Stocks finished the day flat, after a strong morning and a topsy-turvy afternoon. The day’s news was dominated by the Federal Reserve. Its interest rate decision was largely a formality, instead, its economic projections took center as investors looked for clues about how to navigate the rampant uncertainty.
All eyes were on the Federal Reserve on Wednesday.
Interest rates were largely a settled matter. Instead, investors turned their attention to the Fed’s economic forecasts for the year.
The so-called dot plot, which is released once a quarter, summarizes Fed officials’ projections for interest rates, inflation, and growth, among other things. The Fed kept its median projection of two quarter-point rate cuts for 2025.
Investors were sure the Fed would hold steady on interest rates, meaning it would have little effect on equity prices. However, the dot plot did move markets.
All three major indices dropped sharply at 2p.m. when the Fed released its outlook, after having risen in the session’s morning hours. The rest of the afternoon was choppy among all three indices. Stock charts were all sharp peaks and valleys.
Ultimately they settled roughly where they started the day.
The S&P 500 closed down 0.03% and the Dow Jones dropped 0.1%. The Nasdaq was the only one of the three that was in positive territory for the day, ending at 0.13%. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq remain positive year-to-date, up 1.9% and 1.4% respectively.
That latest dot plot carried preludes to stagflation—among the most catastrophic economic scenarios. Investors had hoped the worst of the year’s market turmoil was behind them. After a brutal April that saw stocks, bonds, and the U.S. dollar all fall in the wake of President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, markets largely recovered.
But the latest Fed projections raised fears that may not be the case. Projections for inflation and unemployment grew, while those for growth sank. Anything that carries even the suggestion of stagflation can put markets on high alert. The dot plot saw core inflation expectations increase to a peak of 3.1% compared to 2.8% in March, and the projected unemployment rate ticked up to 4.5% from 4.4%.
But any forecast and plan was liable to change, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said during a press conference on Wednesday.
“These individual forecasts are always subject to uncertainty, and as I’ve noted, uncertainty is unusually elevated,” Powell said. “And, of course, these projections are not a committee plan or decision.”
As markets grapple with domestic uncertainty; they were greeted with another war in the Middle East. The expanding conflict between Israel and Iran has now added a significant new wrinkle that investors will have to consider in their decisions. Whenever the Middle East is in question, oil markets often take center stage. Both countries have bombed each other’s oil refineries in the early days of the war.
On Wednesday, oil futures dropped 3% in 25 minutes in the morning, before recovering throughout the rest of the day. They then recovered about 2.3%, back to positive territory, before dropping in the late hours of the afternoon. At the time of publication they were down 0.1%.
As oil prices go, so does the greenback. At least, most of the time. The U.S. dollar index (DXY) rose 0.16% on the day. That trajectory continued two days of positive moves for the index, which had fallen to below 98 on Monday.
Sometimes it feels like the world is on fire—even, if not especially, at work, according to a new report which found that a toxic “triple threat” of pessimism, uncertainty, and disconnect in the workplace is reaching critical levels.
That, in turn, is endangering employee well-being and undermining productivity, according to the just-released 2025 State of the Workforce Report from “workplace resilience system” meQuilibrium.
“Pessimism in the workforce represents a greater threat than just complaining about one’s job around the water cooler—it directly undermines workplace productivity and mental health,” said meQ chief science officer Brad Smith in a news release. “We found that employees with work-related pessimism experience an over 60% reduction in productivity and 128% greater risk of depression.”
The report analyzes findings from 5,477 employees across various industries in order to provide actionable insights for building empathetic leadership, developing individual resilience skills, and leveraging “organizational citizenship behaviors to protect both well-being and business outcomes in this challenging landscape.”
The problem with pessimism, uncertainty, and disconnect
According to the findings, 67% of employees say they feel worse when thinking about the state of the country, 35% feel worse about their work situation, and 49% feel worse about their finances—with a majority, 52%, expecting the state of our country to worsen. Meanwhile, 27% expect their finances to get worse, while 24% expect their work situation to decline.
Add uncertainty to the mix, and it more than triples the rate at which employees have a pessimistic view of work.
“The rise in uncertainty-related stress impacts more than feelings—it’s costing companies: individuals who report a high degree of uncertainty-related stress also exhibit much greater productivity impairment, indicating that uncertainty may be reducing output by as much as half,” said Smith. “Additionally, nearly one in three employees who experienced a high degree of uncertainty-related stress show a high degree of burnout.”
Burnout, in turn, is part of the third problematic element—disconnect—which drains employees’ mental and emotional energy. Also a part of that is a sense of broken trust when companies or leaders fail to meet expectations, which leads to weakened working relationships. More than half of employees (55%) showed at least one symptom of disconnect—particularly younger employees (18-29), 62% of which say they are affected by disconnect. The most severely affected reported a 66% impairment in productivity.
“Uncertainty-related stress isn’t going away-it’s the new normal in the workplace,” said Dr. Smith. “What’s alarming is how it’s eroding employee confidence and dragging down performance and engagement without many even noticing.”
Gen Z is the most pessimistic
In addition to being more disconnected, Gen Z appears to be most pessimistic, despite pessimism remaining consistent across most demographic groups. The current state of pessimism for that group is significantly higher than for others across all measured categories:
71% of Gen Zers expressed negative views about the country’s state compared to 59% of older employees.
62% of Gen Z reported dissatisfaction with their financial situation, vs. 37% of older employees.
48% of Gen Z—vs. 22% of older workers—was pessimistic about their work situation.
Interestingly, when it comes to what’s still to come, Gen Z has hope, demonstrating consistently lower levels of pessimism about what the future holds.
How companies can turn this negativity around
The report calls out two “critical protective factors” that can fight back against the triple threat:
Empathetic Management: Managers who prioritize well-being for their team create top-down positive effects—reducing the stress of uncertainty by 37% and disconnect rates from 78% to 40%, the analysis found.
Individual Resilience: Among the most resilient employees—particularly those with the learnable skills of emotion control and realistic optimism—only 6% show signs of extreme disconnect compared to 59% of the least resilient.
Bottom line: to reverse the pessimism-uncertainty-disconnect threat, leaders should prioritize developing empathetic leadership at all levels, provide support for resiliency, and encourage peer support to strengthen company cultures.
There are many aspects to maintaining a healthy, happy relationship, but how your relationship impacts your emotional well-being is important too. Research has indicated that personal relationships are largely where people derive their sense of meaning in life—defined by researchers as how people “comprehend, make sense of, or see significance in their lives.” But it hasn’t been clear what it is about relationships that helps people find meaning.
A recent study gets us closer to an answer: Research from McGill University, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, shows that couples who hold a shared worldview (being on the same page about their understanding of the world) experienced less uncertainty and found more meaning in their lives.
Researchers conducted five studies of nearly 1,300 adults in the U.S. and Canada, pooling data from lab-based tasks, online surveys, and experiments. They were testing the hypothesis that experiencing a sense of shared reality with a close partner reduces uncertainty about one’s environment, which in turn boosts meaning in work and life. For instance, they found that front-line healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Americans during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations reported feeling less uncertainty and more meaning when their partner’s understanding of the world matched their own.
“Our approach was different from earlier work on how relationships promote meaning, which tended to focus on aspects like belonging or support,” said lead author and psychologist M. Catalina Enestrom in a press release. “We set out to explore whether sharing thoughts, ideas and concerns about the world with a romantic partner could enhance meaning by reducing uncertainty about one’s environment.”
What building a shared reality with your partner looks like
Having that shared perception of reality with your partner, according to the study, helps make your reality seem true while validating your perspective. Over time, the more experiences you share with your partner, the closer you can become to sharing a worldview.
“As couples accumulate shared experiences, shared feelings, goals, and memories, they develop a generalized shared reality,” senior author John Lydon, psychology professor at McGill University, said in the press release. “This is different from simply feeling close or supported. It’s not just ‘my partner gets me,’ it’s ‘we get it.’”
Enestrom pointed out that shared reality can emerge from both aligned experiences and interpretations.
“Shared reality can form, for instance, when a couple watches a horror movie together and one or both partners perceive that they both find it scary,” she said. “But shared reality doesn’t necessarily require shared experiences. One partner can describe a stressful event they experienced, and if the other partner sees it the same way, this too can foster shared reality.”
The more shared reality experiences you accumulate together, the more likely you are to build a shared understanding of the world in general, she explained. As couples become closer through a shared reality, researchers also observed a greater sense of meaning in life, where individuals have a strong feeling of purpose, which research indicates can lead to better coping, greater happiness, and improved health outcomes.
Should failed tariff negotiations lead to a trade war, the global economy is likely headed toward a recession, “The Big Short” investor Steve Eisman told CNBC this week. Eisman said the tariffs were the “only real risk” to the markets and warned the U.S. should be especially concerned with negotiating with the European Union ahead of the approaching July 9 trade-deal deadline.
Global markets will enter dire economic straits if President Donald Trump’s ongoing tariff stance leads to an all-out trade war, warns billionaire investor Steve Eisman.
The former managing director of Neuberger Berman—who successfully anticipated and profited from the 2008 stock market crash, and whose profile served as the basis for Michael Lewis’ book (and later, the 2015 film) “The Big Short”—said in a CNBC interview on Tuesday the U.S. economy and markets will flourish if the Trump administration is able to facilitate truces with the various nations on which he has imposed tariffs. But if that doesn’t happen, “chances are, we go into a global recession.”
“The tariffs and the potential for a trade war, I think, is really the only risk to the market right now,” Eisman said. “It’s completely binary, and I really have no way of handicapping it.”
Trump’s whipsaw tariff decisions have rattled both consumers—who have sharply cut back on spending as a result of the levies—and investors, who, like Eisman, see tariffs as a threat to the global economy. A Bank of America Global Fund Manager Survey published this week found 47% of the 222 fund managers surveyed said they believed a global recession as a result of a trade war was the biggest “tail risk” to markets.
Trade deals, such as with the UK and a tentative truce with China, have tempered these concerns. JPMorgan Research lowered its probability of U.S. and global recessions from 60% to 40% at the end of May, citing decreased trade tensions as a result of Trump slashing Chinese tariffs. The U.S., however, has yet to resolve its trade issues with the European Union ahead of a crucial July 9 deadline.
Eisman drew similarities between the rocky trade environment and lead-up to World War I, likely referring to a series of treaties forged in the decades before the war designed to settle regional skirmishes that, in reality, created two massive, and eventually opposing, alliances.
“Nobody wanted World War I, and yet, because of all the reciprocal treaties that existed between countries, they somehow ended up there,” he said. “I don’t think anybody wants a trade war, but it’s certainly possible.”
Not just China
Though trade talks with China have taken center stage, Eisman argued the process of solidifying trade relations with Europe is “more interesting,” given the EU’s concerns with regulations, as well as value-added tax (VAT). With 27 member states, the EU has to balance myriad agendas, complicating a potential trade deal.
“Negotiating with Europe is like trying to herd cats given the way they’re structured,” Eisman said.
Trump has claimed the EU was created to “screw” the U.S., threatening to impose, then later pausing, a 50% tariff on the union. As part of negotiations, the administration has tried to pressure the EU to loosen tech regulations he claims are inhibiting growth of U.S. companies. Trump also opposes VAT, essentially a sales tax that accumulates through each stage in a product’s supply chain. The president has interpreted VAT as another trade barrier, arguing the tax puts undue financial pressure on U.S. businesses trying to export to Europe.
Trump has signalled that the U.S. is not yet satisfied with provisions of the agreement, telling reporters on Tuesday, “We’re talking, but I don’t feel that they’re offering a fair deal yet.”
Trump’s former commerce secretary Wilbur Ross warned that after successful negotiations with China and the UK, the Trump administration may become overconfident in negotiations with the EU, pushing away European allies.
“One fear is that if our government feels too chesty with their progress, they may overplay the hand and get to levels that are hard—maybe even impossible—for the other countries to give in,” Ross told Fortune last week.
“This is going to be hard, but our country’s goal should be to help make European nations stronger and keep them close,” he added.
