Afleveringen

  • In this episode, we are joined by Ashoka Mody, the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor in International Economy and Lecturer in Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. We discuss his latest book, India is Broken, and dive into some of the larger questions surrounding Indian economic development. Why has India’s development stalled in comparison to other Asian economies? What do the headline GDP growth numbers and international press coverage miss in their optimisim towards India? How can India address its ills including rampant political corruption and inadequate education?

    These are all questions that Mody answers through an examination of India through multiple lenses: economic, social, historical, and cultural. We join him on this journey and follow up on his arguments as constructed in India is Broken, while also taking them to new places, like the issue of climate change in the policies of Indian economic development. Join us for a conversation that takes a more skeptical view towards the optimism surrounding a “rising” India.

  • In this episode of Policy Punchline, renown MIT economist Daron Acemoglu takes us through the tumultuous and fascinating history of new technologies and how they have reshaped the societies we live in. He takes us back to the pre-Industrial era, showing that as new technological systems of agriculture changed, exploitative economic systems did not. He busts common myths about the nature of economic growth in the Industrial Age, presenting a darker and more nuanced look at that explosion of economic development. He argues that the advent of the personal computer in the 1980s had a real cost for employment outcomes — not enough new jobs were generated to match the jobs that were replaced by this innovation.

    Looking back, he proposes that technology can either complement the value of labor, generating new tasks associated with them, or can displace existing workers by performing the same tasks they did. In many ways, the effect of technology one way or another is not inevitable — it is a policy decision up to us. Looking forward, he asks us to take lessons from the past to utilize AI most equitably, ensuring it augments rather than replaces us. From blue collar jobs in the U.S., labor-intensive tasks performed in the developing world to consulting and software engineering fields, the future of our work lies in our hands. In the era of Artificial Intelligence, Professor Acemoglu brings us the wisdom of economic history, a bold new paradigm for assessing technological change, and a lifetime of expertise, to help us make sense of this brave new world.

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  • Marcin Piatkowski is a Professor of Economics at Kozminski University in Warsaw and Lead Economist at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Kozminski University and an MA in Finance and Banking from the Warsaw School of Economics. Professor Piatkowski began his career in Citibank Poland and Citigroup USA. He then served in various governmental and NGO roles, including as an economist in the European Department of the International Monetary Fund, Advisor to the IMF’s Executive Director, and Advisor to Poland’s Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance. Before he moved to the World Bank in 2008, he was Chief Economist and Managing Director of PKO BP, the largest bank in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2018, he released a book with Oxford University Press, called “Europe’s Growth Champion: Insights from the Economic Rise of Poland,” which was awarded the best book in economics in 2019 by the Polish Academy of Sciences.
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    Interviewed by Sullivan Meyer '24
    Edited by Marko Petrovic '24

  • Dr. Marc Ecko is a serial entrepreneur who has been one of the influential figures of the early 2000s in shaping culture, especially around hip-hop and streetwear. His brand — Ecko Unltd. — amalgamated the cultural elements of hip-hop with Dr. Ecko’s own fashion vision to create a worldwide brand with over a billion dollars in revenue. He then went on to found Complex magazine, one of the foremost media outlets for fashion, hip-hop, sports and popular culture today. Complex has roughly 100 million unique visitors per month and is considered one of the premier media companies, particularly in the digital space. Now, Dr. Ecko is involved with several philanthropic ventures, such as through his role at the XQ Institute, which is dedicated to improving high school education across the country, and the Emerson Collective, an impact investing organization dedicated to reform in the United States and abroad.

    In this episode, we discuss Dr. Ecko’s journey and how he preserved his own creative vision at scale, while also building a business that can truly shape American culture. For more insights from Dr. Ecko, read his book Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out.

  • Matthew Yglesias is a leading policy blogger and journalist, and has long pioneered what political media looks like on the internet. He has written about politics and public policy for a wide array of publications, including the American Prospect, the Atlantic, the Center for American Progress, and Slate. In 2014, Matt co-founded Vox with Ezra Klein and Melissa Bell, where he served as a senior correspondent. He left Vox in 2020 to start his own Substack, Slow Boring. Yglesias also released his third book in 2020, titled One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger. More recently, Matt just launched his new podcast, ‘Bad Takes,’ which seeks to challenge extremely online political opinions.

    In our conversation, we seek to zoom out from the thrall of internet politics and look at Yglesias’ role in the current political media landscape. How does Matt use Twitter, and what does he think of its role in democratic discourse? What is the future of political media? What does the emergence of individualized media outlets, like Substack, suggest for that future?

