Leading U.S. energy products exporter Enterprise Products Partners warned that the Trump administration continuing to “weaponize” fossil fuel shipments to China would only backfire against U.S. shippers.

Enterprise co-CEO Jim Teague issued his complaints during the July 28 earnings call about two months after the U.S. Commerce Department temporarily banned ethane exports to China as a trade agreement negotiating tool after China placed restrictions on the exports of certain rare earth metals to the U.S. Teague is frequently vocal about his right-leaning political allegiances and has personally donated to Trump.

Both countries in July lifted their restrictions as part of a trade truce while a longer-term trade agreement is negotiated, which remains pending.

“We’ve been clear about the risk of weaponizing U.S. energy exports,” Teague said in the earnings call. “These kinds of actions rarely hurt the intended target and often backfire, hurting our own industry more.”

China is by far the largest importer of American ethane—the most common building block for petrochemicals and plastics worldwide. The U.S. is the only major exporter of ethane, making China entirely dependent on America’s exports. Roughly half of all U.S. ethane exports go to China, and the cargoes are not easily redirected to other nations. Enterprise (No. 78 in the Fortune 500) is the leading ethane exporter from its Houston Ship Channel terminal.

“We are fortunate this administration understands the important importance of energy and global trade, even if the Commerce Department may need a little reminder,” Teague said. “Unfortunately, we could face similar challenges in the future.”

Specifically, the Commerce Department temporarily required Enterprise and other exporters to apply for special federal licenses to export ethane and butane to China for the stated reason of the “unacceptable risk” the natural gas liquids could be utilized for a “military end use.”

Enterprise Executive Vice President Tony Chovanec said the Commerce Department’s actions cost Enterprise at least one ethane customer that wasn’t from China.

“What it has done and where it’s been a problem, you really compromised the U.S. brand for reliable supply and energy security when you just cut off a counterparty like that,” Chovanec said of the Commerce Department’s actions. “It’s been disruptive but, in the short term, we were able to manage through it with our diverse contract mix.”

Apart from China, he said Enterprise ships ethane to Mexico, Brazil, Europe, India, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Seeking alternatives

In a new report, the East Daley Analytics firm said China may look to develop alternatives for U.S. ethane to avoid geopolitical disruptions. China could push Middle Eastern and European nations to further develop their own ethane exports to diversify supplies.

“In recent years, U.S. ethane was the quiet powerhouse of global petrochemicals—cheap, abundant, and presumably insulated from geopolitics. That assumption no longer holds,” East Daley stated. “The US-China trade war has exposed a critical truth: there is no global substitute for U.S. ethane at scale. What was once a stable feedstock is now caught in the crosscurrents of trade policy and long-cycle demand risk.”

In the meantime, Enterprise is only doubling down on its ethane and propane exports businesses, including expanding its Houston Ship Channel facilities.

Enterprise this month also just opened the first phase of its new Neches River Terminal ethane export hub in Texas near the Louisiana border. The facility will initially be able to ship 120,000 barrels of ethane a day. A second phase coming online in the first half of 2026 will more than double the exporting capacity to 300,000 barrels daily.

Typically produced as a byproduct along with oil or natural gas, U.S. natural gas liquids volumes more than doubled in a decade to over 7 million barrels a day, nearly 6 million barrels of which are ethane, propane, and butane, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). That spike triggered a U.S. petrochemical plant construction boom, as well as burgeoning export markets because domestic supplies now far exceed demand. The ethane is typically converted into the petrochemical ethylene, which is used to make products such as polyethylene, the world’s most common plastic.

“The appetite for U.S. ethane and ethylene remains strong in both Asia and Europe,” Teague said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• As a newly minted billionaire, Google CEO Sundar Pichai says that embracing discomfort is key to personal and professional growth—a mantra that helped him advance from a little-known product manager to CEO of the $2.3 trillion tech giant. While climbing up the logical paths up that ladder may seem right, he tells Gen Z that listening to your heart will help you find your true calling. 

The path to success is never easy—even for the world’s top leaders. In fact, for Google CEO Sundar Pichai, there were times he felt that stinging feeling that other people in the room were better than him. But he assures Gen Z that feelings of discomfort are all part of the process.

“At various points in my life, I’ve worked with people who I felt were better than me,” Pichai recently told Lex Fridman’s podcast. “You want that feeling a few times, trying to get yourself in a position where you’re working with people who you feel are kind of like stretching your abilities is what helps you grow.”

“Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, and I think often you’ll surprise yourself,” he added.

For Pichai, this mantra has helped him climb the ranks at the tech giant after starting out as just a product manager in 2004. Within a decade, he had caught the eye of cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin before being named CEO in 2015. And while he admits there is always an element of luck to success, he encourages Gen Z to do what they love—even if it seems irrational at first.

“You’re thinking about what you want to do, your brain is telling you something. But when you do things, I think it’s important to listen to your heart, and see whether you actually enjoy doing it.”

Success in the workplace centers around the people

Finding the right people to work with is not only important for personal growth, Pichai added, but also making sure work gets done, something he said has been part of his secret for maintaining Google’s growth into a multi-trillion-dollar giant.

“You find mission-oriented people who are in the shared journey, who have this inner drive to excellence, to do the best, and motivate people and, and you can achieve a lot that way.”

The drive for excellence at Google may also mean the willingness to work far beyond the 9-to-5, according to Sergey Brin. In an internal memo seen by The New York Times, the cofounder encouraged the company’s AI-focused workers to be in the office “at least every weekday”—with 60-hour workweeks being the “sweet spot of productivity.” And while Pichai has publicly said in the past that he anticipated the future of work to be focused around flexibility, the AI arms race has put pressure on tech giants to be ahead of the game.

Still, amid the high-stakes environment, Pichai told Fridman he prefers staying calm as a manager, believing that the best employees are usually the first to know when they’ve messed up—and overreacting can just make matters worse.

