A nonprofit run by Anne Wojcicki, the cofounder and former CEO of 23andme, has agreed to buy the genetic testing company for $305 million. Wojcicki’s return is likely to spark lawsuits. The nonprofit, TTAM Research Institute, says it will comply with 23andme’s privacy policies.
The swift and sudden fall—and attempted rebirth—of genetic-testing company 23andme has taken a final twist. A nonprofit run by Anne Wojcicki, the co-founder and former CEO of the company, has reached an agreement to buy the company, with a $305 million offer.
The deal, announced late Friday, will see Wojcicki take control of essentially all of the company’s assets.
For a long time, it appeared Wojcicki wouldn’t regain control of the company she left in March. New York-based biotech company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals was set to buy 23andMe for $256 million, but in the final round of bidding, Wojcicki’s TTAM Research Institute came out of top.
The sale of 23andme, which was once valued at $6 billion, led to a wave of consternation about what would happen with the customer genetic data it held. Approximately 15% of its customers, some 1.9 million people, have requested their data be deleted from the company servers since 23andme filed for bankruptcy in March. The sale of the company has also attracted the interest of the House Oversight Committee, which was concerned about where the data could end up.
TTAM says it will comply with 23andMe’s “privacy policies and applicable law” and has made “binding commitments” to create additional protections and privacy safeguards. These will include a consumer-privacy advisory board.
23andme’s troubles came following a hack of the company in 2023 which raised several concerns about the company. For instance, one online post that offered data for sale bragged of having a huge database of Ashkenazi Jews, including people whose ties with that ancestry are less than 1%.
Wojcicki, while she was still CEO, oversaw three rounds of layoffs and suggested a plan that would transform the company from just a supplier of ancestral data and into a healthcare company that develops drugs and sells subscription health reports.
Wojcicki first offered to buy the company in mid-2024. The 23andMe board rejected her bid to take the company private, later quitting en masse.
The purchase of 23andme by a group run by Wojcicki is likely to spark lawsuits. Earlier this year, an independent investor in 23andMe spoke with Fortune expressed disbelief that Wojcicki, whom he held responsible for allowing 23andMe’s valuation to plunge, could turn around and buy the company at a low price. “I can’t understand why there aren’t other bids,” the investor, who asked that his privacy be protected, told Fortune.
On a Wednesday night in early June, Rene Nezhoda leaned back in a Secretlab gaming chair, fiddled with a computer keyboard, and stared into a camera while looking very much at home. Clad in his company’s black “Bargain Hunters Breaks” T-shirt, Nezhoda carried what could be viewed as an imposing thick-built frame, until he opened his mouth and revealed a self-deprecating charm coated by a soft German accent that would be familiar to fans of A&E’s reality TV franchise Storage Wars – where he and his wife Casey have appeared as central characters for the past decade.
With a box-cutter in hand, Nezhoda sliced open the plastic film covering the back of an ultra premium box of baseball trading cards, the contents of which would soon leave some viewers on the other end of his screen ecstatic, and others likely devastated.
“We got a situation! We got a situation!” he bellowed as he slowly revealed what would turn out to be not just a typical trading card, but instead a small booklet featuring images of two San Diego Padre star teammates – along with tiny pieces of their game-used bats – known as “relics” in the sports card world. A collector’s dream.
“Get some fire,” Nezhoda urged his audience. “Get some fire!”
Fire emojis soon lit up the comments thread at the bottom of the screen, and cartoony flames began bordering the video frame.
A night later, Nezhoda would livestream another high-end card show for his 47,000 followers, with one lucky bidder walking away with a card autographed by New York Yankee star Aaron Judge that also included a swatch from one of his game-worn jerseys embedded within. It was a one-of-one, meaning the only one ever printed – a true “monster hit” in industry speak.
The biggest business you’ve never heard of
Nezhoda’s hundreds of viewers were tuning in to this drama not on traditional TV – but through their smartphone screens and more specifically, a five-year-old shopping app called Whatnot. Over the past couple of years, Whatnot has quietly climbed App Store charts – as one of the leaders of the growing trend of live-streamed commerce in the U.S. – while also capitalizing on reinvigorated collectibles markets. The result? Whatnot currently ranks inside the Top 15 most popular free iPhone apps in the U.S., sandwiched between household names Instagram and Netflix, and No. 1 in the shopping category overall.
While hawking merchandise via live video streams has become lucrative and mainstream for businesses big and small in Asia over the past decade, Whatnot and TikTok are two of a much smaller subset of live-streaming services in the West that have found meaningful success in this area of e-commerce. This sales method, which offers a new spin on the QVC and HSN cable TV shopping channels of yesteryear, marries some of the auction model and enthusiast appeal of eBay with the camaraderie and communal viewing euphoria of Twitch. Merchants on Whatnot sold a combined $3 billion in goods in 2024, mainly in collectible categories like trading cards and sports cards, but also in fast-growing verticals like women’s fashion and sneakers, too. The startup, while unprofitable, is forecasting more than $6 billion in gross merchandise volume, or GMV, in 2025, or about double its 2024 numbers. (EBay’s GMV is about 12 times Whatnot’s but its growth is largely stagnant.) Whatnot would not disclose its revenue, but some back of the envelope math suggests that 2025 revenue could range from perhaps $700 million to around $1 billion based on its average seller commission of around 11% plus a fast-growing advertising initiative.
Courtesy of Whatnot
“We’re the biggest business you’ve never heard of,” Grant LaFontaine, the startup’s co-founder and CEO, told Fortune recently.
While e-commerce incumbents and other would-be acquirers have shown Whatnot “surprisingly little” attention according to LaFontaine (“I am surprised,” the CEO admitted, chalking it up to possibly being “underestimated”) his company has attracted significant interest from venture capitalists, who have poured more more than $700 million into his startup since its 2019 founding, with some recently valuing the company at a nearly $5 billion valuation during a $265 million round announced in early 2025. The Los Angeles-based company now employs around 750 people, and operates in nine countries in North America and Europe, plus Australia.
LaFontaine, the 37-year-old co-founder and CEO, said that while the entertainment and deal-hunting characteristics of the app play roles in its success, he likes to think it’s mostly about community.
“The most salient characteristic of what really makes Whatnot work is just about people,” he said. “You come back to a shop because you know that human being, or know the human beings who frequent it.”
But big questions remain: Can Whatnot (the name is a riff on the idea that all sorts of goods can be sold on the platform) build a big enough profitable business to justify its lofty valuation while built in part on live auctions, impulse buys, and trend-boosted niches? As Whatnot attracts more sellers, will the company be able to attract enough who are as interested in building long-term customer relationships – and real businesses – as they are making a quick buck? And at a macro level, how well will the startup survive a potential economic slowdown that could weaken crucial merchandise categories most reliant on discretionary spending?
At least for the last question, LaFontaine believes his company has at least several years of new-customer runway before they’d have to seriously consider the impact of such a reality.
“We’re still so relatively under-penetrated in every market that we’re in–both from a buyer and seller perspective–that the macro doesn’t deeply affect the business,” he said, “because our experience is so new, and so many new [buyers and sellers] are coming on, that overall growth is still so high.”
Time will determine whether that assessment was realistic or naive.
Baseball trading cards, particularly autographed cards, attract lots of bids in Whatnot auctions
Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images
From Funkos to the Wild, Wild, West
Whatnot was founded in 2019 by two product managers: LaFontaine, who had worked at Facebook and Google and had dabbled in selling collectibles and sneakers online from childhood into his 20s; and Logan Head, a one-time medical marijuana dispensary owner who immediately before Whatnot was a senior product manager at GOAT, the sneaker and apparel resale app. Initially, Whatnot was designed more as a high-end version of Craigslist but the founders quickly pivoted it toward a focus on collectibles, starting with Funko Pop! Figures exclusively for the first year. In 2020, the startup also began experimenting with the livestreaming feature that would become so crucial to its success.
While Whatnot merchants can list products for sale on the app in a more traditional online storefront format, the vast majority of sales on the platform occur via livestreams, in which the seller, or a streamer they pay to host, engages with, and answers product questions from, viewers who can comment in an onscreen thread.
Whatnot’s strength is in collectibles, whether Pokemon cards, sports cards or rare coins. Seth Chandler, owner of the 65-year-old Witter Coin shop in San Francisco has sold millions to coin enthusiasts on Whatnot over the past few years.
But the app’s appeal to buyers and sellers in other categories has broadened over time to include luxury bags, electronics and its fastest-growing segment, women’s fashion.
Ryan Maresch and Jose Lim-Valle are lifelong friends and two of the business owners that have turned Whatnot’s entry into women’s apparel into a multi-million-dollar business. The duo previously ran an apparel liquidation storefront out of a Southern California warehouse before starting to experiment with live streaming on Whatnot in 2023 when they couldn’t sell enough of the clothing that they bought as part of a bulk liquidation purchase of excess Sam’s Club merchandise. Now their business Circle City OC has become the first women’s fashion seller to cross $1 million in monthly Whatnot sales across its three streaming channels targeting three types of customers.
“We realized the reach of customers is endless,” Lim-Valle said, “There’s a morning crowd, the afternoon crowd, the night crowd. East coast and West coast. We started realizing that as long as we keep streaming, we can keep moving product. It lit a fire underneath us knowing that it’s up to us on our success and how far we want to push it. It’s a free-for-all. It’s like the Wild Wild West.”
