Good morning.
I mark my tenure at Fortune with the annual publication of the Change the World list, year nine of which comes out this morning. This is our strongest statement that the success of business cannot be measured by financial metrics alone. Business exists, as Oxford’s Colin Meyer has written, to “profitably solve the problems of people and planet.” Change the World celebrates those that do that best.
How do we choose them? The powerhouse team of Matt Heimer and Erika Fry first look for companies that have made a sizable, measurable and durable impact on a specific societal problem. Then they and our editorial staff evaluate the business results—knowing such solutions are only sustainable if they can be profitable. And finally, they consider the degree of innovation, and whether others have followed the example. Social change, after all, is driven by imitation, not exclusion.
Top of the list this year are the “American electrifiers”—the companies devoted to ending emissions from transportation. That’s Tesla, of course (more on that in a bit), as well as General Motors, ChargePoint, and South Korea’s SK On, which has helped jump-start battery manufacturing in the U.S. Together they are remaking Auto Nation.
Also in this year’s top ten: Walmart, Johnson Controls, Gilead, and Abbott. That last one may raise eyebrows given its role in the 2022 baby formula shortage. But the health company’s “Freedom 2 Save” program, which matches student loan payments with 401(k) contributions, caught our editors’ attention. And re: baby formula, the team also cited Bobbie, an organic baby formula startup that managed to provide reliable supply when the four biggest manufacturers, including Abbott, ran short. Social progress does not travel a straight line.
Which brings me back to Tesla. Peter Vanham, who frequently writes this newsletter, has a fascinating essay accompanying the Change the World list entitled: “How Green is Elon Musk, Really?” In it, he notes Musk irks many environmentalists for a variety of reasons—his personal consumption of private jet fuel; his tweets such as “population control due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming;” and perhaps most of all, his climate ‘Plan B’—populating outer space. But despite his personal quirks and flaws, Elon Musk has done more for the energy transformation than any other human being, living or dead. As I said, social progress does not travel a straight line.
You can find the full list here, Peter’s story here, and more news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Evergrande in trouble
Chinese authorities have reportedly put China Evergrande chairman Hui Ka Yan under police surveillance, a measure that confines the billionaire to a single location and bars outside communication without permission. It's the latest piece of bad news for the bankrupt developer: Over the weekend, Evergrande said it would no longer be able to issue new debt, and the company missed another debt payment on Monday. Bloomberg
OpenAI considers a share sale
OpenAI, the developer behind chatbot ChatGPT, is considering a share sale that would value the company at $90 billion. That valuation would rocket OpenAI to be among the world’s most valuable startups, alongside ByteDance, SpaceX and Shein. It’s also a huge win for Microsoft, which bought a 49% stake in the company earlier this year that valued the AI developer at just $29 billion. The Wall Street Journal
A class in cutting costs
Online education provider MasterClass is now trying to cut costs and headcount as its pandemic-era boom fizzles out. Subscriber growth has stalled, and the company’s partnerships with companies like Delta failed to attract interested customers. The frugality is a big shift from when the company would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a celebrity-led video, including one instance in which MasterClass shelled out $100,000 to build a more film-friendly replica of Disney CEO Bob Iger’s office. The Information
AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
A top economist who studies AI says it will double productivity in the next decade: ‘You need to embrace this technology and not resist it’ by Geoff Colvin
The S&P is heading below 3,000. Basic math (and a metric beloved by famed economist Robert Shiller) suggests it by Shawn Tully
GitHub CEO: ‘Wall Street relies on software that was developed under Eisenhower. Here’s how AI can prevent the next financial crisis’ by Thomas Dohmke
Elon Musk’s Shanghai-built Tesla EVs targeted in EU probe into Chinese state subsidies to avoid ‘a race to the bottom’ by Christiaan Hetzner
German airline Lufthansa says it would consume half of Germany’s electricity if it were to switch to green fuels by Prarthana Prakash
Meta is paying out a ‘staggering’ $181 million to give back office space it can’t fill by Eleanor Pringle
This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon.
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