The new “replacement” pay package that Tesla unveiled for Elon Musk on August 3 marks a big improvement over its predecessor, for a basic reason. It guarantees what the previous version left open—the very real possibility that if Tesla’s stock takes a giant round trip back to the price where they gave Musk that huge slug, shareholders get nothing but dilution for the directors’ largesse. And Musk still holds shares worth billions.

Recall that in 2024, in response to a lawsuit from the EV-maker’s shareholders, the Delaware courts invalidated the famous giga-grant approved in January of 2018. Musk and the company appealed the ruling, and the decision’s now on appeal. The Tesla board stepped in to ensure that if the Tesla side loses, the CEO will get something similar to the numbers he’d sacrifice. But this time, they’re attaching a series of wise conditions absent the first time around.

Naturally, the deal only applies if Musk and Tesla lose on appeal. If that happens, under the new iteration he’d receive a restricted stock grant of 96 million shares at a strike price of $23.34, equivalent to the figure when he got the gigantic trove at the start of 2018. At Tesla’s current price of roughly $309, those shares would be worth over $27 billion. Here are the restrictions: The shares vest on the second anniversary of the grant, or early August 2027, but only if Musk serves that entire period as either CEO, or chief of product development or operations. In addition, he can’t sell any of those vested shares until five years from the date of the award, or August 3, 2030.

The directors’ objective is obviously to keep Musk in charge for enhancing the chances he’ll deliver big time on his promises for forthcoming, not yet commercial robotaxis, self-driving software, and humanoid robots. But for Tesla holders who are starting to lose faith as the gauzy pledges come and go unkept, the plan’s structure, to use the cliche so often found in CEO comp plans, “aligns” Musk’s fate to their own far more tightly than did the first program

The 2018 plan rewarded Musk for hitting huge valuation gains with lofty rhetoric

The landmark original pledged Musk laddered awards of 1% of Tesla stock, each granted as the valuation rose by an additional $50 billion. The starting point was $100 billion—a multiple of its market cap at the time. If Musk reached the max of $650 billion, a number that seemed wildly improbable at the time, he’d amass 12% of Tesla’s stock. The framework resembled the process of opening a safety deposit box; getting a new 1% required two “keys,” first hitting the valuation bogey, and second, achieving 12 of 18 combined goals for revenues and EBITDA. The top EBITDA target was $14 billion, and the highest sales figure $175 billion.

Within a mere three-and-half years—by mid-2021—Musk rang the bell. He first surpassed the $650 billion market cap max, and later scored all the EBITDA benchmarks and supplemented that accomplishment by reaching an intermediate sales bogey of $75 billion good enough overall to satisfy the 12 operating metrics requirement. Hence, Musk got the full windfall.

The concept’s big flaw: Musk kept making big vows for incredibly profitable new products that wowed investors. That helped send the stock skyward, helping him achieve the valuation part. The revenue and EBITDA requirements were relatively easy to hit. So the combination of rhetorically inflating the stock price and not having to deliver fabulous basic profitability numbers won the day.

To be fair, Tesla’s cap at almost $1 trillion is still three times its level when Musk received his average one percent stock grant, and 50% above where he got his last piece at $650 billion. The problem: It’s impossible to get any idea what Tesla’s really worth in the long-run. And if it turns out be be mainly a metal bending car company, or if the capex requirements needed to build out Musk’s visionary businesses, as well as heavy competition, make them marginally profitable, Tesla’s value could fall back to something like where it stood when Musk captured the then seemingly mission impossible package at the start of 2018, when Tesla shares traded at $23.34.

Under the new deal, if Tesla’s stock tanks big time, Musk doesn’t get paid

The original plan had a major weakness. Musk got his 12% of the stock upfront. So even if shares dropped all the way back to the original strike price of $23.34, putting Tesla’s market cap at $75 billion, he’d still own $9 billion in shares (12% of $75 billion). And the shareholders would have endured big dilution, and gotten zip for it.

But the new plan ensures that can’t happen. Is it absolutely impossible that Tesla drops that far? Not at all. Just look at its current fundamentals. The original plan only made sense if Tesla reached the operating goals stipulated to trigger the grants, and kept ramping revenues and profits swiftly from there. In other words, the fundamentals had to grow into the valuation. Musk was essentially getting paid for great things to come.

That didn’t happen. In the first two quarters of this year, Tesla’s sales ran at an annual rate of $84 billion just above the bogey of $75 billion Musk hit a few years back. In the same six months its EBITDA was stuck at $12 billion on a yearly basis, below the $14 billion number that unlocked the payout.

I recently wrote a piece on the “Musk Magic Premium,” that calculated what Tesla’s worth based on its current products, and the extra valued awarded for Musk’s visionary pledges—that’s the premium. To get the core, repeatable earnings number for today’s EVs and batteries, I remove accounting gains or losses on its Bitcoin holdings, and subtract sales of regulatory credits that will probably now die due to Trump’s recent pulling of penalties for the automakers who stop buying them.

For the last four quarters, that “hardcore” number is $3.3 billion. Imagine that Musk raises that figure at a decent 8% a year, so that net earnings reach $5.4 billion in 2030, the year Musk’s free to sell shares under the new program (if it happens). Let’s also assume that since it’s a low growth manufacturer, Tesla warrants a PE that’s well above the auto industry average at 14. Then, it would be worth a $75 billion five years hence.

That result would put the shares right back near Musk’s strike price of $23.34. His big grant would be worthless, while under the old one, he’d still have stock worth $9 billion. Even if Tesla’s shares drop to around $50 and its cap stands at roughly $150 billion, Musk would make a lot less, around $2.5 billion. Yes, it’s a good thing that the Tesla’s board’s forcing Musk to wait a long time to get paid. Five years from now, we’ll be able to see what all those promises are really worth. If they’re exhaust from a tailpipe, shareholders will suffer big time. But Elon Musk will suffer along with them.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Eswar Veluri, the chief technology officer at Equinox, says that when the luxury gym operator is flexing new generative artificial intelligence muscles, the focus tends to center on the two Ps: productivity and personalization.

The productivity bucket is fairly straightforward. Equinox’s team is using AI to summarize documents, create emails, and automate some marketing materials and contracts. Where it gets more interesting for Equinox, which operates more than 100 fitness clubs, is a pilot of a generative AI-enabled feature that offers workout recommendations and nutrition tips.

This tools is built in Equinox’s branded mobile app but only available for employees. The rollout began with the tech team, then corporate employees and instructors, before it could become widely available to all Equinox gym goers if all goes well. This reflects Veluri’s technology playbook: always test internally first. 

“Our personal training coaches are probably going to be the most rigorous in terms of the feedback,” says Veluri. 

He asserts that the insights from Equinox’s rigorous training data are what sets it apart from the more generalized recommendations that may be produced from standard AI models. “The value is added when we have our proprietary thinking that is embedded with the general recommendation, so that the end user should feel that this is something that I’m getting that is on par with what an Equinox coach would provide,” says Veluri.

There’s also a more valuable feedback loop with the application of generative AI, as Equinox is now able to utilize large language models that can digest written comments from users and then adjust future fitness and nutrition suggestions. Prior variations of these tools would rely on a more simplistic “thumbs up, thumbs down” response.

“That ability for our members to have agency over the recommendations, and for us to be able to incorporate that feedback into modifying the recommendations, is something that would not have been possible if we did not have gen AI,” says Veluri. 

Veluri has had a long career at Equinox, joining the fitness company in 2010 as director of digital products and rising up through the ranks to become CTO in 2021. Through that time, Equinox has invested in a mobile app that offers users virtual classes, and invested in more technically advanced treadmills, ellipticals, and other workout machinery.

Over that period of time, the fitness industry has democratized the accessibility of workout data, with fitness trackers like the Apple Watch, Fitbit, and Garmin enjoying mass adoption and easily tracking steps taken throughout the day, calories burned, sleep, and heart rate. Studies on these devices are fairly limited, but research does indicate that the use of fitness trackers can promote more fitness.

AI could make promoting a healthier lifestyle even easier. One way that Equinox utilizes AI, which predates the generative boom, involves Netflix-styled recommendations for classes that a fitness freak may want to try based on their past preference for yoga or cycling, the weather of the day, and the club locations they tend to frequent. Veluri says after this feature went live, Equinox saw class bookings dramatically increase. That engagement can lead to less club member attrition.

The company has also rolled out a generative AI chatbot that can answer straightforward questions including “What time is my gym open?”

“Our business model is one where we want and encourage our members to use our clubs as often as they can,” says Veluri.

With a scrappy technology team of just around 80 people, Veluri says he has to be careful about spending and doesn’t put too much money into any one tech initiative.

Equinox also has a close relationship with Amazon Web Services, a partner it leaned on to rearchitect its tech stack and streamline workflows for engineers. Previously, Equinox ran workloads on a Windows-based server and each digital fitness service ran as an individual task. That added complexity to the software updates process. While the application infrastructure is now housed more efficiently with AWS, Equinox says it utilizes large language models from various providers, including AWS and Anthropic.

Veluri says the culture he’s created with his technology team is one that encourages everyone to offer suggestions for what mobile app features should be explored next. The team takes a close look at competitor gym and fitness apps to ensure the features Equinox offers are in good shape.