Other merchandise categories include electronics, beauty products, golf gear, and even live plants. Often with enthusiasts in the audience bonding over time with the fellow enthusiasts who are hosts. Consumer brands like Dolls Kill have also been experimenting with liquidating excess inventory directly on Whatnot.
“What’s really exciting about Whatnot is that they are combining the best of entertainment, shopping, and community to reimagine what a commerce experience is like for sellers and buyers,” said Marcie Vu, a well-regarded investment banker-turned-VC who’s now a partner at venture capital firm Greycroft, which co-led the latest Whatnot investment. Vu took a board observer role with Whatnot alongside her firm’s investment. DST Global and Avra also co-led the round, while Andreessen Horowitz, CapitalG, BOND, and Y Combinator have backed the company as well.
Basketball card roulette
Sellers on Whatnot can choose to sell merchandise either at set prices, including in time-limited “flash sales,” or in live auctions – which themselves can come in various forms. Whatnot’s design makes bidding dead-simple through an almost-too-easy swipe to the right. An auction countdown clock creates urgency. And when your bid wins, a digital confetti explosion greets you in celebration.
Some have criticized these design elements as creating fertile ground for regrettable impulse buys, or worse, addiction. But LaFontaine insists that the only way Whatnot will become a long-term durable business is if buyers come back again and again, and feel good about it. He believes buyers who feel burned, or have buyer’s remorse, won’t return.
“If people go in over their skis or they pay too much money through an impulse purchase, those aren’t people who are going to come back; they’re going to feel burned,” he said. “Let’s say we saw a deep problem where people were having all these impulse purchases, they felt really terrible about those purchases, and that was making people talk incredibly negatively and never come back to Whatnot, we would look very deeply into it. We don’t see a ton of that today.”
The CEO added that fun digital design elements are “the cherry on top” and not what keeps viewers returning. Rather, it’s a connection with people, either the hosts of their favorite streams or the fellow viewers who frequent a certain show. Whatnot users spend 80 minutes on average on the app each day.
For Nezhoda, of Storage Wars fame, he told Fortune he makes a point of being as transparent as possible with his viewers about the potential risks of the sales events he hosts. On a recent June night, this reporter tuned into one of his nightly shows unannounced while waiting in a car outside a youth soccer practice. What viewers were witnessing was Nezhoda’s latest “break”—a type of group-buying event that has gained popularity among trading card enthusiasts, collectors, and opportunists in recent years—where buyers either bid on, or buy, the right to receive certain cards from a pack or case of cards that the host “breaks” or sells portions of to different buyers.
In this break, Nezhoda was selling 30 “slots,” each representing one of the 30 Major League Baseball teams. By purchasing a slot (the New York Yankees slot sold for $710, for example), the buyer is essentially claiming the right to the card that corresponds to that particular team—if that team happens to be one of the eight random cards that comprise the set that Nezhoda opens.
For the lucky eight people whose teams turn out to be in the case, the payoff is great. Nezhoda was pulling from a case of 2025 Topps Sterling line of ultra-premium autographed cards, each card essentially a collector’s item. But for the folks who spent hundreds of dollars apiece to snag one of the 22 other team slots, the break is a bust: they’ll walk away with just a $5 pack of basic cards, “skunked” in industry speak. High risk indeed.
Nezhoda sold $8,000 in total slots across all 30 teams. Before the break began, he offered a verbal disclaimer and cautioned that if you didn’t understand the mechanics of what was about to transpire, you’d be better off leaving the virtual room altogether. Whatnot livestreams and their various sale formats and auction types can be confusing to first-timers or novices.
“Please understand the risk of this break,” Nezhoda told his viewers. “This is like roulette.”
“Eighty percent of you will most likely skunk,” he added.
For Nezhoda, that candor – coupled with his celebrity and strong relationships with trading card maker Topps, owned by Fanatics – have been crucial to a lucrative pivot away from his old business of reselling hauls from storage unit auctions, which was his and his wife Casey’s previous claim to fame. The move to selling sports cards – and specifically through live streamed events – has been so successful, he said, that Bargain Hunters Breaks should generate $15 million to $18 million in sales on Whatnot in 2025 alone. (Watching him in action on Whatnot, I quickly understood why. I haven’t purchased a pack of baseball cards since the 1990s but Nezhoda’s show still left me with a tantalizing urge to buy in.)
Nezhoda puts in long hours in this new sector, but it’s not the same grind as scouring storage unit auctions all over the country.
“The big battle was always sourcing product,” he said of his past business.
Given the current frothiness in the sports card market – where card makers release new sets frequently – and Nezhoda’s deep relationship with some card companies, his sourcing work has become much easier.
“I don’t have to hunt for product,” he said.
The next great e-commerce war
While Nezhoda has built a real big business and presence on Whatnot, he does host and sell elsewhere. His other main sales channel is Fanatics Live, a livestream commerce experience but one mainly focused on trading cards – at least for now. Nezhoda said that while Whatnot allows a broad range of sellers – from big companies like his to “somebody that breaks on their living room desk…and has a 9 to 5 [job] – “Fanatics Live is a lot more regulated.”
On the other hand, “Whatnot has the benefit of a lot of different categories,” he said, which attract different kinds of consumers who might not otherwise have come across his digital shop.
“You can pick up new customers – maybe a coin [collector] will see it, or a sneaker guy, and they’ll come over to trading cards.”
DJs perform at Whatnot booth at New York Comic Con
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for ReedPop
Then there’s the 30-year-old online collectible marketplace giant eBay. The company debuted its eBay Live streaming section in 2022, but has started pushing it aggressively over the past year. Nezhoda sees the onetime sleeping industry giant as a real, potential threat.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if eBay Live might become the market leader because they just have such a big user database,” he said. “But I actually think it’s great that we have different companies, different competitors, because it’s good for the ecosystem.”
The charm of the barroom
Spend some time on the app, and you’ll find shows that vary widely in production value and style. Some sellers like to present themselves to the audience face first, whether in card breaking or to show off and describe a collection of women’s clothes. Others keep the camera’s focus on the cards, with pounding hip hop setting the vibe, and an on-screen Google spreadsheet in view that’s keeping track of which viewer purchased which team or slot in the upcoming card break. And then there’s those who aren’t afraid to reveal their business anxieties – whether real or manufactured – and apply pressure to their viewers with the zealous schtick of an old-time ticket scalper. “Bid me up, chat!” is a refrain you might encounter.
On a recent afternoon, a sneaker seller auctioning off merchandise broke from his jovial demeanor to lay a demand on his audience.
“Do not buy that!” he barked after a collection of Patrick Ewing basketball sneakers was about to sell in his auction too quickly or perhaps well under the price he was looking for. A few beats later, looking dejected, it seemed like he was coming to grips that he had acted too late.
“We just got absolutely killed on those,” he lamented. “Gosh dang it! Fuck!”
It was unclear if the host was legitimately distraught, or rather a talented salesman wanting his audience to believe the sale in question was an amazing steal. Perhaps that’s part of the appeal.
On another day, A 20-something woman hawking luxury bags and other accessories struggled to suppress her laughter after mistakenly referring to high-end tree ornaments as “brown balls.” A few minutes later, she sold a $3,400 saddle purse like nothing.
Whatnot’s CEO said his company aggressively monitors customer feedback for complaints and refund requests, and will remove sellers who breach company thresholds. But he also contends that what might not seem like a quality and entertaining seller experience or setup to some viewers, may hold a different appeal for others. He likened it to how a dive bar may attract loyal customers who frequently visit because of a specific bartender or a connection with fellow patrons – factors that are more important to some than the grime that may cover the barroom floor.
“We want Whatnot to be open to all flavors and tastes,” he said.
Bid me up, chat!
Are you a current or former Whatnot employee, seller, or customer with thoughts on this topic or a tip to share? Contact Jason Del Rey at [email protected], [email protected], or through messaging apps Signal and WhatsApp at 917-655-4267. You can also contact him on LinkedIn or at @delrey on X, @jdelrey on Threads, and on Bluesky.
“Millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones. That kind of this is going to come to America.”
That was U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s pitch in April for the Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, the most radical shift in U.S. trade policy since the 1930s.
The administration has used many rationales for tariffs, but the one that seems to animate the president most is a wish to bring manufacturing back home to the U.S. Over the past few decades, many industries including tech have shipped most of their production overseas, where wages are lower, skilled labor is easier to find, and suppliers are more plentiful.
But reversing the status quo for companies like Apple is far more complicated than Trump lets on, if it’s possible at all. Behind a finished smartphone extends a chain of suppliers and assemblers, particularly in Asia, that is difficult to replace.
Trump’s wrecking ball to global trade has already proved too fast and too disruptive to encourage companies like Apple to quickly move their production to the U.S. Instead, to bring U.S. manufacturing back, Washington will need a more targeted, more methodical— and more stable—strategy, according to economists and experts who have spent years, if not decades, studying trade and global supply chains.
“There is no single industrial policy tool which will do this alone. It takes a whole ecosystem,” says Marc Fasteau, coauthor of Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries.
How it happened
Over the past several decades, manufacturing has steadily declined as a share of U.S. GDP, from around 25% in the 1950s to 10% today. Meanwhile, in Asian manufacturing powerhouses like China, Japan, and South Korea, the proportion has grown higher than 20%.