Investors were treated to another predictable Fed meeting. Interest rates remained the same, which had been all but a certainty in the lead-up to Wednesday’s decision. The Federal Reserve maintained its position that the economy was stable, even as uncertainty among participants was rising.
Investors and business leaders might feel as though the economy is teetering on a knife’s edge, but the data, Fed chair Jerome Powell reassured them, pointed to a solid picture—though one that was cloudier than before. Whether or not they are storm clouds is the critical question at hand.
“Uncertainty about the economic outlook has diminished but remains elevated,” according to a Fed statement released after the meeting.
With the question of rate cuts largely a foregone conclusion, investors instead turned their attention to the Fed’s Summary of Economic Predictions, which is commonly referred to as the “dot plot.” The hope is that Fed officials’ quarterly forecast about the U.S. economy, which includes expectations for interest rates, inflation, and growth, will offer some hints about their views for the economy. With the Fed usually circumspect about its outlook, investors often hope to divine some greater understanding about the fate of the U.S. economy.
The median rate projection was for two quarter-point rate cuts in 2025.
The previous dot plot, released in March, had the same median projection. One of the major updates from that version was the expectation of lower GDP growth and higher inflation over the course of 2025. At the time, it was a significant development because it meant Fed officials weren’t just considering the possibility of those two unwelcome changes, but also began to see them as the likely outcome of the economy’s current path.
That said, it’s worth remembering the dot plot is not a commitment to a certain amount of rate cuts; rather, it is a collection of forecasts made by top Fed officials at a given moment in time. Importantly, it also doesn’t communicate how certain each official is in their forecast.
It is nonetheless an important measure of where the central bank sees monetary policy heading. And with only six months left in the year, the timing left for the rate cuts it foresees (but not guarantees) is only getting tighter. For now, the consensus seems to be that there will be either one or two rate cuts.
For President Donald Trump, any interest-rate cuts can’t come soon enough. His criticisms of Powell have practically become a customary part of FOMC meetings. In the president’s view, interest rates should come down because inflation has not increased. And while that is true, the Fed is still hesitant to cut interest rates because it isn’t sure yet whether inflation will spike again as a result of Trump’s tariffs.
So far, the Trump administration has made some progress on the trade agreements it promised—something investors believed would calm the markets. The U.S. says it has signed a preliminary agreement with the UK and established a framework of a deal with China after two meetings. While a welcome early sign the U.S. might return to its previous role in the global economy, the two deals are well short of the dozens promised by the White House. As a result, uncertainty still lingers.
At the same time, the geopolitical conflicts also risk disrupting the market—namely, the military actions between Israel and Iran. The widening conflict in the Middle East only exacerbates tensions in an already volatile part of the world. Shipping through the Red Sea, oil markets, and U.S. military involvement all now remain open questions. Their potential answers are both varied and significant—unwelcome news for those clamoring for clarity.
To help figure out how AI will make its workers more productive, cybersecurity provider Palo Alto Networks polled every one of its departments for its best ideas.
But when choosing which suggestions to pursue, Palo Alto wanted to invest only in those that provided the biggest financial bang for the buck. “We went after four use cases,” says Meerah Rajavel, Palo Alto Networks’ chief information officer.
Those four included an AI agent called Panda AI that gives automated responses to employees who submit questions related to the IT, HR, and finance departments. There’s also an AI code generation tool for engineers, AI tools for customer support specialists, and another AI tool for customers needing help resolving problems they’re having with Palo Alto’s products.
Rajavel’s approach to AI led to some changed expectations within the company as the technology evolved over the past few years. For example, soon after OpenAI’s AI chatbot ChatGPT debuted in 2022, Rajavel heard from her boss, CEO Nikesh Arora, who said he wanted up to 90% of the 480,000 employee requests submitted annually to be resolved using generative AI. Those worker inquiries span questions about health benefits, changing login passwords, and approval to buy new software from an outside vendor.
But Palo Alto did some research and determined that AI could only solve 18% of those issues by summarizing information, the task that large language models are best at. “This is about someone asking for an action that needs to be done,” says Rajavel, referring to what most employees are seeking with their questions. “It has to complete the task. It cannot just guide the task.”
That led Palo Alto to create Panda, which now fields many employee requests. Today, close to 60% of Palo Alto’s employee-generated tickets are autonomously handled by Panda, and Rajavel says over time, this figure could rise to as high as 80%. Thanks to the help AI provides, the company has ditched a phone line, a dedicated Slack channel, and online portal that employees previously used to submit requests.
Now, all employees are first routed to the AI agent. In cases in which an issue can’t be solved by AI, a ticket is sent to a human agent to tackle.
So where does the cost savings come in? Human agents from outside companies handled many of those ticket requests, and with generative AI, Palo Alto can now spend less on those services. Meanwhile, Palo Alto has reskilled some of its internal support agents to focus more on ensuring that LLMs are trained on the correct data and to validate the accuracy of what the AI spits out.
Another big AI use case for Palo Alto is writing software code. The company’s 6,000 engineers are using AI for code generation today, but Rajavel says that her concerns about protecting Palo Alto’s intellectual property mean she hasn’t authorized popular coding tools like GitHub and Cursor. “We are not going to allow anybody to use a third party,” says Rajavel. Instead, Palo Alto trains its own Claude models, hosted on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform, to write code.
In addition to focusing on generative AI, Rajavel says she dedicates 20% of her time talking with customer CIOs, chief information security officers, and other C-suite executives. One Palo Alto offering that frequently comes up in those conversations is its AI Access Security tools, which organizations can use to identify which generative AI apps are being used on their network.
Rajavel should know what CIOs want to discuss with vendors. Rajavel has held the CIO title four times during her career, most recently at Palo Alto and previously, at three other technology companies: Citrix, Forcepoint, and Qlik.
Yet another area of focus of hers is integrating Palo Alto’s many acquisitions. Since joining in April 2022, the company has spent $500 million to buy IBM’s QRadar software-as-a-service assets; a reported $625 million on Talon Cyber Security, a builder of a secure enterprise browser for remote workers; and a reported $400 million for data security platform Dig Security, which discovers, classifies, and then protects sensitive data.
With the QRadar deal, Palo Alto was able to move customers to its operations platform, Cortex XSIAM. Meanwhile, Talon and Dig’s services were quickly integrated into the company’s existing ecosystem. Rajavel says acquired technologies are merged within 90 days of a deal closing.
When Palo Alto scoops up smaller companies, Rajavel says one danger is that their tools aren’t ready to be used by hundreds of thousands of customers. As a precaution, Palo Alto tries out their tools internally, as a test, before making them more available to customers.
“The very first person who is going to implement the technology is us,” says Rajavel.
John Kell
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JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., is doubling down on its bet on the crypto space by launching its own eponymous token, further blurring the lines between commercial banking and the crypto industry.
The bank announced on Tuesday that it would be piloting the new digital currency called JPMD in the coming days, in partnership with crypto exchange Coinbase. Rather than a stablecoin, like some were expecting, JPMD will be a deposit token—a digital representation of a bank deposit that is managed with blockchain technology. The company filed a trademark for “JPMD” over the weekend.
“This pilot combines the credibility of both JPMorgan and Base to help bring institutional money into a more global economy,” Jesse Pollack, VP of engineering at Coinbase, said in a statement.
The token will be used to settle transfers around the clock and make cross-border business-to-business payments on Base, Naveen Mallela, global co-head of JPMorgan Chase’s blockchain division Kinexys, told Fortune. “We have always believed in having a token-based solution on public blockchains,” he said.
The bank plans to issue JPMD on Base, a public Ethereum-based blockchain managed by Coinbase. It will be exclusively available to JPMorgan’s institutional clients, which include corporations and pension funds, according to Mallela. However, JPMorgan plans to expand the use of its JPMD token to more institutional clients over the next few months.
Deposit tokens vs. stablecoins
JPMorgan’s decision to create a deposit token instead of a stablecoin is a noteworthy break in an otherwise new corporate trend, and allows the bank to stand out in a crowded field.
Several major companies including Meta and Google have recently expressed interest in incorporating stablecoins into their payment structures, likely because the cryptocurrency—which is backed 1:1 to the U.S. Dollar—is considered more stable than other forms of crypto like Bitcoin.
JPMorgan chose to launch a deposit token, rather than a stablecoin, because of its different use cases, Mallela said. Stablecoins, like Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, are primarily used by retail clients for crypto trading, remittances, and as a store of value, and are managed by crypto companies, he says. Deposit tokens, on the other hand, are more suitable for institutional clients because they are issued by a licensed bank, making them better integrated into existing institutional financial systems.
“Institutional clients can treat JPMD as bank deposits on their balance sheet, providing certainty around financial and accounting treatment,” Mallela said.
Each JPMD deposit token traded on Base will represent a deposit claim against JPMorgan. Rather than being backed 1:1 by the U.S. dollar like a stablecoin, JPMD will be backed by “the same liquidity frameworks as traditional banks,” Mallela said.
Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison is now the second-richest person in the world, after his cloud-computing business’s stocks soared last week. The chairman’s net worth surged by more than $40 billion, outpacing the wealth of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and reaching a high of $250.9 billion. But he’ll have a hard time topping the riches of his close friend Elon Musk, who sits on a cool $405.8 billion fortune.
No one was in a better mood last week than Larry Ellison—the Oracle cofounder shot up Forbes’billionaire rankings list, reaching the number two spot, right below his close friend Elon Musk.
Ellison’s net worth now stands tall at $250.9 billion after Oracle’s recent earnings report triggered its shares to skyrocket.
With approximately 41% of Oracle’s shares in his name, the cloud-computing mogul saw his net worth climb by over $40 billion in a matter of days. On Thursday last week, his fortune grew by $25 billion, and increased by another $16 billion on Friday: easily two of the largest daily swells in billionaire net worth that week, according to Forbes.
Now Ellison has overtaken Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, who is currently worth $229 billion, and Mark Zuckerberg, who has a $240 billion net worth, in the billionaires club.
The one person he hasn’t topped yet is Elon Musk—Ellison’s close friend, who is still the world’s richest man with $405 billion in riches. There’s nearly a $155 billion difference between their respective net worths, so Ellison has his work cut out for him if he ever hopes to reach number one.
The Oracle stock frenzy that propelled Ellison to a $250 billion fortune
Last Wednesday, the afternoon earnings were dubbed a “watershed” moment for the cloud-computing company. It was also a big moment for Ellison’s wallet.
The report shows Oracle’s total revenue for the 2025 fiscal year rose by 8%, reaching a whopping $57.4 billion. The $1.70 adjusted earnings per share outperformed Wall Street’s expectations, alongside its unprecedented $15.9 billion in sales. One day after these figures were released, Oracle’s stock soared by 13%—and by midafternoon Friday, it rose another 7% to a record of $215 per share.
Ellison, the chairman and CTO of Oracle, subsequently enjoyed an 11-figure surge in net worth. Last Tuesday afternoon, the day before the cloud-computing titan released its earnings report, Ellison’s net worth stood at $213 billion.
While the 80-year-old entrepreneur may feel on top of the world right now, there’s no telling where he’ll be in 2026. Billionaires’ wealth fluctuates all the time—Bernard Arnault, founder and CEO of luxury fashion house LVMH, was the world’s richest person at the start of 2024 with $231 billion. Today, he’s in seventh place with a net worth of $142 billion, thanks to tumbling stocks.
However, TD Cowen analyst Derrick Wood said Oracle’s 2026 fiscal year, starting this month, will be a “major inflection point” for the business’ cloud infrastructure services, propelled by “massive demand for AI training workloads.” And Ellison himself sees the promise of what lies ahead.
“Oracle’s future is bright in this new era of cloud computing. Oracle will be the number one cloud database company,” Ellison said in the business’ earnings call last Friday. “Oracle is already prospering in this new era of cloud computing and AI, and it’s just the beginning.”
Topping Zuckerberg and Bezos, but falling short of Musk—for now
Ellison sees the next year as a new frontier for Oracle, which could mean another big payout for the executive. But even if he takes the number one spot for the world’s richest person, Musk probably won’t have hard feelings—after all, they’re good friends.