“At times, you’re working with people who are so committed to achieving, if they’ve done something wrong, they feel it more than you do, so you treat them differently,” Pichai said. “Occasionally, there are people who you need to clearly let them know like that wasn’t okay or whatever it is, but I’ve often found that not to be the case.”

Fortune reached out to Pichai for comment.

Striving toward the billionaires club

Though Pichai has been the leader of one of the biggest public companies in the world for just shy of a decade, he’s only now just joining the billionaires club—a far cry from that of Brin and Page, who are among the top 10 wealthiest people in the world, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. Their net worths are about $163 billion and $174 billion, respectively. Compared to Pichai’s $1.1 billion net worth.

While there is no perfect path to emulating the success of Google, Page told college graduates in 2009 that they should think about solving problems that can ultimately allow them to be lazier: 

“Technology, and especially the internet, can really help you be lazy,” he said to University of Michigan students. “…Find the leverage in the world, so you can be more lazy.”

Much like those who graduated into the Great Recession, today’s young people are facing their own set of daunting challenges, thanks in part to AI reshaping the job market. However, Page isn’t a believer in giving up. 

“Overall, I know it seems like the world is crumbling out there, but it is actually a great time in your life to get a little crazy, follow your curiosity, and be ambitious about it,” Page said. “Don’t give up on your dreams. The world needs you all.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In today’s edition: an EU-Trump trade deal, the Lionnesses’ victory, and the improbability and impact of Mira Murati’s $2 billion.

– Mission impossible. Earlier this month, Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab confirmed long-rumored news: the AI company had closed a $2 billion seed round at a $12 billion valuation.

It was the largest seed round ever, in the history of venture capital and startups. It was hardly underreported. And yet, there’s an aspect to this news that hasn’t seemed to have been fully appreciated—just how unlikely, and meaningful, this is for female founders.

Murati is, undoubtedly, in a league of her own as a founder. The Albania-born former CTO of OpenAI, she helped create ChatGPT and start the generative AI revolution. She left OpenAI earlier this year to build her own company. She brought top talent with her; the question everyone wants to know the answer to is what, exactly, she is building.

Not that many details are known about what Thinking Machines is doing. But a source familiar with what Murati is building tells me that it’s creating powerful AI systems capable of tackling the world’s toughest problems—climate change, disease eradication, and more. The company is eager to bring along the world’s smartest people in other fields—like science—rather than only those who work in the AI industry itself, all before AI systems become too powerful for that to matter. And its more open approach is expected to benefit businesses, policymakers, and others.

But Thinking Machines is entering the game late, hence the $2 billion: it needs compute and talent to compete with the AI leaders like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google that have a years-long head start.

In an environment where startups with at least woman on the founding team took in $38 billion in funding last year—and those founded solely by women earned 2.1% of VC dollars, for a total sum of $3.7 billion, across about 800 deals—the $2 billion number is extraordinary.

A report released by Female Founders Fund and Inc. last week showed what women are doing with the paltry share of venture funding they are getting; last year women were responsible for 24% of exits. They put capital to work more efficiently, earning 78 cents of revenue for every dollar raised, compared to 31 cents at male-founded startups.

So imagine what will be possible with $2 billion—and a generational founder at the helm. Known investors in the company include Accel, AMD, Cisco, Jane Street, Nvidia, and ServiceNow. They’re surely expecting their investment to pay off (see: $12 billion valuation). But more important is how Murati and her capital will impact humanity. The true entry of Thinking Machines into the AI race helps diversify the perspectives that will shape the future of our world. And Murati’s achievement lets other women know, in frontier tech and beyond—what seems impossible, can be possible.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

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

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Good morning. As AI continues to revolutionize business, companies are fundamentally rethinking their workforce strategies for the decade ahead—and exploring new options.

This topic came up during a panel session at the Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore conference last week. Jess O’Reilly, Workday’s general manager for the ASEAN business, reflected on how a major Southeast Asian bank is considering a skills-based approach to employment.

“I was in Thailand a couple of weeks ago with a huge bank, and they’re really looking at their 10-year strategy and saying, ‘We don’t even know if our people are going to have a traditional full-time job anymore,’” O’Reilly said. Instead of planning around fixed job roles, the bank is considering pivoting to what it calls a “skills economy.” Here, every project or initiative is treated like a gig assignment—team members are chosen for their specific skill sets relevant to the project at hand.

What’s particularly notable is the bank’s approach to continuous learning and reskilling. O’Reilly explained that there’s always room for someone new to build their skills within these project teams. For example, the bank might set aside 1% of a project team for employees looking to reskill—people who say, “I don’t have these skills yet, but I have experience in adjacent areas and I want to learn.” By doing so, the company ensures that fresh talent is constantly cycling into critical roles.

O’Reilly posed the question: How do we use AI not just for automation, but as the backbone for identifying and matching skills with project needs? She argued that AI can help organizations inventory existing skills, identify opportunities, and make it easier to create space for upskilling and onboarding new talent through gig-style projects.

Perhaps a gig-based workplace would also inject variety into the day-to-day. And many companies are considering moving away from job-centric structures and toward a skills-focused approach, according to Deloitte’s report, “Becoming an AI-enabled, skills-based organization.” The firm finds that companies integrating both AI and skills-based approaches will be better positioned to predict talent gaps, improve talent placement, retain high performers, and reduce mis-hires.

AI and skills-based approaches could also mean that entry-level positions aren’t eliminated by automation—instead, new hires would be selected for specific skill sets that can be expanded and developed.

Skill requirements for jobs are constantly changing, noted Peiying Chua, head economist for APAC at LinkedIn, during the panel session. “For entry-level workers, this presents the opportunity to upskill and work on different sets of abilities—to build human-centric skills, agility, and creativity,” she said.

