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.
– Fashion legacy. What does it take to create one of the most iconic and enduring brands in American fashion? For Elyce Arons, it took an unshakeable work ethic, a best friendship with one of fashion’s ultimate tastemakers, and a little bit of kismet.
Now the CEO of Frances Valentine, a colorful luxury handbag and fashion brand, Arons first came to prominence in the industry after cofounding Kate Spade with Pamela Bell, Andy Spade, and the company’s namesake and Arons’s aforementioned best friend, Katy. Arons reflects on meeting Katy in their dorm at the University of Kansas, the start of both of their careers in New York in the late 1980s, launching Kate Spade, and much more in her new memoir, We Might Just Make It After All, published this week.
Elyce Arons is the cofounder of Kate Spade and cofounder and CEO of Frances Valentine.
Courtesy of Elyce Arons and Frances Valentine
Of course, Arons’s book also addresses Spade’s tragic death in 2018, a loss that sent the fashion world reeling and still reverberates throughout Arons’s life (the duo also cofounded Frances Valentine together). But it is a credit to Arons’s writing, and the lives both women led, that her book is focused on the humor, risk-taking, and beauty at the heart of the story of the fledgling artists and entrepreneurs striking out on their own. Readers will learn about all of the work that went into creating the multibillion-dollar company; the ups and downs, the disagreements and the serendipity. And they’ll gain a fuller picture of the Katy behind Kate Spade: the introvert, the genius, and the best friend.
“I want her legacy to be remembered in this beautiful, positive way, because she was an amazing person,” Arons told me in a Zoom interview last month.
Beyond the personal relationships detailed, Arons’s book also made me nostalgic for the New York of the 1990s and early 2000s, when a group of friends with a little industry know-how, a wealth of creativity, and a ton of moxie could create one of the most well-known and regarded brands in fashion. New York was gritty, Arons writes, but it was teeming with magic and possibility for countless people—exactly what their brand epitomized. A Kate Spade bag was more affordable than other luxury brands, but still tasteful and chic. It became many young professionals’ first big purchase, “a rite of passage for generations of women,” a symbol of independence. Exactly what you’d expect from women like Arons and Spade.
One of Kate Spade the company’s early keys to success, Arons writes, is that the team tried to create a welcoming environment and only hire people they enjoyed being around. She finds that advice still holds true as the boss of another company, while telling recent grads—and more recently, her own daughters as they’ve entered the workforce—to get to work early and stay late. Both employees and employers should feel that they are contributing to the whole and be proud of the company they’re working for, she says.
“You’re spending most of your time at your job, yeah? It should be fun, and it should be pleasant, and you shouldn’t feel bad about your job, or making a mistake,” Arons told me. “Just do your best. People don’t care if you don’t know how to do something, but learn how to get it done.”
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.
President Trump’s new focus on deporting immigrants is upending businesses around the U.S., and putting a particular spotlight on one retail chain close to where a high-profile raid recently took place: Home Depot.
Earlier this month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested day laborers outside of a Home Depot in a predominantly Latino neighborhood in Los Angeles. A separate protest also sprung up outside of a Home Depot location in a different part of the city the next day. Although the retailer does not contract with day laborers directly, the area outside of store property has long been a place for people to congregate in the hopes of finding work.
In response to these raids, Home Depot has issued new guidance to employees about what they should do if ICE shows up, Bloomberg first reported. Home Depot confirms to Fortune that store employees are required to report any ICE-involved incident as soon as it happens. Workers across the chain have been reminded to avoid interactions with agents for their own safety. And regional store leaders at locations impacted by raids in Los Angeles are allowing workers who feel disturbed by the raid to leave for the day with full pay, although that is not a corporate-wide policy.
“We are not alerted to any of these immigration enforcements ahead of time,” a spokesperson for Home Depot tells Fortune.
It’s likely that ICE sweeps across the country will continue, and even intensify, in the weeks and months ahead. Trump wrote in a social media post on Sunday that ICE agents would “do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”
That means we’re likely to see other companies creating and sharing internal policies with their workforce about what to do if ICE agents disrupt business. And of course, even if a workforce is not directly impacted by a raid, people might have friends and family members who are—something that employers should keep in mind when it comes to considering the morale of their workers.
