Good morning.
One of the most exciting things we did at Fortune during the pandemic was launch Fortune Connect—a virtual platform that helps prepare the next generation of C-Suite leaders in the principles of purpose-driven business, stakeholder capitalism and inclusive leadership. The community of Fellows now includes 1,000 executives from corporate partners including Salesforce, Workday, PayPal, Accenture, IBM, Genpact, RBC, Enel, Chobani, JP Morgan, GM, FedEx, Enel, Xerox, Marsh McLennan, Pfizer, Hyatt, Raytheon and more.
Next Tuesday—July 20—we’ll be holding our quarterly Connect Summit and have decided to open a few spots to CEO Daily readers. The theme is “Radical Collaboration”—exploring new pathways for business that require collaboration among companies, across industries, or with government and non-profit entities, to achieve maximum social impact. Speakers include Rajiv Shah and Darren Walker, heads of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation, respectively; Matthew McCarthy, CEO of Ben and Jerry’s; and Anne Finucane, vice chair of Bank of America. The sessions will include special workshops designed to share best practices in collaborative business. Space is limited, but if you are interested, apply here, and we will try to get you in.
Membership in the Connect community is currently limited to our corporate partners. But we will be opening it up in January to applications from other executives who may be interested. Stay tuned for more information or send me a note if you want to be on the waiting list.
Other news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Climate proposals
Carmakers, airlines and industrial giants are pushing back against European Commission proposals that would effectively ban new fossil-fuel cars from 2035, tax aviation and ship fuel, and gradually phase out free carbon credits for heavy industry. The Commission says all this is necessary if the EU is to meet its climate goals. The companies feel unfairly singled out and say the "anti-innovation" measures would be difficult to achieve. Financial Times
Netflix games
Netflix is pushing into the gaming market. The video-streaming giant has hired Mike Verdu, a former Electronic Arts (EA) and Facebook exec, to head the effort. Apparently Netflix will offer video games within a year, and won’t charge extra for it. It remains to be seen what kind of games—smartphone-ish or console-ish—we're talking about, though. Fortune
Revolut round
The British fintech firm Revolut has raised $800 million in a new round that values it at a whopping $33 billion, or six times its valuation last year. Revolut is now Europe's second-biggest fintech unicorn after Klarna, and the biggest in the U.K. The latest round was led by SoftBank and Tiger Global. Fortune
Fleeting Fleets
Twitter is ditching Fleets, its version of Snap's much-copied disappearing stories. It launched the features eight months ago, but it didn't catch on. Fortune
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Asian faultlines
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated social and political tensions in Asia, leaving younger Asians less optimistic about their economic opportunities than the previous generation was, according to Chatham House's Vasuki Shastry: "The predatory habits of the political and business class worsen the effects of Asia’s stalled social mobility. Most Asian political leaders were born in the radio and telegraph era of the 1940s and 1950s and thus are hopelessly out of touch with the hopes and aspirations of their young populations." Fortune
Crypto laundering
Hong Kong police have busted an alleged money-laundering syndicate that used the Tether stablecoin to do its dirty work. The gang apparently laundered $155 million. It's a first-of-its-kind takedown for Hong Kong Customs. Fortune
Biden hurdles
The Democrats will need to make trade-offs in their massive infrastructure and social spending plans if they are to keep all of their own senators on-board and get the proposals over the finish line. Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders: "What happens next is this is an enormously large and complicated piece of legislation and it’s going to take an enormous amount of work amongst 50 people to reach agreement." Fortune
Privacy war
Protocol has a must-read piece on the privacy-related power plays going on inside the Web's standards-setting body, the W3C. It's a tussle between Big Tech, which is finally embracing privacy after much prodding from regulators and users, and the companies that want to keep tracking people surreptitiously. And, given how these discussions take place on open (if very geeky) forums, it's all taking place in public. Protocol
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.