China, in particular, has captured much of the world’s manufacturing, thanks to a massive pool of skilled labor and deeply integrated supply chains. Countless industries—toys and household goods, consumer electronics, and even bespoke products—rely on Chinese factories.
“There’s this deep ecosystem of hundreds, if not thousands, of suppliers and sub-suppliers. You have amazing logistics within the country and then through the ports to the rest of the world,” says Dexter Roberts, a nonresident senior fellow at U.S. think tank Atlantic Council.
Also in China’s favor is that it has an “order of magnitude” more manufacturing workers (105 million) than the U.S. (13 million), notes Dan Wang, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Additionally, China has installed over half of the world’s industrial robots compared with the U.S.’s share of just 7%.
“You can collapse weeks’ worth of coordination time into just telling all of your suppliers that they need to be in your office at 8 a.m. tomorrow,” says Wang, who’s also author of the forthcoming book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future.
25% / 10%
U.S. manufacturing as a share of GDP in 1950s vs. today
The most popular images of Chinese manufacturing are complexes like “iPhone City,” a 5.6-million-square-meter campus where 300,000 workers assemble most of Apple’s smartphones. But that narrative is increasingly out-of-date.
China isn’t just an offshoring hub. Thanks to heavy investment, it has taken the lead from the U.S. in some key technologies, like electric vehicles and batteries. “The U.S. is in this very strange position of trying to engage in technological catch-up with a lower-wage competitor,” Wang says.
Some final assembly for U.S. Big Tech has moved to “China plus one” destinations like Vietnam, India, and Mexico. This strategy, which involves starting assembly in China and finishing it elsewhere, began under the first Trump administration and accelerated during COVID, when U.S. executives scrambled to find alternative manufacturing hubs after China went into lockdown.
The obvious incentive for companies, as Apple shows, is to create separate supply chains for different markets. When it comes to Apple, Yuqing Xing, at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, says China could continue to be a major supplier of iPhones for non-U.S. markets while India supplies the U.S. and Indian markets. Meanwhile, Vietnam would assemble Apple’s other products such as Mac laptops.
Still, even if the final assembly moves to Vietnam and India, the components must come from somewhere—likely China. And that might suit Beijing just fine, since China dominates many of the industries that produce those components. And yet, “China is not so sad to see this low-value manufacturing leave,” Roberts suggests, noting that Chinese officials are instead encouraging domestic production of higher-value items like semiconductors and batteries.
Estimated price of a U.S.-made iPhone: $3,500
105 million/13 million: number of manufacturing workers in CHina vs. U.S.
$500 billion: Apple’s promised U.S. investment over the next four years
300,000: Number of workers in China’s iPhone city
But there are risks from the U.S. side, too. Trump is not a fan of Apple’s shift to India, threatening tariffs on any iPhone that’s not made in the U.S. “I expect [Apple’s iPhones] that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump posted on social media in late May.
The U.S. still makes a lot of stuff, and a lot of that is high-end. Aircraft engines, chipmaking tools, and industrial machinery are just some of the manufactured goods still produced in and exported from the U.S.
A 145% tariff on Chinese goods, or even one at the 54% level first proposed by Trump on April 2, would have wiped out U.S.-China trade. Anything supplied by China for U.S. manufacturing would have become unaffordable immediately. Finished products from countries like Japan or Vietnam could be imported at a lower tax rate, even if they relied on Chinese components, and still undercut U.S.-made products on price.
After initially creating turmoil in the financial markets, Trump has backtracked on many of his original tariff plans. At the time this article was published, the U.S. had a 10% tariff on imports from most countries, 30% tariffs on imports from China, and 25% tariffs on goods deemed important to national security, such as steel and auto parts. Some final products, like smartphones and laptops, are exempt from import taxes.
“There is no single industrial policy tool which will do this alone. It takes a whole ecosystem.”
Marc Fasteau, coauthor, Industrial policy for the United States
Of course, the Trump administration could always decide to hike tariffs again later. Or perhaps the courts may strike down the entire tariff regime as an example of executive overreach, as some federal judges have suggested in recent weeks. In reality, no one knows what will come next, which makes it difficult for businesses to plan much of anything.
Is reshoring possible?
Trade deals, from a legal perspective, are also more squishy than proper trade agreements, which take months, if not years, to negotiate. Since they’re not legally binding, trade deals aren’t enforceable, nor is the Trump administration bound by its own promises. Many companies, in the short term, are therefore wary of pledging large investments in the U.S. Factories are expensive and take years to build—and constant policy changes don’t make the U.S. an attractive investment destination.
Still, even without tariffs, reshoring is a “fool’s errand,” Roberts says. Bringing something like the iPhone back to the U.S. would make it exorbitantly expensive. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, in an April report, estimated that producing an iPhone entirely in the U.S. would triple its price from $1,000 to $3,500.
The Trump administration may have tried to do too much too fast. “You want to start with a small tariff to indicate that you’re serious, and a schedule that ramps it up to track the developing ability of U.S. manufacturers to make this stuff a scale,” Fasteau says.
From the start, tech companies have tried to curry favor with the Trump administration to influence his policies. How much of that courtship is a product of the trade war and what it might accomplish are unclear. In mid-February, in anticipation of the coming import levies, Apple promised to invest $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, bringing its suppliers Foxconn and Wistron with it. Then in early March, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s leading chipmaker, promised to invest an additional $100 billion into its Arizona plant.
If Trump’s tariffs—in whatever form they take—aren’t the best way to encourage U.S. manufacturing, what could?
Fasteau thinks the answer is more investment in automation. The U.S., he says, has significantly underinvested in robotics, compared with other manufacturing hubs like China and Germany. “Without investment in robotics, I don’t see large-scale manufacturing being economically workable in the U.S.,” Fasteau says.
But perhaps most important, the U.S. needs to decide what kind of manufacturing it really wants. The answer, despite what Lutnick says, likely isn’t a U.S.-based iPhone factory.
“If U.S. policymakers really want iPhone manufacturing in the U.S., they should go visit China,” Xing says, implying that it would be eye-opening—in a bad way. “They should see how much workers are paid and what their working conditions are—then report that back to the U.S.”
This article appears in the June/July 2025: Asia issue of Fortune with the headline “Reviving U.S. tech is manufacturing is harder than you think.”
Yachting has long been the vacation style of choice amongst Europe’s ultra-wealthy. The continent offers manageable sailing distances, pleasant waters, and an abundance of spectacular coastlines and gorgeous islands to moor at.
Plus, Europe dominates the luxury yacht market, with shipbuilders in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands renowned for high-quality craftsmanship and technological innovation.
According to a new report published by Allied Market Research, the luxury yacht market size was valued at $5.8 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $12.8 billion by 2031, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8% from 2022 to 2031. In terms of volume, Europe occupied around two-thirds of the market share in 2020.
Research by Yacht Sourcing found that emerging markets in Eastern Europe are contributing to this soaring sector growth. Croatia and Montenegro have invested heavily in yachting infrastructure and are incentivizing foreign yacht purchases.
So here’s where Europe’s senior executives and C-suite of the Fortune 500 will be vacationing on yachts this summer and how sailing trips are gaining favor as a way for luxury travelers to escape overcrowded hotels and destinations.
The trending yachting destinations of Europe’s most powerful
Southern Italy, the French Riviera, the Greek Aegean islands, and Turkey’s Turquoise Coast are some of Europe’s classic yachting hotspots. But according to Nick Hatfield, managing director of Sanlorenzo Yachts UK, the top destinations he is seeing for this year in the Mediterranean are the Balearic Islands. Mallorca is proving to be a particular favorite, thanks to its “unique blend of stunning coastlines, crystal clear water and vibrant cultural heritage,” he says.
Croatia is also on the rise, with more yachts being based along and visiting the Dalmatian coast. “Its popularity is growing as it is less crowded and more secluded than other destinations yet still offers the same, sought after azure waters and sunshine,” Hatfield says.
He adds that the stern to mooring (where yachts are lined up along a marina or quay) along the coastline “ensures guests can enjoy easy access to the shore and make the most of the yacht’s beach clubs and water toys.”
The annual calendar of Europe’s most glamorous events also influences the popularity of destinations. “Events like the Monaco Grand Prix or Cannes Film Festival cause fluctuations in where charters might visit, if they haven’t originated in these areas—that’s the beauty of a luxury yacht, you can visit more than one destination in a charter,” Hatfield says.
Luxury yachts are becoming an alternative to high-end hotels
As overtourism strains Europe’s vacation hotspots, the ultra high net worth (UHNW) are increasingly turning to yachts to escape the crowds, Hatfield says. “We’re certainly seeing yachting enjoy renewed momentum among individuals seeking alternatives to traditional holidays as charter experiences offer greater privacy, flexibility, and a sense of true freedom,” he explains.
This is “something which is becoming more important to the UHNW as many stunning destinations are becoming more accessible to a growing number of travellers, making them more crowded and less exclusive,” he adds.
“Events like the Monaco Grand Prix or Cannes Film Festival cause fluctuations in where charters might visit, if they haven’t originated in these areas—that’s the beauty of a luxury yacht, you can visit more than one destination in a charter.”