    We transition briefly to some of the ideas that have arisen from our current political media landscape. In particular, how ‘real’ is the push for supply-side liberalism and the Abundance Agenda? Are online political pundits, bloggers, and analysts as responsible for its advent as it might seem?

    Finally, we ask Matt—a former college student—for his suggestions to current college students. How should they spend their time in school? And what careers should they look at afterward?

  • (Disclaimer: This episode was originally recorded in July 2021.)

    Dr. Tiffany Vora is an educator, researcher, and entrepreneur who is the chair of medicine and digital biology at Singularity University. She does a huge amount of work in science communication, advising startup founders, and science writing. She studied molecular biology and chemistry at NYU and a PhD from Princeton.

    In “Science Communication in the Post-COVID era”, we talk about the pace of change in science communication. Given the timing of the interview, we also discuss in detail how the pandemic and being in the virtual/digital space has changed science communication. Dr. Vora believes that many brilliant scientific minds haven’t been trained in science communication, and that there is potential for so much progress in science communication if the gap between knowledge creation and distribution is bridged. Similarly, there is a lot of misinformation out there, and deciding which sources to trustworthy and getting the public to trust them can also be a challenge, especially when a lot of science has inherent uncertainty.

    On the education front, Dr. Vora has worked a lot with women and people of color. She believes that in every child there is a scientist and engineer, building and breaking things, asking questions, that the traditional educational system beats out of them and extinguishes their spark of curiosity. Finding a balance between ‘experiential learning’, which Dr. Vora believes can happen in a classroom, too, has a fundamentally different purpose than, say, watching Khan Academy for ‘knowledge acquisition’. Coming out of the pandemic, she hopes many hybrid models will start to embrace both types of learning. And it’s not as if scientific learning for children is gated by high barriers to entry like cost. She gives an example of a cheap microscope or Google Cardboard. While they might not be cutting-edge technology, they work and fulfill their role of instilling a sense of curiosity and excitement.

    We hope you enjoy listening to an episode on how similarities like those found between Minecraft and CAD are the ones we need to take the most advantage of to inspire future generations of scientists and engineers, and the future of science communication in the post-pandemic era.

  • Dr. Ethan Nadelmann is one of the foremost experts on drug policy in the US and the world. Originally from New York City, he received his BA, JD, and PhD from Harvard, then his master’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics. After teaching politics and public affairs at Princeton University from 1987 to 1994, he went on to found and direct the Lindesmith Center and the Drug Policy Alliance, and through them, has advocated for drug policy reform for almost thirty years.

    From pushing for marijuana legalization to fighting against the War on Drugs and policies like civil asset forfeiture, his work has impacted countless people both in the US and around the world. Today, he’s also the co-host of the boundary-pushing podcast PSYCHOACTIVE. In this interview, Ryan and Eliot talk to Dr. Nadelmann about lessons he’s learned from his career, possible solutions to current drug issues, and much more.

  • Professor Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Natural and Social Science at Yale University. His research is focused on understanding social networks through their biological and evolutionary determinants, which encompasses studying a broad range of topics from epidemiology and contagion to human behavior and psychology. Professor Christakis has been recognized for his contributions to the field of sociology, was named a member of the Time 100, and has published many articles and several renowned books relating to epidemiology and evolutionary genetics. In addition to his research, Professor Christakis has practiced medicine in the field of palliative care for many years and continues to advocate for academic freedom and free speech on college campuses.
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    Host: Neal Reddy
    Editor: Marko Petrovic

  • Lord Mervyn King is a professor of economics and law at the NYU Stern School of Business and the School of Law, and the former governor of the Bank of England. He served as Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of its Monetary Policy Committee from 2003 to 2013. Lord King was knighted (GBE) in 2011, made a life peer in 2013, and appointed by the Queen a Knight of the Garter in 2014.

    Lord King’s most recent book, Radical Uncertainty, co-authored with John Kay, examines rationality, decision making under uncertainty, and the flaws with modern economic thinking. The book offers a powerful critique of the current state of economic scholarship and policymaking, arguing that the field of economics has developed an overreliance on fundamentally flawed models as well as misconceptions about risk and uncertainty.

    In this episode, we discuss Radical Uncertainty, touching on Lord King’s motivations in writing the book, its core ideas, and the implications of his critique on the future of economic policymaking.
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    Host: Sam Lee
    Editor: Marko Petrovic

  • Gregory Zuckerman is a nonfiction author and special writer at The Wall Street Journal. Before joining the Journal, Zuckerman was managing editor of Mergers and Acquisitions Reports, a trade publication of Investment Dealers’ Digest, and the New York Post as a media reporter.

