give up.”

Joe Tsai, Co-Founder and Executive Vice Chairman, Alibaba Group; Governor, Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty -

“When we reopened, we were very tentative about letting people back into the office….You have to show your health code, which is attached to the Alipay app. It'll show a green, yellow, or red code; basically it reflects a lot of data—where you've been, who you've been with.”

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.

“China doesn't publish testing data, but our estimate is that there are at least 20-25 million tests that have already been done….If you open up and you cannot detect, trace, and isolate infected patients, then it's going to be a disaster.”

Tom Wyatt, CEO, KinderCare Education -

“[Our teachers] write me, they call me, they are so taken aback by the grateful comments they get, the emotional letters and emails they get from the doctors and nurses and others saying that they could not be doing their work without our support.”

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.

Surveying the consequences of the current pandemic, Wyatt points to a significant impact that’s often overlooked: “The emotional stress on children today,” he tells Mike, “may be even more critical than the academic loss.”

Kurt Newman, President and CEO, Children’s National Hospital -

“We've been around for 150 years and we want to be around for another 150 years. So we'll figure out a way to deal with the finances. Right now we're just focused on doing the right thing for these kids and families.”

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.

Indeed, Newman recounts the unique way one of his nurses was able to help a young patient: “She had tested positive, went through the illness, returned to work...She donated her plasma to help take care of one of our patients. And it turned that child around. That's the commitment and courage that these frontline workers have.”

Rob Manfred, Commissioner of Baseball -

“They may not be perfect with large crowds at Dodger Stadium. It may look a little different. But I really am committed to the idea that it's important as part of our recovery to get the game back on.”

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.”

In the meantime, a spirit of shared sacrifice is helping those throughout the MLB family: Manfred’s own senior staff took pay cuts so other employees would be taken care of; team owners created a $30 million fund to assist game-day workers; and the Pennsylvania factory that makes MLB uniforms was retooled to produce masks for first-responders.

Robert Bradway, Chairman and CEO, Amgen -

“This is, of course, unlike anything any of us have experienced before. This synchronous global shutdown caused by what is a pretty tricky virus – a virus that had a head start on all of us. But we're gaining ground fast.”

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.

Bradway holds true to the credo to first do no harm as he thinks about the many other patients who rely on Amgen’s life-saving medicines: “We need to make sure that while we're responding to COVID-19, we're not doing it at the expense of all these other patients, or we're going to create a secondary healthcare crisis that we never intended and that we could have prevented by striking that balance.”

Vas Narasimhan, CEO, Novartis -

“Our thinking is, how do we create a protease inhibitor that could work on future coronaviruses, not just the current coronavirus? … Fundamentally, our ability to withstand pandemics is likely going to center around our ability to think of this more as a defense topic than a health topic.”

As the 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.

As one of the world’s largest producers of hydroxychloroquine, they are also watching ongoing testing of that antimalarial drug. If the tests show it to be safe and effective, Novartis is ready to donate 130 million doses to start, and more if needed. For a company that last year produced more than 72 billion doses of medicine for nearly 800 million patients, ramping up to a global scale is a challenge Narasimhan and his company are eager to accept.

Jeff Skoll

Founder and Chairman, Skoll Foundation, The Jeff Skoll Group, Participant, and Capricorn Investment Group “About a month ago in the US we had about a thousand confirmed cases; today we have about 600,000. The developing world is very much on that same pathway.”

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.”

Rick Scott

US Senator; former Governor of Florida

“If we do anything to get this economy going again, make it easy for the entrepreneurs in this country.”

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.”

Harry Reid

Former US Senator

“At this stage, we have to recognize that there’s going to be some downtime here. But I think that with the experience we’ve had around the country, especially in New York, it’s something we can handle.”

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.

Steve Ballmer

Founder, USAFacts; former CEO, Microsoft; Co-Founder, Ballmer Group; Chairman, Los Angeles Clippers

“There is an information-collection problem from the counties, which is where most of the data lives. We've got a team that literally goes through both by hand and using technology. … one of the things I'd say we're very proud of is being able to help CDC with some of that.”