“The biggest advantage of Equinox is that we use the services of our company a lot,” says Veluri. “We also have goals and we also want to achieve results.”

John Kell

Send thoughts or suggestions to CIO Intelligence here.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Google X’s former chief business officer Mo Gawdat says the notion AI will create jobs is “100% crap,” and even warns that “incompetent CEOs” are on the chopping block. The tech guru predicts that AGI will be better at everything than most humans—echoing the likes of Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and OpenAI chief Sam Altman. Only the best workers in their fields will keep their jobs “for a while,” and even “evil” government leaders might be replaced by the robots. 

Tech titans keep insisting that AI will usher in a “golden era” of humanity, where all illness is cured, people live in abundance, and workers have “superhuman” powers. But a former Google executive has slammed the notion that the technology won’t be a job-killer and will actually create new work for humans. 

“My belief is it is 100% crap,” Mo Gawdat, the former chief business officer for Google X, recently said on The Diary of a CEO podcast. “The best at any job will remain. The best software developer, the one that really knows architecture, knows technology, and so on will stay—for a while.”

Gawdat has joined the cohort of leaders waving the red flag that AI will commence a jobs armageddon within the next 5 to 15 years. Companies including Duolingo, Workday, and Klarna have already laid off staffers in droves or stopped hiring humans altogether to get ready for an AI-centric workforce. 

But executives shouldn’t celebrate their efficiency gains too soon—their role is also on the chopping block, Gawdat, who worked in tech for 30 years and now writes books on AI development, cautioned. 

“CEOs are celebrating that they can now get rid of people and have productivity gains and cost reductions because AI can do that job. The one thing they don’t think of is AI will replace them too,” Gawdat continued. “AGI is going to be better at everything than humans, including being a CEO. You really have to imagine that there will be a time where most incompetent CEOs will be replaced.”

While the vision of human-less companies solely run by robots is incredibly dystopian, the ex-Google executive isn’t afraid of what lies ahead. The 58-year-old doesn’t see AI being the perpetrator of job loss—money-hungry CEOs are actually to blame for letting the technology take over in the pursuit of financial gain, he claimed.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with AI—there’s a lot wrong with the value set of humanity at the age of the rise of the machines,” Gawdat said. “And the biggest value set of humanity is capitalism today. And capitalism is all about what? Labor arbitrage.”

Fortune reached out to Gawdat for comment.

For humans to thrive, ‘evil’ world leaders need to be replaced by AI

AI is already outpacing humans when it comes to some abilities—it can code, resolve customer requests, handle administrative work, and even analyze market figures. There’s no telling where its future capabilities lie. 

Tech leaders like Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and OpenAI chief Sam Altman are adamant it’ll outpace even the most powerful people by 2030. And that may be a good thing for humanity: For humans to thrive in this new era, immoral corporate executives and world leaders alike need to be replaced by AI, Gawdat advised. 

He said that since harmful leaders will use the tech to “magnify the evil that man can do,” technology will make for more moral world leaders—and that this dystopian scenario of AI-enabled politicians is “unavoidable”.

“The only way for us to get to a better place, is for the evil people at the top to be replaced with AI,” Gawdat continued on the podcast. “[World leaders] will have to replace themselves [with] AI. Otherwise, they lose their advantage.”

Gawdat isn’t the only one sounding alarm bells over AI’s impact on humanity’s future. Altman and Google chief Sundar Pichai have both expressed a need for AI regulation—whether that be “major governments” drawing a line in the sand, or creating a high-level governance body to oversee potential harm. 

“We are likely to eventually need something like an IAEA for superintelligence efforts,” Altman wrote in a 2023 blogpost, adding that AI projects should have to confront an “international authority that can inspect systems, require audits, test for compliance with safety standards, place restrictions on degrees of deployment and levels of security.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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The mighty American consumer may have finally met their match, and it’s a giant hulking rectangle box that hosts very few people inside, but rather a huge nest of servers, storage systems, and networking equipment. Consumer spending in the American services economy is so large it can boggle the mind, comprising roughly two-thirds of gross domestic product. To paraphrase the long-running coffee chain Dunkin’, America runs on spending.

But this mighty American consumer has slow seasons, and the summer of 2025 appears to be one of them. There are several interconnected factors, namely, recent jobs growth now appearing much smaller than previously thought and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the workforce. But those hulking rectangle boxes, the massive data centers sprouting up across the country, are emerging as a giant magnet for dollars in a way that rivals consumer spending itself.

Giant tech companies have spent so much on data centers in 2025 that their spending is now contributing more to U.S. economic growth than consumer spending, long considered the nation’s economic engine. If you make the reasonable assumption that spending on data centers equates to AI capital expenditures, defined as capital deployed for information processing equipment and software, then the pattern is clear: a ton of money is flowing into one concentrated area, and the outcome of that is uncertain.

Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta are the main firms investing at staggering levels to build and upgrade data centers that support the exponential demand for AI computing power, with those four firms alone forecasting a record $364 billion of capital investment in 2025. Combined, the so-called “Magnificent 7” tech giants spent more than $100 billion on data center projects in just the last three months, as calculated by The Wall Street Journal‘s Christopher Mims.

All this spending has to have an impact on the economy Analyst estimates from Renaissance Macro Research indicate that so far in 2025, the dollar value contributed to GDP growth by AI data center expenditure surpassed the total impact from all U.S. consumer spending—the first time this has ever occurred.

So far this year, AI capex, which we define as information processing equipment plus software has added more to GDP growth than consumers' spending. pic.twitter.com/D70FX2lXAW

— RenMac: Renaissance Macro Research (@RenMacLLC) July 30, 2025

Or, as Rusty Foster, author of the widely read media blog Today in Tabs, puts it: “our economy might just be three AI data centers in a trench coat.” This recalls the classic comedic device of several children wearing a long jacket, pretending to be an adult, as memorably portrayed in Netflix’s Bojack Horseman, when “Vincent Adultman” successfully maintained the illusion for several dates with Princess Carolyn. But then the bubble popped, or the trenchcoat came off.

Why is this happening now?

Several forces are driving this unprecedented investment wave. The boom in generative AI and advanced large language models—technologies that require vast amounts of computing resources—has forced tech giants to rapidly increase their physical infrastructure. Data from McKinsey projects that between 2025 and 2030, companies worldwide will need to invest a remarkable $6.7 trillion into new data center capacity to keep up with AI demand.

AI data center spending has grown at least tenfold since 2022, with the well-known business blogger Paul Kedrosky estimating that it’s nearing 2% of total U.S. GDP by itself. “Honey, AI capex is eating the economy,” he writes, arguing that AI capex is so big that it’s “affecting economic statistics, boosting the economy, and beginning to approach the railroad boom.”

Apollo Global Management’s Torsten Slok, without wading into the data-center capex question, has assembled research showing that the AI boom has surpassed the market value of the tech boom of the late ’90s, which became known as the “dotcom bubble” after speculative mania burst and a recession set in.

Kedrosky makes a similar point, contrasting capex booms from throughout financial history, notably the telecom boom of 2020 related to 5G/fiber technology and the railroad boom of the 19th century as the United States embraced a transportation revolution. “Capital expenditures on AI data centers is likely around 20% of the peak spending on railroads, as a percentage of GDP, and it is still rising quickly,” Kedrosky writes. “And we’ve already passed the decades ago peak in telecom spending during the dot-com bubble.” Noah Smith, a widely read economics Substacker, asks the obvious question: “will data centers crash the economy?”

The impact on the broader economy

This surge in tech investment has had profound downstream consequences. Without the AI data center building spree, GDP may have actually contracted in the face of uncertain macroeconomic conditions, so the data-center spending may have staved off—or postponed—a recession.

Money flooding into AI infrastructure is being diverted from other sectors, including venture capital, traditional manufacturing, and even consumer-facing startups. Unlike historical infrastructure booms such as railroads or telecom, AI data centers are short-lived, fast-depreciating, and require continuous hardware upgrades—suggesting this pattern of investment may remain volatile and capital-hungry for years to come.

As AI redefines industries, the flow of capital into the physical backbone of this technology—vast data centers—has upended old assumptions about what drives America’s economy. Consumer spending, though still immense in absolute terms, is not keeping up with the extraordinary scale and speed of investment by tech giants determined to lead the AI era. The trajectory suggests that the U.S. economy in 2025 is being shaped not so much by the purchasing power of its people, but by the relentless arms race for AI compute capacity—an unprecedented, tech-led growth engine.

For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• More families started their back-to-school shopping in early July than in the past 7 years. Tariffs and inflation are being blamed for the behavioral shift. The average expended spend per student will be lower this year, but the overall totals are expected to rise slightly.

Reading and ‘riting are still important, but as the 2025-2026 school years draws near, parents are paying more attention to the third R – ‘rithmetic.

With tariffs looming and some (though not all) retailers warning that prices are bound to increase, back-to-school shopping began especially early this year. The National Retail Federation notes that more than two-thirds of families started buying pencils, pens, paper and folders in early July.