    At the Journal, Zuckerman is an investigative reporter covering business and investing topics. He is a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award, the highest honor in business journalism. He regularly appears on CNBC, Fox News, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg Television, and more. Zuckerman’s works include The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution, The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters, and his latest book, A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine, covering mRNA vaccine development. A Shot to Save the World was longlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award.

    In this episode, we hit a wide range of topics, starting with how Mr. Zuckerman wrote his book, and his experiences with the characters he writes about. We then discuss public policy and financing, and how the vaccine development process can be critiqued and updated. Finally, we talk about societal perception of science, and how it should change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine development process.
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    Hosts: Sullivan Meyer and Neal Reddy
    Design: Ryan Vuono
    Editor: Marko Petrovic

  • Professor Sandro Galea is a physician and epidemiologist who is dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at Boston University School of Public Health. His research is centered on the social factors that influence health and trauma, and his work is highly cited in the field of public health. Some of his most notable work relates to the ramifications of mass trauma after natural disasters and catastrophes, which his latest book, The Contagion Next Time addresses as it confronts the pivotal moment of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In this interview, we start by discussing the concept of health itself. What qualifies as health? Are we too limited in our effort to make society healthier? We then move to Professor Galea’s scientific and moral critiques of public policy actions that according to him impact health negatively, from budgetary decisions to international relations. Despite Professor Galea’s critiques of public health policy, we end the interview on an optimistic note— Professor Galea observes that we are in an unprecedented position in history with regards to the medicine and wealth of our society, and with such tools in disposal, it is important to steer clear of pessimism.

  • This interview marks my last interview as the host of Policy Punchline. I will soon release another recording giving you an update about Policy Punchline’s future, but for now I just want to present to you the following conversation with Prema Gauranga Das.

    Over the last three years with Policy Punchline, I’ve interviewed more than 150 guests, mostly public intellectuals, policy makers, journalists, investors… but this is my only interview with a monk – a Hindu monk.

    Premji has been a resident monk at Sri Sri Radha Gopinath Temple in Mumbai with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (also known as ISKCON) for the last 20 years. Like many of his peers, Premji completed his Bachelors degree in engineering from the University of Pune, a top university in India, and subsequently had a 4-year stint at India’s largest auto manufacturing company. But he quit his job to become a monk and to explore a more fulfilling and purposeful lifestyle, after being inspired by the teachings of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and His Holiness Radhanath Swami. Currently he is one of the research and implementation leads for ISKCON’s flagship project, the Temple of Vedic Planetarium, and is compiling his research on the Bhagavata Cosmology.

    I conducted the interview in the winter of 2019, right before Covid hit the world. I went on a yoga and meditation trip to India with Princeton University’s Office of Religion Life, led by two fantastic mentors, Vineet and Angela, with a group of 15 students. We traveled for a month during Christmas vacation, visiting yoga institutes, temples, ashrams, and cultural sites. We were accompanied by Premji, who helped plan our trip and guide us through the country, and through many conversations he gradually became an important mentor.

    I was truly fortunate to have met Premji. He answered my questions on the Hindu faith, life, and my confusion about my own path forward. He was almost like a beacon of light, using simple principles to help me reason through some of the most difficult philosophical and religious questions that had puzzled me over the years:
    - Should we be pessimistic in light of the world’s unending sufferings?
    - Have we made progress as a humanity?
    - How flexible can one be with their spiritual and religious faiths?
    - What does it mean to be guided by God? Does one have to be guided by God or some form of greater power?
    - How do we control our desires? What does it mean to be happy?
    - What is one’s destiny and how do we discover our true calling?


    Premji and I recorded this conversation towards the end of my trip. We were in Rishikesh, a city on the Ganges river and home to the famous Beatles Ashram. Overseeing sunset on the foothills of the Himalayas, we sat along the Ganges river and chatted for three hours. Hence we named the episode “Satsang on the Ganges,” where the word “Satsang” refers to the idea of group discussions or informal gatherings in hope to better understand the Vedic philosophy –– or, in essence, together pursuing the Absolute Truth.

    It’s never my goal to try to change people’s lives via this podcast –– that would be too condescending to think that I should do that –– but I would be honored if the following interview could open a small window for you to explore some of these ideas. You may reach out to Premji by emailing him at [email protected]. You may learn more about ISKCON via https://www.iskcon.org/ and https://iskconchowpatty.com/.

