This week, I spoke with two political science grads who became billionaires by having the insight to spot an opportunity to innovate and partner with people who understood the mechanics of what they wanted to do. 

Steve Case was a marketing manager for Pizza Hut in Wichita, Kansas when he decided to join a struggling startup carved out from the carcass of a failed gaming company in the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C. He helped transform it and became the founding CEO of America Online, or AOL, bringing the internet to 30 million American households and giving consumers access to the wonders of email, chatrooms and news-on-demand. 

David Rubenstein, the son of a Baltimore postal worker, was frustrated in a Washington law firm when he was both inspired by a wildly successful leveraged buyout and unnerved by a book that claimed the odds of successfully starting a company plummets after 37. He co-founded Carlyle Group in 1987, just before he turned 38.

Case joined us at a C-suite dinner on Monday that Fortune co-hosted with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in its historic headquarters across from Lafayette Square and the White House. Now the chairman and CEO of Revolution, an investment firm, Case spoke about the need for a more inclusive innovation economy. “It’s not good that all the money’s made…in places like Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston,” he said. 

He believes “the next phase is vertical AI that can advantage companies in the middle of the country that have domain expertise in healthcare, farming, or other sectors.” He’s also moving aggressively into hospitality and real-estate, as “in an increasingly AI-centric world, people are going to value real people, real places, and real authentic experiences.”

I then spoke with Rubenstein at the 2026 conference for Points of Light, the world’s largest organization dedicated to increasing volunteerism, founded by President George H.W. Bush. We spoke about how Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political scientist, was blown away by America’s “spirit of association,” or the instinct to voluntarily devote time to help each other build and solve problems. 

Rubenstein has donated millions to repair iconic monuments around Washington (though not the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool), and left the event to mark the opening of a new museum at the Jefferson Memorial. Before he left, he argued that volunteerism—taking initiative and helping each other without turning to the government—is what set the U.S. apart.   

Neil Bradley, executive vice president, chief policy officer and head of strategic advocacy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, pointed out at our Monday dinner that “not a single person will say the American Dream is 3% real GDP growth.” But you can’t ignore macroeconomic data entirely: “When you grow an economy at 3%, you double the size of the pie in 23 years.” 

As the U.S. marks its 250th anniversary, these conversations suggest a different way to think about our post-tech bro era. After all, innovation can be found across the country and tapped by those with all kinds of backgrounds—not just those rooted in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. 

Bradley noted on Monday that the U.S. “had more new business applications last year than at any time in our history.”

“The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well.”

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

Top leadership news

Is renting from foreign providers a national security risk?

In the wake of the U.S.’s decision to restrict access to Anthropic’s Mythos model, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez is warning that relying on another country’s AI could be a national security risk. The Canadian AI company sells models that governments and companies can deploy on their own infrastructure, including data centers, semiconductors, and models. “You need to fully control it,” he says.

Anthropic launches a virtual AI employee

Anthropic released Claude Tag, a new AI agent that works across a company’s Slack channels to complete tasks. All members of the company can access a single Claude “identity” allowing work to be handed off between employees. “Claude Tag is built to be interactive and multiplayer,” Anthropic’s head of product for Claude Code and Cowork Cat Wu told Fortune.

SK hynix vs. Samsung

Chipmaker SK hynix briefly passed Samsung on Monday to become South Korea’s most valuable company. It’s a milestone for a company that now controls 58% of the market for high-bandwidth memory, a key component in Nvidia’s AI processors. The company has confidentially filed for a U.S. listing, with reports suggesting a debut as early as August.

The markets

S&P 500 futures are up 0.2% this morning. The last session closed down 1.4%. South Korea’s KOSPI rose 3.3%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.9%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.3%. India’s NIFTY 50 is up 1.0%. The STOXX Europe 600 is flat in morning trading. Bitcoin is hovering below $63,000.  

Around the watercooler

Quantum computing stocks surge after Trump signed executive orders backing the sector by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez

UPS is shelling out nearly $50 million on temperature-controlled facilities to meet the booming demand for GLP-1 deliveries by Sasha Rogelberg

‘London isn’t just calling—it’s cooking.’ Europe’s largest economies face over $600 billion in heat-driven losses by 2030 by Tristan Bove

The man who invented the Fed’s magic trick just died. His successor is about to try it again by Eva Roytburg

Cursor’s 25-year-old CEO turned a Discord server into a talent pipeline to build his $60 billion SpaceX-backed AI company by Sydney Lake

CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.