Some 67% of families got an early start this year, compared to 55% last year. That’s the highest number of early back-to-school shoppers since the NRF began tracking the category in 2018. And it all comes down to price.

“Consumers are being mindful of the potential impacts of tariffs and inflation on back-to-school items, and have turned to early shopping, discount stores and summer sales for savings on school essentials,” said Katherine Cullen, NRF vice president of industry and consumer insights. “As shoppers look for the best deals on clothes, notebooks and other school-related items, retailers are highly focused on affordability and making the shopping experience as seamless as possible.”

To put that 67% statistic into perspective: In 2019, only 44% of parents started looking for school supplies and clothes that early. It’s worth noting that most schools have not issued their lists of which items are required at that time of year.

Families with students in elementary through high school plan to spend an average of $858.07 on clothing, shoes, school supplies and electronics this year. That’s less than the $874.68 they spent in 2024.

Overall spending is expected to be higher, however, jumping from $38.8 billion to $39.4 billion as more consumers will be buying supplies. That doesn’t extend to lower-income families, though. The NRF says those households are pulling back in all back-to-school spending categories because of economic uncertainty.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Deb Cohn-Orbach / UCG / Universal Images Group—Getty Images

• Luxury apartment complexes across the U.S. are elevating their amenities to attract affluent residents who expect five-star hotel-style living, complete with services such as daily housekeeping, spa treatments, curated social spaces, and pet-friendly experiences. Developers emphasize that today’s affluent residents demand both exceptional amenities and meticulously detailed service, as basic offerings are no longer enough to stand out in the competitive luxury market.

While amenities like a gym and a pool are considered attractive features by most apartment seekers, the nation’s wealthiest renters see these as basic expectations—and look for much more in a residence.

In recent years, luxury apartment complexes and other high-end housing communities have begun rolling out increasingly specialized services to attract affluent residents. For example, some now offer med-spa amenities such as Botox treatments and IV hydration drips, letting residents access them without leaving home. These types of perks—along with a growing list of exclusive offerings—are emblematic of the ongoing “amenities arms race,” as developers compete to entice and retain the country’s wealthiest tenants with ever more unique and indulgent experiences

Luxury living today is defined by features such as plunge pools, recovery stations, infrared therapy, salt rooms, libraries, cinemas, lounges, co-working spaces, dedicated rooms for children and teens, and expansive outdoor areas, according to Michael Fazio, chief creative officer at LIVunLtd, a company specializing in residential amenity centers. On average, renting a luxury apartment in the U.S. costs about $400 to $500 more per month than a standard apartment, according to RentCafe.

“They expect a high level of design, furnished, and appointed with high-end furnishings. They want the spaces to be something they enjoy and can show off to friends,” Fazio told Fortune. “The amenities are a statement. They’re an extension of the resident’s home, so they have to match the same look and quality.”

And different generations crave these amenities and services—all for different reasons. People under 30 want help getting settled and want “to push a button and have everything done,” Fazio said. Meanwhile, the over-30 crowd tends to gravitate toward the social and networking aspect of being among peers who share similar levels of education and socio-economic status, he added.

Photo courtesy LIVunLtd

“Amenities for the sake of having amenities no longer resonate with savvy residents,” Alex Kuby, associate principal at design, branding, and procurement studio DyeLot Interiors who specializes in multi-family luxury properties, told Fortune. “Deep due diligence pays off. Simply having the amenity on-property isn’t enough, it needs to be delivered with next-level detail and care.”

The luxury rental market is currently strong, with high demand, elevated prices, and growing inventory. Some of the wealthy are turning to luxury rentals as mortgage rates and home prices remain high. And higher demand means luxury complexes have to compete for the wealthiest renters (or buyers, in the case of condos) to come out ahead. That’s where the so-called amenities arms race comes into play. Paying a premium means wealthy residents expect the best of the best, and amenities other complexes don’t offer.  

Residents expect five-star hotel living

Considering renters and homeowners shell out much more on their apartment or condo than the average American, it’s no surprise they expect to be treated like they live in a five-star hotel.

One upcoming example of a high-end residential development embracing the demands of today’s luxury residents is Salato Pompano Beach, a 40-residence ultra-luxury oceanfront condo project that’s scheduled to be completed in early 2026. The Pompano Beach, Fla. development partnered with Stay Hospitality, which also manages other high-end condo properties and five-star hotels. 

Prices for these condos developed by U.S. Development range from $2 million to $5.4 million, and 60% of the condos at the development have already sold. They’re each 2,106 to 3,354 square feet, and residents also have access to an 80-foot ocean-view pool and spa, an owner’s lounge equipped with coffee, indoor open-air beach showers, and a club room. But that’s just the baseline.

Living at the Salto also includes daily housekeeping with turndown and linen service, grocery pick-up and stocking, spa and beauty services, wellness programming and personal training, an on-demand house car with a private chauffeur, 24/7 valet services, live music, learning workshops, beach service with chair and umbrella setup, as well as boat charters and watersport rentals.

“Discerning buyers look for world-class amenities that you would expect when staying in a five-star luxury resort,” John Farina, president and CEO of U.S. Development, told Fortune. “They expect the service to also go hand-in-hand. If you are not pre-planning and executing a vision meeting these expectations, you will walk short on what the market demands.”

Why luxury amenities matter

Even the ultra-wealthy watch what they’re spending on. Housing—whether renting or buying—has become increasingly expensive during the past few years, so every offering and every detail matters when it comes to luxury residences. 

Some developers have taken the approach of an “amenity overload,” or essentially just having a variety of amenities and features to fill a checklist they think will appeal to residents, Kuby said. But without due diligence and understanding what luxury residents really want will make certain developments fall flat. 

Photo courtesy LIVunLtd

“While there are core amenities that matter to most residents, the seismic shift in the housing market is driving a different way of looking at amenities,” Kuby said. “People are renting for longer [and] amenities need to be geared to support their evolving lifestyles.”

This looks like taking traditional amenities to the next level. While co-working spaces have become somewhat of an expected amenity, luxury residents expect more functionality than just a desk or private space to take calls and meetings. They want the same comfort a luxury office space would provide. 

And, of course, pets are something luxury developers are keeping their eyes on.

“People see their pets as family, so making them welcome in lounges and coworking spaces is key for owners who want to bring them along,” Kuby said. “Turning pet amenities into an experience—rather than just having a dog wash—[and] creating a work space that is pet-friendly is more impactful to residents on a day-to-day basis.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Photo courtesy Salato Pompano Beach

In today’s edition: Linda Yaccarino’s new job, a business opportunity in sports, and female founders are trying again—and that’s a good thing.

– Take two. Over the past few weeks, some of the names that defined 2010s female-founded startups have been back in the headlines. Audrey Gelman, known for founding the Wing, opened her new hotel the Six Bells in upstate New York. Ty Haney came back to revitalize the struggling, now private equity-owned athleisure brand she founded, Outdoor Voices. Yael Aflalo, who founded the still-popular fashion brand Reformation, has a new label.

All of these women not only built companies in the 2010s—about five years ago, they were part of a wave of female founders who were forced out or lost control of their businesses.

There were a lot of factors at play during that time: lofty promises made by brands that pledged to change the world and achieve equality—and were then confronted with the realities of capitalism; the tensions of the months that followed George Floyd’s murder; the difficulties of the early pandemic; employee and investor pressure; and, yes, genuine leadership issues. Media coverage built these founders up—but then contributed to their fall. I should know; I was writing about these founders through all of it. Besides the three founders who have launched new ventures in recent months, Away’s Steph Korey and Refinery29’s Christene Barberich were some of the others to be swept up in this trend.

But it’s been five years, and I think it’s time to say: these founders deserve another shot.

One reason female founders lost control of their businesses more easily than men did is that their employees and customers both held them to higher standards. Their stakeholders cared more about social justice (and their investors were less likely to have their backs through a crisis).

But the solution isn’t for these women to disappear from public life forever. “The wave of women founders who resigned in 2020—I think it satisfied a cultural appetite, but it sort of left a vacuum,” Gelman told me when I reached out for her thoughts last week. “Particularly these women who were great at building product, creative, and doing things no one had ever done.”

People enjoyed poking fun at the “girlboss,” but the jabs added up. “That period of time, five years ago, certainly turned off many women or girls that I knew that initially had interest [in building companies],” Haney told me when we caught up about her return to OV. Since departing the recreation brand, she has been more quietly building a blockchain-based consumer-loyalty platform called TYB, for which she recently raised $11 million—but her return to her firstborn brand is different. She’s not running the business itself this time and is instead focused on creative, but it’s “on [her] terms,” she says. “I hope it creates a wake of interest from young women in pursuing business aspirations and brand-building aspirations,” she says of her return and others’.

These founders, though, had to be ready to come back too. For now, Gelman’s endeavor (which started with a store in Brooklyn) resembles a traditional small business more than a globally expanding venture-backed startup, although she’s hinted at the potential for more hotels. She calls the through-line between the Wing and the “country kitsch” Six Bells a form of “world-building,” the creative side that originally set the Wing apart from other co-working spaces and private clubs. “Getting to build something new with more maturity and self-awareness—it takes time to properly absorb the lessons from a first company,” Gelman says.