  • Dr. Jean Hebert is a professor at the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is also a professor in the department of genetics, and has conducted research that has been published in renowned journals such as Science. His current scope of research in the Hebert Lab includes devising methods of cell replacement for the adult neocortex after cell damage or age-related degeneration.

    In “Do Our Minds Have to Decline With Age?”, we explore just that, diving into topics such as the neocortex and neocortical function, cell damage, and age-related deterioration. ‘Dying of old age’ is not a medical term; rather, it is a description of what happens when critical parts of the body fail. Theoretically, if all parts of the body can be kept ‘young’ and healthy, we might have a chance of extending life indefinitely. While we are a long ways off from that, current cutting-edge research in the field of cell grafting, like conducted at the Hebert Lab, might hold to key to help save failing organs.

    Throughout this interview, we discuss the science behind the neocortex, a region of the brain responsible for higher-order brain functions such as motor function, sensory perception, and cognition. We also discuss cell transplantation and grafting, what aging truly means, and possible directions for future research. From his lab’s webpage, “In recent years, the mechanisms underlying how stem cells in the embryo generate the neocortex have become better understood. Armed with this knowledge, the Hébert Lab is developing stem cell transplantation approaches to regenerate adult neocortical tissue after age-related degeneration.” Finally, we discuss the ethics of these methods, such as the usage of embryonic stem cells, as well as the definition of self (Ship of Theseus – at what point does altering the human brain structure fundamentally alter the underlying human being?)

    We hope that you enjoy listening to an episode about rethinking aging, something we often take for granted, and learning about the direction of future research in this field.

  • Dr. Anders Sandberg is a James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. He is a senior research fellow on the ERC UnPrEDICT Programme, and a research associate to the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and his research focuses on existential risks and long-term societal and ethical facets of new technology regarding human enhancement.

    Existential risks are risks that deal with the end of something — in this case, the end of humanity and Earth-originating intelligent life. As Prof. Sandberg explains, the most dire of risks lead to a lot of interesting implications and there are many interesting links that bridge different risks. Understanding those linkages are interesting and useful in discovering what the risks are, and also what we can do about it. Risks are broadly classified into anthropogenic (in this sense, self-inflicted) and external (natural).

    In this episode of Policy Punchline, we discuss both types of risks, and why we should really care. After all, there is a low probability of this kind of existential risk occurring in our lifetime, and we have a fairly resilient infrastructure already in place. As Prof. Sandberg points out, “you can motivate the badness of existential risk in quite a lot of ways, both consequentialist and non-consequentialist”. The conversation then turns to utilitarianism and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the thought process and awareness of the field. Animal welfare (including humans) is brought up, and also the subject of human enhancement. Technological enhancements seem inevitable in the future, and, going back to anthropogenic risks, how this affects the future of humanity is a nuanced topic.

    We hope you enjoy listening to an episode on existential risks and utility, a subject that concerns all of us. The pandemic has brought increased attention to how vulnerable humans could actually be to unforeseen threats to our existence, and we hope this interview provokes thought with regards to the future of humanity.

  • Peter Wendell is the founder of Sierra Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has invested more than $2 billion over the past 35 years in a wide variety of successful technology companies. Peter has taught more than 2,000 Stanford MBAs over the past 30 years, specifically the very popular course Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital with Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Scott Kupor, managing partner of Andreessen Horowitz. He serves on the board of Merck. He just completed his trusteeship at Princeton. He was also chairman of the board for Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO) for six years, during which time PRINCO doubled the University’s endowment.

    In this episode, Peter discusses the evolving nature of venture capital investing, the relationship between VCs and their LPs (limited partners), emerging phenomenon like SPACs and cryptocurrencies, whether we’re entering another great age of secular growth for technology, and his personal journey in starting Sierra Ventures. Peter has been recognized by Forbes magazine as one of the 100 best technology venture investors in the United States and named one of the 15 venture capitalists on Upside magazine’s “Elite 100” list of influential U.S. leaders in technology, finance, and business.

    Peter started Sierra Ventures as a young investor with some wealthy families’ money –– “they should’ve never given someone like me money to manage,” joked Peter. But it was the age where “it was hard to not make money in venture investing” –– every fund started in Peter’s time had returned money to LPs; not a single fund lost money, in contrast to around a fourth of all bond funds back then collapsing given the Asian financial crises.