“There may be some employers who are just sort of sitting on the sidelines and not necessarily putting the plans in place. They have this wait-and-see type attitude,” Stephen Toland, an attorney at law firm FBFK, previously told Fortune. “With continued momentum around immigration, employers are going to have to start taking the possibility of raids more seriously.”
The company formerly known as Twitter argued New York State’s Stop Hiding Hate Act was unconstitutional and would lose in court just like a similar legislative proposal mounted last year by California. New York legislators Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Grace Lee, who co-sponsored the law, responded by saying X’s legal argument citing free speech protections used the First Amendment as a shield against accountability.
Elon Musk’s social media platform X is suing the state of New York in an attempt to block new legislation that would combat extremist speech.
Under the “Stop Hiding Hate Act” that enters into force this week, digital content providers like the company formerly known as Twitter must disclose what efforts it is taking to police content on their respective platfforms.
X argues the new law is a “carbon copy” of California’s Assembly Bill 587 that it already successfully challenged. Last year, three judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction, ruling portions of the law were unconstitutional under protected free speech rights.
“We are confident we will prevail in this case as well,” X wrote in a statement on its platform on Tuesday.
The worldwide rise in alternative media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and many others has opened a door for extremist groups to destabilize society through targeted disinformation and misinformation designed to polarize and radicalize, supporters of the bill argue.
However, critics of such measures have countered that this is a slippery slope that could either by design or default lead to the censorship of “wrongthink”, since even good-faith attempts to guard against violence may lead to regulatory overreach. Before Musk acquired Twitter in late 2022, users could be de-platformed for misgendering trans people.
Co-sponsors label digital platforms ‘cesspools of hate speech’
“Social media companies, including X, are cesspools of hate speech consisting of antisemitism, racism, Islamophobia and anti-LGBTQ bias,” said the two New York State legislators who co-sponsored the bill, Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Grace Lee, in response to the lawsuit by X.
“We’re confident that the court will reject this attempt by X to use the First Amendment as a shield,” they added.
Today, @X filed a First Amendment lawsuit against a New York law, NY S895B. NY S895B is a new social media regulation that is a carbon copy of a California law, CA AB 587, that X successfully challenged in court under the First Amendment last year. The Ninth Circuit Court of…
— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) June 17, 2025
Musk himself has played a role fomenting popular anger online, most notably in the U.K. last summer when he backed extremist leader Tommy Robinson’s call to arms that ended in race riots across the country.
He later platformed the far-right nationalist AfD in Germany, falsely characterizing its policies as “identical” to those pursued by President Barack Obama. The party is under surveillance by the German equivalent of the FBI as a threat to the country’s postwar democratic order.
As a result of his politics, Musk’s Tesla has seen a backlash in Europe, with sales cratering across the continent.
X argues New York State is simply trying to censor speech it doesn’t like
Since Musk took over Twitter in late 2022, he fired the content management team and outsourced policing to a select group of volunteers. These are free to choose at their discretion whether they fact check statements from violent extremist groups or harangue drop ship outlets in China.
When brands decided to follow the advice of the World Federation of Advertisers by departing the controversial platform, Musk sued the WFA. Its affiliated non-profit, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, shut its doors last August rather than pay the legal fees to defend itself in court.
This approach has led to an ongoing legal fight with the European Union, after the latter said X violated content moderation guidelines under its Digital Services Act.
On Tuesday, Musk’s X said that New York’s Stop Hiding Hate Act was just another attempt by the government to “eliminate” certain speech it didn’t like. Cosponsors Hoylman-Sigal and Lee disagreed.
“The fact that Elon Musk would go to these lengths to avoid disclosing straightforward information to New Yorkers as required by our statute illustrates exactly why we need the Stop Hiding Hate Act,” they wrote.
Elon Musk argues X is a bastion of protected free speech. New York State now wants to crack down on what champions of a new law call the "cesspool" of social media.