And the question is: will things be different this time? Personally, I think they will. Structurally, some things haven’t changed. Women-only founding teams still get around 2% of VC dollars, and that stat has actually shrunk in recent years.

But culturally, a lot has. With the rise of TikTok, social media has become less glossy—allowing founders to share a more authentic view of their experience from the start, rather than a picture-perfect version that then gets torn down. Founders have more resources to respond quickly to any scandals and speak directly to their audiences. There are more ways to build a brand than fully depending on the founder as the face of it. Five years later, there’s an entire generation of Gen Z consumers that wasn’t really paying attention last time around and doesn’t carry millennials’ 2010s startup baggage.

Within the startup world, there’s less pressure to achieve growth at all costs—which led to some of the challenges for this era of companies. The Wing raised more than $100 million during its life, and Outdoor Voices had raised about $60 million by 2020. More disciplined running of businesses, with an eye to profitability, yields more responsible leadership.

And, of course, there’s a growing frustration with the reality that men have been forgiven by the public for much, much worse than needing some management coaching—just take a look at the White House. The rise of the manosphere has made women hungry to see other women’s success again.

There will still be challenges. Founders aren’t perfect, and female founders are no exception. Consumers will get mad about something, employees will have complaints, and things will go off the rails sometimes. “I’m hopeful that … we can normalize challenges, and ideally, these challenges that come up and people may feel sensitivity around are things that can be worked through, versus causing founders to have to depart the company,” Haney says.

On the whole, it can only be a good thing for women to be building, without fear, in public again. This generation of founders deserve another chance—and all women deserve to see that one failure isn’t the end.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.

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• Warren Buffett may be worth billions, but he had a stark reminder he sent every two years in a memo to his managers: reputation and planning for the future should take precedent over profit. It’s a lesson that’s worked wonders for Buffett as he’s led Berkshire Hathaway from a company with roots dating to the 1800s—to a trillion-dollar enterprise today.

Warren Buffett is widely considered one of the smartest minds in business—after all, he’s spent decades maintaining Berkshire Hathaway as a multinational investment powerhouse.

Even though he may seem like an easy-going, Coca-Cola-loving old man, he admits his leadership style can sometimes be “ruthless.” In fact, the billionaire sent a stark reminder to his manager every two years of his nonnegotiables, which include “to zealously guard Berkshire’s reputation,” something he believes is the foundation of the entire enterprise.

“We can afford to lose money—even a lot of money. But we can’t afford to lose reputation—even a shred of reputation,” the 94-year-old recalled in a social media post that’s currently recirculating, just months before he’s due to leave the company he’s led for over 50 years. 

Since taking over what was once a struggling textile firm in 1965, the well-known investor, worth $152 billion, has turned Berkshire Hathaway into one of the largest businesses in the U.S. Under his leadership, Berkshire hit a market cap of $1 trillion this year. But from January 2026, Berkshire will no longer be under Buffett’s leadership; instead, the memo will serve as a reminder that its future reputation lies in the hands of the staff. 

“We must continue to measure every act against not only what is legal but also what we would be happy to have written about on the front page of a national newspaper in an article written by an unfriendly, but intelligent, reporter.”

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Safeguarding reputation has been an ongoing theme in Buffett’s history—in a 2010 shareholder letter, he revealed that he’d sent that exact same reputation reminder note to staff for over 25 years and counting. 

Famously, in 1991, while addressing members of Congress as the investment bank Salomon Brothers’ chairman, Buffett delivered this message to his employees: “Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.”

That sentiment was echoed by other business-leading billionaires like Jeff Bezos, who said, “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

The need to always plan for the future

This May, the legendary investor announced he would be stepping down as CEO by the end of the year, passing the reins to his successor, Greg Abel, after seeing how much he could do in a working day. 

And as a succession planning request, Buffett asks that his managers provide a handwritten letter on any future recommendations to take their place, adding that the letter will be seen by no one unless he is no longer CEO. 

“I need your help in respect to the question of succession. I’m not looking for any of you to retire, and I hope you all live to 100. (In Charlie’s case, 110.)”  Charlie Munger, who passed away in November 2023 at the age of 99, was Buffett’s close friend, trusted partner, and sounding board for over 60 years. 

“But just in case you don’t, please send me a note or email giving your recommendation as who should take over tomorrow if you should become incapacitated overnight,” Buffet wrote. 

Going forward, Buffett told the Wall Street Journal he will still be going to the office. 

“I’m not going to sit at home and watch soap operas. My interests are still the same.”

Read the full one–and–a–half–page memo

To: Berkshire Hathaway Managers (“The All-Stars”)
cc: Berkshire Directors
From: Warren E. Buffett

Date: December 19, 2014

This is my biennial letter to reemphasize Berkshire’s top priority and to get your help on succession planning (yours, not mine!).

The top priority–trumping everything else, including profits–is that all of us continue to zealously guard Berkshire’s reputation. We can’t be perfect but we can try to be. As I’ve said in these memos for more than 25 years: “We can afford to lose money – even a lot of money. But we can’t afford to lose reputation – even a shred of reputation.” We must continue to measure every act against not only what is legal but also what we would be happy to have written about on the front page of a national newspaper in an article written by an unfriendly but intelligent reporter.

Sometimes your associates will say “Everybody else is doing it.” This rationale is almost always a bad one if it is the main justification for a business action. It is totally unacceptable when evaluating a moral decision. Whenever somebody offers that phrase as a rationale, in effect they are saying that they can’t come up with a good reason. If anyone gives this explanation, tell them to try using it with a reporter or a judge and see how far it gets them.

If you see anything whose propriety or legality causes you to hesitate, be sure to give me a call. However, it’s very likely that if a given course of action evokes such hesitation, it’s too close to the line and should be abandoned. There’s plenty of money to be made in the center of the court. If it’s questionable whether some action is close to the line, just assume it is outside and forget it.

As a corollary, let me know promptly if there’s any significant bad news. I can handle bad news but I don’t like to deal with it after it has festered for awhile. A reluctance to face up immediately to bad news is what turned a problem at Salomon from one that could have easily been disposed of into one that almost caused the demise of a firm with 8,000 employees.

Somebody is doing something today at Berkshire that you and I would be unhappy about if we knew of it. That’s inevitable: We now employ more than 330,000 people and the chances of that number getting through the day without any bad behavior occurring is nil. But we can have a huge effect in minimizing such activities by jumping on anything immediately when there is the slightest odor of impropriety. Your attitude on such matters, expressed by behavior as well as words, will be the most important factor in how the culture of your business develops. Culture, more than rule books, determines how an organization behaves.

In other respects, talk to me about what is going on as little or as much as you wish. Each of you does a first-class job of running your operation with your own individual style and you don’t need me to help. The only items you need to clear with me are any changes in post-retirement benefits, acquisitions, and any unusually large capital expenditures. But I like to read, so send along anything that you think I may find interesting.

I need your help in respect to the question of succession. I’m not looking for any of you to retire and I hope you all live to 100. (In Charlie’s case, 110.) But just in case you don’t, please send me a letter or email giving your recommendation as who should take over tomorrow if you should become incapacitated overnight. These letters will be seen by no one but me unless I’m no longer CEO, in which case my successor will need the information. Please summarize the strengths and weaknesses of your primary candidate as well as any possible alternates you may wish to include. Most of you have participated in this exercise in the past and others have offered your ideas verbally. However, it’s important to me to get a periodic update, and now that we have added so many businesses, I need to have your thoughts in writing rather than trying to carry them around in my memory. Of course, there are a few operations that are run by two or more of you – such as the Blumkins, the Merschmans, the pair at Applied Underwriters, etc. – and in these cases, just forget about this item. Your note can be short, informal,handwritten, etc. Just mark it “Personal for Warren.”

Thanks for your help on all of this. And thanks for the way you run your businesses. You make my job easy.

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For many Americans, retirement isn’t financially carefree and easy. In fact, according to Schroders’ 2025 US Retirement Survey, 19% of retirees are “struggling” or “living the nightmare” while just 5% said they were “living the dream”. Unfortunately for retirees, the time to start saving early and planning strategically is in the rearview mirror. However, for those with a decade or more left in the workforce, understanding the challenges faced by today’s retirees and how to best prepare for them can mean the difference between living the dream and living the nightmare.

With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at a few lessons that can be learned from those who have already entered retirement.

1) You’re probably not saving enough

According to our research, less than half of all retired Americans (40%) believe they saved enough for retirement, and 45% say their expenses are higher than anticipated.

At any age, saving for retirement can be challenging.

In your 20s and 30s, you’re likely faced with a host of competing financial priorities that include student loan debt, car payments, and saving for a house. It’s also tempting to succumb to procrastination, knowing that you may have 30 or 40 years ahead before you’ll be able to retire.

When you reach your 40s and 50s, competing financial obligations don’t disappear, they evolve. Instead of paying off your student loans, you find yourself paying college tuition bills for your children. In lieu of saving for a house, you’re making monthly mortgage payments or paying unexpected repair bills for a leaking roof or water heater.

