Good morning.
I’m at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles this week, where there’s a lot of debate about trends shaping the global business landscape. As expected, the spotlight gravitated to familiar names and topics like the timing of future rate cuts. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin predicted the Fed will cut rates this year, while New York Fed President John Williams said cuts would come “eventually.”
What’s fascinating is how some of the more existential trends are being discussed. Elon Musk, father of 11, talked about falling birth rates leading to “a civilization that ends not with a bang but a whimper, in adult diapers.” Declining fertility rates, much like climate change, are slow-boiling trends that are easy to ignore until they reach a tipping point, causing higher costs and lower growth.
But new technologies could alter how demographic changes play out, as could reimagined public policy, job design, and immigration. Fewer people can mean fewer opportunities to build wealth. But fewer people also need fewer resources. What matters is the mindset of those most impacted by this shift.
That’s a focus for Penny Pennington, managing partner of Edward Jones Investments, which has more than 15,000 locations across North America. With the coming transfer of $84 trillion in assets from baby boomers to younger generations, she’s trying to help her agents prepare for a different customer with different priorities. “We’re assuming they want a career trajectory that is at one company where you climb the ladder for 40 years,” says Pennington, “that they want to buy a house and have two kids and put down roots.” Many, of course, do not.
Another trend that Pennington is watching: the move towards private capital markets. “When the public markets are not a place where companies that are innovating want to be, individual investors can’t invest in that growth,” says Pennington. She also put a new twist on an old metaphor: “Data is the new oil, the new sand, or the new asbestos”—depending on how companies use it.
I’m curious to hear how you think about these trends as you navigate new opportunities in volatile times. More to come.
Diane Brady
@dianebrady
diane.brady@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Apple’s quiet AI work
Apple is quietly working on its own AI chip to be used in its own data centers. The project would build on the company designing its own in-house chips for products like the iPhone and Macs. Analysts argue that Apple has been slower to embrace AI than its Big Tech peers, like Google and Microsoft. The Wall Street Journal
‘Mama’s posts’
Chinese officials are urging companies to offer more flexible jobs, dubbed “Mama’s Posts,” to allow women to better balance work and childcare, according to state media. Beijing is trying to encourage Chinese people to start families to counter record low birth rates. A Chinese think tank recently claimed the country is one of the world’s most expensive places to raise a child. Reuters
Trouble at the FDIC
A probe into the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation argues that the banking regulator’s work culture needs an overhaul, according to sources familiar with its findings. The report, which is not yet public, corroborates claims made by theWall Street Journallast November that female examiners left the regulator due to its “sexualized, boys’ club environment.” Bloomberg
AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
The accounting firm that Trump hired for his media firm’s IPO was caught copy-and-pasting previous audits and is now banned forever by Amanda Gerut
Elon Musk urges investing legend Warren Buffett to buy a stake in Tesla: ‘It’s an obvious move’ by Christiaan Hetzner
Social Security is doing a little better. But it still won’t be able to pay full benefits by 2033 by Alicia Adamczyk
Why a Benioff acolyte left Salesforce after 15 years to lead a $3 billion HR software firm she thinks might be its rival by Jane Thier
The ‘godmother’ of AI is getting into the startup game by Sharon Goldman
Columbia University’s president grapples with an ‘impossible situation’ by Emma Hinchliffe and Joseph Abrams
This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon.