Big Tech is shelling out jaw-dropping compensation amid a fierce AI talent war. Meta is even offering $100m signing bonuses to woo top OpenAI researchers, according to CEO Sam Altman. But as top AI companies scramble to retain staff with massive bonuses and noncompete deals, entry-level engineers are seeing fewer opportunities amid a declining junior hiring trend.
The AI talent war has been heating up between Big Tech companies as they vie for an increasingly small group of elite AI researchers. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta has been aggressively going after the company’s top engineers—offering eye-watering compensation and multi-million dollar signing bonuses.
Altman said on an episode of Uncapped that Meta had been making “giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” some totaling “$100 million signing bonuses and more than that [in] compensation per year.”
It’s the latest example of the intense competition for top talent and the lengths companies are willing to go to recruit and retain them.
Meta is particularly committed to its AI recruiting drive at the moment. The company has lost several of its top AI researchers in recent years and currently is fighting a narrative that it has fallen behind in the AI race after its newest Llama 4 model received a lukewarm reaction from developers.
This has kicked Zuckerberg into overdrive and reportedly led the CEO to personally recruit for a new 50-person “Superintelligence” AI team at Meta. Meta also recently invested up to $15 billion for a 49% stake in the training data company, ScaleAI, as part of a plan to hire the company’s CEO Alexandr Wang.
While Altman said that none of his best people had decided to take up Mark Zuckerberg’s generous offer, Meta has managed to lure other prominent AI researchers.
According to Bloomberg, Meta has also hired Jack Rae, a principal researcher at GoogleDeepMind, for the team and brought on Johan Schalkwyk, a machine learning leader from the AI voice startup Sesame AI. Meta was reportedly unsuccessful in its efforts to poach top OpenAI researcher, Noam Brown, and Google’s AI architect, Koray Kavukcuoglu.
Meta is also trailing fellow AI labs with a retention rate of 64%, according to SignalFire’s recently released 2025 State of Talent Report. At buzzy AI startup Anthropic, 80% of employees hired at least two years ago are still at the company, an impressive figure in an industry known for its high turnover.
Representatives for Meta did not immediately respond to a recent request for comment from Fortune, made outside the company’s normal working hours.
AI talent gap
Zuckerberg’s salary offers are reaching the pro-athlete threshold, which, as Fortune’s Sharon Goldman notes, is becoming par for the course in the industry.
Deedy Das, a VC at Menlo Ventures, previously told Fortune that he has heard from several people the Meta CEO has tried to recruit. “Zuck had phone calls with potential hires trying to convince them to join with a $2M/yr floor.”
While Meta may be making headlines, it is not the only company going to extreme lengths to retain and recruit this talent. Google DeepMind is reportedly enforcing six-to-12-month noncompete clauses that prevent some AI researchers from joining competitors—paying them full salaries even while they’re sidelined.
Over at OpenAI, the company is rumored to be offering sky-high compensation to retain talent, with top researchers earning over $10 million annually. According to Reuters, the company has offered more than $2 million in retention bonuses and equity packages exceeding $20 million to deter defections to Ilya Sutskever’s new venture, SSI.
While elite AI labs are working overtime to lock in top talent, the full picture for AI engineers, especially junior talent, is not quite so rosy. Several recent reports, including SignalFire’s 2025 State of Talent Report, have suggested that entry-level hiring in the tech industry is collapsing.
According to the report, hiring for mid and senior-level roles has bounced back from the 2023 slump but the cuts for new grads have just kept coming. Among Big Tech companies, new grads account for just 7% of hires, down 25% from 2023 and over 50% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019. For startups, new grads make up less than 6% of new hires, down 11% from 2023 and over 30% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
Good morning. Yum! Brands, Inc. has promoted CFO Chris Turner to CEO in yet another example of an emerging succession trend in corporate leadership.
Yum, the parent company of household-name brands including KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, announced on Tuesday that Turner will start as chief executive on Oct. 1. Turner will succeed current CEO David Gibbs, who informed the board in March of his intention to retire.
Gibbs, who has served as CEO since 2020, has been with the company for 37 years in several leadership roles, including president and CFO. He was also the chief architect of Yum’s restaurant development strategy, transforming the company into a capital-light, pure-play franchisor.