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.

In the current crisis, he is quick to quantify just how important one response will be to many Americans: “In this country, 60% of families earn less than $66,000 a year. So these $1,200 checks plus appropriate increases for presence of children in the home are highly, highly relevant to restarting the economy.”

“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 coronavirus. He had already successfully directed the Human Genome Project from 1993 to 2008, during which much of the genetic groundwork was laid that would later contribute to the development of Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA-based vaccines. With light now appearing at the end of the tunnel, Mike checked back in with Dr. Collins for further insight and perspective.

“We are going to get past this,” Collins affirms. “And then I pray, let us not forget the lessons we've learned. Let us not slip back into complacency. Let's keep in mind that we are a vulnerable blue planet and that it's up to all of us to anticipate the things that we might need that science could bring to bear on the next problem, and not wait until it's a crisis.”

Jonathan Simons

President and CEO, Prostate Cancer Foundation

“This is why we all went into medicine—for moments like this where we come together.”

For Jonathan Simons and the Prostate Cancer Foundation, global collaboration and team science were a way of life long before the pandemic. The organization’s support of groundbreaking science has changed our understanding of cancer—from organ-specific to mutation-specific—and has thus translated into effective solutions for patients across more than 70 forms of the disease.

The hard-won lessons from the war on cancer, Simons believes, will be crucial to solving COVID-19. And he predicts that what we learn from the current surge of collaborative research will save lives from other diseases long into the future.

Judy Faulkner

Founder and CEO, Epic

“We do have a culture of ownership, of working hard, of wanting to be heroes helping heroes. That's one of the things you hear our staff say.”

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 healthcare continues to grow.

More than 250 million patient medical records are on the Epic platform, and that data could yield valuable clues in the search for solutions to the pandemic. It’s all part of the employee-owned company’s mission to support the heroes on the front lines.

Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former CEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; former Chancellor, UCSF; former President of Product Development, Genentech

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.

It’s little surprise, then, that when she surveys the current pandemic she sees possible solutions across a range of areas. Her conversation with Mike Milken covers broad topics including how to build a durable and effective public health infrastructure as well as deeply specific issues such as whether interleukin-6 inhibitors might be able to prevent the eventual cause of most COVID-19 fatalities – the phenomenon known as cytokine storms.

She also points to signs that make her hopeful, including a major consortium launched at UCSF: “This is such a good example of a multi-lab, multi-investigator scientific collaboration where people are just going as fast as they can together, putting competition to the side.”

Jo Ann Jenkins CEO, AARP -

“It is that American spirit and willingness to give of oneself to make life better for others that is behind everything that we do at AARP.”

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.

That’s just one way Jo Ann continues to advance her idea of the American spirit. She adds, “In the last two weeks, we've trained over 900 people who have said, I'm willing to pick up the phone and make a call to someone that I don't even know, to just check on them.”

Carmine Di Sibio, Global Chairman and CEO, EY

“We've stressed to all our people and in particular our partners around the world that now is the time they really needed to be close with their clients, help them in any way they can, whether large clients, small clients and so forth, including doing work pro bono to make sure that they're surviving longer term.”

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.

As EY’s global chairman and CEO, Di Sibio has perhaps one of the most expansive views of how this situation is affecting organizations in every sector and geography. And to understand where we are and where we’re headed, he needs only look inside EY, which he views as “a little microcosm of the world.”

Eric Lefkofsky, Founder and CEO, Tempus

“Today, if somebody’s positive for COVID-19, it still doesn't tell you what's likely to happen next. And what we're trying to do by combining clinical and molecular data is really be able to predict what's likely to happen to them next.”

When Groupon founder Eric Lefkofsky’s wife was diagnosed with cancer, he found a 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.