Sheryl Estrada
[email protected]

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Fortune

• Jeff Bezos sold over $5.7 billion in Amazon stock between late June and July—including $735 million on his wedding day to Lauren Sánchez—under a prearranged trading plan. Despite the large selloff, Bezos still holds roughly 884 million Amazon shares and maintains a net worth of $252 billion. Recent SEC filings also revealed donations of over 600,000 shares to undisclosed nonprofits.

Jeff Bezos’s lavish wedding to Lauren Sánchez last month may have cost him a pretty penny—but even on the day of his nuptials the Amazon founder was generating millions.

On June 27, the day Bezos and Sánchez said their vows, the billionaire sold millions of shares in online giant Amazon as part of a wider plan to offload stock.

An SEC filing seen by Fortune shows that on June 27, Bezos sold more than 3.3 million Amazon shares at a price of between $221 and $223 a share. The resulting windfall for the transaction date of his wedding alone was $735 million, per Fortune calculations.

And while other newlyweds might expect to see their wealth take a hit during their honeymoon, Bezos’s wealth soared as he continued his selloff with six further Form 4 filings made between late June and late July.

Between July 3 and 7, Bezos offloaded a further 3 million shares at approximately $224 apiece; on July 8 and 9 a further 500,000 shares were sold at a similar price; and between July 11 and July 14 sold a further 6.7 million shares for between $224 and $226 per share.

On July 15, Bezos sold a further 733,000 shares for $227 each, and between July 21 and 22 offloaded a further 6.6 million shares at $227.5 to $229.5 each. The most recent transaction, from July 23 and July 24, also offloaded more than 4.1 million shares at between $228 to $233 apiece.

The total selloff—and with Amazon stock up 5.5% over the past month alone—has netted Bezos some $5.7 billion in total, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates.

It’s easy to assume that offloading millions of shares would reduce Bezos’s stake significantly in the company with a market cap of nearly $2.5 trillion. Not so, as the SEC filings reveal Bezos still owns approximately 884 million Amazon shares.

This puts him roughly on a par with some of Amazon’s largest institutional shareholders. Yahoo Finance, for example, reports Vanguard as the top institutional shareholder with 832 million shares.

With Amazon stock up 26% over the past year, and up roughly 46% over the past half-decade, Bezos now sits on a net worth of $252 billion (per Bloomberg), making him the third-richest person on the planet.

Maintaining distance

Of course, Bezos himself isn’t orchestrating the sales of millions of shares on a weekly basis.

The SEC filings show the stock sales are occurring according to a SEC Rule 10b5-1 trading plan established in early May. The rule creates a standard practice for an officer of a publicly listed company to sell shares in a preplanned way, without accusations of insider trading.

The 10b5-1 plan has a number of stipulations, chief among them that a formula (not a person) determines the number, price, and date of the trades. A third party who cannot be influenced by the client must also be employed to conduct the sales. Similar action has been taken by Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in recent weeks, who used 10b5-1 filings to offload shares while achieving a billionaire wealth status.

But Bezos’s SEC history also reveals the billionaire is offloading sales not only for wealth gain but also for philanthropy.

On June 27, the same day Bezos’s selloff began, Morgan Stanley filed a note on behalf of Bezos in a Form 144 filing. The filing reads, “On May 13, May 14, and June 3, 2025, the reporting person contributed 633,812 shares to non-profit organizations, which may have sold such shares during the three months preceding the date of this Form 144.”

The form does not reveal which organization received the shares.

While Bezos has not signed the Giving Pledge (a commitment from the world’s wealthiest to donate the majority of their fortune to philanthropy) he has publicly stated he intends to donate the majority of his wealth during his lifetime to philanthropic causes, telling CNN in 2022 he was “building the capacity to be able to give away this money.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP - Getty Images)

Good morning!

When 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral primary in June, business titans across the country slid into panic mode at the possibility of the self-described democratic socialist running New York City. Many wondered whether Gen Z was rejecting capitalism outright. Was this the demise of “late capitalism” that we have heard so much about on social media?

I set out to find out whether C-suite executives should be worried. In short: No. That was the resounding answer from members of Gen Z and the people who study them in the business and political worlds.

But young people do have a demand of their leaders: Pure honesty. “I think a lot of historical communications in politics, business and otherwise have been built on a mirage,” said Ziad Ahmed, the 26-year-old head of United Talent Agency’s Gen Z–focused marketing advisory practice, Next Gen. “Let’s not say the real thing that’s happening. Let’s hide behind PR talking points.” This isn’t going to cut it, Ahmed said: “If the world is on fire, tell me the world is on fire. Don’t tell me that, actually, you might like the heat.”

HR leaders, take note: Transparency and fairness are key values for Gen Z workers, said Charlene Li, an author who advises companies on digital transformation. Leaders need to clearly state how success is measured and offer tangible opportunities and financial rewards to employees who meet these measures, she says. Additionally, she advises business leaders to take a look at the demographics of who is getting promotions and raises, and think critically about company—and C-suite—makeup.

“Diversity of thought, of background, is the number one driver of innovation,” she told me, “and really the number one driver of growth.” 

For more on what Gen Z craves from their workplaces, check out my full story here.

Kristin Stoller
Editorial Director, Fortune Live Media
[email protected]

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Michael M. Santiago—Getty Images

In 2019, when Revathi Advaithi took the CEO role at Singapore-based Flex (No. 10 on the Fortune Southeast Asia 500), the company’s stock was trading at just under $7, its longtime CEO had recently been ousted, and the broader contract manufacturing industry lacked financial discipline. 

Advaithi, who had only interacted with Flex as a supplier, wasn’t stepping into familiar terrain, but she didn’t overthink it. “It was a quant problem,” she says. “I thought I could double the stock. And if it doesn’t work in two years, I’ll go do something else.”

That kind of grounded pragmatism has defined her leadership philosophy for decades. No matter the role, she starts with a deceptively simple framework: Define the portfolio, clarify the value to customers, and understand why they’re willing to pay for it. “Strategy doesn’t need to be flashy,” she says. “Every job I’ve had, I’ve just focused on those two things.”