As such, yachts are increasingly favored as an alternative to high-end hotels: “No matter how exclusive a hotel is, you are still sharing it with others, whereas on a charter it is just you and your chosen guests and/or family with everything designed just for you,” Hatfield says.
Plus, today’s yachts can easily rival the amenities of even the most exclusive hotels, with spas, gyms, cinemas, beauty salons, helipads, wine cellars and hottubs.
The 278-feet Fountainhead, built for American billionaire and former CEO of the Sears retail group, Eddie Lampert, has an open-air basketball court. While on board the 258-feet Feadship Hampshire II, guests can play badminton, tennis, and football on the expansive foredeck, equipped with specially designed nets to prevent balls from going overboard. The yacht, owned by British billionaire and Ineos CEO Sir Jim Ratcliffe, also has a zipline and a squash court.
The 278-feet Fountainhead, built for American billionaire and former CEO of the Sears retail group, Eddie Lampert, has an open-air basketball court.
Angela Rowlings/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images
Onboard greenery is another superyacht luxury. The VSY Stella Maris features a glass-walled, vertical garden that rises up from the main deck to the level above, while the Benetti Ocean Paradise calms guests with a Zen garden in the main-deck foyer that is redesigned every day.
So as Europe’s hotspot destinations fill up, the ultra-wealthy are investing in yachting as the ultimate luxury of crowd-free, exclusive, personalized experiences.
– Soda success. Ten years ago, Allison Ellsworth started mixing fruit, apple cider vinegar and soda water in her kitchen with the goal of making a “healthy” soda that was low in sugar and high in fiber. Last month, PepsiCo closed the acquisition of Ellsworth’s beverage company, now known as Poppi, for $1.95 billion (this figure includes an estimated $300 million of cash tax benefits).
“From day one, we knew that this [selling the company] was always something we wanted to do,” says Ellsworth, who cofounded Poppi with her husband, Stephen, and will remain with the brand as a creative advisor. It was PepsiCo who made the first approach, and the big draw from Poppi’s perspective—in addition to the dollar signs, of course—was the impact an acquisition would have on its distribution system, she adds. In 2024, Poppi, which brands itself as “prebiotic soda,” had annual revenue of more than $500 million, according to the company, and was sold in over 120 different retailers, including Whole Foods, Target and CVS. It is currently only available in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. “There were places we couldn’t get in before, like sports arenas and certain fast casual restaurants,” Austin-based Ellsworth explains. “Now we have a Ferrari underneath us for distribution.” (The “functional” beverages market, meaning drinks that claim to offer health benefits beyond hydration, was worth around $175.5 billion in 2022 and is expected to soar to $339.6 billion by 2030.)
Allison Ellsworth founded Poppi in 2020 and is now an advisor to the company.
Courtesy of Poppi
It’s a remarkable trajectory for a company that only officially launched in 2020, and one facilitated in part by Ellsworth’s determination that Poppi be “a community” at the intersection of wellness and influencer culture, rather than a straightforward drinks brand. “We are not just a soda,” she says. Cans of Poppi come in 16 flavors and are known for their bold, neon branding and celebrity fans (Olivia Munn, Post Malone, Alix Earle and Nicole Scherzinger are all investors). Ellsworth, who in 2018 appeared on Shark Tank while nine months pregnant, resulting in a $400,000 investment from Rohan Oza, is the face of the brand. She frequently communicates with its approximately 1.2 million followers across Instagram and TikTok, announcing new initiatives and addressing controversy when it arises. Notably, Poppi has recently settled a class action lawsuit for $8.9 million, following allegations from a consumer that the company’s marketing promises around gut health are misleading. One can contains 3 grams of fiber and 5 grams of sugar, according to the company. The lawsuit contends that the drinks would need more prebiotic fiber and less sugar to positively impact digestion. “It’s something that big brands go through,” says Ellsworth of the lawsuit. “It feels good that it’s behind us.” The company’s official statement on the settlement adds that Poppi “acknowledges no fault, liability or wrongdoing.”
Ellsworth compares handing over the reins of her company to watching a child go off to college. “You’re happy but you have anxiety,” she says. “You want to see it flourish, but you want to hold on. But I have a calmness. We did good. Poppi is in good hands.”
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It’s a question I’ve been asking a lot of folks recently. Mostly because I get them all the time, at least a few a week, sometimes a dozen. And quite frankly it puts me on edge. I immediately wonder if I’ve met that person before, and dive into my recent past, reevaluating phone calls, networking events, and email exchanges, to see if it’s someone I’ve met and then forgotten.
The whole process can be exhausting—but now I know I’m not alone. Most professionals don’t have the time to “go through all the mental gymnastics” around whether or not they’ve met someone, and if they should accept their request, says Andrew McCaskill, a career expert at LinkedIn with more than 30,000 followers on the platform. He regularly gets 10 requests or more each day from people he’s never met. And while he will consider each one, he doesn’t accept them all.
“I’ve got a lot of followers, and there are a lot of people that will hit me up, and I’m constantly trying to figure out how to triage it,” he says.
McCaskill along with other career experts tell me that there is no formal blueprint for how to handle these requests, because the choice is often so personal. While some people see their network as a large net and accept as many folks as possible, others (like myself) prefer to curate who they interact with. I personally prefer to reserve my connections for people I have met in my real professional life: current and former managers and colleagues, sources, peers, alumni, and other journalists and editors.
“A lot of people hate getting a LinkedIn connection request from a random person, because it’s a bit uncomfortable,” says Gracy Sarkissian, associate dean of Columbia Business School’s Career Management Center. “On the other hand networking is about engaging with both people that you know in your personal network, as well as people who are a couple of degrees removed. And those are the folks who have proved to be the most valuable resources during a job search.”
Neither system is inherently wrong. But for anyone planning to send a connection request to someone they’ve never met, there is one golden rule: write a short note about who you are, and why you’re sending the invite in the first place.
“If I’m looking at a line of people who are asking me for a direct connection, I’m going to look at the note first,” says McCaskill. “Writing the note says that I don’t just want a connection, I’d like you to be my connection.”
Read more here on whether or not to accept or decline LinkedIn requests from strangers.
On the campaign trail last year, then-candidate Donald Trump promised the crypto industry that he would become the first president to embrace blockchain technology. At the time, he didn’t reveal that he also planned to make crypto a cornerstone of his growing business empire.
On Friday, the White House released Trump’s first financial disclosure report as president, revealing new details on his web of business ventures, including his golf courses, sponsorship deals, and publicly traded media group. Notably, the report also provided a window into Trump’s crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, which his sons announced last summer.
According to the disclosures, Trump has earned over $57 million from token sales on the platform and holds nearly 16 billion of the governance tokens—the crypto version of voting shares—launched by World Liberty. Based on earlier sales of those tokens to accredited investors, which valued them between 1.5 and five cents, Trump’s holdings could be worth nearly $1 billion, though the token is not currently trading. Bloomberg recently estimated his total net worth at around $5.4 billion.
As government watchdogs argue that Trump’s ventures in the crypto industry represent a conflict of interest with Congress debating blockchain regulation, the new report provides the first substantial look at the president’s increasing entanglement with digital assets.
The first crypto president
Before his third run for president, Trump had expressed skepticism of crypto, describing Bitcoin as a “scam” just a few years ago. But he increasingly embraced the blockchain industry on the campaign trail last year as companies such as Coinbase and Ripple poured tens of millions of dollars into donations—a reaction to the Biden administration’s crackdown on the sector.
Trump not only touted the technology at industry events, including a Bitcoin conference last summer, but also began to explore his own ventures in the space. Trump had previously launched a series of NFTs, but the newer projects represented a full-blown move into the crypto business, primarily through the vehicle of World Liberty Financial.
The platform, first announced by his son Eric last August, promised a “new era of finance,” though its exact function is still unknown. In the ensuing months, World Liberty has launched a series of products. That has included the governance token, as well as a dollar-pegged stablecoin called USD1, which an Emirati investment firm used to invest $2 billion into the leading crypto exchange Binance in May.
While the exact ownership structure of World Liberty, as well as Trump’s potential profit from token sales, remained largely opaque, the financial disclosure report offers the first details on the president’s profit, including the $57 million earned off token sales. World Liberty offered WLFI to accredited investors, including the Chinese crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, who had previously faced charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission that were dropped after Trump took office.
The report does not include details on Trump’s other major crypto project—his memecoin, also called Trump, which he launched the weekend before his inauguration. While Trump’s memecoin has plummeted in value since its release, dropping from a market capitalization of $9 billion in January to around $2 billion today, it has remained a source of potential profit—and controversy—for Trump, whose organization likely owns around 80% of the total supply. Trump hosted a dinner for the top holders of the memecoin in May, drawing criticism from lawmakers across the aisle and even industry lobbyists.
Trump continues to advance crypto industry priorities, including legislation in Congress that would establish regulation for stablecoins and token issuance. But even as real estate dominates his holdings, Friday’s financial disclosure report demonstrates the increasing importance of crypto to his business empire.
President Donald Trump (C) speaks alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (L) and White House Crypto Czar David Sacks at the The White House Digital Assets Summit at the White House on March 07, 2025
Sales of Tesla vehicles in the U.S. fell 16% in April, according to data from S&P Global Mobility cited by trade publication Automotive News. With a share of 40%, even the slightest weakness at Elon Musk’s company has a disproportionate effect in monthly EV sales. Musk meanwhile has dismissed concerns he has a demand problem on his hands.