He launched Tempus to change that. The company analyzes vast pools of genetic data to find and develop therapeutics for conditions ranging from cancers to major depressive disorder. He’s especially frustrated at the lack of progress in the current crisis. “We now have in this country over 400,000 patients who have tested positive for COVID-19,” he tells Mike. “Where is that data? Why don’t we have that data in one central place?”

For Lefkofsky, the promise of personalized medicine means finding and developing the right medicine for the right patient at the right time. Today, any of us may be the next patient, and the clock is ticking.

Margaret Hamburg, Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Medicine; Former Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration

“I always said it was a question of when, not if, we would have to combat a global pandemic. But I never really thought I'd be watching it play out in real time.”

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.

Despite the current crisis, she remains optimistic, noting how quickly scientists were able to sequence the genome of the virus and share it with the world. “We have to realize that with a global pandemic, we are truly all in it together.”

Eric Schmidt, former CEO and Chairman, Google

“We're going to need … some kind of shock treatment for seven, eight, nine days where we shut down everything to stop the spread…. And when I say shut down, I mean shut down.”

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.

Post-crisis, Schmidt sees opportunities for positive change. One example: with millions of students ushered into remote learning, Schmidt suggests we “see if we can actually get remote learning better than traditional learning.”

And he offers a simple but powerful reminder of his industry’s role in our lives: “Think about how bad this pandemic would be if you didn't have the internet.”

Andrew von Eschenbach MD

President, Samaritan Health Initiatives Inc.; former Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration; former Director, National Cancer Institute

“If we think of the game-changers of what is going to get America and the world back functioning normally, the FDA is probably right now the most central and critical of all the federal agencies.”

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.

If he were back at his old job at FDA, von Eschenbach would favor a multi-pronged approach to deal with the current crisis: capitalize on big data sets and near-instantaneous transfers; translate successful cancer immunotherapies and apply them to viruses; accelerate testing of drugs that have already been FDA-approved; and foster greater international cooperation and global engagement. “We need to move beyond this wounding of ourselves and of our society to create a legacy,” he says, “to make sure that this does not happen again.”

Mike welcomes two guests on this edition of the podcast: Pam Sharma and James Allison. Partners in marriage and professional collaborators, the couple are leading immunologists who have dedicated their careers to cancer treatment and research. Sharma is an immunologist and oncologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, while Allison serves as executive director of the Immunotherapy Platform at the same institution.

In their conversation with Mike, they highlighted the primacy of the immune system in fighting COVID-19, the drive to treat the virus with antibodies, and the role patients can play in mobilizing effective research into treatment and vaccines.

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 billions of dollars which are being committed to stabilize the health system, they don't compare. They really don't.” – Sir Andrew Witty

In a special episode, three of biotech’s most valuable players convene for a wide-ranging conversation about the pandemic. The consensus among Sir Andrew Witty (UnitedHealth, Optum and WHO), Esther Krofah (FasterCures) George Yancopoulos (Regeneron) is that getting future pandemics under control will require cross-sector collaboration and investment to build on current successful strategies.

“It's not what we did in the last six months, or the last nine months that will have led to saving us from the pandemic,” George Yancopoulos tells Mike. “If we can successfully complete these efforts that we've undertaken, it will have been the decades of investments in science, technology and platforms that put us in a position to respond, and we can certainly do better as a society being better prepared.”

Joining Mike on this episode is Lynn Goldman. A pediatrician and epidemiologist, Goldman is the former assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention at the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the current Dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.

With such an in-depth knowledge of epidemiology and related public policy, Goldman has been extremely busy in recent weeks. In her conversation with Mike, she describes how her faculty and students are working to protect the public during the COVID-19 crisis while stressing the importance of increased testing and vaccine development.

In this episode, Mike speaks with David Baltimore, a Nobel laureate, member of the FasterCures board, In this episode, Mike speaks with David Baltimore, a Nobel laureate, member of the FasterCures board, and the current president emeritus; Robert Andrews Millikan professor of biology at the California Institute of Technology.