Her first year at Flex was spent putting that into practice. She told the board not to expect decisions until she had completed a full strategic review. Upon completion, the diagnosis was clear: The company needed to exit hyper-commoditized segments, such as smartphones and laptops, where pricing power was weak and volatility was high. Flex would instead double down on complex manufacturing for sectors like health care, industrials, and automotive—areas where execution mattered and margins could follow.

But even a disciplined plan was quickly stress-tested. Two months into Advaithi’s tenure, the U.S. government placed Huawei—then one of Flex’s largest customers—on the Entity List, forcing a rapid response across supply chains and customer relationships. Then came the pandemic and a global logistics crunch. Through it all, Advaithi says the basic playbook didn’t change. “Get your portfolio right. Make sure you can win for customers. Execute.”

That consistency extended to how Flex presented itself to investors. The company made a conscious shift away from chasing growth for its own sake and began emphasizing capital discipline, margins, and long-term resilience.

Advaithi’s path to Flex came after a moment of career inflection. While running North America for Eaton in 2015, she was asked to take over its global electrical business following leadership turnover. She accepted, but was open with the incoming CEO that he should feel free to choose his own team. “If a great CEO role comes your way,” he told her, “I won’t stop you.” She turned down another offer in the industrial sector before accepting Flex—a less regulated, more fragmented industry where she saw room to impose operational order.

One of her more prescient bets was the early decision to invest in the intersection of compute and power, well before the current AI boom. “Long before Nvidia and GPUs took off, I figured compute was going to become power-hungry,” she says. Flex began acquiring capabilities in power infrastructure for data centers. 

Today, roughly a quarter of its business supports AI infrastructure, putting it in a differentiated position among contract manufacturers.

Ruth Umoh
[email protected]

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Flex

• In today’s CEO Daily: Clay Chandler talks to DBS Group’s Tan Su Shan.
• The big story: E.U. signs trade deal with the U.S.
• The markets: Investors love a deal.
• Analyst notes from Deutsche Bank on U.S. negotiations with China, ING on the US-EU trade deal, and Goldman Sachs on the upcoming Fed meeting.
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune. 

Good morning. “Even the CEO’s job can be replaced by AI.”

That was the WhatsApp message DBS Group’s board sent Tan Su Shan on the day they named her chief executive of Southeast Asia’s largest and most profitable bank. Tan shared the moment with me last week at Fortune’s Brainstorm AI Singapore conference — and her reaction landed like a challenge to the rest of the audience: “If the CEO can be replaced, so can everything else.”

That mix of excitement and existential threat ran through two days of debate among more than 70 leaders from nearly 20 countries. 

Singapore’s digital minister Josephine Teo outlined her country’s AI strategy of carving a middle path between the U.S. and China, explaining how the city‑state of 6 million is shaping policy between Big Data superpowers. On another panel, executives from three of Asia’s most sophisticated data center operators debated Malaysia’s data center boom and the region’s prospects for satisfying the demand for energy. U.S. policy analysts also dissected the U.S.–China AI rivalry and Trump’s new AI action plan at the gathering. And digital artist Refik Anadol stunned the room with AI‑generated works that seemed equal parts data and dream.

Other panels tackled hard questions: Is AI wiping out entry‑level jobs? Can it adapt to local languages and cultures? Will it narrow global inequality — or widen it? Leaders from Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Walmart, Accenture, Rakuten, Indeed, and others weighed in, often bluntly.

I left Singapore astonished by AI’s speed of change — and sobered by how much depends on leadership choices. Tan’s own advice to DBS employees, and perhaps to every executive navigating the shift, came down to four R’s: reinvent, stay relevant, be resilient, and act responsibly.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at [email protected]

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Graham Uden for Fortune

Boeing Co. expects more than 3,200 union workers at three St. Louis-area plants that produce U.S. fighter jets to strike after they rejected a proposed contract Sunday that included a 20% wage increase over four years.

The International Machinists and Aerospace Workers union said the vote by District 837 members was overwhelmingly against the proposed contract. The existing contract was to expire at 11:59 p.m. Central time Sunday, but the union said a “cooling off” period would keep a strike from beginning for another week, until Aug. 4.

Union leaders had recommended approving the offer, calling it a “landmark” agreement when it was announced last week. Organizers said then that the offer would improve medical, pension and overtime benefits in addition to pay.

The vote came two days before Boeing planned to announce its second quarter earnings, after saying earlier this month that it had delivered 150 commercial airliners and 36 military aircraft and helicopters during the quarter, up from 130 and 26 during the first quarter. Its stock closed Friday at $233.06 a share, up $1.79.

The union did not say specifically why members rejected the contract, only that it “fell short of addressing the priorities and sacrifices” of the union’s workers. Last fall, Boeing offered a general wage increase of 38% over four years to end a 53-day strike by 33,000 aircraft workers producing passenger aircraft.

“Our members are standing together to demand a contract that respects their work and ensures a secure future,” the union said in a statement.

Dan Gillan, general manager and senior Boeing executive in St. Louis, said in a statement that the company is “focused on preparing for a strike.” He described the proposal as “the richest contract offer” ever presented to the St. Louis union.

“No talks are scheduled with the union,” said Gillan, who is also vice president for Boeing Air Dominance, the division for the production of several military jets, including the U.S. Navy’s Super Hornet, as well as the Air Force’s Red Hawk training aircraft.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Citigroup Inc. launched a premium credit card designed to rival ones offered by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and American Express Co., the latest entrant in the increasingly crowded market for cards offering high-end perks.

The ‘Strata Elite’ card will feature an annual fee of $595 — a price that the bank says can unlock almost $1,500 in value if used to its maximum potential. It offers the largest points rewards for hotels, car rentals and attractions booked on Citigroup’s travel platform, as well as restaurant dining at peak weekend times.

