3 Takeaways™

Learn from Tracy Palandjian, CEO and co-founder of Social Finance, about using impact investing and social impact bonds for a wide range of social purposes from improving high school graduation to reducing recidivism. Social Finance has mobilized over $150 million to transform the lives of more than 20,000 individuals across a wide range of issue areas including workforce development, education, and health.

“Education runs on lies. That’s probably not what you’d expect from a former Secretary of Education, but it’s the truth.” Arne Duncan exposes the lies and the broken system that have caused American kids to fall behind. He also shares what really works.

The Wyss Institute For Biologically Inspired Engineering accounts for 25% of Harvard’s intellectual property startups each year, with discoveries and startups ranging from healthcare to energy, robotics, architecture, and manufacturing. Find out from Wyss founding director Don Ingber how their unique model works and how they make breakthrough discoveries in such a wide range of fields and bring them to market so quickly.

Howard Marks, co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management with $150BN under management, talks about the most important things in investing and how the real accomplishment is to have profit potential disproportionate to the risk. Learn how to get the odds on your side and find out why diversification is not a magic elixir and why stock prices could go much higher.  

Of the 10,000 business plans Bill Sahlman has read, only 3 companies met their plan. Find out what it takes to succeed.  Entrepreneurs have to be really good at running tests and execution trumps idea. Jeff Bezos is the most effective experimentalist in history. Bill Gates did not invent word processing, the spreadsheet, or presentation graphics; rather he took ideas and out executed everyone else.

Former Secretary of the Treasury and President of Harvard Larry Summers talks about the defining trends of the 21st century, including how we are going to achieve collective solutions, the shift in the center of gravity of the world’s economy and culture to the east, the upcoming transformation in education, the hard choices facing the leading universities, and the exponential growth in what information technology will be capable of.

Former Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd, who has known China’s leader Xi Jinping for decades, reveals how Xi Jinping sees China and the world, and what he really wants. Find out why America needs its allies more than ever before and what the U.S. and its allies can do.

Did you know that Antarctica used to be ice-free and earth used to be 20 degrees warmer than it is now? Find out why climate change then wasn’t a problem, and why it is now with Princeton University’s Daniel Sigman.  Also find out how climate change caused horses to grow from the size of large house cats to their size today. 

97% of people plead guilty, they plea bargain, even if they’re innocent. No one can take the risk of going to trial, even innocent people, because if they're convicted they'll face huge amounts of time in prison. The possibility of being acquitted by a jury is almost gone. Find out why the innocent plead guilty and why the innocent no longer have trials from Judge Jed Rakoff, who’s seen it from all sides as a judge, former prosecutor and former criminal defense attorney. 

With nearly 30 years of combined Amazon experience, former Amazon Vice Presidents Colin Bryar and Bill Carr reveal the proven way Amazon innovates and scales businesses. Colin spent all day every day with Jeff Bezos for 2 years as his technical advisor. Bill led the launch and growth of the Kindle, Amazon Music, and Prime Video. Find out how Amazon’s success is due to a well-defined set of principles and practices which they reveal here and illustrate with stories. Find out also what Jeff Bezos is really like and why his siblings hated to go to movies with him.