Based on his extensive research into genetics and virology, Baltimore describes the different challenges posed by COVID-19, and how it compares to the progress made on previous public health crises, including HIV, polio, and influenza. While the future is uncertain, he takes comfort in knowing there has never been a larger international effort to fight an infection: “that, alone, makes me optimistic.”

Alex Gorsky

Chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson

“What we announced that day was that we have identified a lead candidate for COVID-19 vaccine…. This is a bit of a moonshot for us.”

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.

Gorsky spoke with Mike Milken about lessons the company learned from its Ebola vaccine, how to keep a global workforce safe and healthy, and how his training at West Point and as a lieutenant and captain in the U.S. Army shapes his mission-driven leadership. The company recently approved a policy for its physicians and healthcare providers to take 14 weeks of paid leave to serve on the front lines of the crisis, helping them achieve the intensive-care credo that no patient dies alone.

Mike speaks with Arie Belldegrun, an oncologist and businessman who has built several biopharmaceutical companies over the past three decades. Both Belldegrun and his wife recently recovered from their positive diagnoses of COVID-19, though it presented very differently in each of their cases.

Bringing together his years of research and personal experience with the virus, Belledgrun discusses the role the immune system plays in both protecting the body from and preparing it to fight against the virus, as well as how we can apply our learnings from cancer and other clinical research in our approach to COVID-19.

Mike Milken speaks with Rod Hochman, chair-elect designate for the American Hospital Association and president and CEO of Providence St. Joseph Health, the third-largest health-care system in the United States. With 51 hospitals, 1,000 clinics, and 120,000 frontline caregivers across the seven western states, the Providence St. Joseph team in Seattle successfully identified and treated the very first case of COVID-19 in the United States back in January.

Hochman shares what they’ve learned from their time on the front lines fighting the virus, as well as the steps they’ve taken to prepare their facilities, protect their caregivers, and conserve valuable PPE in order to contain cases to a level that has, thus far, been manageable.

Francis Collins

Director, National Institutes of Health

“We have on our own campus the vaccine research center that is working 24/7 to accelerate the progress with as many different vaccines as possible, but particularly one that is already in phase one trials.”

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.

He tells Mike that massive, coordinated networks of clinical trials will be essential to finding a cure, and should include every patient who has tested positive for the virus. Once a highly promising vaccine is found, Dr. Collins would accelerate production so that there’s enough waiting to be delivered instantly upon approval from the FDA.

The Human Genome Project ushered in a new era of modern medicine, leading to countless effective treatments and therapies. Today, Francis Collins’ teams just need to find one more.

“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 manufactured, distributed, and administered around the world. For this, much credit goes to Moncef Slaoui, the Chief Science Officer for Operation Warp Speed, a U.S. public–private partnership that has fostered development of these breakthrough drugs. 

The Moroccan-born Slaoui – who previously worked on vaccines for the H1N1, Ebola, and Zika viruses in a 30-year career at GlaxoSmithKline – tells Mike that the lessons learned in 2020 should inspire investments to prevent future pandemics. “I think that would be my way forward. We are bleeding $20 billion a day; let's spend $300 million a year when we don't have a pandemic. Let's be preventative.”

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 Johnson & Johnson’s Alex Gorsky – spoke recently with Mike at the Milken Institute’s Future of Health Summit. While Pfizer is already scaling up production and distribution of their mRNA-based vaccine, Gorsky’s company is looking forward to the third-stage clinical trial results for their single dose, vector-based therapy. The unprecedented collaboration fostered at all levels of the biomedical sector has paid dividends, with many more potential treatments to come.

“I'm very proud for what we have been able to achieve,” Albert Bourla tells Mike. “We will see many more companies in the next few weeks and months demonstrating similar successes in their projects against COVID because one vaccine or two vaccines will not be enough for the entire world. The world needs options.”

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 partners, I'm really optimistic about the further impact that we can make on that global scale.” – Sarah Murdoch

When Dame Elizabeth Murdoch founded the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in 1986, she wanted sought to create an organization dedicated to making discoveries to prevent and treat childhood conditions. Today, MCRI is Australia’s top pediatric health research institute and among the top three worldwide for research quality and impact, with more than 1,200 investigators in 35 countries. 

