Good morning.
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins kicked off the conversation at Fortune’s CEO Initiative dinner in New York last night. He had spent the week talking about his company’s $28 billion deal to acquire software firm Splunk, so we stayed away from that topic and instead focused on his role as chairman of the Business Roundtable—the leading advocate for big business in Washington. I asked him why he took the job, given the desire most CEOs have to steer clear of politics. He joked that “there must have been eight or nine people before me who turned down the job,” then continued:
“Look, it’s important. It matters. Business needs to have a voice, and we need to continue to try and drive pragmatism into the otherwise crazy world we all live in. I’m game to give it a try.”
I told him that my perception was that the Business Roundtable has less influence today than it had in the past.
“On the surface, you could make that argument. Behind the scenes, it may not be as true as it seems.”
Not surprisingly, he dodged my question of which candidate he prefers to see in the White House, answering instead:
“We as CEOs are going to work with whoever is in the White House. It behooves us and behooves the country for us to try and move forward pro-growth policies. If we have a Trump administration or a Biden administration, there are things we can align on in both.”
And he defended the Business Roundtable’s efforts to promote a broader view of “stakeholder” capitalism,” despite the political pushback that effort has provoked.
“I still think it is important. If we create an environment that is good for our employees, that’s a good thing. If we create an environment that creates healthy communities, that’s a good thing. If we also create positive outcomes for our shareholders, positive outcomes for our customers, positive outcomes for our partners, what’s bad about that?”
For March Madness fans, I noted Robbins played freshman basketball at the University of North Carolina—my alma mater. He told this story:
“I had a really good freshman year and I was playing junior varsity, and I called [Coach] Roy Williams and said I’m not going to play anymore. And he said, ‘You are going to regret this someday.’ When I became CEO of Cisco, I saw him, and he said: ‘I guess everything worked out okay.’”
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
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AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
Commentary: Nelson Peltz is America’s most overrated activist investor. Here’s what the experts missed about his performance by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian
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IBM stock nears an all-time high—and it may have something to do with its CEO replacing as many workers with AI as possible by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
France is piloting a 4-day work week—but there’s a catch. Only divorced parents qualify for it by Prarthana Prakash
This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon.
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