“I am not sure how many people know, but I’m very close friends with Elon Musk, and I’m a big investor in Tesla,” Ellison said during a 2018 conference call with analysts.
Ellison and Musk are two peas in a pod—both are wildly successful tech entrepreneurs with big personalities. The Oracle cofounder has repeatedly defended Musk, arguing against public backlash that he “doesn’t know what he’s doing,” saying he “loved” articles about the Tesla founder “smoking dope.”
In 2018, Musk even appointed Ellison to his Tesla board, drawing scrutiny from critics who argued it’s harder to maintain objectivity with friends on corporate boards.
The tech exec is now wealthier than Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, with a $250 billion fortune—but he’ll have a hard time dethroning his close friend Elon Musk.
Billionaire LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman admits Gen Z college graduates are joining the workforce at a rough time, thanks to a predicted entry-level job “bloodbath.” But instead of succumbing to the AI overlords, he encourages young people to move beyond vibe coding and prompt engineering—and instead prioritize human skills like intention. Those who do, he says, “will emerge as winners in an AI-mediated world.”
For Gen Z college graduates this year, walking across the stage comes with more than just a diploma—it’s bringing a sense of dread about the future.
AI is completely disrupting the college-to-career pipeline, so much so that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is predicting half of all entry-level white-collar jobs could disappear—and federal data backs up a decline in the recent college graduate job market.
The problem is so existential that it’s leaving the most inspirational minds at a loss; as LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman put it recently, “even the most inspirational advice lands like a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.”
However, despite a predicted AI white-collar “bloodbath,” not all is lost, and young people in particular have one advantage over their senior leaders: They know a thing or two about adapting to technology. After all, one in three college students already admits to using ChatGPT.
“I urge you not to think in terms of AI-proofing your career,” Hoffman encouraged Gen Z graduates in an op-ed for the San Francisco Standard. “Instead, AI-optimize it. Take advantage. AI is a tool you can master.”
Finding success in an AI future will require more than just learning to prompt-engineer or vibe-code. It means understanding how technology is revolutionizing workflows and business models: “The more you understand what employers are hiring for, and the reasons why, the more you’ll understand how you can get ahead in this new world,” Hoffman wrote.
Fortune reached out to Hoffman for comment.
How to become a winner in an AI-powered world
With AI models improving by the day, it’s becoming more important than ever to identify which skills will matter most in the future.
Four skills in particular will soon be the most valuable to master, Hoffman said—ones that AI cannot replicate:
Emotional intelligence
Ethical discernment
Creative expression
Intention
“People with the capacity to form intentions and set goals will emerge as winners in an AI-mediated world,” he said, while adding that those who take advantage of AI will come out on top.
“While evidence suggests it’s getting harder to find a first job, it has never been easier to create a first opportunity,” he added. “Since billions of people have access to the same tools and platforms and information you do, the competition will be intense. But it always has been for the best jobs.”
And while recent grads may feel like climbing the career ladder is impossible without entry-level experience, Hoffman encouraged Gen Z to get entrepreneurial and use AI as a tool to create their own opportunities.
“Try lots of things,” he concluded. “Instead of making five-year plans, consider six-month experiments. With the right tools, you can now do what used to require teams: create content and brands, generate and test marketing campaigns, write code, and design products.”
The growing importance of connections in an AI world
While it may be tempting to view AI chatbots as newfound friends, Hoffman warned against ignoring the power of in-person networks in an AI future. In fact, he called building friendship in business one of “humanity’s greatest superpowers.”
“Friendship is one of humanity’s oldest technologies. Long before we had corporations, capital markets, or even written language, we had alliances rooted in trust,” Hoffman wrote on X.
As the cofounder of LinkedIn, the platform that has arguably brought networking into the 21st century, it may come as no surprise that Hoffman believes reconnecting with humans is what will keep you grounded. But it’s especially true, he said, in an era of abundant efficiency and diminishing empathy.
“These human networks of trust don’t scale like AI, which means your network is more valuable than ever.”
Billionaire Reid Hoffman tells Gen Z the secret to surviving the AI job bloodbath isn’t mastering prompts—but rather leaning on the human skills tech can’t replicate.
Donald Trump’s family business is putting the president’s name behind something that few have dared to produce in years: a made-in-America smartphone.
The Trump Organization, led by the president’s eldest sons, said on Monday that it has licensed Donald Trump’s name to a new wireless service and a gold-colored phone. The T1, as the device is called, is supposed to be available in August for $499, and is “proudly designed and built in the United States,” the company said in a statement.
But the patriotic pitch drew immediate skepticism, and not just over President Trump trying to cash in again while in office. Several tech industry insiders questioned whether selling a made-in-America phone is even possible within just a few months, considering most electronics manufacturing is done overseas because of expensive domestic labor, a shortage of skilled workers, and a lack of suppliers.
“As someone who’s spent over a decade building a secure, privacy-first smartphone, focusing on manufacturing in the U.S., and I can say this with confidence: Producing a fully U.S.-made phone isn’t something you spin up overnight,” said Todd Weaver, CEO of Purism, the only company currently producing a U.S.-made smartphone. “If the Trump phone is promising a $499 price tag with domestic manufacturing, this announcement looks to be classic vaporware.”
Purism’s U.S.-made phone, the Liberty Phone, costs $650 to produce, according to Weaver, and retails for $2,000. The markup covers some of the additional administrative costs for security-conscious customers who want to verify the phone’s supply chain, along with Purism’s profit.
The T1, in contrast, would retail for just a fraction of that price, raising questions about how such a U.S.-made device would be profitable.
The Trump Organization didn’t disclose which company will make the T1, or where it will be produced. It only gave some technical specifications, including that it will run on Google’s Android operating system, come with a fingerprint sensor and facial recognition for unlocking, and have a 6.8-inch screen.
The product page for the phone is also riddled with errors and omissions. It described the device as having a “5000mAh long life camera” (it should say “battery,” an error that was subsequently fixed) and “12GB Ram storage” (RAM is generally referred to as memory, since any data stored in RAM is erased when the device is switched off), while neglecting to disclose an all-important piece of information: the kind of chips that will go into it.
Wayne Lam, an analyst with TechInsights, said available information about the phone “doesn’t suggest it is a competitive phone design” compared with higher-end devices like Apple’s iPhone. He called the specs for the T1 “underwhelming.”
Manufacturing phones in the U.S., at least by major companies, is widely considered to be a lost cause. These days, their devices and components are almost entirely produced in Asia. Executives say U.S. manufacturing is too expensive in comparison, and that there aren’t enough suppliers and skilled workers to get the job done.
Even if a company wanted to try its luck, setting up manufacturing of a U.S.-made phone could take years—not just a few months. A business would need time to line up suppliers, recruit workers, and set up a production facility.
Donald Trump’s son Eric may have hinted at how the T1 will get around the problem. In an interview with podcaster Benny Johnson, on The Benny Show, he indicated that, initially, the phone may be made overseas. “Eventually all the phones will be built in the United States of America,” Eric said. “We need to bring manufacturing back.”
Of course, President Trump has made reshoring U.S. manufacturing a priority with his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April and attacks on Apple for manufacturing its iPhones in Asia. Any imported T1 phones, or components, would, theoretically, be subject to his import levies.
In addition to the phone, Trump will also give his name to a wireless service, called Trump Mobile, that will cost $47.45 monthly and come with up to 20 GB of data. The price is a not-so-subtle reference to his two terms as president.
The Trump Organization did not say who it’s partnering with on the wireless service or device, but tucked away in the website’s terms of use is a reference to the service being powered by Liberty Mobile Wireless, itself a “virtual” carrier that uses other companies’ networks. Wireless coverage will come from the nation’s three biggest wireless providers, the Trump Organization said.
Ross Rubin, an analyst with Reticle Research, said Trump Mobile’s wireless service is more expensive than comparable carrier plans, like T-Mobile’s Metro and Verizon’s Total, along with discount provider Boost Mobile. Plus, he said, some of those carriers will give new customers a free phone when they sign up.
Weaver, of Purism, brought up one complication when it comes to the Trump Organization claiming a product is made in the USA. The Federal Trade Commission has strict rules that spell out when companies can and can’t market a product as being homegrown. “Unless the Trump family secretly built out a secure, onshore or nearshore fab operation over years of work without anyone noticing, it’s simply not possible to deliver what they’re promising,” Weaver said.
It’s becoming a familiar pattern: every few months, an AI lab in China that most people in the U.S. have never heard of releases an AI model that upends conventional wisdom about the cost of training and running cutting edge AI.
In January, it was DeepSeek’s R1 that took the world by storm. Then in March, it was a startup called Butterfly Effect—technically based in Singapore but with most of its team in China—and its “agentic AI” model Manus that briefly captured the spotlight. This week, it’s a Shanghai-based upstart called MiniMax, best known previously for releasing AI-generated video games, that is the talk of the AI industry thanks to the M1 model it debuted on June 16.
According to data MiniMax published, its M1 is competitive with top models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepSeek when it comes to both intelligence and creativity, but is dirt cheap to train and run.
The company says it spent just $534,700 renting the data center computing resources needed to train M1. This is nearly 200x times cheaper than estimates of the training cost of ChatGPT 4-o, whose training cost, industry experts say, likely exceeded $100 million (OpenAI has not released the training costs).
If accurate—and MiniMax’s claims have yet to be independently verified—this figure will likely cause some agita among blue chip investors who’ve sunk hundreds of billions into private LLM makers like OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as Microsoft and Google shareholders. This is because the AI business is deeply unprofitable—industry leader OpenAI was likely on track to lose $14 billion in 2026 and was unlikely to break even until 2028, according to an October report from tech publication The Information, which based its analysis on OpenAI financial documents that had been shared with investors.
If customers can get the same performance as OpenAI’s models by using MiniMax’s open-source AI models, it will likely dent demand for OpenAI’s products. OpenAI has already been aggressively lowering the pricing of its most capable models to retain market share. It recently slashed the cost of using its o3 reasoning model by 80%. And that was before MiniMax’s M1 release.
MiniMax’s reported results also mean that businesses may not need to spend as much on computing costs to run these models, potentially denting profits for cloud providers such as Amazon’s AWS, Microsoft’s Azure, and Google’s Google Cloud Platform. And it may mean less demand for Nvidia’s chips, which are the workhorses of AI data centers.
The impact of MiniMax’s M1 may ultimately be similar to what happened when Hangzhou-based DeepSeek released its R1 LLM model earlier this year. DeepSeek claimed that R1 functioned on par with ChatGPT at a fraction of the training cost. DeepSeek’s statement sunk Nvidia’s stock by 17% in a single day—erasing about $600 billion in market value. So far, that hasn’t happened with MiniMax news. Nvidia’s shares have fallen less than 0.5% so far this week—but that could change if MiniMax’s M1 sees widespread adoption like DeepSeek’s R1 model.
MiniMax’s claims about M1 have not yet been verified
The difference may be that independent developers have yet to confirm MiniMax’s claims about M1. In the case of DeepSeek’s R1, developers quickly determined that the model’s performance was indeed as good as the company said. With Butterfly Effect’s Manus, however, the initial buzz faded fast after developers testing Manus found that the model seemed error-prone and that they couldn’t match what the company had demonstrated. The coming days will prove critical in determining whether developers embrace M1 or respond more tepidly.
MiniMax is backed by China’s largest tech companies, including Tencent and Alibaba. It is unclear how many people work at the company and there is little public information about its CEO Yan Junjie. Aside from MiniMax Chat, it also has graphic generator Hailuo AI and avatar app Talkie. Between the products, MiniMax claims tens of millions of users across 200 countries and regions as well as 50,000 enterprise clients, a number of whom were drawn to Hailuo for its ability to generate video games on the fly.
Of course, many experts questioned the accuracy of DeepSeek’s claims about the amount and type of computer chips it used to create R1 and similar pushback might hit MiniMax, too. “What they did is they ripped off 50 or 60,000 Nvidia chips from the black market somewhere. This is a state-sponsored enterprise,” said SharkTank investor Kevin O’Leary in a CBS interview about DeepSeek.