“We've got our eye on the long-term impacts of COVID,” MCRI Director Kathryn North tells Mike. “We have quite a lot of previous data on the well-being, the health, and the mental health of children and families in our community. But we've now been able to continue to liaise with those families, to look at the direct effects of COVID and then look out into the future.”

“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+ businesses and investments in more than 50 countries. Considered one of the royal family’s most trusted advisors, he is especially proud of what the Emirati response to the pandemic tells the world.

“In the easy times you know your people for sure,” he tells Mike, “But the tough times – that's when you know the mettle of your people, be at a company, be it in the country. And 2020 showed the mettle, I think, of the UAE and the Emiratis.”

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 through lots and lots of cancer research.” – Jonathan Simons, President and CEO, Prostate Cancer Foundation

Three top cancer researchers, the head of PCF, and a VA leader join Mike Milken to discuss how genomics, immunotherapies, and precision medicine are informing the quest for effective COVID vaccines and treatments. 

The best practices developed by oncologists in the past two decades are now the standard of care at VA facilities across the country. In discussing the 2016 PCF/VA partnership that established Centers of Excellence, Deborah Scher notes the role oncology continues to play in the pandemic. “We have really built a community of researchers who are bringing best-in-class precision oncology to veterans across the country and are using that platform not just for prostate cancer innovation, but today for COVID innovation as well.”

David Feinberg, Vice President, Google Health; Advisory Board Member, FasterCures

Esther Krofah, Executive Director, FasterCures

“What we've really tried to do is get information out there to the public, to researchers, to public health folks, so they can make better decisions about what's happening so that we can all get through this.” – David Feinberg

When the history of COVID is written, David Feinberg and Esther Krofah will be among those rightfully celebrated for their work in furthering public understanding and private collaboration throughout the pandemic. As head of Google Health, Dr. Feinberg oversees the tech giant’s efforts, including contact tracing and mental health support. As Executive Director of FasterCures, Krofah forges cross-sector partnerships and oversees the organization’s COVID-19 Treatment and Vaccine Tracker, a publicly accessible, real-time tool to understand the latest research and developments.

“We've seen a tremendous amount of collaboration with regard to COVID,” she tells Mike. “As we think about other disease conditions, we realized that we don't have to work in silos. We can come together to share data, make libraries available, and collaborate on medical research that can accelerate these efforts going forward.”

“There were a lot of hedge fund blogs out there saying software is going to get destroyed. … And guess what happened? Our recurring revenue stream was really nearly untouched in a pandemic. Corporate customers paid their subscription software revenue, but they didn't pay rent. It was more stable than real estate.”

To this day, Orlando Bravo would rather have played Wimbledon than become the first Puerto Rican-born billionaire. As a teen, he was a top-40 junior player; as an adult, Bravo eventually co-founded Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm specializing exclusively on software deals. Forbes recently called him “Wall Street’s best dealmaker.” He may also be one of its most generous: In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Bravo chartered planes to Puerto Rico carrying $10,000,000 in essential goods and committed an additional $100,000,000 to foster entrepreneurship and economic development on the island.

As he tells Mike, “After the hurricane in Puerto Rico … that was my personal moment in philanthropy where I understood for the first time that if I didn't do anything about it, nobody else was going to.”

“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 away from shore, Elaine Chao could only dream of the opportunities awaiting her in the U.S. After learning English and earning excellent grades, she would receive an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and eventually rise to become the first woman of Asian heritage to serve in a President’s cabinet, first as the 24th U. S. Secretary of Labor, and most recently as the 18th U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Along the way, she served as Chair of the Federal Maritime Commission, President and CEO of United Way of America, and Director of the Peace Corps.

