- In today’s CEO Daily: Valuing effort in the AI age.
- The big leadership story: A ‘troubling’ relationship under the microscope ahead of the SpaceX IPO.
- The markets: U.S. futures tick up in hopes that a U.S.-Iran peace deal is imminent.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. For my birthday, a friend texted this AI-generated “painting” created from an old photo of me that he’d pulled from Facebook. It took eight seconds to produce, making it more of a cute party trick than a piece of art. Such is the effort paradox in which we assign value to the labor and talent that goes into producing something. When it comes to creativity, humans value effort over perfection. In a world where everything can be made by AI, how do we measure and maintain value? As Adam Smith said, the real price of everything is “the toil and trouble of acquiring it.”
It’s an important factor for leaders to weigh as they decide which creative work to assign to AI and which to leave to humans. Few think about this more than creators whose businesses rely on building trust with millions of followers. Matthew Hussey and Gabby Bernstein are authors whose popularity stems from fostering deeply human conversations about topics like authenticity, personal connections, and vulnerability. They have created digital twins with help from Dara Ladjevardian and his team at Delphi.ai, who also created a digital twin of me last year through his AI startup. Both have strong views on AI and what must remain analog for their careers to thrive.
Hussey uses his digital self to give fans access to personalized dating advice. “Everyone wants personalized coaching, and it’s not available to 99.9% of the audience,” he said on stage at a Delphi event last week, noting that one person’s conversation with his AI version lasted six hours. “The idea that I would co-write an email or book with AI is grotesque. I don’t need to scale a newsletter or a YouTube video. It’s about the quality of it. When human beings feel there is a decoy in something that’s pretending not to be a decoy, they sense it.”
“We want people to know immediately that this isn’t me. But if you want to talk to someone at 2 a.m. about a heartbreak you are going through, it’s here …This is about finding a genuine solution to a problem. I’ve put 18 years of everything I’ve ever done into Matthew.ai. It democratizes access to everything I’ve ever learned.”
For Bernstein, AI addresses another problem that’s plagued her as an entrepreneur. “I’m a bad manager. I’m the worst. I don’t want to manage … The beauty is that I can manage a smaller group of people,” she said. “I am much more grounded and centered working with fewer humans. As a generalist who is very fast and has ADHD….I can reinvest my time differently. I can be more picky about the content that I put out.”
As Hussey put it: “Everyone can make a good YouTube video … Good is dead. You have to be great.” And to become great, he added, there’s no substitute for putting in the work.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top leadership news
A ‘troubling’ relationship at SpaceX
Private equity investor Antonio Gracias’ Valor Equity Partners was one of Tesla's earliest institutional investors and holds roughly 7.3% of SpaceX, making him the second-largest individual shareholder after Musk. Meanwhile, lease agreements obligate SpaceX to pay Valor close to $20 billion. Nell Minow, a chair of ValueEdge Advisors, called the Valor leases "deeply troubling."
Inside the ‘stealth wealth’ playbook
A growing class of ultrawealthy buyers, particularly tech and AI executives who have moved to Silicon Valley, are deliberately routing their home purchases through limited liability companies, privacy trusts, and so-called “whisper” listings that never touch the multiple listing service. Their end goal isn’t getting the best deal they can possibly get: It’s more about maintaining anonymity and thinning their paper trails to ensure security.
A parental leave play
Rosewood Hotel Group, owned by Hong Kong’s Cheng family, has introduced a global, gender‑neutral policy granting all employees 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave, including for adoption. The move, more generous than statutory minimums in much of Asia, aims to boost talent attraction, retention, and culture as the region confronts collapsing fertility rates and worker shortages, especially in hospitality
The markets
S&P 500 futures are up 0.62% this morning. The last session closed up 0.37%. The STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.24% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.63% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.25%. South Korea’s KOSPI was up 2.55%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.53%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was flat. India’s NIFTY 50 is down 0.51%. Bitcoin was at $77K.
Around the watercooler
Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO filing just told us what business he’s betting on for the future—and it’s not rockets by Shawn Tully
It took over a decade, but NextDecade’s longshot bet to lead LNG in Texas is finally paying off by Jordan Blum
AI hallucinations are infiltrating expert work—and entering the permanent body of knowledge by Tristan Bove
The quiet death of conscious consumerism, from Everlane and Allbirds to Beyond Meat by Phil Wahba
CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.