Thanks to the power of compounding over time, the sooner you prioritize saving for retirement, the more likely you’ll have enough saved to manage your expenses after leaving the workforce. This is especially important to the millions of Americans who depend on 401k plans as their primary source of income during retirement.

2) Expect the unexpected

In 1980, the inflation rate in the United States peaked at 14.7%. In 2022, it reached 9%, and today it stands at a more manageable 2.3%.

Where the inflation rate will be when you’re ready to retire is both unknown and uncontrollable. Similarly, stocks may be in the middle of a historic bull market when you’re ready to leave the workforce or your portfolio might be negatively impacted by a bear market.

Given the unexpected nature of these events, it’s not surprising our research found that the top three concerns plaguing retired Americans in 2025 are inflation (92% of retirees are at least slightly concerned), rising healthcare costs (85%), and the potential for a major market downturn (80%).

While these concerns may be unnerving and unpredictable, they shouldn’t derail a secure retirement if you stay focused on the variables that are in your control. Your monthly savings rate, participation in a tax-advantaged retirement savings plan like a 401k, your diversification strategy, and the age at which you plan to retire are all key factors in your retirement planning that are within your control.

Creating good financial habits and making sound decisions about the factors within your control will help put you on the path toward a comfortable retirement despite short-term swings in the market or the inflation rate.

3) Winging it won’t get you there

For many decades, traditional company pension plans provided workers with a safety net that, when combined with Social Security benefits, helped to ensure a comfortable retirement. But times have changed as pensions have become a relic of the past for most private-sector employees.

The shift from traditional pensions (known as defined benefit plans) to defined contribution retirement plans has placed the responsibility for retirement saving and planning on the employee. Despite the challenges associated with figuring out when to retire, how and when to claim Social Security, or how to generate steady income after leaving the workforce, many people don’t work with a financial advisor and have no plan for managing their retirement expenses and assets.

According to our latest study, 64% of retired Americans aren’t working with a financial advisor and 44% don’t have a plan in place for estimating expenses, determining how much income is needed, and developing an investment strategy to meet their goals.

Given this lack of support and planning, it’s perhaps not surprising that most retirees (62%) say they have no idea how long their savings will last.

While not everyone needs to maintain an ongoing relationship with a financial advisor, there’s no question that anyone preparing for retirement could benefit from seeking guidance on how to improve their financial well-being and maximize their income stream once they stop working.

Retirement security doesn’t happen by chance—it requires planning and discipline. While it’s easy to postpone saving or assume that Social Security alone will suffice, our research paints a different picture. With rising expenses, unpredictable markets, and fewer guaranteed income sources like pensions, the burden of retirement planning now falls squarely on individuals. Fortunately, by taking control of the variables you can manage—your savings rate, investment strategy, and financial planning—your retirement dreams can be within reach.

It’s never too early — or too late — to start making financial decisions that will pay dividends in the years ahead.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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A little over five years ago, the Trump administration announced Operation Warp Speed to deliver a vaccine for COVID-19. It was one of the most stunning successes of Trump’s first term. Recognizing a crisis, the U.S. government facilitated a public-private partnership that likely saved millions of lives in record time. Now we must do it again. As a country, we have a strategic imperative to win in artificial intelligence and secure our supply chains for critical technologies, including communications, computing, and advanced military systems. Time is of the essence. Yet the Administration’s plans for AI and self-sufficiency are in serious jeopardy unless we have American-owned, leading-edge chip manufacturing plants on American soil.

US advanced semiconductor manufacturing has been withering for some time. The once-leading Intel appears to be dropping out of the race. Missed deadlines, poor execution, and a misguided strategy to retain manufacturing within Intel while also serving as a foundry for its fabless chip competitors resulted in a dearth of customers. Recommendations (including those from the four of us) to split off Intel’s foundry business and create a fully independent entity to supply its competitors, thereby giving itself a fighting chance, have never been adopted.

Intel appears to have only a few external customers for its current technology (called 18A), and the CEO recently said on July 24 that “Going forward, our investment in … [Intel’s most advanced process technology, 14A will] be based on confirmed customer commitments,” continuing a business model that has largely failed. Unsurprisingly, the CEO also announced the shuttering of its plans for German and Polish plants, further delaying its proposed Ohio plant, and a massive lay-off. More spending reductions will inevitably follow.

All of these announcements strongly imply a gradual exit from the chip manufacturing business, turning Intel into a fabless company over time. Given that Intel’s internal demand is no longer big enough to justify continued capital investment in leading-edge technology, this may be the right strategy for Intel.

Still, it is the wrong strategy for the United States. With Intel’s likely retreat from advanced chip manufacturing, America’s future and the future of its leadership in AI and all advanced electronics will be firmly in the hands of two firms: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) and Samsung, two firms headquartered on the other side of the planet. TSMC is by far the dominant player, controlling over 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing output. The Taiwanese chip manufacturer produces nearly 100% of Nvidia’s GPUs, which are the engines that enable AI. It also manufactures most of the chips for iPhones and 5G communications.

While TSMC and Samsung have committed to building more plants in the U.S., these will not solve the problem. Neither company will bring its latest technology here. The newest generation of chips must first be developed in a plant geographically close to its R&D teams. In the case of TSMC, those teams are in Taiwan; for Samsung, South Korea. The only R&D team that has been developing advanced generation technologies on US soil, fabricated in the latest generation U.S.-owned plants, is Intel. But as Intel retreats, America’s future in AI and other advanced technologies is increasingly reliant on a single firm, located a stone’s throw from mainland China.

To be sure, TSMC’s technological prowess is impressive. Moreover, its promise to invest $100 billion in Arizona is laudable. However, the fact is that we are giving TSMC too much power over the allocation of capacity, pricing, and human capital to drive AI into the future. In the case of Taiwan, business risk is compounded by the obvious geopolitical risks attendant to its status. These dependencies are intolerable if the U.S. is to protect its own economic and national security interests.

Fortunately, the Trump Administration has dealt itself enough cards to rectify this obvious vulnerability. The Administration recognizes that the United States needs advanced chip-making capabilities within our own country. To this end, by executive order March 31, the President created the United States Investment Accelerator at the Department of Commerce. It is responsible, among other things, for administering the CHIPS Program Office. Billions remain unspent from this Congressional program. Perhaps billions more can be retrieved from Intel, given its apparent surrender in the race with TSMC. In addition to these billions, the Trump Administration on July 22 also wrested from Japan a commitment to invest more than $550 billion in the United States.

With CHIPS money, Japan’s partnership, and government investment —either direct or through Trump’s recent executive order to create a sovereign wealth fund —the federal government has the opportunity to launch “Operation Warp Speed II” and put America back on the leading edge of chip manufacturing. Speed is essential: As Intel downsizes and lays off thousands of people, we are losing and will continue to lose the best people. Soon, we will be without a viable foundation on which to build a new, world-class American foundry, for which Intel’s assets are critical.

Here’s a plan:

First, similar to the first Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration should build a public-private partnership, where future customers (e.g., Nvidia, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Google, Amazon, Apple and others), Japanese investors such as Softbank, and private equity, backed by government financing and/or investment, would buy Intel’s fabrication assets before the lack of investment and the rust of time makes them worthless and leave the United States dangerously dependent on a single manufacturing firm.

Second, the Trump administration has been very effective in persuading leading U.S. companies to invest in America’s future. They should be encouraged to partner and invest in a new American Foundry and to buy from it. Nvidia, Broadcom, Google, and others may have turned down Intel’s offering, but they cannot as easily turn down the opportunity to help create an independent, leading-edge domestic competitor to TSMC. American companies want (and need) alternative sources of supply, and this plan can provide them.

Building a new American Foundry for advanced semiconductors is the best strategy to keep the United States and American firms at the leading edge of AI and advanced electronics, and to ensure that critical supply chains are not disrupted by geopolitics, pandemics, or natural disasters. There is no time to waste.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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• S&P 500 futures are ticking upward this morning but Starbucks’ stock is underperforming the market due in part to an incoming 50% U.S. tariff on Brazilian coffee. Analysts estimate a 3.5% annual cost increase for the company, reducing earnings. While U.S. coffee prices rise, the impact on Brazil is small, and global coffee prices are falling, benefiting other markets.

S&P 500 futures are up 0.23% this morning, after the index closed down 0.49% yesterday. The blue-chip ranking has gained 7% year to date and remains near its all-time high, but there is one major name that isn’t benefiting from the risk-on attitude on Wall Street right now: Starbucks.

SBUX is down 1.15% YTD, and is down 8% over the last five trading sessions. It is not difficult to figure out why. President Trump is sitting on the stock. Or rather, his 50% tariff on Brazil—the world’s largest producer of coffee—isn’t investors’ preferred cup of tea.

In its Q2 earnings call, the company reported a 2% decline in same-store sales, even as per-customer sales rose 1%. That suggests coffee price increases are already percolating through the company.

Starbucks’ costs could rise 3.5% annually, according to TD Cowen analyst Andrew Charles. That would wipe 2 cents a share off Starbucks’ earnings, Charles said.

The U.S., of course, grows close to zero coffee. Thus the tariff on Brazil will result solely in price increases for American coffee drinkers.