“As I review my life’s journey,” she tells Mike, “I don't look back upon the accomplishments so much as the rich gifts that I am now blessed to possess, which is love of family and friends, the respect of peers and colleagues, the ability to have led an impactful life, and, hopefully, the continued ability to make a difference in the world.”

George Yancopoulos

Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Regeneron 

Joseph Vinetz

Professor of Medicine, Yale University; Infectious Disease Physician

Tal Zaks

Chief Medical Officer, Moderna 

“We're going to need vaccines to create as widespread herd immunity as we can, but we're also going to need drugs that are targeted against the virus that can provide immediate protection and also treat those who are already sick. So we have multiple clinical trials ongoing with our antibody cocktail, both for prophylaxis or prevention and also for treatment.” – George Yancopoulos, Regeneron

Three world-renowned bioscience leaders join Mike Milken and Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) chief science officer Howard Soule for a conversation on the state of the COVID-19 challenge, herd immunity, and unique approaches to developing safe and effective vaccines, antibodies, and other treatments. Recorded on August 29 as part of a PCF event, this conversation is especially notable as it describes the antibody cocktail that would later be administered to President Donald Trump after he contracted the virus. 

Moderna’s Tal Zaks is optimistic that scientists are on the verge of a breakthrough that we’ll learn more about very soon. “In the coming months,” he tells Howard, “expect data from us and potentially some of the other vaccine companies that also have started phase 3 trials that will conclusively demonstrate that these vaccines can work. I hope all of them succeed because I don't think a single company can carry the weight of what's needed to protect all of us and all those who need it.”

“It goes back to opportunity and jobs.… Government can only do so much. The private sector needs to step up and ensure that they are creating opportunities for a broad swath of the population who don't have those opportunities.”

When Maria Bartiromo became the first journalist to report live from the floor New York Stock Exchange in 1995, she was well on her way to another honor: the first female journalist to be inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame. Throughout her career, the two-time Emmy Award winner has interviewed presidents, policymakers, and CEOs, but always with an ear for what her audience needs to know.

“I want to make sure to get from that person, the one thing that will resonate for broad, big groups of people,” she tells Mike. “Their words will impact people and they will perhaps move the needle on something like income inequality or something like giving that person the courage to stick their neck out and try something new.”

“There was this ventilator company that needed help. We realized there was one part on the ventilator that was very similar to the way a transmission is designed and they were having quality issues with it. We brought in transmission engineers and they figured out a way to improve the part and the ability to produce it.” 

Just before this interview was recorded, General Motors announced it had completed a contract with the federal government to supply 30,000 ventilators for COVID patients. It’s just one example of how Chairman and CEO Mary Barra sees her mission as more than just leading a car company. A proud GM employee for nearly 40 years, Barra is grateful for the opportunities and mentorship that helped prepare her to be the first female CEO of a major auto manufacturer – and she’s determined to pay it forward.

“We talked about wanting to be the most inclusive company in the world,” she tells Mike. “But I'm quick to say I want every company to be there because if we all provide inclusive work environments, we will change the environment in the country and beyond. … We're looking very comprehensively at General Motors and how we drive change [and] create an environment where everybody can bring their true self to work.”

“You've got to think big to solve problems. … Some of the present bills [have] the potential to solve the major inequality problem in the United States.” (Friedman) “Given the historically low rates, what we're saying is the government can be the catalyst for effecting long-term change.” (Wilson)

As co-CEOs of EJF Capital, Manny Friedman and Neal Wilson oversee more than $6 billion in assets, with clients in 22 countries and offices on three continents. Their innovative strategies focus on trends driven by regulatory change, which could soon deliver an infusion of capital to banks in underserved communities – if current legislation passes.

“Often in a democracy you need a crisis to get a focus, but we have the focus right now,” Friedman tells Mike. “We also have a lucky break of zero interest rates. We must enact this legislation, which will allow these institutions long‐term capital that can't go away so that they can affect these communities.”

“Every society is more fragile than we realize, and every society can be taken advantage of. So I think it's incumbent on everyone to fight for community, to recognize the humanity of everybody. … It’s what keeps us safe, and it's what gives the future to our kids.”

