- In today’s CEO Daily: Fortune‘s Phil Wahba breaks down the tech priorities behind Walmart’s latest C-suite shuffle.
- The big leadership story: Microsoft and Meta beat expectations, with all eyes on AI spending.
- The markets: U.S. markets are set to climb after the S&P 500 briefly topped 7,000 for the first time Wednesday.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. This week will bring big changes to the largest company in the world, Walmart Inc. Feb. 1 will mark the retirement of Doug McMillon after a remarkable tenure and Day 1 for his replacement, John Furner. But the company is also enacting other changes to its C-suite that make one thing quite clear: Walmart, a 64-year-old retailer, now sees itself as a tech company.
Incoming Walmart U.S. CEO David Guggina, who is succeeding Furner atop the $500 billion domestic business, has no experience running stores and has never held a merchandising role, at Walmart or elsewhere. Such an appointment would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, before Walmart, under McMillon, decided to be a tech-forward company and not let Amazon run away with the prize.
But Guggina brings to his new role at Walmart another kind of experience that Walmart has been prioritizing for years: e-commerce, automation, and supply chain expertise gained at Walmart, and before that at Amazon. In announcing his promotion, Walmart touted Guggina’s work, among other things, in building delivery capabilities to serve 95% of U.S. households in under three hours.
Another area where Guggina has appealed to the Walmart brass: adoption of AI. “AI is changing how people shop, and customer expectations are higher than ever. But no one is more prepared to usher in the next era of retail,” Guggina wrote in a recent LinkedIn post.
Analysts consider Walmart to be well ahead of other retailers when it comes to AI-assisted shopping. In October, it announced a partnership with OpenAI to allow shoppers to browse and buy Walmart products directly inside ChatGPT. Last week, Walmart and Google announced their own shopping tool. Also last week, Walmart’s executive vice president for AI acceleration, product, and design, Daniel Danker, suggested at an investor conference that the company was developing auto-ordering for the replenishment of household staples.
Guggina isn’t the only tech executive whose star is rising at Walmart. The company also appointed Seth Dallaire chief growth officer for Walmart U.S., charging him with continuing to push Walmart beyond traditional retail into tech-heavy lines of business—including its booming advertising, media, and online marketplace ventures.
The timing of Guggina’s promotion was fitting: It came soon after Walmart moved its shares from the New York Stock Exchange to the tech-heavy Nasdaq exchange. In December, Walmart said the move underscores its “technology-forward approach.”
Bolstering Walmart’s tech and AI aura has had the additional benefit of lifting the company’s stock: In the last year, Walmart shares have risen 27%, double the S&P 500’s growth and trouncing Amazon.—Phil Wahba
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top leadership news
Microsoft and Meta beat revenue expectations
Microsoft reported $81.3 billion in second quarter revenue and a $625 billion demand backlog, but its stock fell 5% after-hours over concerns about meeting demand and slowing Azure growth. Meta, meanwhile, brought in $59.9 billion for the quarter, topping expectations. CEO Mark Zuckerberg forecast a “major AI acceleration” this year and doubled capex to $135 billion to support it.
Tesla announces discontinuations, xAI investment
Tesla beat Wall Street estimates with $24.9 billion in fourth quarter revenue, down 3% year-over-year. During the company’s earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said the company will discontinue its Model S and X lines while investing $2 billion in his AI venture, xAI.
ServiceNow offers vision for company
ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott told Fortune before its earnings call on Wednesday that the company doesn’t “live in the SaaS neighborhood” but is moving toward becoming a marketplace for AI-ready data and tools. The company beat estimates with $3.47 billion in revenue, up 21% from a year earlier.
The markets
S&P 500 futures are up 0.19% this morning. The last session closed flat. STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.32% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.45% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.03%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.76%. The South Korea KOSPI was up 0.98%. India’s NIFTY 50 was up 0.30%. Bitcoin was at $88K.
Around the watercooler
How Samsung’s first-ever chief design officer is reinventing the electronics giant for the AI age by Nicholas Gordon
Jerome Powell says Fed independence isn’t lost … yet. ‘I certainly hope we won’t’ lose it by Jake Angelo
JPMorgan, BofA will match the $1,000 ‘Trump Accounts’ for employees’ children. Here’s how to open an account by Sydney Lake
Scott Bessent on the 39% of young Americans thinking favorably of socialism: They’re just not invested in the stock market by Nick Lichtenberg
CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams, Claire Zillman and Lee Clifford.