When Tesla sneezes, the entire U.S. electric vehicle market catches a cold.
Elon Musk’s company led overall sales of zero-emission cars lower in April, marking the first year-on-year drop in EV sales for 14 months, according to Automotive News.
The Detroit-based trade publication cited data published by S&P Global Mobility that showed Americans bought roughly 97,800 EVs, or 4.4% fewer than last year.
The chief culprit behind the decline was Tesla, whose volumes sank 16% to just below 40,000 for April. By comparison Chevrolet saw its business triple from comparatively low levels on the back of the new Equinox crossover, which blew past all Tesla models in terms of actual real world range.
Neither Tesla nor S&P Global Mobility responded to a request from Fortune made outside normal business hours.
Tesla’s 40% share means it dictates the direction of America’s EV market
Musk made EVs desirable in the U.S., first in 2012 with the Model S sedan that revolutionized the industry, and then eight years later landing a smash hit with the more affordable Model Y crossover.
Despite his success, the rest of the U.S. industry either could not—in the case of EV upstarts like Rivian—or would not follow. Even in its currently weakened state, Tesla still accounts for roughly four out of every 10 EVs sold in the United States, versus market shares of below 10% for its two closest rivals—Chevrolet and Ford.
With such a dominant position, even the slightest declines have a disproportionately large effect on the overall market.
Normally sales figures for April published in June would be considered stale at this point, but there is a dearth of timely data when it comes to the size of the U.S. electric vehicle industry. The market is a laggard compared to most other wealthy and industrialized countries, where EV demand is helped by high fuel taxes.
Musk has dismissed concerns that Tesla has a demand problem
Tesla’s poor results in the U.S. in April confirm a trend that had already emerged in Europe and China, suggesting the company will find it increasingly difficult to meet its full-year forecast for an unspecified return to growing car sales.
Sales are already down 13% in the first quarter, and June needs to be a very strong month to at least eke out stagnant volumes for the current quarter. More troubling for Tesla, there has been no indication of a new model on the horizon, beyond a seven-seat Model Y, despite Musk’s promise since April 2024 that one would launch before the end of June.
Meanwhile the CEO has aggravated some investors by consistently dismissing concerns that Tesla’s core car business is in a protracted slump, one for which he is ultimately responsible. Not only did he kill off his planned $25,000 low cost car in favor of one without any manual controls whatsoever, his political activism has also provoked a customer boycott.
“Don’t worry about it,” he recently said, asked about the slump in Tesla EV sales. “They’re fine.”
Every venture investor tells their portfolio companies that they’re more than just a check. They help with introductions, they help with recruiting, and they help with going public. Some have even been operators themselves and encountered the same problems as their startup founders. But how many full-time VCs can boast that they helped build the biggest tech companies in the world?
There’s Marc Andreessen, of course, and Peter Thiel and Vinod Khosla. David Fischer, a partner at 01 Advisors, may not yet have the same name recognition, though he served as a vice president of sales at Google and then chief revenue officer at Facebook as both companies burst out of the stratosphere. And for founders hoping to scale their companies from zero to one in this era of hyper-speed, Fischer’s background may make him as valuable as the giants of Sand Hill Road.
I met with Fischer this spring in 01A’s New York office, which is in the same Lower Manhattan building that houses Union Square Ventures and Inspired Capital. Even before Fischer joined the VC ranks during the pandemic, he took a circuitous route into tech. He worked briefly as a journalist before a stint at the Treasury Department for Larry Summers, which is where he met his future boss at Google and Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg. (Fischer’s father, the famed economist and central banker Stanley Fischer, recently passed away.)
After attending Stanford Business School, Fischer entered Silicon Valley at a transformative time for the tech sector, joining Google in 2002 right after it launched AdWords and was beginning to bring in revenue. He spent eight years at the search giant before Facebook hired him to pull off the same feat. When Fischer started, Facebook had about 1,200 employees, $750 million in revenue, and had yet to wade into mobile. Its acquisition of Instagram and IPO were still two years away. “Ads were a little bit of an afterthought,” Fischer tells me. When he left in 2021, Facebook’s revenue had topped $100 billion.
So, where do you go next? Fischer may not have been in the first 10 or 100 employees at either tech behemoth, but he had experienced the addictive period when a company goes from product-market fit to market domination—and in the case of Google and Facebook, world domination. “I always like to take what I’ve learned before and bring it to do something real and rewarding,” Fischer says.
He began to channel that into investing, first as an angel and then connecting with two friends who had started their own firm. Fischer isn’t the only former operator at 01A—the firm was founded by former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, as well as Fischer’s one-time counterpart at Twitter in the CRO role, Adam Bain. Fischer joined full-time for 01A’s third fund, a $395 million vehicle it launched in October 2023.
At a time when many VC firms are either looking for early or late-stage investments, 01A takes a more down-the-middle approach, mostly writing Series B checks of about $15 million. It’s not quite the stage that Fischer joined Google and Facebook, or Costolo and Bain joined Twitter, but it’s still that same sweet spot where a company has a viable product but needs to figure out how to sell it. “That’s the time you actually need some counsel from some folks who ideally have done this before,” Fischer tells me. 01A helps with those key questions, from transitioning from founder-led sales to a real sales operation to building out the executive team to sizing up the competitive landscape. “Sometimes it’s just talking it through,” Fischer adds. “Being a founder is incredibly solitary.”
01A funds a variety of verticals, though only one startup in the advertising and marketing tech space, which may seem surprising given the background of its partners—a San Francisco-based company called Haus, founded by a former Google employee, that helps companies quantify the effectiveness of their marketing. 01A led a $20 million investment into the company last year after Insight Partners backed an earlier round.
The firm’s partners may have helped lead three of the fastest-growing companies in Silicon Valley history, but Fischer acknowledged that the rise of AI is creating a new ballgame. He’ll sit through a pitch now where the founder puts a chart on the screen showing that their annual recurring revenue is going from zero to $10 million faster than Apple, Google, and Meta. “That’s amazing,” Fischer says. “The only problem with it is, I’ve had four other people this month put the same chart up, and two of them are your competitors.”
Still, he thinks that while revenue timeframes may be accelerated, that’s the same for everyone. In other words, there will still only be a few winners per category—the competition is just able to grow faster. Having a head start doesn’t mean much anymore. “Before we make an investment, we have to really have conviction that this is a company that can win,” Fischer says.
ICYMI…I had the exclusive this morning on flexible labor platform WorkWhile’s $23 million Series B. Read the full story here. —Allie Garfinkle
Amex CEO Steve Squeri wants more high-spending Millennials and Gen Z-ers to join his company’s upper echelon ranks. And he’s starting to give hints of just how exactly he plans to lure more of them to the fold, announcing on June 16 that the company will implement a big upgrade late this summer, or in the early fall to its Platinum card. The company says this will be its biggest investment ever in a card program. “We’ll see two areas of investments,” adds Howard Grosfield, Group President for U.S. Consumer Services. “We’ll double down on all the things our cardmembers love now. And we’ll be adding lots of exciting new brands.”
Amex has positioned the Platinum card as the most expensive in its class at $695 a year (Chase Sapphire at a comparable level costs $550.) But as Grosfield points out, the Millennials and Gen Z crowd believe they’re reaping value well beyond the annual price of entry. The proof: The groups covering the mid-20s to mid-40s age spectrum now account for 75% of Amex’s new accounts acquired on its two premium cards, Platinum and Gold, for 2024, up from 60% in 2019. In the twelve months from Q1 2024 to Q1 2025, their spending surged by 40%, yet the credit record for the two demographics proved better than the industry average. The fast-rising numbers signing on at $695 helped increase net card fee revenue last year by 18%. These youthful troops, says Amex, are proving extremely loyal. The company doesn’t disclose quit rates by category, but avows that its all-in retention figure stands at 99%.
The strategy dates back to 2021, when three years into the job, Squeri reckoned that the financial services giant’s best path to growth lay in attracting a far younger generation of shoppers than the affluent boomers that had traditionally formed his enterprise’s—and the industry’s—main target. Squeri took aim at Millennials, now 29 to 44, and Gen Z’ers, today’s twenty-somethings, and narrowed his sweet-spot for Platinum to the high-income layer boasting excellent credit records.
Prior to that refresh, the Platinum benefits focused on travel, chiefly offering deals on the likes of hotel stays, airfares, and access to airport lounges. As the COVID lockdown lifted, Squeri and his team reckoned that the Millennial and Gen Z elite would be craving fresh adventures. So Amex greatly broadened its offerings to cover the breadth of their athletic, treat-seeking lifestyles by adding perks in entertainment, wellness and upscale shopping. Amex also recognized that this cohort comprising everything from lawyers, to investment bankers, to software engineers and rising executives didn’t pay like their parents. These were digital natives who often didn’t even carry cash, and charged virtually everything on their cards. They were earning more points toward more goodies than any other generations, and getting hooked. Plus, they relished apps that by tapping a few clicks, could bring them a seat in the hottest new restaurants that were always “booked,” or arrange a tennis lesson on red clay courts during business trip to Paris.