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 around the world, including the homeless in Los Angeles and children in Africa. 

“Both Africa and the States have challenges in front of them in terms of rethinking their futures,” he tells Mike. “And I think they have to be done both at a systems and policy level, but also at a level that allows individuals to fully invest and build with one another.”

“Throughout our organization, we're continuously pushing on how do we continue to add diversity, and I think we're a young enough group where that has always been the way we've approached the world. … Our culture has been that diverse groups make better decisions.”

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.

“One of the greatest joys for me was being able to teach my young three boys about Jackie Robinson through the Dodgers,” he tells Mike. “And I think that that's given them more of a sense of responsibility, a sense of equity, a sense of making sure that they think about the future of the country. … I think that the Dodgers ownership gave us a great opportunity and a great responsibility to make sure that we continue to think about funding businesses and ideas and themes that come from all diverse places.”

“We need to have an organization that reflects the millions and millions of guests we serve each and every day. From the bottom up we've made a commitment to diversity and inclusion. Of the 1,900 stores we run in the United States, over half are led by female store directors, over a third are diverse, and we build that pipeline in the organization.”

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 to vital to communities across America – especially during difficult times. He feels a special obligation to treat his 400,000 team members as extended family.

“How do we make sure we're taking care of them? We're investing in them, we're mentoring and developing great talent in the organization, and that hasn't stopped during the pandemic. … We haven't lost focus for even a moment on the purpose of our company during the challenging times that we've faced in the last six months.”

“Venture capital is concentrated in … three states: California, Massachusetts, and New York. We know that not all the good ideas come from those three places. And so it's really important that we think hard about how we make sure that all small businesses can access capital.”

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, Ms. Contreras-Sweet has never forgotten her family’s journey nor the lessons it taught her.

“I still remember being the 4th grade milk monitor and writing to my grandmother to say, ‘I'm now in charge of something,’” she tells Mike. “And she said, ‘It's not about the titles that you have. It's about what you do with the titles that you have.’ And so, I found ways to make sure that all the kids – even though they didn't have the nickel for milk – that I was the right kind of gatekeeper and offered them free milk. That's how it all started.”

“We have to rebuild with a more inclusive capitalism, and I emphasize both of those words … so that as we go forward with crises – and there will be crises – the impact of those crises will not be so heavily defined by the color of one's skin.”

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.

“The speed with which markets moved, I think, has been quite breathtaking,” he tells Mike. “This may have been the shortest bear market in history, and one of the most rapid trough to peak [recoveries] we've seen in the history of markets. That is a lesson for all of us, how quickly with the action of central banks and others that the markets can turn themselves around.”

“What we've done during COVID in many ways, we've taken 10 years of technology adoption and crammed it into three months. I'm certain we're getting ready to have a slew of new ideas that you and I haven't thought of, but that we're going to be delighted to support.”

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.

 “When you hire for a job, you tend to look for experience,” he tells Mike. “If you look for experience, you're basically going to get what was, not what could be. So with BIN, we hired everybody for potential. … We need to unlock the career for everybody who doesn't look like the past, but we know looks like the present and the future. And how do we get there? BIN for us was just a great opportunity to unleash some of that.”

“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 Doukeris, it was a chance to bolster his 165-year-old company’s commitment to its customers. When hand sanitizer was in short supply, the CEO of Anheuser-Busch quickly shifted brewery production to fill that need. When the American Red Cross saw blood donations decline, the venerable company used its partnerships with major sports franchises to allow their arenas to be used for that vital purpose. That kind of altruism also extends to the company’s supply chain – and to its competitors.

“We want to be the company that contributes the most for our retailers and wholesalers for their business growth,” he tells Mike. “It’s about working with our employees and our communities to be strong. … And it's about having a leadership position in the overall industry, making the industry better, making the industry healthier and making sure that we are contributing through innovation to make this industry a vibrant one for the next 100 years.”