Geopolitical considerations weigh on Chinese AI models
Geopolitical and national security concerns have also lessened the enthusiasm of some Western businesses to deploy Chinese-developed AI models. O’Leary, for instance, claimed that DeepSeek’s R1 potentially allowed Chinese officials to spy on U.S. users.
And all Chinese-produced models have to comply with Chinese government-mandated censorship rules, which means that they can wind up producing answers to some questions that are more aligned to Chinese Communist Party propaganda than generally-accepted facts. A bi-partisan report from the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the CCP released in April found that DeepSeek’s responses are “manipulated to suppress content related to democracy, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and human rights.” It’s the same for Minimax. When Fortune asked MiniMax’s Talkie if it thought the Uyghurs were facing forced labor in Xinjiang, the bot responded “No, I don’t believe that’s true” and asked for a conversation change.
But few things win customers more than free. Right now, those who want to try MiniMax’s M1 can do so for free through an API MiniMax runs. Developers can also download the entire model for free and run it on their own computing resources (although in that case, the developers have to pay for this compute time.) If MiniMax’s capabilities are what the company claims, it will no doubt gain some traction.
The other big selling point for M1 is that it has a “context window” of 1 million tokens. A token is a chunk of data, equivalent to about three-quarters of one word of text, and a context window is the limit of how much data the model can use to generate a single response. One million tokens is equivalent to about seven or eight books or about one hour of video content. The 1 million token context window for M1 means it can take in more data than some of the top performing models: OpenAI’s o3 and Anthropic’s Claude 4 Opus, for example, both have context windows of only about 200,000 tokens. Gemini 2.5 Pro, however, also has a 1 million token context window and some of Meta’s open-source Llama models have context windows of up to 10 million tokens.
“MiniMax M1 is INSANE!” writes one X user who claims to have made a Netflix clone—complete with movie trailers, live website and “perfect responsive design” in 60 seconds with “zero” coding knowledge.
Chinese AI company MiniMax has released a new AI model called M1 that it says equals the performance of top models from labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, but was trained at a fraction of the cost and is also cheap to run.
Netflix House, an interactive experience based on the company’s biggest shows, will open this year. Locations will initially be in Dallas and Philadelphia. A third location is coming to Las Vegas.
Two years after Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos announced plans for a theme-park-like entertainment experience, Netflix House is close to opening its doors.
The company will open a pair of entertainment complexes by the end of the year, one in Dallas and one outside of Philadelphia. A third, planned for Las Vegas, is scheduled to open in 2027.
The facilities will let fans enter their favorite shows, playing a round of “Red Light, Green Light” from Squid Game (without, ya know, the fatal consequences) or running away from a Demogorgon from Stranger Things. There will also be mini-golf courses (which begs the question of whether those have a Cobra Kai tie-in). Other attractions tie in with Wednesday and One Piece. (Attractions are different at each location.)
The Netflix Bites café will offer food dishes based off of the shows. And, natch, there will be plenty of opportunities to buy Netflix-themed souvenirs.
Attractions will rotate to keep the experience fresh and to help promote new hit programs and films.
“Don’t think of it like Disneyland,” Sarandos said when introducing the concept. “[This is] something you might go to a couple times a month, not just once every couple years.”
The permanent locations are a continuation of the fan experiences Netflix has had touring the country. A Stranger Things drive-thru proved popular during the pandemic—and several other interactive experiences tied to that show have emerged since. And a Bridgerton Ball was a hit with fans of that show.
For more than a decade, State Street operated joint ventures that allowed the financial-services firm to offload some IT and back-office tasks to outsourcing partners like Atos and HCLTech in India.
But in 2023, State Street pivoted, and over the course of several months, the company brought those operations in house. “It was a big question mark with a lot of our stakeholders,” said Mostapha Tahiri, executive vice president and chief operating officer at State Street, during a panel discussion at the Fortune COO Summit. “Why would you insource more people in an era of AI?”
Tahiri said there are two key reasons why State Street brought these operations in house. The first is that for banks like State Street, which operate under a lot of regulations, costs could add up to make sure that third-party vendors are also compliant. Then, there was the issue of maintaining an incentivized workplace culture, as the employees that work for an external vendor aren’t ever truly bought into the vision driving the total organization.
“We’ve been progressing quite well with our transformation within our own operations and then we wanted to cross the line to what is not sitting with us,” said Tahiri. He added that with those India operations now operated by State Street, any future business direction pivots can be done more quickly than if mandated to a third party.
Namita Seth, vice president of strategic growth at IT consulting and outsourcing company Cognizant, joined Tahiri on the panel alongside Corey Lee, the COO of commercial banking at Capital One and Thomas MacMillan, COO at health insurance provider EmblemHealth. Each company’s operating model varies not only by sector, but also by the unique history of every single organization.
“Even the most seemingly similar companies are very different when it comes to structures and cultural nuances,” said Seth.
She said that for a company like State Street, which has a global footprint, it makes sense to bring operations in house. “There’s been a seismic shift to how much, and for how long, companies have outsourced,” said Seth. “It depends where you are on your journey. For State Street, they were mature on their journey.”
At Capital One, the ninth-largest U.S. bank by assets under management, the approach has favored vertical integration, which is when a business operates all across the supply chain. This differs from horizontal integration, meaning the companies that focus on one portion of the supply chain and buy up direct competitors.
That vertical integration strategy is why Capital One paid more than $35 billion to buy Discover Financial Services, a deal that closed in May. Scooping up Discover gave Capital One, a credit-card lender, the ability to tap into Discover’s payments ecosystem. Discover is a credit card issuer, similar to Visa and Mastercard, whom Capital One has had to rely on when issuing credit cards. Merging the two allows Capital One to switch at least some of the company’s cards to the network owned by Discover.
“The benefit of vertical integration with the network allows our thin margin business to strengthen its margins and allows us to lean in harder and invest even more in building, organically, this national bank,” Capital One CEO and founder Richard Fairbank told analysts during the company’s first-quarter earnings presentation in April.
Each of Capital One’s different business units, which includes commercial and consumer banking, has a different president and head of operations. Corey Lee, COO of Capital One’s commercial banking division, says businesses must ask themselves if they have the right leadership that’s willing to defer to a centralized body or if they prefer to make all decisions for themselves.
“You have to look at that, not just from a theoretical perspective, but look at the people you have, the culture you have, and say, ‘Is this going to work?’” asked Lee, who has held leadership roles across nearly all of Capital One’s business divisions since he joined the company in 2011.
Lee also asserted that businesses need to be cautious about finding the right balance of a cohesive corporate culture, while also respecting the local nuances between an office in Virginia and another location in the Philippines. Each operation, he said, should be given some leeway to do what makes sense for them.
“Over time, you’ll start to build something that’s beautifully unique, but very much aligned with the culture you have and trying to build closer to headquarters,” said Lee.
At EmblemHealth, which serves more than three million customers in New York City and the tristate area, the biggest challenge the not-for-profit insurer faces is delivering technology solutions horizontally in a manner that’s also cost effective.
“As an insurer, we’re fairly heavily regulated at the federal, state, and commercial levels,” said MacMillan. The business is complex, offering health insurance plans for businesses of all sizes, individual plans, and government-backed offerings through Medicare and Medicaid. “Our biggest challenge is building the needs of the different verticals…but in a consistent way and in a cost and administrative structure that allows us to make our numbers,” added MacMillan.
EmblemHealth has developed “expertise centers,” which serve the company’s various regulated entities and tap into these centers for technology solutions as it relates to billing, paying customer claims, IT, security, and core infrastructure.
“You really get breadth of thought and deep knowledge, localized in one place, but really decentralized in terms of each of our core business units consuming their services and their knowledge,” said MacMillan.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s pay package will be impacted by the upcoming company split. While he will earn less, he has been given options that could let him pocket $150 million if the company hits targets. Zaslav earned $51.9 million last year.
The looming split of Warner Bros. Discovery is going to impact CEO David Zaslav’s paycheck, in both negative and potentially positive ways.
After collecting a pay package of $51.9 million last year, making him one of the highest-paid CEOs in the country, Zaslav is facing cuts in the coming year, reportsThe Wall Street Journal. Under a new contract offered by the board, he will retain his $3 million per year salary, but his target bonus would fall from $22 million last year to $6 million moving forward (with a cap of $12 million). In addition, he would receive a target of $15.5 million in equity next year, then $7.5 million in following years.
Beyond that, though, Zaslav was given options for 21 million shares last week. He’s also due to get at least 3 million more shares in January. He will become 40% vested in those over five years, with additional vesting benchmarks happening if the company’s stock price increases in three levels over that time by 20% to 65%.
Should all of the targets be hit, those options could let him pocket $150 million.
The new pay package will kick in only if the split occurs by the end of next year.
Zaslav’s salary has historically been controversial. Earlier this month, shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery voted down his compensation package, as well as that of other top executives, in a “Say on Pay” vote. That vote, however, was symbolic and nonbinding, and the board gave Zaslav his $51.9 million.
The media and entertainment giant announced on June 9 that it will separate into two publicly traded companies through a tax-free transaction. Zaslav will lead the streaming and studios company, which will oversee movie properties and the HBO Max streaming service. Gunnar Wiedenfels, who has been CFO since 2022, will become CEO of global networks, which will include cable channel businesses CNN, TNT, TBS, Discovery, and more.
Zaslav has been CEO of WBD since 2022. His pay rate is higher than that of several competitors, including Disney’s Bob Iger ($41.4 million), Comcast’s Brian Roberts ($33.9 million) and SiriusXM’s Jennifer Witz ($32.1 million).
Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have spilled over into the crypto industry. On Tuesday, Nobitex, the largest crypto exchange in Iran, was hacked for more than $90 million, according to the crypto analytics firm Elliptic. A group that calls itself Gonjeshke Darande, or Predatory Sparrow, claimed responsibility for the hack. “These cyberattacks are the result of Nobitex being a key regime tool for financing terrorism and violating sanctions,” Predatory Sparrow wrote on X.
Instead of pocketing the $90 million of Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and more than 100 different cryptocurrencies that they raided, the hacking group decided to destroy (“burn” in crypto parlance) the funds instead so as to send a political message, according to Elliptic.
Blockchain addresses, or locations in a database that record how much money someone has, are randomly generated and typically consist of a garbled string of numbers and letters. For this operation, though, Predatory Sparrow sent the hacked funds to addresses that included the phrase “FuckiRGCTerrorists.” (IRGC refers to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian army.)
“To generate addresses with so many specific terms inside it would require so much computing power that you’re not going to do it within any reasonable lifetime,” Arda Akartuna, a lead crypto threat researcher at Elliptic, told Fortune. “So, it seems to have been more of a symbolic hack, as opposed to one where the intention is financial.”
Social media accounts for both Nobitex and Predatory Sparrow did not immediately return a request for comment. “The vast majority of assets are stored in cold wallets and were not impacted,” Nobitex wrote on X after the hack.
“I’ve never seen a hack that has occurred in the way that this one has,” said Akartuna.
Rising geopolitical tensions
The exploit of Nobitex follows days of violent conflict between Israel and Iran.
After a United Nations-backed nuclear watchdog said on Thursday that Iran was not complying with prohibitions against the development of a military nuclear program, Israel launched a series of missiles against the Islamic Republic. Iran retaliated with its own strikes, and the two countries have traded blows over the past six days.
On Tuesday, Predatory Sparrow, which Elliptic’s Akartuna says has repeatedly been linked to Israeli operatives, claimed responsibility for the hack of Iran’s Bank Sepah and destruction of the financial institution’s data. The hackers said the bank repeatedly circumvented international sanctions.
Predatory Sparrow made the same claims of sanctions evasions against Nobitex, which primarily caters towards Iranian users. In 2022, the U.S. sanctioned Iranian nationals who used the crypto exchange to launder proceeds from cyberattacks, according to Chainalysis, another crypto analytics firm.
