GWYNETH PALTROW, CEO OF GOOP Paltrow's Goop business — in addition to being a cultural lightning rod — is now worth $400 million. The actress-turned-entrepreneur wowed the Milken crowd with her detailed and confident business insights. Using data to drive growth: "I like to look back and to understand in raw data what worked and what didn't. But I think there's a real intersection of art and science. If I only looked at the data to make decisions, then we would just go into circles: I think I have a very good instinct for culture and what people want. I think it's really important for creators to channel those feelings and intuition and to identify whitespace in the market: 'Where do we want to go next?' as opposed to, 'We sold a ton of these black dresses. So let's just keep making black dresses.'" Investing in Web 3.0: "I am definitely learning about Web3, and it's definitely here to stay. So I've invested in some of the utilities around Web3: TeraWulf, a zero carbon mining company, and MoonPay, and a lot of the utilities. I have a couple NFTs: I'm not totally a full-bore NFT collector yet, but I do think it's important, especially for women who are often left out of these conversations and spaces, to learn about it and ask questions." "You're seeing the blockchain really be driven by men. And I think there's a place for us. And I do think there's a place for Web3 with Goop. I'm not sure exactly how yet, and I also think the audience has to be kind of educated. Right now, it's also so difficult to wire money to Coinbase. If you download a meta mask, and half the time it crashes, then it's very difficult. So I think they need to make it a little bit more intuitive. And it needs to work better before there's mass adoption. Then the learning curve will be faster. There is still a lot of friction, and that will slow you down." De-Gwynething the brand: "I would like the brand to not be so tied to me," said Gwyneth, comparing her company to Chanel, which is no longer about Coco Chanel. Opening in Japan later in 2022: "We're doing it properly, not just flicking on a shipping switch." INTERVIEW — NORA VOLKOW, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE The institute is part of the National Institutes of Health, and is the world's largest funder of research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction. Why do you come back to Milken? "One of the most exciting things that we have is neuroscience and understanding how the human brain works. … This distinction that we have between our brain and the rest of our body is a very artificial one: They blend with one another. So what I would like to achieve is for people to recognize what an extraordinary opportunity there is to use innovation, to take that knowledge into products and help people suffering from mental illness and substance use disorder." Covid effects: "We simply haven't paid sufficient attention to mental health and well-being. Everyone has been affected by the Covid pandemic, whether it is some level of anxiety or depression or a sense of isolation, nobody has been spared. And there are some people — because of their circumstances or underlying medical conditions — for whom Covid has had quite devastating effects. We've seen among teenagers and young people an increase in suicide and suicidal behavior, and that is not something that necessarily will disappear if the virus disappears. The effects of emotional trauma are not like a switch that is turned on and off." Social media effects: "Social media came with no preparation or infrastructure, because it was so innovative, no one had really thought about it. And when it deployed it just flew. And it shifted dramatically how people communicate with one another. But it raises the question: To what extent do we need physical communication with one another for well-being? And it's likely that the answer is that it is important, but that there is an opportunity to take the best of both worlds. But we need to balance them and we need to understand specifically in young people, children and adolescents how social media disrupted their sense of reality." ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Walensky waded into the debate around overturning Roe v. Wade in a revealing interview with Stat's Rick Berke . When asked if overturning the Supreme Court abortion precedent could lead to deaths, Walensky said, "I do think lives could be at stake," and raised the likelihood that "access to care will be … differentiated by many different demographics: rural and urban, ethnicity, resources or not." Walensky's other prediction is that medical training will be affected — with gaps emerging around who learns how to "safely conduct pregnancy termination." YOUNG AFGHAN WOMEN SHARE THEIR STORIES: The crimes and tragedies are unspeakable, including the selling of organs, proliferation of child brides and the blocking of access to education. MILKEN OFF-RECORD MEN FLOCK TO WELLNESS GARDEN: Sure, the crystal sound-bath session attracted few men, but that's where their shyness ended in Milken Global Conference's happy place. The secret behind the men's wellness garden boom was a more discreet side entrance this year. "Now my therapists can't even take a break, they're so busy," one manager confided to Global Insider.
| 
Comments
Post a Comment