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Good morning.
I talked earlier this week with Jeff Lawson, co-founder and CEO of Twilio, the cloud communication platform that has seen its stock soar 5X since the pandemic and is now worth a whopping $59 billion dollars. Lawson has a new book out called Ask Your Developer, which argues that today, every company must be a software company. The choice is no longer “build or buy,” he writes, “it’s build or die.”
The book was largely written before the virus but perfectly captures the technology ethic unleashed by the virus. “I would consider 2020 to be the great digital acceleration,” he told me. Twilio asked various corporate leaders how much the pandemic had accelerated their digital strategy, and “the average response was six years. Telemedicine got accelerated by a decade.”
The big lesson of the pandemic, Lawson writes in his epilogue, “is that great things can happen when people stop worrying about making mistakes or not getting everything perfect the first time around. During the COVID-19 crisis, change was free. There were no alternatives, no office politics and no fear of mistakes—because the alternatives were far worse. It’s what happens when management doesn’t have time to hold a bunch of meetings, to send requests and approvals up and down the chain of command, or to insist on huge master plans that never end up being what you build.”
Lawson was among the tech companies—along with Amazon, Apple and Google—that recently cut off Parler, the social media company spreading the conspiracy theories that fueled the Capitol attack. “Words matter and they have real life implications as we saw last week on Capitol Hill,” Lawson told me. “Twilio’s AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) prohibits the spread of disinformation, encouraging violence, the destructions of property and other illegal activity and threatening public safety. We determined that Parler was in violation.” The controversy over that decision is certain to reverberate for some time to come.
Separately, the Conference Board’s global CEO Survey is out this morning, and the accelerated pace of digital transformation ranked as the top internal challenge facing CEOs around the world. The top external challenge, of course, was COVID-19. And the top long-term impact of COVID-19: reduced business travel. You can find the full survey here.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Impeachment II
Donald Trump has become the first U.S. president to be impeached twice: once for improperly trying to get a foreign government to boost his re-election chances, and then obstructing Congress; and once for inciting insurrection after he lost the election. The second, which took place yesterday, was also the most bipartisan impeachment in history—10 Republicans supported the measure, along with all the Democrats in the House. Fortune
Unilever vaccines
No, the consumer goods giant isn't getting into the vaccine game—but it is considering buying vaccines for its employees, on a "buy two, keep one" basis that would see it donate half to countries that are having trouble buying their own supply. CEO Alan Jope: "Imagine in a country where we purchase 200,000 vaccine doses, we donate 100,000 to public efforts and we use the rest for our employees and their families." Reuters
Couche-Tard and Carrefour
The French government is no fan of the proposed takeover of French supermarket chain Carrefour by Couche-Tard, the Canadian convenience-store chain. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire: "What is at stake is nothing less than the food sovereignty of France. So the idea that Carrefour can be bought by a foreign competitor, at first glance I am not in favor of such a deal." Financial Times
Renault strategy
Renault is turning away from its focus on volume, as it seeks a new strategy after the expansionist reign of Carlos Ghosn. In what new CEO Luca de Meo called "a profound transformation of our business model," the French carmaker will instead focus on operating margins, cash flow and return on investments. Factory capacity will be cut, and Renault will halve the number of platforms on which its cars are built. Its Alpine sports-car brand will go full electric and develop a vehicle with the U.K.'s Lotus. FT
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Racial equity
Apple said half a year ago that it was earmarking $100 million for its new Racial Equity and Justice initiative. Now it's detailing what that means: a learning hub for historically Black colleges and universities, an Apple Developer Academy to teach coding skills in Detroit, and VC funding for entrepreneurs of color. Fortune
Pat Gelsinger
Who is Pat Gelsinger, the replacement for Bob Swan at the top of Intel? In this piece, Fortune's Aaron Pressman addresses this question, along with whether Gelsinger will be able to overcome Intel's numerous shortcomings. Fortune
Big Government
Authors Vivek Wadhwa and Alex Salkever write for Fortune that American mistrust of Big Government is partly responsible for the country's lackluster vaccine rollout. "National emergencies that require top-down decisions on key matters have almost always gone better when Big Government stepped in to take charge," they write. "The vacuum of guidance from the top means we all suffer—and some of us die." Fortune
Patent praise
IBM Research chief Darío Gil likes patents, even those that don't immediately get turned into commercial products. "Having future-looking patents is just as important as having those aimed at products of today, and a broad portfolio of scientific advances always ends up contributing to waves of innovation," he writes for Fortune. "Patents drive innovation and a nation’s economic performance." Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.