The incoming and outgoing CEOs both had glowing words for each other on Tuesday. In a LinkedIn post, Turner thanked Gibbs for his guidance, calling him a “mentor to me during my time at Yum, and it has been incredible to work and learn alongside an industry icon.” Gibbs wrote that during his partnership with Turner, he has “demonstrated a deep knowledge of our business, strong values, and a clear commitment to our growth.”
Turner joined Yum in 2019 as CFO, his first time in the role. Last year, his position expanded to include chief franchise officer. Previously, Turner held senior roles at PepsiCo, including SVP and general manager, as well as SVP of transformation for PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay North America business. He previously spent more than 13 years at McKinsey & Company.
Yum rose 10 spots on this year’s Fortune 500 list, earning $7.5 billion in revenue in 2024. Turner is now tasked with continuing to deliver its secret sauce for brands like Taco Bell—which reached $1 billion in operating profit for the first time in 2024.
“Under Turner, we expect Yum will continue to exploit Taco Bell’s strong growth opportunities in the U.S. and internationally,” wrote David Swartz, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, in a Tuesday note. Swartz expects a smooth leadership transition as Yum promotes Turner to CEO and Gibbs stays on as an advisor until the end of 2026. He added that Turner has played a key role in Yum’s major technology initiatives, including its Byte AI restaurant management platform.
But there are also some challenges ahead for Turner, according to Morningstar. Yum needs to improve KFC and Pizza Hut sales in the U.S., where both brands face strong competition. And despite challenging economic conditions, the company will continue investing in Taco Bell and KFC’s international growth. Morningstar considers Yum’s shares fairly valued at $145, with no change to its capital allocation rating.
It’s unclear whether Yum has appointed a new CFO in Turner’s absence, and the company did not respond to my inquiry on the matter. Swartz told me that he thinks an external search for a finance chief is likely.
“CFOs move around a lot these days and I’m sure that Yum could find a strong outside candidate,” he said.
Yes, CFO turnover is certainly on the rise. You can find more Fortune 500 moves here.
ANALYSIS: The Federal Reserve is widely expected to keep interest rates steady at 4.25%-4.5% amid heightened uncertainty from Middle East tensions, volatile oil prices, tariff disputes, and a recent U.S. debt downgrade by Moody’s, all of which complicate the economic outlook and policy decisions. Despite political pressure from President Trump to cut rates, analysts anticipate the Fed will maintain its cautious, data-driven approach, holding off on cuts until there is clearer evidence of economic weakness or easing inflation
If the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) were hoping to meet with some greater clarity this month, they will be sorely disappointed.
Instead of a clearer path laid out ahead, Jerome Powell and his peers sat down to news of increased geopolitical conflict in the Middle East—potentially pushing up oil prices—as well as ongoing uncertainty over tariff agreements with key partners, and a downgrade of U.S. credit by Moody’s.
Of course, the elephant in the room will be President Donald Trump’s reaction if the FOMC once again refuses to heed his wishes in cutting the base rate.
The melting pot of issues leads most analysts to suspect the base rate will once again be held steady at 4.25 to 4.5%—a relatively tight stance according to dovish economists who argue the economy is coping relatively well according to data.
As David Doyle, head of economics at Macquarie Group, wrote in a note shared with fortune this week the Fed is waling a “tightrope.”
“The FOMC is likely to hold rates steady again this week,” Doyle continued. “The market reaction is likely to be driven by the communication and the potential guidance of further cuts. The dot plot may push out the suggested timing of rate cuts. We suspect this may tilt somewhat and suggest 25 bps of cuts in 2025 and 75 bps in 2026 (from 50 bps in each year in March).”
Doyle added Chair Powell “may describe recent inflation developments as encouraging, but also downplay their relevance given uncertainty ahead due to tariffs, fiscal policy, and the recent spike in the oil price due to geopolitical developments.”
The overall expectation from Wall Street is that there will be no change in the base rate, but here are some of the headline factors which may be influencing Chair Powell’s final decision to be announced later today.
