Good morning.
Some excerpts from day three of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington below. Apologies that these are neither connected nor comprehensive. They are just snippets gathered from an extraordinary gathering of extraordinary women, who were universally delighted to be discussing important issues in person. It was an honor to be in their midst!
“People work for livelihood, they work for meaning, and they work for social experience. You really do want people to connect with people, but you need to use their time wisely.”
—Michelle Seitz, chairman and CEO, Russell Investments
“We have become a country of people without jobs, and jobs without people.”
—Suzanne Clark, president and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
“A 10-year-old today has a 50% chance of living to 104. If your 10-year-old grandson is going to live to 104, how would you change your life course?”
—Jo Ann Jenkins, CEO, AARP
“It has been a difficult year for female workers and leaders, but there is a lot of opportunity for entrepreneurs. A lot of people have spent COVID thinking about how they want to spend their time and energy. And I think a lot of people are going to want to start businesses.”
—Muriel Bowser, Mayor, District of Columbia
“Some people say doing an IPO is like giving birth.”
—Mei Mei Hu, CEO, Vaxxinity, who is seven months pregnant and filed for an IPO Friday
“When you think about the speed of the internet relative to the speed of currency, it seems highly probable that the internet will have a native currency. We believe, at Square, that Bitcoin has the opportunity to be the strongest contender in being the native currency of the internet.”
—Amrita Ahuja, CFO, Square
“It’s the power of proximity. In a disaster, it is not your family or you friends who come to save you. It is literally the people around you…Knowing six neighbors or more has a statistically significant positive impact on social connection.”
—Sarah Friar, CEO, Nextdoor
“I’m someone who just believes we have to understand the country and world we’re living in. The books I try to acquire do that.”
—Dana Canedy, senior vice president and publisher, Simon and Schuster, on publishing Mike Pence’s book
More from the conference here. More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Theranos trial
Theranos chief Elizabeth Holmes scored its commercial partnership with Walgreens by showing the chain fake due-diligence reports from Big Pharma firms such as Pfizer and Schering-Plough, U.S. prosecutors alleged in Holmes' ongoing fraud trial. Former Walgreens CFO Wade Miquelon: "We thought this was one of the most exciting companies we’d seen…We were very excited about forming a partnership." Fortune
Tax deal
G20 finance ministers and central bank governors yesterday endorsed the new global tax deal, which will set a 15% floor for corporate taxation while giving countries more power (up to a point) to claim tax for locally-delivered online services. They also said the IMF should set up a new trust fund to help out vulnerable countries. South China Morning Post
British crises
The energy-price crisis just took out two more British energy firms: the BP-backed Pure Planet and the smaller Colorado Energy. Pure Planet: "The Government and Ofgem, our regulator, [expect] Pure Planet to sell energy at a price much less than it currently costs to buy. This is unsustainable, and therefore, sadly we have had to make the difficult decision to cease trading." Meanwhile, timely Christmas-toy deliveries are being threatened by congestion at the crucial port of Felixstowe. BBC
Facebook fine
Ireland's less-than-hyperactive privacy regulator wants to hit Facebook with a fine of between €28 million and €36 million ($33 million to $42 million) for its alleged violations of the General Data Protection Regulation. That's chump change, considering Facebook's vast revenues and the fact that the GDPR allows for fines of up to 4% of global turnover. So, will the EU's other regulators, many of whom are already fed up with Irish inaction, agree that the fine is appropriate? Politico
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
U.S. inflation
U.S. inflation is speeding up, with price increases spreading further through the economy. September's consumer-price index was up 5.4% year-on-year, unadjusted. ING chief international economist James Knightley: "Housing costs, low inventories and rising energy prices will keep inflation higher for longer." Wall Street Journal
Evergrande effect
There has been just one international bond sale by a Chinese developer since the Evergrande crisis struck, with experts suggesting the market got a particularly nasty surprise when Fantasia defaulted last week. Financial Times
Facebook disappointment
Reid Hoffman, one of Facebook's earliest investors, says he's "disappointed" with the company's response to whistleblower claims about its prioritization of profit over user safety. Hoffmann: "Good for Facebook for doing the research…You discovered some things that are harmful—what are you doing about it?" Fortune
Putin on the Bits
"I believe that it has value," opined Russian President Vladimir Putin on the subject of cryptocurrencies, but as for Bitcoin being used instead of the dollar to settle oil trades, it's "too early to talk about the trade of energy resources in crypto." The problems? Coin-mining's large energy demands, and the fact that "cryptocurrency is not supported by anything as of yet." CNBC
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.
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