Counterintuitively, it won’t hurt Brazil that much. Goldman Sachs projects that the Brazilian economy will still grow by 2.3% this year.

The rest of the world is likely to benefit. There are plenty of markets for coffee. If U.S. demand goes down, the extra supply for foreign customers is likely to depress price growth.

That’s already happening. Global arabica coffee futures have declined by 30% this year and currently sit at around $2.96 per tonne. In sum, coffee in America is getting more expensive, but for everyone else it’s getting cheaper.

Chart from Trading Economics

That dynamic—that the tariffs are going to hurt global economies less than first thought and may contain advantages for some foreign markets—goes some way to explaining why markets are largely up across Asia and Europe this morning.

Here’s a snapshot of the action prior to the opening bell in New York:

• S&P 500 futures were up 0.2% this morning, premarket, after the index closed down 0.49% yesterday. 
• STOXX Europe 600 was flat in early trading. 
• The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.18% in early trading.
• Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.6%. 
• China’s CSI 300 was up 0.24%. 
• The South Korea KOSPI was flat. 
• India’s Nifty 50 was down 0.23%. 
• Bitcoin sank to $113.9K.

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• President Trump is narrowing his shortlist to replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair. Kevin Warsh, Kevin Hassett, and Christopher Waller are emerging as top contenders—all are seen as more amenable to interest rate cuts. Trump confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declined the role, saying, “I want to work with you,” while market-watchers weigh how each candidate could impact Fed independence and dollar strength.

In 12 months’ time a different hand will be guiding the Federal Reserve. Chairman Jerome Powell is due to stand down in May of next year. Different—not new—because some of the candidates President Trump may be eyeing for nomination are already well-known figures in regional and central banking.

The shortlist is getting narrower as the timeline for a nomination announcement draws closer. Last month the president said he would confirm his decision “very soon,” potentially in a bid to shift attention toward the incoming Fed chairman and away from Powell.

This week Trump has also dropped another crumb for spectators: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent won’t be moving over to the Fed.

Bessent’s name had been circulating for the role courtesy of his background and close relationship to the president. But yesterday Trump told CNBC: “I love Scott, but he wants to stay where he is. I asked him just last night, ‘Is this something you want?’ [Bessent said], ’Nope, I want to stay where I am. He actually said, ‘I want to work with you.’ It’s such an honor. I said, ‘That’s very nice. I appreciate that.’”

Bessent has been clear that he wanted to remain at the Treasury but would go where the president asked him to, saying earlier this year that he had the “best job” in Washington and “would like to stay in my seat through 2029.”

With Bessent removing himself from contention, Trump confirmed he now has four names in mind as potential successors to lead the Federal Open Market Committee. The Oval Office has also made at least one of the criteria clear: The next Fed chairman must be more willing to cut rates.

Option 1: Kevin Warsh

A former member of the Board of Governors at the Fed, Warsh has been seen as a frontrunner for Fed chairman since President Trump took office. Warsh served on the board between 2006 to 2011, acting as administrative governor managing and overseeing the group’s operations, personnel, and financial performance.

Trump has already talked warmly of Warsh, telling reporters on Air Force One last month that Warsh is “very highly thought of.”

Warsh, currently a visiting fellow in economics at the Hoover Institution and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, is bullish on the American economy and has supported calls that Trump 2.0 could usher in a golden era for the nation.

The White House might also like some of the criticism Warsh has leveled at the Fed’s current thinking. Warsh told CNBC a few weeks ago that if he were the president a chief concern would be a Federal Reserve which doesn’t recognize the upsides in economic data.

“What I’d be worried about is a central bank that doesn’t see any of that. A central bank that is stuck with models from 1978, governance from a prior period, and [doesn’t] recognize we could be at the front end of a productivity boom,” Warsh said. “If I were the president, I’d be worried that [the Fed] might not see it and they might think economic growth is somehow going to be inflationary.”

For many years, Warsh has also called for a “regime change” at the Fed, and argued: “it’s not just about a person, it’s about an approach to economics … I’m troubled when I see them moving the goalposts. It is very puzzling to me, how you could think that we should do an emergency rate just last September and now all of a sudden you stand there like a hawk. That’s not good for the institution, I don’t think it’s good for the economy to be changing the goalposts like that.”

Potentially a mark against Warsh’s name is that he has some characteristics of a hawk—those who would keep the base rate higher in order to keep inflation low. In a conversation with the Hoover Institute earlier this month, for example, he outlined price stability is at the core of restoring Fed credibility.

To this end, wrote ING in a note to clients this morning, “Warsh stands out as the most USD-friendly candidate at this stage … We could see the dollar gain support on his nomination.”

Option 2: Kevin Hassett

Warsh isn’t even the only Kevin in contention, Trump revealed. Yesterday he said: “Both Kevins are very good, and there are other people that are very good, too.”

Leading in the polls at present is Kevin Hassett, currently serving as Director of the National Economic Council. Per prediction market Kalshi, Hassett is being priced with a 41% chance of winning the nomination, while Warsh sits at 29%.

Hassett has been an integral figure in Trump 2.0 thus far, supporting on everything from trade deals under the new tariff regime to speaking with House members about key legislation like the ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill Act’.

This very fact may prove to be the reason Trump may steer away from nominating Hassett: It may raise questions about the independence of the Fed.

Despite wanting a friendly face at the head of the FOMC, the White House will be mindful of the fact that the autonomy of the central bank is a fundamental strength of the economy. Trump already learned the hard way how markets react to perceived threats against this independence, after he was forced to walk back a threat to fire Powell and the markets revolted.

Questions of transparency and independence have been rife over the past week after President Trump dismissed the chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) following surprise and significant revisions to labor data reporting. Asked about how he would address such criticisms, Hassett said: “I’m an economist, I’m not a politician. But when politicians look at numbers that make them wonder, then that suggests there needs to be more transparency.”

In a note overnight, Goldman Sachs suggested that further hints about the next chairman could come in the form of a replacement for Fed Governor Adriana Kugler, who resigned last week. Chief U.S. economist, Jan Hatzius, wrote: “If confirmed very quickly, the new governor might be able to participate in the September 16-17 FOMC meeting. This would likely add further support for rate cuts following last week’s two dissents in favor of cuts from Governor Waller and Vice Chair for Supervision Bowman.

“The choice is particularly important because the new governor could well take over leadership of the FOMC from Chair Powell.” 

Option 3: Christopher Waller

Governor Waller was a nomination of President Trump’s in 2020, in a term ending in 2030, already marking him as an individual who has earned the notice and respect of the current White House.

But in more recent months, Waller has raised eyebrows as potentially auditioning for the role of Fed chairman. Notably, he was one of two members who dissented against the recent FOMC decision not to cut the base rate from its current level of 4.25 to 4.5%.

As UBS’s Paul Donovan wrote late last week: “Investors are bound to suspect that the rationale amounted to little more than an excited jumping up and down and shouting ‘pick me, pick me’ in the general direction of the White House.”

Waller has lobbied for a rate cut for some time, and hinted that he would like to see a quicker turnaround on when that action may take place. Yet even this has led economists to question whether the governor is a true advocate of a reduction, or is seeking to publicly appeal to the president for the role.

As Jeremy Siegel, emeritus professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, wrote for WisdomTree, where he is a senior economist, last month: “Chris Waller argued … for a potential July rate cut. Is he auditioning to be Powell’s replacement? I agree with Waller, we’re too far above the neutral rate with tariffs coming.”

Option 4: Relative outliers

Elsewhere President Trump could look to FOMC member Michelle Bowman as a potential candidate, for she too dissented against the Fed’s decision to hold rates.

Bowman, vice chair of supervision at the Fed, justified her stance with: “Inflation has moved considerably closer to our target, after excluding temporary effects from tariffs, and the labor market remains near full employment. With economic growth slowing this year and signs of a less dynamic labor market, I saw it as appropriate to begin gradually moving our moderately restrictive policy stance toward a neutral setting.”

“In my view, this action would have proactively hedged against a further weakening in the economy and the risk of damage to the labor market.”

And more widely, economist Judy Shelton’s name has also been floated. Shelton was, after all, a Trump nomination to the Fed during his first term but did not receive congressional backing to make it to the board.

At the time many expressed concern about how closely Shelton’s economic analysis was aligned to the president’s—including calls for a larger-than expected cut to rates—and questioned how highly she valued central bank independence.

Since then, Shelton has lobbied for the inflation target (currently set to 2%) to be lowered to zero in order to “make life much less complicated for all of us who have to use the dollar and constantly express things in terms of inflation adjusted.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Yesterday was a really big deal for drone delivery junkies. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy unveiled a rule the drone industry has been waiting on for over a decade.

It’s called “BVLOS,” or beyond visual line of sight. Right now, you’re not allowed to fly a drone without a human watching the drone for the duration of its flight (there are case-by-case exemptions and waivers you can get, but these can be expensive and take a long time to obtain). In other words, it’s pretty tricky for companies like Amazon or UPS to regularly make deliveries in any kind of cost-effective way.

The new rule is set to change all that—and start paving the way for companies like a16z-backed Zipline, Alphabet’s Wing, and of course Amazon’s Prime Air to finally start scaling their operations. And it means that all of us may be one step closer to getting our goodies and groceries shipped to us from the sky.

