- In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady talks to Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach about fear of AI in the workplace.
- The big story: CEOs are secretly angry at the Trump administration.
- The markets: Broadly up.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach knows his employees fear AI. About half of U.S. workers (and many CEOs) do. Never mind that the cloud software company’s headcount has stayed steady at roughly 19,500 over the past year as it has pushed to become known as “the enterprise AI platform for managing people, money and agents.” As he told me this week at the Workday Rising customer event in San Francisco: “They think their jobs are going away.”
What sparked a “massive sentiment change” within his company is a new approach to training. Along with communicating that AI is a priority and a plus, Eschenbach greenlit an “everyday AI” training program about six months ago that forced everyone on staff to confront their fears. “At the end of it, each of our employees had to write down their own AI training roadmap,” he said. “So now every manager has a roadmap and an AI plan for every employee to make sure they’re embracing it and they’re learning about it and they’re leveraging it.”
Surveys following that exercise showed higher levels of trust and engagement around AI, which points to a simple lesson for leaders: “We need to embrace the technology and make sure our employees know it’s safe. It’s safe to lean in, it’s safe to engage and it is what’s going to drive a massive change for them in their careers if they embrace it.”
“It’s all about making sure the human remains in the center of everything we’re doing, that AI is just a technology,” said Eschenbach, who is also rolling out new AI agents and developer tools for customers. “We’re not talking about that enough: that this is about how to change your career. It’s about how to go work on things that you’re excited about, as opposed to doing mundane tasks. This is all about opportunity. Employees today believe they’re competing against AI. They’re not. They’re competing against their peers who are using AI.”
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top news
CEOs are secretly angry at the Trump administration
Business leaders may show fealty to the president in public but when they talk off the record, the truth comes out: “They’re being extorted and bullied individually, but in private discourse, they’re really upset,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management, told the WSJ. When polled, 71% of CEOs gathered at the Yale event said Trump’s tariff regime was “harmful.”
Fed cuts rates
The Federal Reserve cut rates by a quarter of a point on Wednesday amid sluggish hiring and consistent attacks from President Donald Trump. During the meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell noted that there is “no risk-free path” to steer clear of stagflation as depressed job growth and inflation concerns pull the Fed in different directions.
Sardar Biglari’s 14-year war against Cracker Barrel
It’s not just the logo. Activist investor Sardar Biglari has spent more than a decade trying to get onto the board of the restaurant chain in order to stop it expanding and optimize its current operations. His proxy battles are among the longest and most contentious activist campaigns in restaurant industry history. They have also earned him more than $1 billion.
Jimmy Kimmel suspended for Kirk comments
ABC has suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show indefinitely after comments that he made about Charlie Kirk’s killing led a group of ABC-affiliated stations to say it would not air the show
Trump designates Antifa as a terrorist group
“I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated,” the president said on Truth Social. Background on Antifa here. Irony alert: Two hours earlier, the president complained on the same platform that Democrats “Weaponized the Justice Department against Sleepy Joe Biden’s Political Opponents, including ME!”
Meta launches Ray-Ban glasses in race for “superintelligence”
Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the new smart spectacles yesterday. The glasses have a digital display in the right lens showing notifications, and will be priced at $799.
China bans Nvidia chips
Beijing has ordered Chinese companies not to buy Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D, a chip made for the Chinese market. CEO Jensen Huang took the long view: “We probably contributed more to the China market than most countries have. And I’m disappointed with what I see,” he told the FT. “But they have larger agendas to work out between China and the United States, and I’m understanding of that.”
25% chance AI will go “really, really badly,” Anthropic CEO says
When asked for his “(p)doom” number—a term that expresses an estimate of AI triggering a catastrophic event for humanity—Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said there was a 25% chance things will go "really, really badly.” Context: Elon Musk puts (p)doom at 20% and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has said “the underlying risk is actually pretty high.”
Amazon CEO says “no bureaucracy” inquiry brought 1,000+ reports
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says that a “no bureaucracy email alias” the company set up for employees to report unnecessarily slow and obstructive operations received more than 1,500 reports and led to hundreds of process changes. The words came during an appearance at the company’s conference for third-party sellers, per CNBC.
Potential future U.K. prime minister will say anything for $95
Reform Party leader and Trump ally Nigel Farage, whose lead in the polls suggests he has a strong chance of becoming Britain’s next leader, earns $180,000 a year making videos on Cameo for $95 a pop. Many of the videos have gone viral on TikTok, earning him a new audience of younger voters who are delighted that he will say almost anything you ask him to. “Well, a very happy wedding day to the simp Leon, an incel no more,” he says in one uncovered by the WSJ.
The markets
S&P 500 futures up 0.8% this morning. The index closed down 0.09% in its last session. STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.77% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.33% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.15%. China’s CSI 300 was down 1.16%. The South Korea KOSPI was up 1.4%. India’s Nifty 50 was flat before the end of the session. Bitcoin rose to $117.2K.
Around the watercooler
The average American homeowner lost $9,200 in home equity during the last year. It’s not a collapse but a ‘long-term market correction’ by Sydney Lake
Kraken’s co-CEO says he once threw away Bitcoin: ’It was worth maybe $300 million to $400 million today’ by Ashley Lutz
Nvidia shares drop, China tech surges as Beijing tries to push homegrown AI chips by Nicholas Gordon
Bill and Melinda French Gates gave their Gen Z daughter this piece of business advice before she launched her own $8 million startup by Jessica Coacci
CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams and Jim Edwards.