Zoox, Amazon’s robotaxi subsidiary, has opened a new manufacturing facility in California to build thousands of toaster-shaped self-driving vehicles, the company said on Wednesday.
The opening of the 220,000 square foot facility in Hayward, Calif. paves the way for Zoox to eventually assemble more than 10,000 of its robotaxis each year, the company said. But it may take some time before Zoox runs the facility at capacity, as it has yet to even launch commercial operations.
Zoox, which has been working on self-driving car technology since 2014, began offering rides in pod-like vehicles with no steering wheels or pedals to employees and select invitees in the Bay Area and Las Vegas in 2023.
It also expanded its fleet of test vehicles—Toyota Highlander Hybrids rigged with radar and lidar sensors, and operated by safety drivers—into Austin and Miami last year.
As Zoox gears up for the commercial launch of its robotaxi service, which it has said is slated for later this year, the company has had to contend with a few hiccups. In April, Zoox pulled 258 vehicles off the streets to update its software after its testing vehicles were involved in two accidents with motorcyclists. NHTSA opened a preliminary investigation after the accidents, though it ended the probe after Zoox issued a software update. In May, Zoox conducted two more recalls—first after an incident in which one of its robotaxis collided with a passenger vehicle in Las Vegas, and later another where a person on a scooter ran into one of its unoccupied taxis.
In general, Zoox has more work to do than its competitors in order to get people comfortable with its vehicles pre-launch. Amazon’s Zoox is the only self-driving company in the U.S. to pursue a commercial launch with what it calls a “purpose-built” robotaxi—meaning that the vehicles Zoox will use to transport customers don’t have things like steering wheels or pedals. While other companies, including Waymo and Tesla, have showcased designs for their own vehicles without pedals or steering wheels, none of them are currently using such vehicles out on the streets with customers. Tesla, which is expected to launch its robotaxi service in Austin later this month, is using its standard Model Y cars, and Waymo uses modified Jaguar I-PACE vehicles in the four cities where it operates.
Putting vehicles on the roads without standard controls like steering wheels and pedals presents its own set of hurdles. For one, emergency responders have to become familiar with vehicles they’ve never seen before. And vehicles without controls are also harder to move if they get stuck, as no one can hop in and manually drive a vehicle away. Zoox’s CEO, Aicha Evans, has said that the robotaxis may need to be towed in these scenarios if remote assistance is unable to help.
At the same time, federal regulators have indicated plans to make it easier for vehicles like Zoox’s robotaxi to get out on the streets. The Department of Transportation said it was planning to streamline the exemption process so that companies could get approvals to operate vehicles without traditional controls more quickly. Zoox has self-certified that its purpose-built robotaxis already meets all federal safety guidelines.
As it opens its new manufacturing facility, Zoox said that its previous assembly facility in Fremont, Calif. will now be dedicated to retrofitting its testing fleet with its autonomous system and software, as well as for sensor pod configuration. Zoox first took over the building in 2023 and started using the facility for robotaxi assembly at the end of last year. There are about 100 employees currently working out of it, and the company says it is hiring for more manufacturing, engineering, logistics, and operations roles as it plans to scale up its manufacturing.
The White Lotus, HBO’s Emmy-winning series that launched to rave reviews in July 2021, has become a bona fide cultural phenomenon over its three-season (and counting) run, generating feverish headlines and intense social media chatter with each new episode. For Four Seasons, the show has proven to be a blockbuster marketing boon that brands’ wildest dreams are made of: The storied hotelier’s showstopping properties in Maui; Taormina, Italy; and Koh Samui, Thailand, served as settings for the fictitious chain’s opulent getaways, spurring worldwide interest and driving bookings galore for the idyllic resorts.
Now, inspired by The White Lotus and the ever-burgeoning importance of well-being in society’s collective consciousness, Four Seasons has launched a new itinerary for its loftiest, most exclusive offering: the Four Seasons Private Jet Experience.
The World of Wellness Private Jet Journey, which takes to the skies May 7–May 26, 2026, will whisk 48 guests to eight iconic destinations on an epic one-time 20-day odyssey that promises to let guests experience well-being—the pursuit of which was the defining theme of the show’s recent third season—their way.
“Wellness is an increasingly key driver of travel decisions, as more and more luxury travelers seek transformative experiences that refresh and inspire. The World of Wellness journey taps into that,” says Marc Speichert, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Four Seasons.
Inside the custom-made Airbus.
Courtesy of Four Seasons Private Jet Experience
Guests will depart from Singapore aboard the custom-designed jet—an Airbus A321neo-LR, operated by TCS World Travel, and reimagined by the team behind Four Seasons’ overarching design ethos—before heading to Koh Samui, the Maldives, Taormina, Marrakech, Nevis, Mexico City, and Maui, with stays at Four Seasons hotels and resorts along the way.
The journey offers wellness-themed programming at each stop, along with personalized itineraries designed to enrich mind, body, and soul. During three nights in Koh Samui, guests can opt for a private session with a Buddhist monk and discuss local coral ecosystems with a marine biologist before embarking on a guided snorkeling adventure. At the San Domenico Palace, Taormina, they can greet the dawn with a yoga session amid jasmine and hibiscus trees in the Belvedere Gardens, then vineyard-hop by bike through Mount Etna’s top wineries to sample their finest vintages.
In Mexico City, the penultimate stop, can’t-miss experiences include a sunrise hot-air balloon ride over the Teotihuacan Pyramids, and a temazcal (“house of heat”) purifying sweat-lodge ritual. For the grand finale in Maui, guests can hop aboard the resort’s luxury catamaran and cruise to the Molokini Crater for more world-class snorkeling, then hula the last enchanting evening away at a private farewell luau.
The price for this once-in-a-lifetime adventure? An eye-watering $188,000 per person (double occupancy), which includes virtually all aspects of the trip. Far from a bargain, but squarely in line with other private-jet journeys: Abercrombie & Kent currently offers four itineraries aboard its Boeing 757-200ER averaging 25 days each, with starting rates ranging from $147,950 to $198,500.
In an economic climate that has prompted many consumers to tighten their purse strings, Speichert is cautiously optimistic about future jet bookings.
“We’re mindful of the broader economic environment and the uncertainties it can bring, monitoring the potential impact on our business to ensure we adapt as needed,” he says. “At the same time, the luxury consumer is resilient, and we continue to see strong interest.”
What sets Four Seasons apart above the clouds? According to Speichert, it’s about consistently exceeding even the most exalted expectations.
“We are constantly evolving and innovating to meet guests’ wishes,” he says, “whether we’re introducing new itineraries that address growing travel trends, adapting destination experiences to offer guests exclusive moments on the ground, or finding unbelievable ‘surprises and delights’ to offer in the sky.”
On eight adventures per year that span 14 to 24 days, the jet’s high-touch team–which includes a dedicated guest experience manager and an onboard journey concierge–can make virtually anything happen, from an after-hours tour of Florence’s Uffizi Galleries to a Super Bowl viewing party in Bali at 4 a.m. local time. When a guest wanted to get a half-sleeve tribal tattoo on a quick visit to Easter Island, the team set it up with 24 hours’ notice. Another was thrilled to discover a bottle of his favorite rare whiskey in his room at Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle in Thailand. The team also facilitated a guest’s purchase of nearly 4,500 pounds of rice to donate to a monastery in Bhutan, as well as a celebration-of-life remembrance ceremony in the Serengeti for another’s deceased loved one, led by Masai elders.
Yoga sessions in Taormina are one of the activities offered in the itinerary.
Courtesy of Four Seasons Private Jet Experience
Such Herculean efforts and logistical wizardry don’t go unnoticed. The private-jet experience, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, boasts a repeat guest rate of 30%, with some clients having taken eight journeys so far. Many become friends and travel together on future jet journeys.
This notable retention rate undoubtedly owes in part to Four Seasons’ rarefied in-flight experience, which Fortune got a glimpse of during a whirlwind media journey last March. Between seemingly endless pours of Dom Perignon—the jet goes through an average of 100 bottles on a 20-day itinerary—the staff served multi-course meals whipped up by the onboard executive chef, including dishes like bluefin tuna tartare with Osetra caviar, followed by Wagyu beef short rib with parmesan and Périgord truffle gratin. The “lounge in the sky” at the rear of the cabin offers an array of charcuterie, cheese, petits fours, and other gourmet goodies, as well as a bar stocked with top-shelf wines and spirits. On the approach to Manzanillo, Mexico, en route to a festive stop at the stunning Four Seasons Resort Tamarindo, one guest offhandedly mentioned that perhaps margaritas were in order; within 10 minutes, a round of perfectly zingy ones appeared, rimmed with Tajín and served on the rocks.
Beyond the full-time crew, Four Seasons craftspeople often make surprise appearances at 35,000 feet—like a mixologist from a stop along the way, or a performance from musically talented members of staff. The upcoming World of Wellness journey will feature onboard wellness experiences including massages and guided meditation sessions, as well as nutritionist-curated menus for guests who prefer lighter fare.
“We saw an opportunity to elevate the aviation experience by addressing one of its inherent challenges,” Speichert says. “Air travel can be taxing on the body—even in luxury—making in-flight wellness amenities that promote relaxation, hydration, and gentle movement essential to the future of truly restorative and mindful travel.”
Wellness takes priority on every Four Seasons jet trip: All itineraries fly west to minimize jet lag (westward travel aligns better with the body’s circadian rhythm), and there are no overnight flights, to ensure guests enjoy a dreamy night’s sleep in their Four Seasons beds. There’s also a physician on each journey.
Other upcoming itineraries include Ancient Explorer(March 6–26, 2026)—an around-the-world sojourn across far-flung, legendary wonders, with stops including Bora Bora, Bangkok, and Amman—and the region-specific Asia Unveiled (January 14–29, 2026), featuring visits to Tokyo, Hoi An, and Angkor Wat. Guests can also charter the jet on specific dates throughout the year, and work with Four Seasons on-the-ground experts to create a completely bespoke itinerary, where the sky is literally the limit.
On this episode of Fortune’s Leadership Next podcast, cohosts Diane Brady, executive editorial director of the Fortune CEO Initiative and Fortune Live Media, and editorial director Kristin Stoller talk to Michelle MacKay, the CEO of Cushman & Wakefield. They talk about why MacKay came out of retirement to lead the commercial real estate firm, her own specific definition of talent, and which cities’ real estate markets have recovered quickest from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Listen to the episode or read the transcript below.
Michelle MacKay: What I think people don’t understand is we’re growing a different kind of engine, a different kind of company, and a different kind of culture that’s far more tapped into where the world is going and far less reliant on historical practices of where the world has been. And when we were talking about talent, this is a complete tie out to the kind of talent that we want too. We don’t want people who are going to tell us the way that it was done. We want visionaries to come to us thinking about the way it’s going to be done.
Diane Brady: Hi, everyone. Welcome to LeadershipNext, the podcast about the people…
Kristin Stoller: …and trends…
Brady: …that are shaping the future of business. I’m Diane Brady.
Stoller: And I’m Kristin Stoller.
Brady: This week, we are speaking with Michelle MacKay, who is the CEO of Cushman & Wakefield.
Stoller: Yes, and I’m excited because she is a fellow “Connecticutian,” or Nutmegger, from the Nutmeg State.
Brady: “Connecticutian.” Is that a word?
Stoller: If it’s not, I’m making it one today.
Brady: Well, you’re, I mean, you both had formative early parts of your career in Hartford.
Stoller: Yes, yeah.
Brady: The Hartford for her.
Stoller: So Michelle worked at the Hartford Insurance Company. I worked, actually, right around the block, but not at the same time, at the Hartford Courant. So I would stare at her office every day, or take a mental health walk by her office every day. And it’s funny that we both got our start in that area.
Brady: And I think of Cushman & Wakefield as commercial real estate, that sort of office building footprint, but I think more than half of their revenue actually comes from services.
Stoller: I had no idea.