I called up James Grimsley, executive director of advanced technology initiatives for the Choctaw Nation, to talk about the milestone yesterday. Grimsley, who oversees the Choctaw tribe’s drone efforts and the piece of land where companies come to test and fly, was one of the people involved in drafting the report the FAA ultimately used to write the rule, and has been following this closely over the last 20 years of his career.

“This is a transformational rule,” he tells me. “This is a pretty big step.”’

Without boring you with too many of the policy particulars, it’s worth noting that this rule proposal is a market shift in how the FAA has approached regulation for the last 100 years. This rule, Grimsley says, is designed to be adaptable, and be able to shift with the pace of technology—a recognition that when regulation and approvals take too long, the technology at issue risks becoming obsolete by the time it can be implemented. Instead of handing down a prescriptive checklist for companies to follow, the FAA will grant approvals based on “industry consensus standards,” the FAA’s fact sheet says.

“Now we’re going to have a little bit clearer path for the investment community—at least that’s my perspective on it,” Grimsley says.

Though not everyone is going to be thrilled by the FAA paving the way for more drones to start zipping through our skies. The presence of drones has caused alarm in communities—and the buzzing noise has sometimes become a nuisance.

We’re already starting to see how these new BVLOS rules will play out. In Dallas, Alphabet subsidiary Wing and the startup Flytrex have been working closely with the FAA for a collaboration—running an automated delivery system in the same areas and showcasing how multiple companies can share data to operate in the same airspace at once without the need for humans to get involved. 

The new rule is expected to go into effect sometime in early 2026, but companies are already gearing up for it.

“This creates the foundation for truly scalable drone operations in the U.S.,” says Alex Norman, head of global flight operations & services at the drone company Matternet.

Podcast drop… Fortune just dropped the second episode of the Term Sheet Podcast! This week, Allie interviews Taylor Otwell, founder and CEO of Laravel, the company that helps power the CMS Fortune builds the Fortune 500 and our other lists in. Together they discuss Laravel’s rise as an Arkansas-based tech company and Taylor’s early decisions as a founder, and the passionate Laravel community. Also in this episode: Figma’s successful IPO, OpenAI’s latest funding round, and the deal of the week: Joby Aviation.

Jessica Mathews
X: @jessicakmathews
Email: [email protected]

Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here.

Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter. Subscribe here.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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As DoorDash reports its latest financial results on Thursday, it’s clear that the 12-year-old company has dominated the restaurant delivery wars in the U.S. over Uber Eats and Grubhub, owning somewhere around two-thirds of the market thanks in part to its prescient move into the suburbs that was supercharged by Covid-19 lockdowns.

That market lead alone has encouraged investors to bid up its stock price to more than $250 a share and a market cap north of $108 billion as of Tuesday.  All in, DoorDash shares have more than doubled over the past year. 

And considering that DoorDash finished 2024 with its first-ever annual profit, the San Francisco-based company led by founder Tony Xu appears well positioned to continue thriving in the U.S. food delivery business.

But if you look at DoorDash’s investment and M&A activity this year, you’ll see the signs of a company that has quietly laid the foundation for a much grander ambition beyond restaurant delivery in the U.S. And if it’s successful–still a big if–DoorDash will someday be known as much more central to the technological fabric of restaurants and other local retailers around the globe than it is today.

In May, the company announced a double whammy of two proposed acquisitions: one, a nearly $4 billion deal for Deliveroo, which would give DoorDash a Top 3 meal delivery business in the UK, and a combined presence in more than 40 countries – with the intent of turning DoorDash’s core restaurant delivery operation into a truly global one (DoorDash previously acquired Finland-based Wolt in 2022 for around $8 billion in an all-stock deal.)

The other acquisition was a $1.2 billion deal for the hospitality software company SevenRooms, which makes software products aimed at helping restaurants, hotels, and other hospitality businesses manage bookings, reservations, and their customer relationships. The decision to buy SevenRooms was led by Parisa Sadrzadeh, a former rising star at Amazon whose mandate when hired at DoorDash last year was to expand the company’s suite of software tools, called DoorDash Commerce Platform, that help brick-and-mortar restaurants and retailers grow and manage their businesses inside their physical locations in addition to any delivery operations.

“While DoorDash solved a massive problem for merchants during the pandemic…introducing a delivery capability to many who had never considered doing it before,” Sadrzadeh told Fortune in May, “[another] challenge ended up being how do you grow my actual volume in my physical store because those are my most profitable consumers.” 

Weeks after announcing the pair of May acquisitions, DoorDash continued the buying spree  by announcing a $175 million acquisition of the advertising technology startup Symbiosys, which is designed to help brands and retailers who advertise on the DoorDash app also reach DoorDash customers on other platforms around the web. DoorDash said that its ad business crossed $1 billion in annualized revenue in 2024. Online advertising businesses have increasingly become key profit engines for online retailers and marketplaces. While DoorDash doesn’t break out financial results for its ad business, analysts have estimated that it carries a much larger profit margin than its core delivery business.

In the background, DoorDash has continued to aggressively go after other types of consumer spending too, signing delivery partnerships with retailers big and small across grocery, pharmacy, pet, sporting goods, and alcohol categories too. 

Taken together, DoorDash is laying out an ambitious vision – it’ll take time to judge if it’s too ambitious and distracting or as prescient as its suburban delivery move – to become a much more comprehensive technology player to restaurants and other brick-and-mortar retailers across the globe. At the same time, even with a market cap of $100 billion-plus, the company still has potential for considerable growth within its core business of restaurant delivery in markets around the world.  

“If you took our oldest area of exploration, U.S. restaurants…we’re still single-digit percentages of the U.S. restaurant industry sales,” CEO Xu said on an earnings call earlier this year. “If you look at globally, that number would be even smaller.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Good morning. Accurate, timely data is essential for strong decision-making and business growth. When data quality suffers, organizations risk losing their strategic edge, and recent changes to U.S. statistical agencies have raised red flags among top economists.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may have completed much of its cost-cutting agenda, but its ripple effects are still being felt. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, flags deeper risks stemming from DOGE’s workforce reductions: slashing jobs at federal statistical agencies is already eroding the quality of government data—a sign of more far-reaching consequences for public services.

“Government workers have important jobs that are critical to providing important services to taxpayers,” Zandi told me. “If jobs are cut and those services aren’t provided or aren’t provided in a timely and competent way, there can be significant negative fallout.”

Regarding the quality of data, the release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics'(BLS) report last week resulted in intense scrutiny. President Trump on Aug. 1 ordered the firing of Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the BLS.

According to the BLS, July’s employment report showed only 73,000 new jobs, while job gains from May and June were sharply revised downward by a combined 258,000. This brought the three-month average monthly payroll growth down to just 35,000, compared to 123,000 a year earlier.

However, Zandi points to DOGE’s cuts as a key driver of these revisions: Workforce reductions mean payroll data from agencies often arrives late, leading to large, after-the-fact corrections. 

“This didn’t matter much when government employment was stable, but now that government jobs are declining, the cuts are being picked up in the revisions,” Zandi said. 

The impact extends to the statistical agencies themselves; understaffed teams struggle to process employment data promptly, which in turn causes even bigger subsequent revisions, he said. Investing in reliable data and the people who collect it is a foundation for smart decisions and economic resilience, according to Zandi.

In times of uncertainty, the value of good data cannot be overstated: It is an indispensable compass for leaders.

Sheryl Estrada
[email protected]

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady talks to WM CEO Jim Fish.
• The big story: Trump wants tariffs on buyers of Russian oil.
• The markets: Broadly up this morning.
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune. 

Good morning. Summer in the city is a great time to talk trash. The sanitation strikes that cut deep this time of year and the smells emanating from open-air trash cans remind us that the U.S. is one of the world’s largest producers of waste, with Americans generating about 951 kilograms (2,100 pounds) of municipal solid waste per person each year.

The company that handles about a third of that trash is WM, the $24 billion-a-year giant otherwise known as Waste Management. It’s the dominant player operating transfer stations, landfill sites, recycling plants and landfill gas projects. In this week’s episode of Fortune’s Leadership Next podcast, CEO Jim Fish talks about aligning the brand around sustainability. “It’s profitable for us,” he says, noting that decomposing trash produces the natural gas that powers WM’s garbage trucks, among other things. 

He also talks about the transformative role of technology in creating safer trucks, and ergo, fewer people are needed in roles that can have 50% turnover rates. “I was back there one time when it was below zero on the back of a truck, climbing over snowdrifts. Your hands are cold; it’s a hard job,” he says. “The most dangerous place around those trucks is when you’re outside them.”

While Fish says his philosophy is to put employees first—“If they feel good, they will make the customer feel good. And if the customer is happy, then ultimately your shareholders are happy”—he feels a particular responsibility to the environment. “I get plenty of calls from customers saying, ‘Hey, what happened to my recycling pickup last week?’ The environment doesn’t call me.”