The card also bakes in perks for customers who fly with American Airlines Group Inc., giving four passes per year to the airline’s airport lounges and the ability to transfer Citigroup “ThankYou Points” into reward miles with the airline. That follows an expansion of the firms’ existing card partnership in December, when American Airlines chose to make Citigroup the exclusive issuer of all its credit cards.

In addition to American Express and JPMorgan, Citigroup will be competing with other banks trying to break into the premium space, including Capital One Financial Corp. The customers they vie for are highly sought after, known for their willingness to pay annual fees, and reliably spending more and prioritizing travel and hospitality.

“It’s always been highly competitive — competition makes us all better,” Pam Habner, Citigroup’s head of US branded cards and lending, said in an interview.

At $595, plus $75 a year for each authorized user, the card is cheaper than JPMorgan’s Sapphire Reserve, which Habner helped launch when she worked there in 2016. That card’s annual fee will jump to $795 from $550, JPMorgan said last month.

Read More: JPMorgan Hikes Sapphire Reserve Fee to $795 in Card Overhaul

In addition to the perks rolled out by Citigroup directly, the Strata Elite card will be the first in Mastercard Inc.’s recently announced World Legend tier of credit cards, meaning it comes with an additional suite of benefits. World Legend cards include access to the Mastercard Collection, which translates into ticket pre-sales and streamlined airport security access, among other rewards.

“We designed benefits that we know our customers can use,” Habner said, adding that the card was designed to give customers rewards for types of spending, rather than handing them coupon-style rewards to use with specific companies.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Kevin Carter—Getty Images

• Denny’s CEO Kelli Valade isn’t afraid to admit she’s always working to be better—and she values that same humility in job candidates. Recognizing your weaknesses and asking thoughtful questions, she says, can set you apart in an interview. It’s a mindset shared by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who got his start as a Denny’s dishwasher and credits the journey teaching him hard work and humility.

Landing a job in today’s market can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. Not only do you have to find a role that you’re interested in—and are qualified for—but you also have to craft an application, resume, and cover letter that’s interesting to both humans and AI. But once you land the coveted interview, that’s when the pressure is on. 

Luckily, even during an era of AI-assisted interviews, there remain ways to stick out from the crowd.

When asked what her red flags are in hiring, Kelli Valade, CEO of Denny’s Corporation, noted that she asks applicants a few critical questions.

One of the signs Valade looks for comes at the end of the interview, when she asks: what questions do you have for me?

“Have a thoughtful one or two. You don’t really even have to have more than that,” she tells Fortune. “Any more than that, actually, it’s too much.”

In fact, it often does not matter what the questions are, but the fact that you do ask shows you did your homework and are seriously interested, Valade adds. 

(However, Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran advises candidates to ask, “Is there anything standing in the way of you hiring me?”)

She also is sure to ask: what would they say makes you most effective at what you do? Typically, candidates are pretty well equipped to answer that question, Valade says.

“Then I ask them, what would make them more effective?” she explains. “Which basically is saying, what are your weaknesses? And there you’d be amazed at how many people can’t answer that, or would say, ‘I’ve not thought about it.’ And so really what you’re saying is, ‘I’ve not thought about my weaknesses.’”

The 55-year-old admits that she herself is a work in progress, but what’s helped her stand out throughout her career is not shying away from admitting her areas of improvement. It’s something she hopes to see in her employees, too.

From Denny’s dishwasher to leading the world’s biggest company

Now that you know tips for getting hired at Denny’s, you may ask, why work at the restaurant chain?

There may be no more notable member of Denny’s employee alumni than Jensen Huang. The now billionaire CEO of Nvidia started his career at the diner as a dishwasher at just 15 years old—and it’s experience he credits for teaching him about hard work.

“I planned my work. I was organized. I was mise en place,” Huang told students at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business last year. “I washed the living daylights out of those dishes.”

“No task is beneath me,” he added. “I used to be a dishwasher. I used to clean toilets. I cleaned a lot of toilets. I’ve cleaned more toilets than all of you combined. And some of them you just can’t unsee.”

And while his time at Denny’s came well before Valade’s tenure, she says they are now friends today—and the billionaire continues to pay homage to the diner. His LinkedIn notably only includes two employers: Denny’s and Nvidia. He also made an appearance last year at Denny’s franchise convention and partnered with the company to launch a special edition “Nvidia Breakfast Bytes.”

“Start your first job in the restaurant business,” Huang said in 2023. “It teaches you humility, it teaches you hard work, it teaches you hospitality.”

From hostess to CEO

Valade started her career in the restaurant space at just age 16, when she landed a hostess job at TJ’s Big Boy. Decades later, she began climbing up the corporate ladder in the human resources world—with the dream of one day becoming a chief people officer, not necessarily becoming a CEO. 

So when she was tapped to jump from head of HR to chief operations officer at Chili’s, self-doubt was her first instinct.

“I didn’t think I could do that at the time,” she recalls. “I thought, I think you’re looking for the wrong person here. I don’t know. My first instinct was, I’m not sure I know how to do that.”

While the feeling is natural, she adds leaders—and especially women—should self-reflect on whether you are holding yourself back from a greater potential.

“Push yourself and challenge yourself on why you may not feel like that,” she adds.

After later rising to brand president at Chili’s and CEO of Red Lobster, Valade was tapped to become Denny’s CEO in 2022, centering her career on two of her favorite things: people and pancakes.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Courtesy of Denny's Corporation

Hydrogen fuel cell cars (FCEVs) have been on the market for a similar duration to the current wave of battery EVs (BEVs). But they have sold a tiny fraction in comparison. In 2024, 12,866 FCEVs were registered globally, versus 10.8 million BEVs. Still, some manufacturers have hopes that hydrogen has a role to play in transport.

One of these is BMW, which recently announced it would be bringing its first FCEV into series production in 2028. Fortune caught up with BMW Group’s General Project Manager Hydrogen Technology and Vehicle Projects, Jürgen Guldner, at a recent summit promoting FCEVs, among other hydrogen evangelists.