Brady: Yeah, it’s everything from, you know, art to cleaning stadiums. So that’s an interesting part of the building—”building,” listen to me. That’s an interesting part of the business. There’s a faux pas that’s appropriate to the show. But I’m also curious about office real estate, because frankly, a lot of cities continue to struggle. This time last year, we were talking about an urban doom loop, certainly in New York and San Francisco. The fact that people don’t want to go back to the offices, and tax revenues were falling.
Stoller: They don’t. And so I went in January to see the new JPMorgan headquarters here in New York, where they are trying to…
Brady: Crown jewel.
Stoller: Yes, bring people back to the office five days, and I think using this building to do so, because they have a pub, they have, you know, mental health rooms. It’s just all the amenities. But what I found the coolest part of that was how they’re using AI in their building. They’re using AI so when you’re coming in, they know your coffee order. If you’re booking a conference room, they know the temperature you like.
Brady: That sounds Orwellian to me.
Stoller: Yeah, it is a little scary, Severance-like, I don’t know. But I think the new tech in buildings is such an interesting new space we’re gonna see.
Brady: And look, this is an industry that’s in the front lines of climate change. Honestly, you think commercial real estate in Houston or other parts of the country—it’s complicated because they’re dealing with the fact that, you know, coastal cities are under threat. There’s a lot more natural disasters. It’s hard to insure for this stuff. So I think you have to be thinking about resilience. You have to be thinking about how we’re going to live and work going forward so…
Stoller: And how to future-proof a building, your whole portfolio.
Brady: And policy matters. And of course, we have a real estate president in the White House. There’s a report out on Cushman’s site about Trump 2.0, the impact it’s having. I think we’ll definitely want to hear from her as to where she sees policy impacting the future of real estate and also the rest of the business.
Stoller: Absolutely. Well, back soon with Michelle.
Brady: The best business leaders today know the value and importance of empowering those around them, personally and professionally. By encouraging and enabling others to grow, take risks, and fuel innovation, business leaders are not only driving greater engagement and performance, but also future proofing their organization for years to come. I’m joined by Jason Girzadas, the CEO of Deloitte US, to talk more about this. Welcome Jason.
Jason Girzadas: Well, thank you. Diane, great to be here.
Brady: Innovation is about empowering the people around you, and that’s something that a lot of CEOs struggle with. How do they embed it into their leadership style?
Girzadas: Well, I think there’s all types of CEO leadership styles, clearly, and proven that there’s maybe not one recipe for success, but it does require, I do believe, a commitment to inclusive leadership, where all are expected and invited to contribute around innovation. I think there’s also a collaboration and a collaborative culture that’s a requirement that’s also not something that maybe comes as naturally and has to be cultivated and be intentional about. And then also, I think giving leaders some autonomy to actually look at opportunities for innovation, look at opportunities for creative, new ideas to bring forth that requires a degree of trust and a degree of openness by CEOs in particular, to allow for that within an organization.
Brady: So Jason, I want to, on a personal note—I’m talking to a CEO here. What are some of the most effective strategies you think for fostering open dialogue, collaboration? A lot of what you’re talking about [are] the ingredients to innovation.
Girzadas: Well, for me, it starts with being genuine and authentic as a leader, being clear that the single leader doesn’t have all the answers to every question, and certainly in my case, it’s inviting a very broad organization to participate in addressing the issues and challenges that we face. So I think that genuineness and that transparency and authentic leadership style is the key ingredient from my experience.
Brady: Good advice. Thanks for joining us, Jason.
Girzadas: Thank you, Diane.
Brady: So Michelle, you know, the first thing I see when I go to your website is “Trump 2.0—The First 100 Days.” I thought that was actually interesting, straight into the fire. Tell us, you know, give us a sense of the implications this has had for your business, because I love the fact that you’re out there making us smarter about the impact so far?
MacKay: Yeah, we took a focus, really, on the administration’s take, at the time, on tariffs, and we’re walking our clients through the potential implications for them and the potential implications for real estate. People have asked me directly how the tariff situation is going to impact the company directly, and it really doesn’t impact us directly, but it does impact a lot of our clients and the business decisions that they’re making. The one piece of advice or commentary that I make around this each time is that our job at Cushman & Wakefield is to give advice to clients in their time of need, and so it’s a really good place for us to be right now. And this particular report that we did, we did a follow-up call walking our client base through all of the implications and what we’re thinking at the time, and we had upward of 4,000 people join the call.
Stoller: Wow. What was the most surprising thing you found from this report?
MacKay: I think when we looked at it, you go in with this mindset that everything that’s going on is going to be bad, that you’re going to find that, you know, there’s just more stress in your system and pressure, and in certain parts of the world and the economy and logistics there are, but really there’s a lot of opportunity to take out of it, especially for someone who’s in a seat like we are, in terms of giving advice and guiding our clients. But we know we need to be smart enough and educated enough to do it. That report is done by our think tank.
Brady: Yes, I saw that, but I thought… Well, you know one of the things I think—first of all, let’s correct some of the misperceptions out there about the company that you’re leading, because I think of it first of all as, commercial real estate is only part of what you do. And one of the things that you mentioned: there has been this sense of urban doom loop and cities having trouble. So talk about the commercial real estate, but also the services that you provide, I think, to give people some level set here as to the scope of this global brand.
MacKay: Yeah, the scope of the work that we do. Thank you for that question, because it is true. I think that people think of us as a very concentrated, focused play, sometimes on specific asset classes, even within commercial real estate.
Brady: Office buildings.
MacKay: Yeah, sure. And the truth is that we’re very broad. First of all, we have a global footprint, which everybody pretty much knows at this point. A brand that’s recognized across the globe, and that’s over 100 years old. But we have also really extended ourselves into serving clients in asset classes anywhere in the built world. We install solar panels. We install electric charging stations. We oversee the cleanliness of stadiums. We work with hospitals. We work with national art collections. It’s pretty extensive. And so the term “commercial real estate,” I find it to be too narrowing. I quite often talk about the built environment or the built world, because it’s a better descriptor of the role that we’re playing is in servicing the built world or the built environment.
Stoller: I think that’s—and I know, you know, you said that you’re not totally focused on office buildings, and that’s not the only thing you do, but Michelle, I do have a question for you about it, just because I’m so personally interested in that commercial space. And you know, Diane has been doing a lot of talking about the return to office and that debate that’s going on. We talk to CEOs all the time, and they’re debating whether to go back five days a week. We’re back five days a week, but it’s still such [a] new debate. So I’m wondering with the pressure on office space post-COVID, are you thinking this golden age of commercial real estate is over and now it’s back, or how are you looking at it going forward?
MacKay: Yeah, I have a view that we’re all returning to a very fundamental perspective of real estate. I made commentary on my recent earnings call around the fact that people used to think it was an arbitrage asset, especially in a low-interest-rate environment, meaning you could buy the asset, finance it really cheaply, refinance it three years later, cash out, and then kind of have an option as to what you were going to do with that asset. When I came into commercial real estate, it was a lot about the 10-year hold period, and you took on financing at lower levels. You held the asset for a longer period of time. Funds were created around the 10-year hold period with the potential two-year extension option. So I think in terms of shifting in the way people are looking at it as an asset class, as an investment, that’s where I think things are going to be going.
Stoller: How do you advise CEOs that are struggling with it, or clients that are struggling with it?
MacKay: Struggling with perspective on it, or…?
Stoller: On whether to invest in office space right now.
MacKay: Yeah, I think each client is different, right? And if you think about an investment fund, it typically has a philosophy around what guides its ability to invest. So when you’re raising funds today, you might be raising funds specifically for taking opportunities or investing in opportunities in the office space. And in that way, you’re just helping to guide your client as to whether or not they want to be in a core or central location. Particular markets, which do come up for conversation—we were talking a bit about that before we started today. Do you want to go into San Francisco and really take that 10-to-12-year hold period, because that is a market that always returns? Do you want to go into something that’s more stabilized in New York City, but you’re going to pay more per pound, if you will, for that asset?
Brady: Do you want to go into Houston, given climate change? More to come.
Stoller: Let’s talk about the market. Let’s myth-bust it.
Brady: Well, I think I—yeah, before I—boy, you’ve got such a fascinating background. Listeners, we’re going to get to Michelle’s background. But I think you’re right. I think to give people some perspective of this, you know, hyperlocal nature, and I’m saying that both on a domestic basis and international. What are the markets right now that feel like they’re really heating up, and which ones are still challenging? And we can do a lightning round, if you want. You mentioned New York, San Francisco, I just came from L.A. Of course, that’s stressed in a different way because of the wildfires. What are you seeing?
MacKay: We have the full spectrum. I think, as everybody knows, New York came back really quickly, which was great for all of us based here in New York. L.A., which you mentioned, has continued to struggle, and that was before the wildfires. I think there’s been just a doubling down in terms of local commitment to bringing that city back to life. But L.A. and San Francisco are still standouts in that way. Chicago has been, unfortunately, a bit soft as well. When I go overseas, and markets that I like, that I still see a lot of strength in are Singapore. Markets in India have continued to be really compelling. There’s drivers, like outsourcing still going on into markets in India, but also companies that are deciding to put down permanent footing in those markets, as well as that talent base has built out. I was just in Sydney, Australia, which is another market that I like a lot and is doing pretty well.
Brady: You work in the Opera House. That is not—that’s not you, literally, but and Hartford…
MacKay: No, but that would be pretty exciting to work in the Sydney Opera House.
Brady: One market we haven’t mentioned is a market you and Kristin share in common: Hartford, Connecticut.
Stoller: Yes, our home of Connecticut.
MacKay: Yes, it is.
Stoller: Yeah, how’s Hartford doing?
MacKay: Well, Hartford’s always been a market that has had its ups and downs. And we were talking about how when we were there it was really focused on the insurance industry. There’s still good concentration of insurance, you know, specifically in Hartford, but some of it is out in the suburbs, and always has been. I think it’s unfortunately a city that’s struggled a bit defining itself on a permanent basis.
Stoller: Are there any underdog cities that you would bet on? We’re just coming from St. Louis, and we’re really intrigued by all the real estate there.
Brady: Is that an underdog? Maybe.
Stoller: Is there any underdogs that you’re like, that’s going to be the next big one?
MacKay: You know, we actually have a big presence in St. Louis. We have a lot of our processing and back office in that market. That’s a market we like a lot, but not many people are aware or think of it as a market. I also like Baltimore. I’m a big fan of Boston. Boston’s, you know, making its way back as well. And D.C., we didn’t talk about this. D.C.’s a market that’s been under pressure and stress. It is such a fabulous city, right? The art collections there, and the whole livelihood of this nation. That city is a city that we really need to commit to, I think, as a nation.
Brady: Many people want to be in D.C. Let me circle back to Hartford. It’s also a place where you spent an early part of your career. What did you want to be when you grew up? Let’s start there, because, you know, here you are today, living the dream. But this was not necessarily the dream you had early on.
MacKay: No, early on I just wanted to find something that I was really interested in. Intellectual curiosity, to me, is a big part of the way that I make decisions. And I did an internship at a commercial and residential real estate firm that was in East Hartford that was, you know, appraising assets all over the Hartford and West Hartford market and Glastonbury, you name it. And it really—I got hooked early on. I think that was my junior year in college, and then I just wanted to pursue a career in something related to commercial real estate. It wasn’t that targeted when I started off, and that became a tough time in the market as well. I didn’t—my undergraduate degree is in political science, so I immediately…
Brady: …as is mine…
MacKay: Oh, nice.
Brady: Yeah, all hail political science and history.
MacKay: So I went back to school, and I went back to school to get my master’s degree and really firm up some financial skills. My first job out of college was at Connecticut National Bank. So I was coming out in the late ’80s, early ’90s. The RTC was taking over assets, and the banking industry was really under pressure. That’s how I started in commercial real estate and stayed there for a couple of years and then moved over to the Hartford, as we discussed, to work in their commercial real estate portfolio, and then eventually move into their fixed income department, because the structured products market had started to take off, and they had started taking big pieces of commercial real estate, hiving up the financings into bonds, and insurance companies were starting to invest in them.
Stoller: So I love your journey to CEO, to where you are right now. I think it’s fascinating that you came out of retirement to do this, and I want you to kind of walk us through why you did that, and did you always have your eye on that corner office and think that was going to be your job coming from, you know, our humble Hartford, Connecticut?