On that front, he points to progress. Coming to New York as a kid, he says, “I looked at the East River and thought, ‘my gosh look how horrible that is.’” (WM doesn’t handle garbage collection here.) Now? “New York has done a lot. It’s not Tokyo but it’s done a nice job of improving … Are we there? No, but are we better than we were?” You can listen to our full conversation on Spotify or Apple.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at [email protected]

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Forget an MBA or climbing the corporate ladder. The Jeff Bezos and Elon Musks of tomorrow could be Gen Z dropouts. That’s because new research shows they’re most likely to be working on their own side hustles outside of their 9-to-5 jobs.  

It’s no secret that Gen Z grads are feeling the burn after spending a small fortune on their degree, only to realize the qualification is pretty “useless” and won’t even increase their chances of getting employed anymore. They’re about to feel even more vengeful.

That’s because new research highlights they could one day wind up reporting into a Gen Z dropout. 

A staggering 58% of the generation have a side hustle outside of their everyday job—with young men around 8% more likely to be moonlighting as their own boss after work and on weekends. But the most likely person to be running their own business after hours? Gen Zers without a degree. 

In fact, the research from Resume Genius reveals that the likelihood of having a side hustle decreases as Gen Z workers’ level of formal education increases. 7 in 10 Gen Z workers with some college experience (suggesting that they dropped out before completing their course) are currently running their own gig on the side. In comparison, this drops to just around 55% for those with a bachelor’s degree or master’s.

It comes as the youngest generation of workers increasingly opts to ditch the corporate ladder and favour of running their own business. The second-fastest-growing job title among Gen Z right now is “founder,” according to LinkedIn. Another study echoes that half of the 18 to 35-year-olds who’ve started a side gig or plan to start one say their primary motivation is to be their own boss.

And while not every Gen Zer with a side hustle become the next tech titan on the Fortune 500, they’re still one step closer than those without one. 

Billion-dollar side hustles from Apple to Airbnb

Some of the world’s biggest companies started as scrappy side hustles built in basements, garages, or during lunch breaks.

Take Apple: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs met in 1971 while working at the tech giant HP. Within a year they had their first side-hustle, selling “blue boxes” that enabled people to make long-distance phone calls at no cost. They then worked on the computer Apple 1, often meeting up to brainstorm in the garage of Jobs’ Los Altos childhood home while still working other full-time tech jobs.

Jack Dorsey was working as a web designer at a podcast company called Odeo when he started designing Twitter.

Instagram was just a side project, spun off from a more complicated app called “Burbn” that ex-Google employee Kevin Systrom came up with while working at start-up travel recommendation website Nextstop. 

Under Armour, Etsy, and Airbnb were all once side gigs, too. But you don’t just look at the world’s most famous billionaires for examples of side hustles turned into full time gigs. 

Chase Gallagher was 12 years old when he started mowing his neighbors’ lawns in Pennsylvania for $35 a pop in the summer of 2013. By 16, Gallagher had already turned over $50,000 from his lawn mowing side hustle. Today, it’s evolved into a landscaping business that employs 10 people and does “everything from stormwater management and drainage work to pavers and lighting,” the now 23-year-old told Fortune. Last year, CMG Landscaping generated more than $1.5 million in revenue.

Likewise, Ed Fuller told Fortune how he turned his side hustle for Amex into a $27 million-a-year marketing agency that works with MrBeast. And House of CB—the cult fashion brand with over 6 million social media followers and a Kardashian fanbase—started out as a teenage side hustle on eBay.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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As the United States ramps up tariffs on major trading partners globally, President Donald Trump is also disrupting strategies that could be used—by Chinese companies or others—to circumvent them.

Goods deemed to be “transshipped,” or sent through a third country with lower export levies, will face an additional 40% duty under an incoming wave of Trump tariffs Thursday.

The latest tranche of “reciprocal” tariff hikes, taking aim at what Washington deems unfair trade practices, impacts dozens of economies from Taiwan to India.

The transshipment rule does not name countries, but is expected to impact China significantly given its position as a manufacturing powerhouse.

Washington likely wants to develop supply chains that are less reliant on China, analysts say, as tensions simmer between the world’s two biggest economies and the U.S. sounds the alarm on Beijing’s excess industrial capacity.

But “it’s a little more about the short-term effect of strengthening the tariff regime than it is about a decoupling strategy,” said Josh Lipsky, chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council.

“The point is to make countries worried about it and then have them err on the side of not doing it, because they know that Trump could then jack up the tariff rates higher again,” he added, referring to tariff evasion.

The possibility of a sharply higher duty is a “perpetual stick in the negotiations” with countries, said Richard Stern, a tax and budget expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

He told AFP that expanding penalties across the globe takes the focus away from Beijing alone.

Alternative supplies

Experts have noted that Vietnam was the biggest winner from supply chain diversions from China since the first Trump tariffs around 2018, when Washington and Beijing engaged in a trade war.

And Brookings Institution senior fellow Robin Brooks pointed to signs this year of significant transshipments of Chinese goods.

He noted in a June report that Chinese exports to certain Southeast Asian countries started surging “anomalously” in early 2025 as Trump threatened widespread levies.

While it is unclear if all these products end up in the United States, Brooks cast doubt on the likelihood that domestic demand in countries like Thailand and Vietnam rocketed right when Trump imposed duties.

“One purpose of the transshipment provisions is to force the development of supply chains that exclude Chinese inputs,” said William Reinsch, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The other purpose is to push back on Chinese overcapacity and force them to eat their own surpluses,” he added.

But Washington’s success in the latter goal depends on its ability to get other countries on board.

“The transshipment penalties are designed to encourage that,” Reinsch said.

Lipsky added: “The strategy that worked in the first Trump term, to try to offshore some Chinese manufacturing to other countries like Vietnam and Mexico, is going to be a much more difficult strategy to execute now.”

China response?

Lipsky noted that Beijing could see the transshipment clause as one targeting China on trade, “because it is.”

“The question is, how China takes that in the broader context of what had been a thawing relationship between the U.S. and China over the past two months,” he added.

While both countries temporarily lowered triple-digit tariffs on each other’s exports, that truce expires August 12.

The countries are in talks to potentially extend the de-escalation, although the final decision lies with Trump.

It will be tough to draw a line defining product origins, analysts say.

Customs fraud has been illegal for some time, but it remains unclear how Washington will view materials from China or elsewhere that have been significantly transformed.

The burden lies with customs authorities to identify transshipment and assess the increased duties.

“That will be difficult, particularly in countries that have close relations with China and no particular incentive to help U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” Reinsch added.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Donald Trump said Japan would accept imports of Ford’s huge F-150 pickup trucks, in the latest sign that the two countries are at odds in their understanding of a trade agreement the U.S. President announced last month.

His comments came as Tokyo’s top negotiator headed to Washington to press the Trump administration to follow through on a pledge to reduce tariffs on cars and car parts to 15% from the current crippling 27.5%.

“They’re taking our cars,” Trump said of Japan in a phone interview broadcast by CNBC on Tuesday. “They’re taking the very beautiful Ford F-150, which does very well. And I’m sure we’ll do very well there and other things that do very well here, will also do well there.”

Confusion hangs over various details of a trade deal struck between the U.S. and Japan, sparking concern in Japan over its enforcement, particularly regarding cars. The Trump administration’s rhetoric over trade deals has often shown discrepancies with its partners, casting doubt over their viability.

“This is an extremely urgent matter, so the government will do its utmost to ensure its implementation,” Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said of the deal in a parliamentary session held Tuesday. 

U.S. auto tariffs on Japan are now set at 27.5%—a combination of a previous 2.5% rate and a new 25% applied by Trump. Although a cut to 15% would lessen the blow, that rate would still impact a sector that has long been a mainstay of Japan’s economy.

“It’s worth noting that the U.S.-UK agreement took 54 days to be implemented,” Japan’s negotiator Ryosei Akazawa told reporters when asked about the lowering of auto tariffs after arriving in Washington on Wednesday morning Japan time. 

Another question is whether the across-the-board 15% tariff is stacked on top of existing rates or whether all current levies will be standardized to 15%, in another potential divergence of the U.S. and Japan’s understandings of the trade deal. 

Although Akazawa has claimed that levies will be cut off at 15% rather than added on top of current rates, an executive order released last week indicated that the 15% cut off applied only to the European Union and would not be implemented for Japan. 

“There are many details involved with this tariff rate, so we are seeking to discuss these points in detail,” Akazawa added.

While Trump has long lamented the fact that U.S. cars are unpopular in Japan, most experts agree that is due to the lack of vehicles suitable for the market, rather than any barriers to trade. 

The Ford F-150 that Trump mentioned in the interview is more than two meters wide even without mirrors, likely limiting its usefulness on Japan’s roads, many of which are less than four meters wide for two car lanes, according to a government report released in 2012. 

In the same interview with CNBC, Trump called the $550 billion investment package agreed with Japan in the trade deal a “signing bonus” much like that of a baseball player. 

“I got a signing bonus from Japan of $550 billion. That’s our money. It’s our money to invest as we like,” he said. 

The Japanese side has said only 1% to 2% of the overall amount will be actual investment, with the rest being loans and loan guarantees. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has said that the investments will be made at the behest of private companies, and benefit both Japan and the U.S. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Even once-fecund states are having fewer children