Toyota has been the leading seller of FCEVs with the Mirai launched in 2014, but it isn’t the only player. Hyundai has been selling its Nexo since 2018, and Honda, after offering various cars under the Clarity name from 2008 to 2021, brought its CR-V e:FCEV plug-in hybrid hydrogen car to market in 2024. BMW has been more cautious. The company has been trialling FCEVs with a pilot run of vehicles based on X5 since 2023. The iX5 Hydrogen is already a credible vehicle, with smooth driving and a familiar X5 interior. However, this won’t necessarily be the vehicle that BMW will launch in 2028.

“The good news is a hydrogen vehicle is an electric vehicle,” says Guldner. “It’s just a different way of storing the energy versus a battery, which also means that we can reuse a lot of the components like the electric motors in the car from our BEVs. It also has a unique value proposition. It’s the best of both worlds, with all the benefits of electric driving—acceleration, silent driving, zero emission—but you can refuel in 3 to 4 minutes and you’re 100% full and ready to go again.”

The problem of hydrogen infrastructure

This has always seemed like a compelling argument for hydrogen on paper, but the reality has been that hydrogen refueling hasn’t proliferated like BEV charging stations. In fact, it has gone backwards in many countries. In the UK, in 2019 there were as many as 15 hydrogen fuel stations, whereas today in 2025 only four were listed, with two potentially not in service. By contrast, according to Zap-Map, there were 39,733 public charging locations in the UK in May 2025, with 80,998 devices and 115,241 connectors. Germany is better served for hydrogen refueling, but some European countries have no stations at all, such as Spain, Portugal and Italy.

Some hydrogen proponents argue that this is a strategic mistake if your goal is to decarbonize road transport.

“FCEVs are complementary to battery electric vehicles and heading towards one common direction,” says David Wong, head of technology and innovation at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. “If you invest in both charging infrastructure and the fuel cell hydrogen refilling infrastructure, the overall cost is lower. We’ve done modelling where they use Germany as an example. It shows that if we have a motor park penetration of 90% BEVs and 10% FCEVs, the overall cost of investing in infrastructure is $40 billion lower than the scenario where 100% of infrastructure is public charge points.”

There is also concern about resource usage when manufacturing BEVs. Guldner points out batteries requires a lot of raw materials, which could lead to scarcity.

“Having a second technology, not putting all eggs in one basket, provides resilience,” he explains. “BMW having two technologies is better than one. We got a lot of feedback from people saying BEVs don’t work for them. We’re thinking about those people who can’t or don’t want to use battery electric cars because maybe they don’t have electric charging at home, or are on the road a lot and don’t want to depend on charging stops, even if you can get them down to maybe 20 minutes. We have issues like towing and cold weather conditions. In the fuel cell you can use excess heat, so you don’t lose any range.”

This still leaves the problem with how you ramp up the infrastructure to support hydrogen. A commercial DC charger might be $50,000, a home charger can cost $1,000, or you can even use a very slow $200 mains plug cable.

But the price for a hydrogen station is much greater—between $1.5 and $2 million, although some estimate as much as $4 million. The solution, at least in the UK, is to target the long-haul commercial sector first and build out from that. HyHAUL is a project aiming to achieve that.

“The biggest challenge with hydrogen is the fact that it works very well at large scale, but not so good at small scale,” says Chris Jackson, CEO and founder of Protium Green Solutions, which co-founded HyHAUL. “One single hydrogen fueling station requires hundreds of passenger cars to make the economics work, but only a very small number of trucks. We are initially developing three major refueling stations and all we need to get the project off the ground is 30 fuel cell trucks. The first stage will be along the M4 corridor. We’ll be covering from Wales all the way into the M25 around London. Over time, we plan to expand across other networks, going up the M5 and M6.”

For consumer adoption of FCEVs, however, it would be necessary to cover the UK completely within half an hour driving distance, which would require about 1,300 stations. One of the reasons why Tesla was able to kickstart the BEV revolution so effectively was its two-pronged approach of building the supportive charging infrastructure to go with its cars.

Automakers developing FCEVs have traditionally left this to third parties, leading to a chicken-and-egg situation where car adoption awaited infrastructure, and vice versa. This has meant that as BEVs have reached a tipping point in many markets, including the UK, EU and China, while FCEVs wait in the wings.

Can fuel cells prevail?

This hasn’t prevented Toyota from persevering with FCEVs. “Our role is to provide customers with choice,” says Jon Hunt, senior manager, Hydrogen Transformation, Toyota GB. “We can’t have people dismissing technologies that are there to enable us all to learn and develop.”

Commercial vehicles could help FCEVs reach that tipping point. In Paris, around 1,000 FCEV taxis have been operated by Hype since 2015, the majority of which are Toyota Mirais. For this reason, Paris has six hydrogen fuel stops with three more being built. This could lay the groundwork for consumers to adopt FCEVs in the city. However, outside Paris there is no supportive infrastructure yet, preventing long journeys beyond the urban limits. Hype has also recently said it is pivoting away from FCEVs to BEVs.

Even with full launch still three years away, BMW is placing a heavy bet on infrastructure having improved sufficiently for hydrogen to be a viable choice for consumers by 2028.

Guldner notes BMW hasn’t yet decided which countries it will bring those vehicles to market, adding that it will depend on the infrastructure.

“Right now, it’s simply not here in the UK. But hopefully in the next few years, development will pick up,” he says.

The exact model that will go into production in 2028 also hasn’t been announced. And while a price hasn’t been unveiled either, BMW is hoping for parity with BEVs, Guldner says, pointing to previous dramatic cost reductions in other technologies like batteries and solar cells.

For these cost reductions to materialize, though, there has to be enough demand for FCEVs to deliver sufficient scale.

“I am always surprised by surveys in newspapers where so many people say they would prefer a hydrogen vehicle over battery power,” he says. “There seems to be demand there.”