    Peter bought 6% of stake in Intuit with a $2.5 million investment; now it’s a company with a market capitalization of around $145 billion –– you can do the math. This investment, along with many others, made Peter one of the most successful venture capitalists in the world over the last few decades.

    We also ask Peter whether he sees us entering another period of great secular growth for technology. The sentiment amongst pro-tech, pro-growth investors seems to be that the hyper growth stocks (Snowflake, Coinbase, Shopify, Docusign, Twilio, Upstart, etc.) look expensive and many are currently unprofitable, but most have long runways, high margins, sticky customers, and steady revenues. If we value these companies on what they might look like 5 years from now, do most secular compounders still seem fairly valued?

    Looking at the market environment today, Peter is very skeptical of the promises of SPACs. He said in his keynote address at Princeton GCEPS that the SPAC boom likely won’t end well because there is a lot of promotion, a lack of regulation, but fundamentally not that many great companies to acquire.

    Peter thinks that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are the future and certainly on the risk frontier, but we still don’t know which chain or project will eventually prevail, so the overall asset class is still a highly risky investment option.

    A big proponent of SaaS (especially given how he’s one of the first investors that embraced this idea back in the early days), Peter also believes that we’re still at an early stage in exploring artificial intelligence and the good it could do for the world.

  • Richard V. Spencer served as the 76th United States Secretary of the Navy from 2017 to 2019. He also briefly served as Acting Secretary of Defense and Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense in 2019. Sec. Spencer’s term as the Navy Secretary was terminated on November 24, 2019, when Secretary of Defense Mark Esper requested his resignation over his handling of the Eddie Gallagher case. Sec. Spencer stated in the resignation letter that he “cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” We discuss this case in this interview, as well as the state of the Navy, competition with other military powers, investment in human capital and frontier military tech, and the philosophy of war.

  • Dr. Jamil El-Imad is the CEO of The Brain Forum, a neuroscience, brain-computer interface (BCI), and virtual reality (VR) research foundation in Switzerland, as well as the co-founder of NeuroPro, a Swiss-based Digital Health Solutions company that leverage the latest advances in computer science and digital technology to create new and improved tools that support researchers, clinicians, and innovators in pushing the boundaries of brain science and its applications. He is also an honorary research fellow at Imperial College London, and a former IBM software engineer. His key interests include BCI, VR, brain signal analyses, and big data, all of which we delve into in this interview.

    Having been out for many years now, most people are probably familiar with virtual reality technology. However, brain-computer interfaces (also known as a neural-control interface), bridges the gap between our mind and a machine by converting brain signals into commands that can be interpreted by a computer, resulting in the desired action. The potential for this technology is profound and could be applied in myriad fields.

    In “Connecting Our Brains to the World”, we discuss Dr. El-Imad’s decision to transition from software engineering to a neuroscience focus. Neuroscience is a fascinating field in which research can be taken in many directions. We inquire about Dr. El-Imad’s interest in deep learning (ex. epilepsy prediction), and the limiting factors in brain-computer interactions. Further, the topic of healthcare is explored in some depth, in particular the lag in the healthcare industry’s adoption of seemingly very useful tools and the administrative, logistical, and technological hurdles cutting-edge interfacing technology faces before becoming mainstream. Continuing on this topic, the inequities between the rich and the poor are also explored, as evidenced by the pandemic. In a similar vein, virtual reality also holds promise in the healthcare industry; for example, in the treatment of phobias. We ask our guest what he thinks the development of VR will look like in the future, including the democratization and commercialization of the technology as well as the value from an entertainment standpoint.

    We hope you enjoy this episode listening to an episode on the human connection to the machine, and that it provokes deeper thought and discussion on what is possible in this realm of neuroscience.