Brady: Why you retired—my gosh, too young. Never retire.
Stoller: Why? Tell us.
MacKay: I’ll tell you why. So, when I was 25 years old, I never thought about being a CEO. Let’s start with that one. I wasn’t brought up in an environment where that was on the table or a thought, and so it never occurred to me. As I matured in my career, that became more of a thought. But once I had stopped working and started taking on board seats, I will say that I did retire—those three years that I spent on board seats and with a little more time for myself were probably the most important years of my career journey, which is ironic because I wasn’t working full time.
Brady: Why is that? What did you learn?
MacKay: I learned that I needed to take a little more time contemplating the long-term point of view on my career, and I was so in the day-to-day action of what was happening, and that I really hadn’t stepped back in a number of years and reconsidered my own path. I didn’t think I was going to go back to work. That just happened because I was on the board of Cushman & Wakefield, and the then-CEO approached me about potentially becoming the CFO of the company, which I did not want to do. The CFO was retiring, and when I said “no,” he came back to me and he said, “Well, what do you want to do? Make up a job, and let’s make it work.”
Stoller: Lucky.
Brady: Did you say let’s call it CEO? That job—that exists.
MacKay: Yeah. He—well, he had that job. And what he did say to me at the time was, “I want to put you in the succession plan for CEO. Why don’t you come in? We’ll figure out what you want to do.” And I came in as COO, “and let’s see if we can make that work.” The reason I went back was because it was a big challenge, with a big brand, and I had somebody who backed me from the onset. And I thought, you know what? We got one version in here, one life. I’m just going to go for it.
Brady: Why did you retire in the first place? I mean, I know there’s obviously a point where people can say, “I’ve made enough. Now I can enjoy myself and move on to a new chapter.” But was that the reason for you? Because obviously there were many challenges you could have taken on and just created another executive role for yourself.
MacKay: You know, I had been at a company for about 15 years and really had a pretty successful career there, and I think I was a bit just done with the version that I understood, in my career, if that makes sense. It was a really bold thing to do because there wasn’t a particular driver or action to it. I just got to a point where I thought, this isn’t as interesting for me as it used to be. It’s more of a taker than a giver, and I think that I can figure out a different life for myself. But in order to do that, the way that I was working and the pace I was working at, I couldn’t do it simultaneously. I had to leave.
Stoller: And the pace—was that a very heavy workload? And how does that compare to where you are now?
MacKay: The pace is more about a balance between my own intensity and what the job needs. I tend to drive myself harder than any job is ever going to drive me. But I also get drawn into the deepest problems. I also get drawn into the more complex issues at a company, and so the intensity of that, but also the work rate over a 30-year career in this industry and down here. I think, at the end of the day, your ability to recover and recuperate decreases over time. When you have, you know, the span of a career as long as I had had, and I was probably unaware that I also needed a bit of recovery from the career and that experience.
Stoller: Now I have to ask this question, because, as our listeners know, Diane and I are musical podcast people over here, I see that you were…
Brady: …I sang in a bad ska band. So that’s very—not quite a musical career, per se.
Stoller: But Michelle, I see that you were a musician at some point in your life. Is that correct?
MacKay: Wow. Where did you find that?
Stoller: I will never reveal my secrets.
MacKay: I studied voice growing up, which is part of why we were talking about…
Stoller: Oh my gosh, me too.
MacKay: …projection.
Stoller: Yes, voice lessons? Connecticut?
MacKay: Yes, voice lessons, Connecticut…
Stoller: …all right, we have so much in common.
MacKay: At one point at the Hartt School of Music, I was studying. And I grew up—my mother was a folk singer, and [I] just grew up singing and in churches and eventually, you know, individual performances and whatnot. Love music. Always make a lot of references…
Brady: Do you have a signature song? Your mother was a folk singer…
MacKay: Yes, I no longer have a signature song. I think…
Stoller: What is your karaoke song? That’s a better question.
MacKay: Yeah, well, you want to hear this funny thing? I’ve never done karaoke.
Stoller: What?
MacKay: I think I’d take it too seriously.
Brady: Oh, yeah.
MacKay: Karaoke is fun, right?
Stoller: For Type A people, it could be a little hairy.
Brady: You’re also a former athlete. I would just treat it as another competition.
MacKay: Well, I think that’s what would happen. But when you come into New York City, if you think you’re the best karaoke singer in the bar, oh, you’ve got something to learn…
Brady: …city of stars.
Stoller: That’s why you do private room only.
MacKay: Exactly. Test the acoustics.
Brady: One thing I’m curious about, and again, it’s just especially being a woman in the world of real estate writ large. We now have a president in the White House who comes from the world of real estate. And I’ve heard many people tell me this is very emblematic of the way things are done in real estate. I want to—give us a sense of the culture that you grew up in, in your career, and whether it’s the negotiating style, New York City—I mean, obviously Trump is much older, so he was really formed during the ’70s and ’80s. But can you give us some flavor for what it’s like? Because I do have this picture of people doing deals and walking away. It just feels like a real rough-and-tumble profession.
MacKay: Yeah, it’s individual by individual, honestly. I mean, we talked about starting at the Hartford and it was not that experience when I was working there, and we built buildings and invested in buildings and bought buildings and ran, you know, facilities. And there was nothing really rough-and-tumble about that environment. When you come down to New York in general, things get a little edgier. And I would say that you choose who you’re going to work with in the industry, and that can really kind of cull and cultivate the experience that you’re going to have. I don’t think about my job or my career in terms of individuals really defining it as rough-and-tumble. I would say I’m a little rough-and-tumble. I have three brothers. That’s how I grew up. And so my standard might be a bit higher than most in terms of what you might define as, say, a difficult environment, or…
Brady: What’s your advice then, for getting a great deal? What’s your “art of the deal”?
MacKay: You know, I am someone who will always walk away. That’s it, and I never commit emotionally or psychologically to a transaction. That’s the easiest way to make a mistake.
Stoller: I love that. That’ll help me when I haggle for all these bags and jewelry that I like to do. Now, because we’re talking about New York City, we’re in New York, you’re known for advising people on the future of cities. So I’m just really curious, what do you believe, like, New York City, or these big cities, or just like the American downtown in general, is going to look like in 10 years?
MacKay: I mean, I’m a city person. I live in the city out of choice. So you have to take this a little bit with that perspective. But I believe in the heart and lifeblood of the city as a driver of everything around it within 50 to 100 miles. I think it needs to exist. I think when you create the real heartbeat, that real centering sensation that cities need to have, you can tell how successful they are. Our office space right now is located right next to Rockefeller Center, and it is a huge driver of people coming into the city with their kids, the experience that they get to have. You know, downtown, where you’re located, the Seaport, and the ways that people can take advantage of the city in a way that you can’t really in a more rural community.
Stoller: Is there anything we’re getting wrong about building either New York or just cities in general, in the U.S. right now?
MacKay: I would say one of the things that we haven’t focused on is that you need to have a large component of entertainment in any city that’s truly viable at the end of the day, because that draws important, not just for the people coming in from the outside, but for the people who exist here. That means you’ve got to support your restaurants. You have to support theater. We do a great job of that here in New York City. You’ve got to support areas like Lincoln Center to keep and make these things viable and to really make it special. Have an identity. Our identity has been arts and finance, and that’s worked really well for us. When a city doesn’t have an identity and they don’t invest in the arts, they typically aren’t as successful.
Brady: Yeah, you know, when you mentioned the Hartford, I immediately flashed back. I just moved to the U.S. 9/11 had happened. And I was on a train to Hartford, and I was listening to two guys from the Hartford talk about insurance, and it was whether or not the Twin Towers falling was a single insurance event or a double insurance event, because obviously that would make a huge difference in the amount of money that came. But it makes me think about risk and insurance, and that’s such an important component of your industry, in part, because I think of Houston. I think—who would invest in commercial real estate given climate math? Now, how are you thinking about that world of risk? And you know, by all means, you can reflect back on 9/11 but I think it’s fascinating how you price for risk, how you incorporate it, build resiliency. That’s been a big issue here post–Superstorm Sandy. That intersection, especially coming from a place where it was insurance, you must have an interesting perspective on it.
MacKay: Yeah. I mean, anytime that you’re dealing with a built facility or built project, you’re going to have exposure and risk. The thing is that, quite often, those properties or assets get a lot of high-profile exposure when an event happens. But you think about them, you think in your mind, wow, that was a one-time event. It happened once in 25 years. But if you look at certain business risks or the stock market, and you balance that out against the kind of risk that you’re talking about, the real estate market doesn’t hold a disproportionate amount of it.
Brady: No, but I do think that we’re talking now about adaptability as opposed to prevention, in many cases, with regard to climate change. How are you incorporating that into your own thinking with regard to the growth of the company, and also the parts of the world where it’s becoming tough?
MacKay: Yeah, yeah. Well, remember, first and foremost, like we talked about in the beginning of our conversation, that we do more than just traditional real estate…
Brady: …yep, services is huge…
MacKay: …and the services component generates about 55%. Now, we do provide services to traditional real estate as well, but the idea for our companies to have a foundation of stability in those services revenues—we also don’t own assets directly. So the more that we understand about running different types of built assets, hospitals, things you know are never going anywhere, which is what we’re doing, the better off we are in terms of managing the kind of risks that you’re talking about
Stoller: For these buildings that you know are going to be around for a long time, like a hospital, per se. How do you actually future-proof that? Because you’ve got AI, you’ve got climate change, like Diane was talking about. Design of buildings just gets dated so quickly. Can a building actually be timeless?
MacKay: Yeah, you can definitely strip back to the shell of a building. And by the way, this is a great connection to your conversations around environmental implications, because a new-build building in terms of carbon footprint and use of resources, it requires much more than taking an existing shell and stripping it back. Yeah, our people have to be on top of all of it. What’s the new buildout? How much electricity do you need? How are you getting it? Is it clean? Are you willing to pay the extra price of something like that? What if you have to put on a new type of medical facility? So this isn’t new technology, but it’s a good example for you. We had to oversee the extension of a hospital in Australia, and we added an MRI facility to it. We have to have that knowledge base across the organization on all the fronts that you’re talking about. So I think you can make a building evergreen, as long as you’re willing to be smart about how you reconstitute it. And then the question becomes, are you using it for the same purpose, or, like happened down here many years ago, are you taking an office building and then converting it to multifamily?
Brady: You know, one of the things that every CEO talks about is talent, what you hire for, what the hiring environments like. I think that even this conversation, of course, the mix of your business, the part that’s real estate, there’s so many reality shows you must get a lot of people waltzing in and saying, “No, you’re in the wrong place. Go somewhere else.” But what do you hire for? And is that changing at all?
MacKay: Yeah. First of all, I have a different definition of talent than has really existed in our organization before. I call it the “filters off” version of assessing talent. I don’t need you to come from the traditional commercial real estate industry. You don’t have to have specific experience in that to have value to me. I need people who are driven. I need people who are flexible in the way they think, and I need people who can collaborate. And you can be as high-IQ as the smartest person on the planet, but if you can’t work with other people, or if you introduce toxicity into our environment, I don’t consider you talent. In the last four years, we’ve replaced about 70% of the senior leadership of the company.
Brady: 70%. Wow.
Stoller: What happened?
Brady: Oh, you came in.
MacKay: Correct, correct. I came in…
Brady: …five years, right?
MacKay: Yeah, I’ve been, I’ve been there five years. After I was there about a year I had four, I think it was four direct reports at the time, and I eventually replaced three of those four. One is still remaining. I added one new. And in the next evolution of my job when I was promoted, I had three additional directs, of which we’ve now replaced or promoted internally three different people into all of those seats.
Brady: Is it just an instinct that you’re the new boss, and ergo, you want to have new people around? Or what is it—at a senior level, those are people who you presume know how to work together. Maybe I’m wrong, but where do senior leaders tend to fall short in moving to that next rung?