The question will be whether these survey responses translate into vehicle sales. In 2028, when BMW launches its production FCEV, we could find out.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© BMW

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence have developed a groundbreaking tool that allows open-source AI systems to match or surpass the visual understanding capabilities of proprietary models like GPT-4V and Gemini 1.5 Flash, potentially reshaping the competitive landscape between open and c…Read More

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The new Qwen3-Thinking-2507, as we'll call it for short, now leads or closely trails top-performing models across several major benchmarks.Read More

• The data infrastructure and operations company showed it also has a sense of humor after its CEO and HR chief resigned amid fallout from a kiss-cam moment that captured them hugging during a Coldplay concert. The company posted a video of actress Gwyneth Paltrow, the ex wife of Coldplay singer Chris Martin, addressing the company’s most common questions.

Astronomer showed it also has a sense of humor after its CEO and HR chief resigned amid fallout from a kiss-cam moment that captured them hugging during a Coldplay concert.

The data infrastructure and operations company posted a video late Friday of actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who said she was hired on a “very temporary basis” to speak on behalf of the more than 300 employees at Astronomer.

“Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days, and they wanted me to answer the most common ones,” she said. 

The first question was shown in text on screen as, ‘OMG! What the actual f,’ to which Paltrow enthusiastically replied, “Yes, Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow unifying the experience of running data, ML, and AI pipelines at scale! We’ve been thrilled so many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation!”

The other common question shown on screen was, “How is your social media team holding,” prompting Paltrow to respond by saying, “Yes, there is still room available at our Beyond Analytics event in September.”

The video came at the end of a tumultuous period for Astronomer. The once-obscure company went viral after Coldplay singer Chris Martin, who was previously married to Paltrow, spotted the company’s Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot hugging during a kiss-cam moment at a concert and said they are “having an affair or they’re just very shy.” 

Byron, who is married, and Cabot, attempted to hide from the cameras. They have since resigned from their respective roles as CEO and HR chief.

On Monday, Astronomer’s interim CEO and cofounder, Pete DeJoy, addressed the public for the first time since taking over for his scandal-laden predecessor.

“The events of the past few days have received a level of media attention that few companies—let alone startups in our small corner of the data and AI world—ever encounter,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “The spotlight has been unusual and surreal for our team and, while I would never have wished for it to happen like this, Astronomer is now a household name.”

Meanwhile, Paltrow also sought to help steer the public away from the scandal in her video for Astronomer on Friday.

“We will now be returning to what we do best: delivering game-changing results for our customers,” she said cheerfully. “Thank you for your interest in Astronomy.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Christopher Polk—NBC/NBCU Photo Bank/NBC via Getty Images

• Recent studies show that unemployment rates for men ages 22 to 27 with or without college degrees are nearly identical. Younger generations are also finding it harder than in previous years to secure jobs, so they are turning to content creation. Fortune talks to a professor about how to build a successful career as a content creator without a traditional college path.

When Gen Alpha dreams about the future, fewer and fewer are imagining the white lab coat or briefcase wishes of their parents. Instead, they see ring lights and “Get Ready With Me” videos.

In fact, the top two career aspirations among Gen Alpha across the U.S. are YouTuber and TikTok creator, according to a 2024 Whop survey. And many young people are already turning their dreams into reality, including 19-year-old Katie Fang.

The recent high school graduate boasts 6.4 million followers on TikTok and is most known for her popular videos showcasing how she starts her mornings, as well as brand-deal trips and her recent move to New York City from Vancouver, Canada. 

Even though she’s already seemingly gotten a jump-start on her career, Fang is set to attend New York University in the fall, where she will focus on upgrading her digital marketing skills. Fang told Fortune that pursuing a college education will help her think more critically and creatively, especially when crafting content and understanding how platforms like TikTok’s algorithm work.

“I think I’ve always known that I was going to stay in school. I never really took a break. I was online for two years, so it kind of felt like I wasn’t in school, but I was,” Fang told Fortune. “I wanted to go to NYU for the longest time. Just because I started social media, and it became my full-time career, doesn’t mean that dream ever faded.”

Fang’s long-term goal is to start a business after college and to continue to build a personal brand.

“I think the most important thing is just don’t rush to have it all figured out, because especially when you’re so young, you’re not going to know everything,” Fang said.

Since starting her TikTok account in Canada, Fang hasn’t earned revenue directly from her videos. Instead, the majority of her income comes from brand partnerships with companies like Glow Recipe, The Ordinary, and Kosas.

“What I enjoy most is probably how creative everything is,” Fang said. “It’s crazy how you can make the most random video that makes no sense, and that ends up being the one that gets millions of views.”

Fang is just one example of how young people have been able to turn a passion project into a runaway for a high-paying career, where they are their own boss.

This comes as a growing number of Gen Zers are questioning the value of a degree to begin with. Recent data shows the unemployment rate for men ages 22 to 27 is almost the same regardless of whether they have a college degree or not.

Gen Alpha and Gen Z want to follow in the footsteps of MrBeast

If you’ve ever scrolled through YouTube, chances are you’ve probably come across viral sensations like “I Survived the 5 Deadliest Places on Earth” or the high-stakes Beast Games challenges—videos that have each garnered over 100 million views. 

The mastermind behind these social phenomena is 27-year-old Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, who also holds the crown as the most-subscribed creator on the platform.

A self-made YouTuber whose net worth now exceeds $1 billion, Donaldson began creating and sharing content at just 13 years old. He later dropped out of East Carolina University in 2016 after just a few weeks of courses to pursue content creation full-time. Since its launch in 2012, MrBeast’s channel has skyrocketed in popularity thanks to breakout hits like “Squid Game in Real Life,” which racked up over 845 million views.

In a recent episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast, Donaldson told host Steven Bartlett that he discovered his motivation to pursue content creation on YouTube when he found out creators were making a high income a year. Growing up without much financial stability, he was driven by a desire to support his mother and family. 