  • Toni Townes-Whitley graduated from Princeton University in 1985 with a B.A. in Public Policy and Economics. She then went to the peace corps for three years in Gabon. With a non-tech background, she went on to become the President of the IT and business consulting services firm CGI Federal and presently the President of US Regulated Industries at Microsoft. She leads Microsoft's U.S. sales for Regulated Industries (Financial Services & Insurance; Healthcare & Life Sciences; Federal, State, & Local Government; and Education). Her teams drive digital transformation across national industries and focus on inclusion, equity and access in the emerging digital economy. She is one of the leading women at Microsoft and in the technology industry. Her role at Microsoft is shaping the role that artificial intelligence and technology will play in systems like policing, education, the U.S. military, and more, especially since the U.S. government is one of Microsoft’s leading clients particularly through the use of its Azure cloud services.In this episode, we dive into the intersection of tech development and race, innovation, and ethics and hear Toni’s perspectives on digital transformation. She started off by talking about how she ended up at her position at Microsoft and why she chose to work in regulated industries at Microsoft. She focused on the ability for her work in building tech infrastructure to shape the world we live in. Toni said, “the [regulated industries] is probably the hardest set of sectors to work in terms of designing towards a much more complex set of requirements, but it is also the most meaningful because when you get it right, you have an impact that not only affects the industry but generally affects society at large.” Throughout the interview, Toni emphasizes the importance of a mission-oriented framework to any institution, from the peace corps to Microsoft to government technology initiatives. Toni then moves into talking about key lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to digital transformation in the sectors of education, healthcare, financial services, and more. She speaks on the emergence of cloud-based technology particularly in the sector of government and the ways in which it enables predictive capabilities, deep analytics, and stronger security.She then spends time talking through the relationship between Microsoft and the U.S. government. She talks about how Microsoft’s relationship with the U.S. government spans from providing VR technology to transform training for the Department of Defense to using Microsoft Azure cloud services to keep information secure. Toni concludes by sharing her reflections on the importance of an ethics framework in developing new technologies, which Microsoft developed, that have been adopted by governmental and non-governmental organizations across the world.

  • Mitch Julis is the Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Canyon Partners, one of the largest and best-performing multi-strategy hedge funds in the world. If you listen to the end of our interviews or visit our website, you’ll see that Policy Punchline is generously funded by the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance (JRCPPF) at Princeton University. The Center was created by Mr. Julis and named in honor of his father and mother. After 150 episodes, we’re finally having Mitch on the show, and everything is truly coming back in full circle here.

    We start the interview with an introduction to Canyon Partners and Mitch’s background. “You can’t be a great equity investor without being a solid credit analyst” – Mitch gives a detailed overview to credit investing, Canyon’s various strategies and funds, and his overarching investment philosophy. We also touch on many of the macro trends before and after Covid, the Federal Reserve’s “insurance policy” for financial markets with persistently low interest rates, the rise of SPACs and Bitcoin, and many more current event topics and beyond.

    One of the interview highlights is Mitch’s explanation of “reframing financial and economic analysis as political economy to understand how structure determines behavior and behavior determines structure in the capital markets.” To illustrate how to cope with complex situations, he brings up Canyon’s recent investment in AMC Theatres during the company’s struggle in the Covid pandemic, as well as their previous investment in Caesar Entertainment. He also

    A recent book published in April 2021, “The Caesars Palace Coup: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Corruption of the Private Equity Industry,” by Sujeet Indap and Max Frumes talks about the Caesars Entertainment restructuring, which Mitch referenced a few times throughout the interview and recommends those who are interested to read more.

    Mitch co-founded Canyon Partners in 1990 with Josh Friedman after his old firm Drexel Burnham Lambert was closed. Canyon subsequently flourished into one of the best-performing hedge funds in the world over the last three decades, growing into various strategies from distressed credit to CLOs and real estate.

    Disclaimer by Canyon Partners, LLC:
    • This presentation does not constitute an offer or solicitation to subscribe for or purchase any securities in any jurisdiction.

    • Certain information contained herein constitutes “forward-looking statements.” Due to various risks and uncertainties, actual events or results may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in such forward-looking statements.

    • Nothing contained in this presentation constitutes investment advice or offers any opinion with respect to the suitability of any security or asset class, and the views expressed in this presentation should not be taken as advice to buy, sell or hold any security or asset class.

    • Any representative investment or strategy described herein is for illustrative purposes to describe a type of investment Canyon either has acquired or, opportunity permitting, may acquire in the future. Such descriptions are summary in nature and do not purport to list all the salient features of the investment or the strategy described. There is no guarantee that similar opportunities will be available for a fund in the future, or that a fund will acquire further investments of the type described in such summaries.

    • Canyon has numerous other investments – successful and not successful. An investment profiled in this presentation may not be held by all Canyon funds. It is not known whether any position(s) currently held will be profitable when sold.

    • Past performance of an investment, strategy, or fund is not a guarantee of future results.

    • This presentation may contain confidential information and shall not be redistributed without the express written consent of Canyon Partners, LLC.

  • Paul G. Haaga Jr. is the former acting CEO of NPR, the former chairman and director of Capital Research and Management Company, and the Chairperson of the Facebook Oversight Board Trust.

    In this episode, we welcome back Mr. Haaga Jr. to Policy Punchline to discuss Facebook's recent decision on deplatforming former U.S. President Donald J. Trump.