The wider menu of perks proved a big time lure for the younger set
The carrot that attracted the younger generation: a new array of perks covering all territories of their leisure lives. They added a digital entertainment benefit award of $240 a year towards subscriptions for such providers as the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu. Amex tapped the Millennial and Gen Z yen for Uber by awarding $200 a year for rides on the service, and cardholders garner $300 each towards memberships at Equinox and SoulCycle. As for shopping, Platinum bridges luxe to daily staples, furnishing a $100 credit at Saks Fifth Avenue and Walmart+ membership offering discounts on fuel and in-home pickups for returns. The travel services are trending more more and more to the one-on-one and bespoke: AMEX’s crew of 7,000 personal travel consultants can plan your itinerary for holidays in Croatia or book you at a rock concert at Wembley.
AMEX also hit an ace by making a major foray into restaurant reservations. Its first move came in 2018, the year Squeri advanced to CEO, via the acquisition of Resy; its app guarantees Platinum holders bookings at super-popular eateries where it would normally take days or weeks to get a table. Today, Resi partners with 20,000 restaurants in thirty countries, and last year bought Tock, another big player that added 7,000 culinary partners, including for the first time, wineries from Napa to the Loire Valley. “We’re the only credit card operator with our own restaurant reservations platform,” says Amex’s Grosfield. “We unlock access to the world’s most sought-after tables.”
Good morning. Is the segment of crypto-friendly CFOs growing? That appears to be the case, as pursuing blockchain initiatives is becoming increasingly common.
Fortune’s Catherine McGrath reported last week that about 60% of Fortune 500 executives say their companies are “working on blockchain initiatives,” according to a new survey published by crypto exchange Coinbase in partnership with GLG Research. This is a 4% increase from last year.
The report also highlighted that 81% of crypto-aware, small- and medium-sized businesses are interested in using stablecoins to address their biggest financial pain points. That belief is catching on at large companies, with more than three times as many Fortune 500 executives now exploring stablecoins compared to last year, according to Coinbase.
Fortune’s Leo Schwartz and Ben Weiss exclusively reported that Meta is in discussions with crypto firms to introduce stablecoins as a means to manage payouts, and has also hired a VP of product with crypto experience to help shepherd the discussions. Amazon and Walmart are also looking into issuing their own stablecoins, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Shifting political dynamics have sparked renewed interest in blockchain among mainstream U.S. corporations. The Trump administration has advocated for a clear regulatory framework for crypto in support of the industry.
The crypto industry also is currently experiencing a surge in IPO activity. Circle, a leading issuer of the USDC stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, went public this month with a valuation of $8 billion. Several other crypto companies also have filed for IPOs or are reportedly exploring the possibility.
Are legacy financial institutions at large prepared for crypto? Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton, doesn’t think so. Johnson helms a nearly 80-year-old, publicly traded financial institution. She writes in a Fortune opinion piece that financial institutions have attempted to integrate digital asset technology for more than 10 years “with little to show for their efforts,” as the total value of blockchain-based finance comprises less than 1% of the $300 trillion global system.
“We believe that the portfolios of the future will increasingly move away from today’s account-based system and rely instead on digital wallets that can hold a limitless number of tokenized assets in a single place—all of which can be transferred instantly, as well as lent out or staked for additional yield,” Johnson writes. She adds, “The advantages of blockchain are so compelling that we don’t foresee the shift to digital-asset technology being slow or incremental. Indeed, we expect our industry will evolve more in the next five years than in the last 50.”
Have you ever planned part of a vacation stay around a free breakfast? Whether it’s sitting down for eggs and waffles or having a coffee and banana to go, complimentary morning meals are a key factor for many travelers when choosing a hotel. Unfortunately, as we head into the summer travel season, some popular hotel brands are reconsidering this popular perk.
Take, for instance, Hyatt Place—one of Hyatt’s largest select-service brands—which has long been known for offering complimentary breakfast. But that’s changing at more than 40 U.S. properties, where a pilot program launched in November has removed free breakfast for all guests. The website now states, “Free breakfast at most hotels.” Instead, these hotels offer rate options: some include breakfast, others do not, and guests can pay separately if they wish. Hyatt Globalist members still receive the free breakfast benefit. Hyatt did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment on whether the pilot program has expanded.
Industry analysts have confirmed that a number of hotels are moving to limit or eliminate what guests can munch on in the morning.
“We are aware that some brands have been testing room rate structures inclusive or exclusive of breakfast, grab-and-go options, or programs where complimentary breakfasts are only offered to loyalty members,” Rachael Rothman, head of hotels research and data analytics at CBRE Group, told Fortune.
According to Zach Demuth, global head of hotels research at JLL, Hyatt Place targets value-driven, price-sensitive guests—often longer-stay travelers who prefer larger rooms in secondary markets. At the pilot hotels, guests who opt out of breakfast get discounts or extra loyalty points. Demuth noted, “That consumer is heavily driven by value, specifically price value.” He added it’s too early to judge the program’s success, but Hyatt and others believe replacing free breakfast with alternative benefits could boost demand.
St. Regis Macao, part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio, is also testing changes. As of March 1, complimentary breakfast was eliminated for Marriott Bonvoy Platinum, Titanium, and Ambassador members at this property. Instead, eligible guests receive bonus points or a local amenity, and Platinum status and above members receive a breakfast discount. On the dining page of the hotel’s website, under “Frequently Asked Questions,” it now states: “Complimentary breakfast is not currently served at The St. Regis Macao.” A Marriott representative told Fortune this is a property-specific test, not a broader brand policy.
Demuth said luxury travelers often don’t value free breakfast as much as other perks. “For luxury brands, giving top-tier loyalty members free breakfast really doesn’t do anything for that member—basically, they could care less,” he said.
Why breakfast still matters
Despite these pilots, Rothman emphasized that major global hotel brands are not eliminating complimentary breakfast across the board. “Breakfast is a cost [for hotel brands], without a doubt, but it can also be a key differentiator and can create value through higher rates and higher occupancy levels,” she said.
CBRE research shows that hotels offering complimentary breakfast outperform those that don’t, with revenue per available room (RevPAR) growth more than doubling that of brands without the amenity since 2013. (The data is based on the public filings of Choice, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Marriott, and Wyndham.) This may explain the outperformance of upper-midscale brands, which are more likely to offer breakfast, according to the report.
So why are some brands testing the removal of free breakfast? Demuth explained that many guests prefer to explore local dining rather than eat at the hotel, making complimentary meals less of a draw and more of a cost. “The reality is that, sure, breakfast at a hotel is great, but that doesn’t necessarily allow you to experience the destination,” he said.
For now, complimentary breakfast remains a staple at most major hotel brands, but shifting guest preferences and rising costs are prompting some properties to experiment with new models. Whether these changes catch on more broadly remains to be seen—but for many travelers, that early-morning hotel breakfast is still part of the journey.
The first direct flight from the U.S. to Greenland by an American airline landed in the capital city of Nuuk Saturday evening and is set to make its return flight on Sunday morning.
The United Airlines-operated Boeing 737 Max 8 departed from Newark International Airport in New Jersey at 11:31 a.m. EDT (1531 GMT) on Saturday and arrived a little over four hours later, at 6:39 p.m. local time (1939 GMT), according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.
A one-way ticket from Newark to Nuuk cost roughly $1,200. The return flight had a $1,300 to $1,500 price tag.
Saturday’s flight marks the first direct passage between the U.S. and the Arctic island in nearly 20 years. In 2007, Air Greenland launched a route between Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and Kangerlussuaq Airport, some 315 kilometers (195 miles) north of Nuuk. It was scrapped the following year due to cost.
Warren Rieutort-Louis, a 38-year-old passenger from San Francisco, decided to visit Nuuk for just one night to be a part of the historic flight.
“I’ve been to Greenland before, but never this way around. I came the other way through Europe, so to be able to come straight is really amazing,” Rieutort-Louis said after the plane landed.
The United Airlines flight took place on U.S. President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday, which was celebrated in Washington with a controversial military parade that was part of the Army’s long-planned 250th anniversary celebration.
Trump has repeatedly said he seeks control of Greenland, a strategic Arctic island that’s a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, and has not ruled out military force.
The governments of Denmark, a NATO ally, and Greenland have said it is not for sale and condemned reports of the U.S. stepping up intelligence gathering on the mineral-rich island.
United announced the flight and its date in October, before Trump was re-elected. It was scheduled for 2025 to take advantage of the new Nuuk airport, which opened in late November and features a larger runway for bigger jets.
“United will be the only carrier to connect the U.S. directly to Nuuk — the northernmost capital in the world, providing a gateway to world-class hiking and fascinating wildlife under the summer’s midnight sun,” the company said in a statement at the time.
Saturday’s flight kicked off the airline’s twice weekly seasonal service, from June to September, between Newark and Nuuk. The plane has around 165 seats.
Previously, travelers had to take a layover in Iceland or Copenhagen, Denmark, before flying to Greenland.
The new flight is beneficial for the island’s business and residents, according to Greenland government minister Naaja Nathanielsen.
Tourists will spend money at local businesses, and Greenlanders themselves will now be able to travel to the U.S. more easily, Nathanielsen, the minister for business, mineral resources, energy, justice and gender equality, told Danish broadcaster DR. The route is also an important part of diversifying the island’s economy, she said. Fishing produces about 90% of Greenland’s exports.