“This is what I love doing. I’ve never had as much joy doing something as I do this,” Donaldson said. “I just never give up. There’s no world where I would ever quit. When I was 11, I just said I’m going to be a YouTuber, and I’m going to die trying, and I meant it. Even if there were no one still watching my videos to this day, I would still be going. I’m just the most competitive, stubborn person you’ll ever meet.”

At first, Donaldson’s mother did not want her son to pursue a career in social media because she wanted him to be successful and encouraged him to pursue a college degree instead.

“When people tell me I can’t do something, it makes me want to do more,” Donaldson said. “If you tell me I shouldn’t do something, that’s fine, but if you tell me I can’t, then everything in my body just wants to go.”

Donaldson is not alone in using social media as a source of income and as a career. According to social commerce platform Whop, 42% of US teens are actively earning money online through their digital channels. 

Another content creator who did not go through the traditional college pathway is Olajide Olayinka Williams, better known as KSI. He is a 32-year-old British influencer, professional boxer, musician, and entrepreneur. He also founded businesses such as Prime Hydration, Lunchly, and Misfits Boxing, and has a net worth of $100 million.  

Joining YouTube in 2009 and initially posting videos of himself playing games, Williams built a following of over 50 million across all his platforms. Unlike his peers, Williams decided not to pursue college at all in favor of his blossoming content creation career—in part after realizing how much he was earning before attending university.  

“I remember I asked a teacher, this is how I made this month, it was about £1,500, and I remember him telling me, ‘That’s more than I make,’” Williams told the BBC in 2020. “I looked at it and I thought, that’s it, YouTube is the one, it is the gold mine. I need to push and push because I know I can become something and make my parents proud.”

How to be a successful content creator without a college degree

It’s becoming easier than ever to start a career as a content creator and make a living without a college degree. After all, all you need is a phone to get started. 

Successful content creators who didn’t go through a traditional educational pathway all share a common trait: building a community so highly engaged that they can rely on their continued support for exposure, said University of Southern California communication professor Freddy Nager.

“It’s important that you try to cultivate your fan base. Otherwise, the only way to reach your own followers is to boost your posts and buy ads,” Nager told Fortune. “A lot of people didn’t become creators to spend money. They wanted to make money, but the platforms want to make money.”

Many creators build their email lists so they can directly notify followers when a new video is released, often encouraging them to watch and leave a comment. He also suggested that creators interact with followers in the comment section, something that is favorable to algorithms.

“You want your users to comment on your posts, because if they do, it means they really care,” Nager said. “Now, the comment could be negative. They could hate your video. Nonetheless, the algorithm reads it that if you’re willing to take the time to comment on the video, not just liking it. So this means that your content must provoke comments. Sadly, that means that a lot of influencers become controversial on purpose.”

This type of collaboration is a key strategy for building influence and trust without a degree requirement. Nager also advised new creators to partner with others, regardless of their fame, emphasizing that exposure to each other’s audiences helps both grow. 

In addition, he said that to stand out, creators need two key traits: personality and perspective. They must be relatable yet aspirational, offering a unique voice and sharing their human side to form real connections. Otherwise, they risk being replaced by generic content.

While a formal education isn’t required to break into the industry, Nager said, it offers key advantages. 

“I think you need an education to learn from your mistakes, without suffering. We can all learn from suffering, but let’s avoid it. Let’s learn how to analyze data,” he explained.

And while ultimately content creators can and have succeeded without degrees, Nager said more education can also expand one’s worldview and creativity outside of your path. 

“Can you be educated without college? Possibly, if you love to read,” he said. “But college lets you explore courses outside your field—take astronomy if you’re a writer, or music if you’re a scientist. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to become a musical expert, but something about music may change the way that you think about chemistry and performance.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Jacob Wackerhausen—Getty Images

The electric car maker informed California that it will operate a limited public taxi service. But it’s not legally allowed to do this with self-driving cars.

The Trump administration says it wants AI models free from ideological bias, as it pressures their developers to reflect the president’s worldview.

One of the most popular platforms for AI-assisted programming says the next era of vibe coding is all about supercharging error detection.

Financial Times is reporting that $1 billion worth of NVIDIA AI chips were smuggled into China in the three months after the Trump administration tightened semiconductor export controls. Citing sales contracts, company documents and people with direct knowledge, the publication says that a thriving black market arose for American semiconductors. Products sold included NVIDIA's top‑tier B200 chips, which have become the silicon of choice for American big tech when training AI models. Sale of these chips to China is banned by the United States.

With journalists on the ground in China, Financial Times reports on a veritable web of third‑party data center operators, middlemen and purportedly smuggled ready‑built racks that have all materialized to meet the demand for NVIDIA's most powerful chips. Along with the B200, the H100 and H200 are also restricted yet highly sought after. All of these are far more capable than the weaker H20 chip, which was designed to comply with export restrictions for sale to China, though even that model has faced on and off export bans.

NVIDIA, for its part, told Financial Times it has “no evidence of any AI chip diversion” and that “trying to cobble together data centers from smuggled products is a losing proposition, both technically and economically.” NVIDIA explained, “Data centers require service and support, which we provide only to authorized NVIDIA products.”

Images produced by Financial Times show boxes of server racks emblazoned with company logos such as Supermicro and ASUS being advertised on social media in China. Those companies deny any knowledge of how their products ended up on the Chinese black market, and Financial Times is not alleging any such involvement.

Reporting suggests that some Southeast Asian countries have become hubs for Chinese groups to obtain restricted chips. Having these server racks shipped to Thailand or Malaysia may circumvent US export controls. The US Department of Commerce is reportedly considering increasing export controls on advanced AI chips to these countries.

The demand for these products is without question, and as one Chinese distributor told Financial Times, “History has proven many times before that given the huge profit, arbitrators will always find a way.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/1-billion-of-nvidia-ai-chips-were-reportedly-sold-in-china-despite-us-bans-143119762.html?src=rss

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