Problem 1: Oil
Tensions in the Middle East are escalating by the day after Israel and Iran launched attacks on one another with both sides targeting senior military officials.
Despite saying the U.S. wouldn’t wade into the conflict, President Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social yesterday that “we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” and suggested Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, was an easy target despite being in hiding. Khamenei wouldn’t be “taken out … for now” Trump added.
The escalating tensions in the Middle East pose a question over oil supply, with Iran threatening to close the Straight of Hormuz. The oil flow through the strait accounts for about 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption, writes the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Vikas Dwivedi, global energy strategist at Macquarie, wrote in a note seen by Fortune: “We expect oil prices to remain volatile with an upward trend for the next few weeks as both Iran and Israel maintain their military intensity. Regardless of military or diplomatic progress, we expect Brent to rally towards the low $80 level before hitting a plateau as the perceived risk of actual oil supply disruption becomes largely discounted.
“From the low $80 plateau, the next price move will, in our view, be driven by what happens to Iranian oil export infrastructure. If it is damaged or destroyed, we believe oil will trend towards $100 due to the direct loss of Iranian exports and the risk premium associated with Iran’s response, including the blockage of the Straits of Hormuz.
“There will likely be sell-offs on hopes for diplomatic solutions, profit-taking, and new shorts, but we expect those to be bought until the market ascertains the risk to oil supply.”
None of this makes Powell’s life any easier, as oil is a key factor determining the rate of inflation in the U.S.
Problem 2: Policy uncertainty
Policy out of the White House is also adding further uncertainty to the already blurry picture.
Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ has raised eyebrows about the amount it could contribute to the U.S. national debt, despite some deficits being offset by inflationary but money-making tariff policies.
The lack of action from the Oval Office isn’t impressing Moody’s, which downgraded U.S. debt a month ago from Aa1 from AAA. That’s an issue for Powell again with the move pushing Treasury yields up, creating higher borrowing costs for the government that potentially have trickle-down inflationary impacts on consumers.
But, as Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid wrote in a note shared with Fortune this morning: “Ahead of the Fed’s decision, U.S. Treasuries rallied yesterday, on flight to quality, and as the weak data cemented the view that rate cuts were still likely in the months ahead.
“That meant yields fell across the curve, with the 2yr yield (-1.5bps) down to 3.95%, whilst the 10yr yield (-5.7bps) fell to 4.39%. The outperformance of long-end bonds came after news that the Fed will be holding a meeting on June 25 to discuss changes to the supplementary leverage ratio, which may allow banks to hold more Treasuries.”
Another question is of course tariffs, with Powell already signaling he is waiting to see if businesses pass on increased costs to consumers.
Thierry Wizman, global FX and rates strategist at Macquarie, pointed out level inflation data post-‘Liberation Day’ tariff announcements wasn’t a signal to bank on, writing the “low May CPI print isn’t because tariffs don’t matter for measured inflation. Tariffs do matter, or will matter.
“Rather, inflation retreated because underlying notional demand has weakened … We still lean toward the view that Jay Powell will sound more ‘dovish’ next week than he did in May. We believe that were it not for the uncertainty caused by the tariffs, the combined information coming from the inflation and labor-market data would have compelled the Fed to have resumed cutting its policy rate by now.”
While Trump has stepped back from threats that made the market worry that the Fed’s independence might be under threat, he has made no secret of the fact he wants “too-late Powell” to cut the base rate.
Powell, on the other hand, has maintained that politics have absolutely no impact on the Fed’s decision making.
Despite threats from Trump that he may threaten Powell over the lack of action, Richard Clarida, the former Federal Reserve vice chair from 2018 to 2022 said the White House will stop short of materially altering the central bank’s independence.
“We may be going to a world where the Fed loses some power in the regulatory sense,” Clarida told MarketWatch in an interview published yesterday. “But it looks like the Fed retains independence to raise or lower interest rates.”
On the chairman to follow Powell, Clarida added Trump’s nomination will not be the only factor: “I think markets can have a say,” he explained, highlighting stocks and bonds would be in for a shaky ride if the candidate for Fed chairman wasn’t viewed as truly independent or committed to bringing inflation down.
