- In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady debunks the latest management trend.
- The big leadership story: Investors aren’t buying Enrique Lores’s new plan for PayPal.
- The markets: Mixed globally after the S&P 500 touched another new high Wednesday.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. Few things transform a career or a company like an excellent boss. Most of us have had them and we know what it looks like in others. Here are five CEOs who have low turnover and inspire people to do their best work: Marvin Ellison of Lowe’s, Patagonia’s Ryan Gellert, Linda Hubbard of Carhartt, Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Builders and KIND Snacks, and Hamdi Ulukaya of Chobani. I moderated an on-stage discussion with them about purpose-driven leadership at Milken this week and was struck by how their values permeate their organizations and drive growth. We talked about dignity, opportunity, agency, creativity, and creating a shared mission.
Contrast that with the rhetoric we see around Silicon Valley’s latest push into “player-coaches,” along with its continued vilification and misunderstanding of managers. We saw Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong telling workers to be more “front footed” as he flattens the organization and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg saying he needs to cut back people-oriented things to invest more in compute infrastructure. (Shout out to folks like Aaron Levie of Box for trying to “bring reality to the valley.”) Do we need to reimagine work, leadership and how we structure companies in the age of AI? Yes. Should we look to companies like Coinbase and Meta to lead the way? Not necessarily. Here’s why:
Don’t criticize what you can’t understand. Nurturing great managers and creating layers of bureaucracy are two different things. Bayer CEO Bill Anderson understands the difference as he restructures the company. I’m less sure when I see Armstrong of Coinbase, a company that posted a 22% drop in revenue and net loss last quarter, dismiss “pure managers” as people creating layers that slow things down. You know what slows people down? Being misaligned on objectives, diminished, micromanaged, rudderless, disengaged, and isolated—not to mention being stuck in roles where they don’t advance or learn. There are certainly CEOs who are introverts or neurodivergent tinkerers who would rather chat with a robot than a room full of employees. But the best leaders appreciate the importance of leadership at all levels and in all forms across their organization.
Technology changes how, not what. GE’s laborious talent-management system was showing cracks long before Jeff Immelt left as CEO. AI can radically personalize how we mentor and engage employees, build our brands, create our products and delight our customers. We may need fewer managers or maybe AI will free us up to become better managers, roaming around the office like Socrates and Plato. But some fundamental truths don’t change. Managers matter. Earlier this week, I was speaking with Gallup CEO Jon Clifton, who just released a global study of 350,000 employed adults, showing that work enjoyment is strongly linked to wellbeing and longevity. And the key factor determining that enjoyment: how they feel about their boss.
Start at the top. You know who is a pure manager? The CEO. Those who lack the self-awareness or tools to be good managers in that role tend to create environments where people don’t want to work. I’ve met more whistleblowers and disgruntled former employees from Meta over the years than people who say it’s the best place they’ve ever worked. With the escalating war for top talent, maybe those people-oriented things matter after all.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top leadership news
PayPal stock struggles despite earnings beat
PayPal shares fell roughly 10% following the company's Tuesday earnings, even as it beat revenue and EPS estimates. With the company continuing to cede market share to Apple Pay and rival platforms, new CEO Enrique Lores unveiled plans for the "aggressive adoption of AI" along with other strategic initiatives.
Trump administration considers AI oversight rules
The Trump administration is weighing AI oversight guidelines similar to once-rejected Biden-era policy, according to multiple news reports. The framework would require advanced AI models be evaluated against safety criteria before release.
Goldman Sachs: FOMO is pushing AI investment
Goldman Sachs' head of global equity research, James Covello, argues that the fear of missing out or FOMO is fueling massive AI spending, even when that spending punishes stock prices. "Hyperscalers have prioritized being involved in the AI arms race over their current shareholders," Covello wrote in a report.
The markets
S&P 500 futures are flat this morning. The last session closed up 1.46%. The STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.17% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.69% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 5.58%. South Korea’s KOSPI was up 1.43%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.48%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 1.57%. India’s NIFTY 50 is flat. Bitcoin was down at $81K.
Around the watercooler
A year after Liberation Day, Trump’s tariffs have done ‘significant damage’ to the U.S. economy, says Moody’s chief economist by Eleanor Pringle
Vornado CEO Steven Roth ‘shocked that our young mayor would pull this stunt’ and says Zohran Mamdani should know better than to target Ken Griffin by Catherina Gioino
Mark Zuckerberg once gave a Facebook engineer startup advice at 2 a.m. while ‘hanging out with all the interns’—she quit and raised millions after by Orianna Rosa Royle
CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.