Tourism is increasingly important. More than 96,000 international passengers traveled through the country’s airports in 2023, up 28% from 2015.
Jessica Litolff, a 26-year-old passenger from Louisiana, said she also hopes the new route will benefit the U.S. and Greenland.
“Distance-wise it’s only like four and a half hours, so by flying you can get to Greenland faster than you can to some parts of the United States,” she said.
Visit Greenland echoed Nathanielsen’s comments. The government’s tourism agency did not have projections on how much money the new flights would bring to the island.
“We do know that flights can bring in much more than just dollars, and we expect it to have a positive impact — both for the society and travellers,” Tanny Por, Visit Greenland’s head of international relations, told The Associated Press in an email.
Aria Varasteh, a 34-year-old traveler from Washington, had wanted to travel to Greenland “for a very long time.”
“I do hope that we receive a warm reception from the locals. From those I’ve talked to already, it seems that they’re excited to have us here,” Varasteh said. “And so we’re excited to be here and just be the best versions of ourselves.”
Scott Boatwright always aimed to be a CEO. Not just any CEO but the leader of a Fortune 500 company. That moment arrived in late 2024 when he was elevated to the top job at Chipotle after Brian Niccol left to lead Starbucks. But as Boatwright shared at the recent Fortune COO Summit, the jump from second-in-command to chief executive is less a step up and more a transformation.
A CEO today has to run a great business, manage a great stock, and, ultimately, shape a lasting organizational legacy, Boatwright said. As COO, he and Niccol were a strong pairing, he said, because he focused on operations, while Niccol excelled at communicating the company’s growth story to investors. One of the hardest adjustments as CEO, Boatwright admitted, is shifting from pulling the levers himself to managing outcomes through others—and doing so while building investor confidence and long-term vision. “It’s just a completely different job,” he said.
Other newly minted CEOs echoed that learning curve. Howard Hochhauser, the CEO of Ancestry.com and its former COO and CFO, stepped into the role earlier this year at the private equity-backed company. Although he’d previously served as interim chief executive, the weight of the job still caught him off guard once permanently in the role. “Everybody wants a successful exit,” he said. “To do that, you have to grow the company. And now I’m spending 110% of my time on growth.”
At Xerox, Steve Bandrowczak stepped into the CEO role in 2023 following the sudden passing of John Visentin. He had spent five years as COO, was a seasoned CIO, and had attended numerous board and committee meetings. But once he became CEO, the stakes shifted.
“COOs drive change. COOs make cultural shifts, drive outputs,” Bandrowczak said at the Fortune COO Summit. “The difference as a CEO is you’re now the leader, the face of the company. So you’ve got to be able to drive the culture with shareholders, with employees, with partners, but more importantly, understanding things that you did not know, and the admission of the things that you did not know.”
Bandrowczak encouraged aspiring CEOs to take governance and leadership courses to prepare for the transition to the corner office. And as a teacher of rising executives himself, he offered one consistent piece of advice: “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”
At 16, Jarah Euston landed her first job at a Party City—on the better days, as the balloon person.
“It was my first job ever, and I blew up the balloons with the helium,” she said. “But the worst possible job you could have at Party City was called go-backs—take a shopping cart full of tchotchkes that parents didn’t actually want to buy and put them back on the pegboard. You have to find, say, where this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle goody bag goes, and hang it back up.”
Euston, who grew up in Fresno, Calif, is now the CEO and cofounder of flexible labor platform WorkWhile. The startup, which she founded in 2019 after stints at Yahoo and Nexla, focuses on people working the “frontline,” hourly jobs that she says are the norm in places like Fresno.
“I want to build something for the people I grew up with, the people who work frontline jobs in Fresno,” she told Fortune. “And not just the people in Fresno, but the 80 million Americans working hourly jobs. It’s more than half of the U.S. labor force. And globally, 80% of all workers are working these types of jobs. So, how do we apply technology to improve their situation?”
For Euston, part of the solution lay in flexibility—technology that sets up a marketplace where workers can be matched with temporary jobs, adjusting their roles, schedules, and locations to better shape and control their workweek. Six years in, the platform now serves over one million users and employs 63 people.
Now, the startup has raised a $23 million Series B, Fortune has exclusively learned. Rethink Impact led the round, with participation from returning investors Khosla Ventures and Reach Capital. Citi Impact Fund, GingerBread Capital, and Illumen Capital also invested. Simon Khalaf, ex-CEO of fintech Marqeta, also recently joined WorkWhile as COO. The startup has worked with vendors serving Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, the Super Bowl, NASCAR, the NCAA Final Four, Comic-Con, Edible Arrangements, Thistle, and Worldpac.
WorkWhile’s rise signals that the gig economy is maturing—but many of its long-standing controversies remain. In 2024, the company became tangled in a familiar legal battle for gig companies: it was sued by the San Francisco City Attorney, who alleged WorkWhile had misclassified the workers on its platform as independent contractors, denying them the rights and benefits afforded to employees.
The case is part of the ongoing fallout from California’s Proposition 22, the 2020 ballot initiative that classified most gig workers as independent contractors. In December 2024, WorkWhile agreed to a partial $1 million settlement and committed to reclassifying its non-driver workers as employees. Litigation over the classification of delivery drivers, however, is still ongoing.
“Prop 22 is the law of the land and was upheld by the California Supreme Court, affirming this important right of drivers to work as independent contractors,” Euston added via email. “Our platform users have been very clear with us: they want flexibility. We respect our users’ right to work flexibly and will continue to advocate for it.”
Josh Queenan, a WorkWhile user the company connected me with, said he deeply values the flexibility the platform offers—and that it’s helped him transform his financial life. He told Fortune he earns an extra $5,000 to $6,000 a month, which he puts toward stock investments and is looking to use to buy investment property.
“If I want to cancel a shift, I just give a 24 hour notice, and press the cancel button,” said Queenan. “I have peace of mind, I know that somebody else is going to pick up the shift and that the company we work with isn’t going to be screwed. That’s a huge selling point for WorkWhile.”
For her part, Euston still regularly works shifts via WorkWhile.
“It keeps you up at night, I want to make sure workers on the platform feel they’re the center of WorkWhile,” she said. “That’s why we’re at a startup. The whole point is to help people earn a better living and live better lives. If we don’t put them front and center, that won’t happen. That’s why we try to work shifts.”
So, in some ways Euston’s Party City days are long gone, and in others they’re close—lots of the shifts she works are similar kinds of jobs. With one exception: last year, she took a gig at the Eras Tour last year.
“My job was crowd control,” Euston laughed. “I was telling people ‘you can’t dance on the chairs.’ And as the night went on, the moms got progressively more loosey goosey!”
DespiteMeta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI that is shaking up the AI landscape, OpenAI plans to keep working with the startup, according to CFO Sarah Friar. Friar emphasized the importance of maintaining a diverse vendor ecosystem to support AI development. Meanwhile, Scale’s other key customers like Google, Microsoft, and xAI are reportedly looking to distance themselves from the startup.
OpenAI’s CFO, Sarah Friar, says the company plans to continue working with Scale AI despite the startup’s recent multi-billion-dollar partnership with rival Meta.
“We don’t just buy from Scale,” Friar said at the Viva Technology conference in Paris. “We work with many vendors on the data front.”
“As models have gotten smarter, you’re going into a place where you need real expertise…we have academics and experts telling us that they are finding novel things in their space,” she said. “We don’t want to ice the ecosystem, because acquisitions are going to happen and I think if we ice each other out, I think we’re actually going to slow the pace of innovation.”
Founded in 2016, Scale AI supplies large volumes of labeled and curated training data and works with several major AI companies including Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta. On Thursday, Meta announced it was investing $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in the startup—a major move for Meta’s AI capabilities but one that reportedly made some of the Big Tech’s competitors wary of using Scale’s services.
Scale intends to keep operating as an independent business but with deeper commercial ties to Meta. The company’s CEO Alexandr Wang will also join Meta’s team working on “superintelligence” and be replaced by Jason Droege as interim CEO. Wang will remain on Scale’s board and said in a note to employees he would poach a few “Scalien” employees to take with him to Meta, but did not identify them directly.
Scale’s largest customer, Google, reportedly plans to cut ties with the AI data-labeling startup in the wake of the Meta deal. According to a report from Reuters,the tech giant has already held conversations with some of Scale’s rivals to shift much of the workload, representing a significant loss of business for the startup now valued at $29 billion. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment made by Fortune.
Microsoft and Elon Musk’s xAI also reportedly looking to pull back from Scale after the high-profile deal, and despite Friar’s comments, OpenAI reportedly made a similar decision to pull back on some of its business with the startup several months ago.
Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment made by Fortune outside of normal working hours.
Meta’s $14.3 billion AI bet on Scale
Meta’s deal with Scale AI bolsters Meta’s AI credentials after Zuckerberg reaffirmed the company’s commitment to building technology that outstrips human intelligence—and Meta’s rivals—earlier this year.
Meta has trailed rivals in consumer-facing AI and, unlike competitors like Google and OpenAI, has chosen to release its Llama models as open source. The tech giant’s recent Llama 4 AI models received a lukewarm response from developers, and the company hasn’t yet released its most advanced model, Llama 4 Behemoth. The pause on Behemoth was due to concerns from leadership that the model didn’t sufficiently advance on previous models, The Wall Street Journalreported.