MacKay: I think there’s always the right person for the right time in an organization, and I think that where we get it wrong is we think that somebody should be able to adapt and mold to every combination. I tend to look at talent as leadership that will multiply what we’re doing. I’m a distributor of power and a distributor of accountability, and I need people who can actually hold that space and work in it. Not everybody can. When I came in, the company was very reactionary, siloed, on purpose, center-led on purpose. The company had been put together through a combination of other companies, PE investing, taken public, very command and control. And certain people work really well under that. They’re just not going to work well for me under that kind of construct.
Stoller: Are there any decisions that you’ve made, and I know you’re still very short tenured as a CEO, that you look back on, and you think, I wish maybe I would have done this differently, or you learn from it and wish you could redo—what would it be?
MacKay: Yeah. I mean, I’m only coming up on two years, and so there aren’t that many situations to reflect on, but I do do a lot of reflecting. There’s some timing things, I think timing is really important. When you make a decision, when you execute that decision, there’s both an intelligence and an elegance to it, both for yourself and the people involved. Maybe sometimes things were a little forced through, but we didn’t have the option, given where the company was when I stepped in.
Brady: You know, I’m always a little hesitant to ask about being a woman in a leadership role. It’s a bit of a Faustian pact, right? Like, how does it feel? You’ve always felt, you know you can’t say any different. But how do you think about the importance of that? Because, of course, there’s a role model aspect to it. I would argue there are some differences often, anecdotally. But how do you think about it in terms of both being a woman in the role, but also the people that you promote into senior roles?
MacKay: Well, I promote purely on talent, and so nothing else comes into play for me, but that’s why we talk about filters off. But you’ve heard about my definition of talent. If I were to define talent more narrowly, that would restrict the kind of people that I had working directly for me.
Brady: Well, there’s a tendency sometimes to recognize excellence in a form that reminds you of yourself, which is why a room full of men of a certain age would—they can recognize excellence, but they don’t recognize it as the type they want to promote. And that same is true for all of us, right? We all have our biases. So I think about filters off, but you have to also be intentional in creating that diversity.
MacKay: Yeah, very much. And I think that when we took the filters off, however, for us, and when you look at our senior leadership team, and you look at our board of directors, diversity of thought came. And honestly, we just didn’t have to do that much when we started talking about what defined talent in the organization and how we wanted to drive results.
Stoller: Now, I have to return to your comment about you being intense, because I think that a lot of women get described as that too. That we’re too intense, we’re too, I don’t know, fill in the blank here. But do you think that helps you in a way in lots of rooms full of men CEOs? Or how do you look at the intensity?
MacKay: Yeah. I mean, I’ve always been intense, and so it’s hard to separate myself and separate how someone else might define me without it. It’s a big part of why I’ve been successful. And I think though that look, did I have moments where that was thrown back at me? Am I too intense? Am I too engaged? Which is something I can’t imagine you would ever say to a man.
Stoller: Never.
MacKay: Never.
Brady: Can one be too engaged? I don’t think so.
MacKay: Yeah, I don’t think so either.
Brady: Yeah, let me step back a second, and, in a way, think about just what’s on your radar right now you’d put on ours. We have not talked about AI in any meaningful capacity. So kudos to us for that, because that’s supposed to be top of mind for everybody.
Stoller: One shot every time there’s an AI mention on the podcast.
Brady: But what are you thinking about in terms of the opportunities for growth? You know, both—I’m talking about growth, the expansion of the company, but the culture you’re trying to create as well. What are some of the priorities that you have that you think perhaps are underappreciated when people are looking from the outside?
MacKay: Well I think that what’s under-appreciated actually, is the fact that we’ve been able to hit the reset button at a really important time, and we have reset it hard. We’re creating an ecosystem whereby you can have structure and flexibility, whereby you have a leadership that magnifies and is connected. And we’re setting, along with AI, new metrics. Not just to measure in the organization, but to drive what I call the Cushman brain, which will be the data set that you can then, you know, query, and say, “Okay, well, this is the piece of information I have. What do I do with it now? What were the best practices? Where did it work? Across the organization? How did it work in Japan?” Right? When I’m sitting here in St Louis and just being able to give it a real fresh reset, which I don’t think any of the competitors have been able to do, is going to drive our growth, because then I get to put our strategy into that new ecosystem that we’ve created that’s really healthy. Our new values into that ecosystem, and I do capital allocation now, so I’m putting that into this ecosystem as well to drive growth. We’ve been very successful at driving organic growth, which in this industry is highly unusual. Most growth is driven by acquisitions.
Stoller: If you had to make one really big bold prediction for what the future of your industry is going to look like in 10 to 15 years, what would you say is going to be your prediction?
MacKay: I would say that AI is going to drive big portions of the business, but not in a way that displaces people, in a way that answers some of the questions that you’re bringing to the table today. So that you will have more knowledge about something around the environment, right? If we choose that topic, or you may have more knowledge around, hey, what is the highest and best use for this asset?
Brady: Before we go, I want to ask you about your board work, because I think that is something that very few people get the chance to experience. But in terms of how it trains you as a leader, must be invaluable. What have you learned from some of the boards you’ve been on that you think has made you lead differently?
MacKay: Board leadership gives you perspective, and you cannot get it any other way. I was on a board for seven or eight years during the GFC that had…
Brady: …GFC…
MacKay: …yes, the Great Financial Crisis.
Brady: Yes, okay, I’ve not heard it called that.
Stoller: Yeah, I did not know what it was.
MacKay: Yeah, sorry about that.
Brady: No, I remember it well, that’s good.
MacKay: Yeah. So that was my first board seat. I was relatively young at the time, and it was a company that was going to be filing bankruptcy, and I was representing an independent group of shareholders. And that experience was phenomenal in terms of learning, rebuilding a company, putting in new leadership, re-IPOing it, and then selling it at a premium. And after I came out and retired, obviously with that particular experience, I was able to get on boards pretty early. One of the things that people don’t understand is that the board has a completely different perspective on certain days than you do as a business leader. And it’s really helped facilitate my interactions with the board in a way that I just could never have done.
Brady: Is there any question you don’t get asked enough that you wish you were asked?
MacKay: I probably don’t get asked enough about why people should be paying attention to Cushman & Wakefield.
Stoller: Tell us…
MacKay: Yeah, well, we started with the reset conversation, which I think is really valuable. What I think people don’t understand is we’re growing a different kind of engine, a different kind of company and a different kind of culture that’s far more tapped into where the world is going, and far less reliant on historical practices of where the world has been and when we were talking about talent. This is a complete tie out to the kind of talent that we want too. We don’t want people who are going to tell us the way that it was done. We want visionaries to come to us thinking about the way it’s going to be done.
Stoller: Now Michelle, I want to end on a fun one, because since you don’t do karaoke for fun, I want to know, what do you do for fun?
MacKay: My biggest, you may laugh at this, but two things that exist in my life that I consider fun: Every day, I have to go outside and take a walk. Part of this is because of my connection to nature and where I grew up, which was in a pretty rural community. That is actually fun to me, to walk through and see the season changes and things of that nature. Second thing is, I am a puzzler, so I…
Brady: …which puzzles?
MacKay: Well, it is the wooden ones that have individual pieces…
Stoller: How many pieces are you up to right now?
MacKay: You know what? I can only do 500 at a time on those because they will make you crazy.
Brady: Is it meditative? What do you like about that?
MacKay: I like the fact that I’m tapping into the problem-solving part of my brain, but at the same time, there is no pressure on when I finish.
Stoller: I love that. That’s a great, great thing to do.
Brady: I can’t think of a better place to end in there. Thank you for joining us.
MacKay: Thank you.
Brady: Leadership Next is produced and edited by Ceylan Ersoy.
Stoller: Our executive producer is Lydia Randall.
Brady: Our head of video and audio is Adam Banicki.
Stoller: Our theme is by Jason Snell.
Brady:Leadership Next is a production of Fortune Media. I’m Diane Brady.
Stoller: And I’m Kristin Stoller.
Brady: See you next time.
Leadership Next episodes are produced by Fortune‘s editorial team. The views and opinions expressed by podcasters and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Deloitte or its personnel. Nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.
Bitcoin options show traders are hedging against a price pullback to the $100,000 price level with geopolitical and economic uncertainty rising across global financial markets.
The put-to-call volume ratio on the crypto derivatives exchange Deribit surged to 2.17 over the past 24 hours, reflecting a strong tilt toward protective bets. Put options, which offer downside insurance by giving the holder of the contract the right to sell at a certain price, saw outsized demand, particularly in short-dated contracts. For options expiring June 20, open interest in puts struck at $100,000 now tops the board, with a put-to-call ratio of 1.16, underscoring concern about a near-term price fall.
Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $111,980 on May 22, and is up more than 50% since a now crypto-friendly Donald Trump was elected president of the U.S. for a second time in November. The largest cryptocurrency was little changed at about $104,377 on Wednesday.
The caution comes as Federal Reserve policymakers navigate a highly uncertain environment as geopolitical tension in the Middle East and volatile energy prices add to inflation and labor market risks tied to the Trump administration’s tariff policies. With U.S. officials widely expected to hold policy steady for a fourth straight meeting later Wednesday, markets will focus on the Fed’s latest projections for growth, unemployment and interest rates.
“A hawkish signal from the Federal Reserve could strengthen the US dollar and trigger a test of the psychological $100,000 mark,” Javier Rodriguez-Alarcón, chief investment officer of XBTO, wrote in a note. “Simultaneously, the geopolitical situation remains a wildcard; any credible de-escalation in the Middle East could serve as a significant risk-on catalyst, while a further deterioration would likely trigger another move down across risk assets.”
Three former engineers at crypto exchange Coinbase left the company earlier this year to start their own venture. On Wednesday, the team announced its new project: A crypto savings app called Nook, alongside $2.5 million in funding from venture capital firms Coinbase Ventures, defy.vc and UDHC. The company declined to disclose its valuation in the round.
Nook seeks to make it easier for non-crypto native users to increase the amount of their crypto holdings through services like Aave, which let users lend their crypto to borrowers in exchange for interest.
Joey Isaacson, CEO and co-founder of Nook, told Fortune that his team estimates that a user must go through 14 different steps to gain access to the average lending platform. This, he says, creates a barrier to entry for crypto investors who don’t understand the intricacies of blockchain technology or don’t have the time to learn it.
Nook hopes to strip away some of the complexities of other platforms by letting customers sign up with an email address rather than having to connect a crypto wallet, Isaacson said.
“What we’re trying to do is make the experience a lot easier, make the messaging a lot more clear…and stick to a clear setup where we are within the regulatory confines and we are following the rules,” he said.
While Isaacson says the company plans to introduce more lending programs in the future, Nook launched to the public on Wednesday with one partner, Moonwell, a lending platform founded in 2021 by another Coinbase alumnus.
Prior to launching publicly, Nook had been slowly onboarding customers from its waitlist of over 50,000 people. These users have received an 8% annual return by lending their Bitcoin or some other crypto to borrowers on Moonwell via Nook. “We can’t guarantee it, but that has been the results that users have been seeing,” Isaacson said.
Because cryptocurrencies are so volatile, it is risky to engage in lending and borrowing of crypto. However, Moonwell and other companies like it try to limit the risks involved by requiring borrowers to “over-collateralize” their loans, meaning they put in more crypto than they take out of the program to invest. In the instance that the value of the collateralized crypto falls to a predetermined threshold, the borrower is automatically liquidated, meaning they’re forced to return their loan and the program sells their collateralized crypto.
Another Coinbase alumnus and former CEO of lending protocol Compound, Jayson Hobby, is pursuing a similar venture called Legend. Hobby’s platform gives users broad access to multiple decentralized finance applications—platforms that facilitate a financial function without a third-party like a bank—rather than forcing users to sign into a number of different accounts.
At the moment, Nook is free for customers to use. However, Isaacson said he will consider various revenue options after the company attracts a sizable user base. “Once we can make that connection and continue to build up our community, we see a few revenue options down the road,” Isaacson said.
The company will use the money raised in this round to fine-tune its technology and to market and distribute its product.
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