Good morning.
The A.I. takeover of the business world continues apace. Mark Cuban said recently: “I don’t care how big you are or how small you are, you have to learn about A.I.” I agree.
But where are we on the hype curve? Yesterday, I stopped by a Salesforce event hosted by CEO Marc Benioff in New York to promote its new products—which are essentially its old products with A.I. attached and “GPT” added to the name—Tableau GPT, Slack GPT, Einstein GPT, Sales GPT, Service GPT. Benioff, as always, is all in.
Anyone who is old enough to remember the 1990s may think this sounds similar to the dot com craze—when businesses by the hundreds attached “.com” to their name and saw valuations soar. But tech analyst Dan Ives says this is not “a 1999 moment”—with a bubble about to burst—but rather “a 1995 moment”—with a long and steep runway ahead.
As someone who has spent my life attempting to acquire facts and uncover truth, I continue to be disturbed by ChatGPT’s casual disregard for both. I asked Benioff about this yesterday. His response:
“We haven’t solved this problem. We’re not going to solve this problem. That’s why we need to keep a human in the loop…The way we’ve implemented this, there’s always somebody involved before they push the send button.”
That’s somewhat encouraging. But we still face the challenge of teaching people to separate good information from bad—a challenge we haven’t done very well in addressing to date.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Who is Charlie Javice?
Fortune’s Luisa Beltran profiles Charlie Javice, the founder of student finance startup Frank that JPMorgan acquired in 2021 for $175 million. JPMorgan now accuses Javice of inflating Frank's user numbers. Classmates remember Javice as quiet, serious, standoffish, and “a striver.” Javice has pleaded not guilty to defrauding JPMorgan. Fortune
Oracle earnings
Software company Oracle reported revenue and profits that beat expectations on Monday, as the A.I. boom drives sales of cloud computing services. The company generated $13.84 billion in revenue, a 17% year-on-year jump. Oracle shares are up 39% this year, pushing founder Larry Ellison to fourth place on the world’s richest people list. CNBC
Chips and China
The U.S. is planning to extend exemptions to South Korean and Taiwanese chipmakers for their investments in China, the Wall Street Journal reports. Companies like Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company have invested billions of dollars in China-based manufacturing. Foreign governments, including South Korea’s, have complained about the Biden administration’s restrictive rules against doing business with China’s chip sector. Wall Street Journal
AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
With LPs like Michael Eisner, Alphabet’s chairman, and former Dreamworks president Chris DeFaria, a new $120M venture capital fund bets it already has a foot in the door by Jessica Mathews
SEC’s Gensler seen telling hedge funds that Ethereum and Litecoin are ‘not securities’ in 2018 video by Jeff John Roberts
Asana CEO: ‘The way we work right now will soon look vestigial. Here’s how A.I. will make work more human’ by Dustin Moskovitz
Being a ‘purpose-driven leader’ in the Fortune 500 boosts revenue by Sheryl Estrada
Reddit revolt puts CEO Steve Huffman in a tough position by David Meyer
This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon.
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