Zuckerberg’s primary gain from the investment appears to be Wang. The 28-year-old will join a reported 50-person superintelligence AI team at Meta that is aiming to beat rivals like Google and OpenAI to artificial general intelligence (AGI). According to Bloomberg, Zuckerberg is personally recruiting for the team after the CEO was disappointed by the reaction to Llama 4.
Israel’s air war on Iran entered its fourth day and the price of oil went up again, but the markets appear to be shrugging off the conflict. S&P 500 futures inched up this morning following gains in Europe and Asia.
Investors appear to be positioning for a classic “buy the rumor, sell the news” event in front of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision on Wednesday. The Fed is expected to leave rates where they are, so don’t be surprised if you see a moderate amount of profit-taking if that decision is confirmed.
The stock markets also seem to be unbothered by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East even though the VIX volatility index is sharply up.
Deutsche Bank’s Henry Allen put it best in a note to clients sent this morning: “Geopolitics doesn’t normally matter much for long-run market performance. This is a pretty consistent pattern, including over the last two years with the Middle East. For instance, there was a brief risk-off move in April 2024 after Iran’s attack on Israel, but markets quickly recovered. Then in October 2024, further Iranian strikes led to an oil price spike, but when Israel’s response was more limited than many anticipated, prices fell back again. This week’s events have clearly been much bigger than 2024. But apart from commodities and Middle Eastern equities, the wider market impact has been limited. In fact, the MSCI World index closed just over -1% beneath its record on Thursday.”
UBS’s Paul Donovan concurred: “The ongoing exchange of missile strikes between Iran and Israel this weekend has not had a major impact on financial markets. … Further market moves would be justified only if there were expectations of even more disruption to energy supplies or shipping lanes,” he said this morning.
Goldman Sachs’s Jan Hatzius and his team predict the Fed will remain on hold. Inflation and economic growth both appear to be moderate, so it’s not clear whether the Fed needs to intervene by moving the interest-rate needle either way, they told clients. “The FOMC will likely reiterate that it plans to remain on hold until it has further clarity and downplay its longer-term projections as highly contingent on a still very uncertain economic and policy outlook,” they wrote.
Here’s a snapshot of the action this morning prior to the opening bell in New York:
The VIX fear index rose 14% today.
U.S. crude oil rose 1.23% to $73.88 a barrel, after rising more than 7% last week.
S&P 500 futures were up 0.51% this morning despite turmoil in the oil markets.
The S&P 500 closed down 1.13% on Friday, at 5,976.
Shares in Gucci owner Kering jumped Monday over reports that the outgoing boss of French automaker Renault would take over as chief executive of the struggling luxury group.
Renault shares, however, fell following its announcement Sunday that Luca de Meo, 58, would step down on July 15 “to take on new challenges outside the automobile sector” after five years at the helm of the company.
Le Figaro newspaper reported that de Meo would take over at Kering, the French luxury group that owns Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and other premium brands.
Kering has struggled to turn things around at Gucci, the Italian fashion house famous for its handbags and which accounts for half of the group’s overall sales.
Previous reports have said the group’s chief executive Francois-Henri Pinault would stay on as chairman of the group in a management shake-up.
Kering shares rose more than six percent to 183 euros ($212) in morning deals at the Paris stock exchange.
Shares in Renault fell 6.7 percent to 40.10 euros.
Known as a skilled communicator and marketing expert, de Meo is credited with bringing stability to a company that was in turmoil when he took over in 2020.
The automaker was reeling from more than a year of crisis in the wake of the scandal involving Carlos Ghosn, the former head of the Nissan-Renault alliance who fled Japan to avoid trial.
De Meo accelerated the group’s shift to electric vehicles and pushed for an upmarket move in an effort to steer the company out of trouble. Renault also owns the Dacia, Alpine, and Lada brands.
In 2017, Allison Berger was excited to join Goldman Sachs’s 10-week summer internship program. Berger said she “worked on many important and complex problems” that summer, which helped her secure a full-time analyst position with Goldman’s investment banking division. Nearly a decade later, Berger is a Goldman vice president for global banking and markets.
“I’ve had amazing opportunities here. So many mentors here are women. My male colleagues have also always been incredibly supportive,” said Berger, adding that the skillset she gained early in her career gave her flexibility to thrive in different parts of the bank.
Berger’s experience is a common one at Goldman, which is considered one of the world’s leading investment banks. Every summer Goldman hires about 2,500 to 3,000 summer interns who are assigned to various divisions including investment banking, engineering, and sales. The Goldman internship is considered a feeder to getting a permanent job at the investment bank; a majority of summer interns typically get hired as full-time analysts.
Candidates, however, face lots of competition for the summer positions. For the 2025 internship class, the bank received more than 360,000 applications, a 15% increase from 2024’s program and up 300% since 2018 when David Solomon became CEO. In fact, it’s harder to snag a Goldman summer internship than it is to get into Harvard, one of the most selective universities. For the Class of 2025, Harvard accepted 2.58% of applicants, while candidates for Goldman’s 2025 summer internship class had a 0.7% chance at getting picked.
“We view the campus pipeline as a critical element of the future leadership of the firm. The Goldman Sachs internship provides students with the opportunity to roll up their sleeves and contribute directly to client projects, collaborate directly with global colleagues and develop the skills to build a successful and lasting career,” said Jacqueline Arthur, global head of human capital management and corporate & workplace solutions at Goldman.
Roughly one-third of Goldman’s most recent partner class started as summer interns. Some current powerful Goldman executives who began as interns include Marc Nachmann, global head of asset & wealth management; Kim Posnett, global co-head of investment banking; Kunal Shah, co-head of Goldman Sachs International and co-head of fixed income, currency and commodities or FICC; and Carey Halio, global treasurer and a member of GS’s management committee.
Having Goldman on a resume can also lead to impactful careers outside the bank in finance, private equity, or nearly any other field. Prominent examples include Amanda Baldwin, CEO of hair care brand Olaplex (Goldman intern class of 1999) and Red Lobster CEO Damola Adamolekun (2009 and 2010). Then there is Jon Winkelried, the CEO of private equity firm TPG, who also started off as a Goldman summer intern.
Goldman on college campuses
Goldman takes campus recruiting seriously. Throughout the school year, Goldman’s management committee, led by CEO David Solomon, typically visits colleges around the country to inform candidates about the opportunities. The investment bank hired from more than 475 schools for its 2024 internship class, down from over 500 colleges for the prior year.
Goldman targets Ivy League schools but also many other universities. Earlier this year, Solomon visited several schools in Texas including Southern Methodist University, Texas Christian University, The University of Texas at Dallas and Paul Quinn College.
This year’s crop of interns began working at Goldman earlier this month as part of the 2025 summer class. The investment bank is currently recruiting for the Class of 2026. Candidates typically apply in their sophomore year for internships that take place in the summer between their junior and senior years.
Notably, Goldman interns receive the same salary as junior analysts ($110,000 to $125,000 for investment research analysts in New York City), though that amount is prorated for the summer and there are no bonuses.
The competition for a Goldman internship is open to candidates around the world and, while it may seem that those with a major in finance or economics may have an edge, that’s not necessarily so, Arthur said. Goldman looks for qualities like great communicators or students with a diversity of experiences, she said. The investment bank seeks interns that are “open to evolving and making an impact” and who are also not afraid to fail, she said. “They should be able to take risks,” she said.
Berger recommends that candidates take the time to learn and understand investment banking and Goldman, and whether that “fits in with your personal career skills,” she said.
It also doesn’t hurt, of course, for applicants to have a sincere interest in being part of Goldman, Arthur said. “Have authentic passion,” she said.
In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady talks to General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening.
The big story: Israel-Iran conflict enters fourth day.
The markets: Oil is up and so are stocks.
Analyst notes from UBS on the conflict in the Middle East, Goldman Sachs on the Fed, Convera on international interest rates, and JPMorgan on the effect of tariffs.
Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. When General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening thinks about sustainability, he looks at the millions of acres of farmland where his company sources wheat, oat, dairy, and other crops. “If we don’t do something different, in about 2050, 90% of topsoil will be in danger,” Harmening told me at a dinner that Fortune held in partnership with Deloitte for sustainability leaders in Minneapolis. The good news is that General Mills is more than 60% of the way to achieving its goal of advancing regenerative agriculture—farming practices that regenerate degraded soil—on a million acres of land by 2030. “We’re, frankly, ahead of where we thought we’d be.”
That’s cause for hope in otherwise challenging times for leaders who care about sustainability. At a global level, we’re on track to achieve only 17% of the UN’s sustainable development goals by 2030. Nationally, we’ve seen a rollback with the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, dismantling of key agencies, and the EPA decision to repeal limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
But the private sector is stepping up, with many of the leaders at our dinner giving examples of how sustainability initiatives not only protect but grow their businesses. As one attendee said: “Regulations move the laggards, not the leaders.” (The table conversation was under Chatham House rules.)
For Harmening, the key is focus: He reduced the number of company-wide initiatives from 70 to 10 when he became CEO, doubling down on three that are core to the business: regenerative agriculture, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and recycling. “This is part of our strategy for how we win,” he said. “We don’t sell Cheerios in the morning and then think about sustainability in the afternoon.”
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