Tax credits for clean energy and home energy efficiency would still be phased out, albeit less quickly, under Senate Republicans’ latest proposed changes to a massive tax bill. Electric vehicle incentives and other provisions intended to move the United States away from fossil fuels would be gutted rapidly.
Senate Republicans cast their version of the bill as less damaging to the clean energy industry than the version House Republicans passed last month, but Democrats and advocates criticized it, saying it would still have significant consequences for wind, solar and other projects.
Ultimately, wherever Congress ends up could have a big impact on consumers, companies and others that were depending on tax credits for green energy investments. It could also impact long-term how quickly America transitions to renewable energies.
“They want everybody to believe that after the flawed House bill, that they have come up with a much more moderate climate approach,” said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the finance committee, during a conference call with reporters Tuesday.
“The reality is, if the early projections on the clean energy cuts are accurate, the Senate Republican bill does almost 90%” as much damage as the House proposal, added Wyden, who authored clean energy tax credits included in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act passed during former President Joe Biden’s term. “Let’s not get too serious about this new Senate bill being a kinder, gentler approach.”
The Edison Electric Institute, a trade association representing investor-owned electric companies, issued a statement applauding the Senate proposal for including “more reasonable timelines for phasing out energy tax credits.”
“These modifications are a step in the right direction,” said the statement from Pat Vincent-Collawn, the institute’s interim chief executive officer, adding that the changes balance “business certainty with fiscal responsibility.”
Whether all of the changes will be enacted into law isn’t clear yet. The Senate can still modify its proposals before they go to a vote. Any conflicts in the draft legislation will have to be sorted out with the House as the GOP looks to fast-track the bill for a vote by President Donald Trump’s imminent Fourth of July target.
Notably, many Republicans in Congress have advocated to protect the clean-energy credits, which have overwhelmingly benefited Republican congressional districts. A report by the Atlas Public Policy research firm found that 77% of planned spending on credit-eligible projects are in GOP-held House districts.
The clean energy tax credits stem from Biden’s climate law, which aimed to boost to the nation’s transition away from planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and toward renewable energy such as wind and solar power.
The House version of the bill took an ax to many of the credits and effectively made it impossible for wind and solar providers to meet the requirements and timelines necessary to qualify for the incentives. After the House vote, 13 House Republicans lobbied the Senate to preserve some of the clean energy incentives that GOP lawmakers had voted to erase.
The Senate proposal further “achieves significant savings by slashing Green New Deal spending and targeting waste, fraud and abuse in spending programs while preserving and protecting them for the most vulnerable,” said Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho and chairman of the committee.
On the chopping block are tax credits for residential rooftop solar installations, ending within 180 days of passage, and a subsidy for hydrogen production. Federal credits for wind and solar would have a longer phaseout than in the House version, but it would still be difficult for developers to meet the rules for beginning construction in order to receive the credit.
At the same time, it would boost support for geothermal, nuclear and hydropower projects that begin construction by 2033.
“The bill will strip the ability of millions of American families to choose the energy savings, energy resilience, and energy freedom that solar and storage provide,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association. “If this bill passes as is, we cannot ensure an affordable, reliable and secure energy system.”
Opponents of the Senate’s text also decry domestic manufacturing job and economic losses as a result.
“This is a 20-pound sledgehammer swung at clean energy. It would mean higher energy prices, lost manufacturing jobs, shuttered factories, and a worsening climate crisis,” said Jackie Wong, senior vice president for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Home energy efficiency credits and EVs
The bill would also cancel incentives such as the Energy Efficient Home Improvement credit — which helps homeowners make improvements such as insulation or heating and cooling systems that reduce their energy usage and energy bills — 180 days after enactment. An incentive for builders constructing new energy-efficient homes and apartments would end 12 months after signing. The House’s proposed end date for both is Dec. 31.
“Canceling these credits would increase monthly bills for American families and businesses,” Steven Nadel, executive director of the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy said in a statement.
The Senate proposal moves up the timeline for ending the consumer electric vehicle tax credit from the end of this year to 180 days after passage. It also cuts the provision that would have extended until the end of 2026 a credit for automakers that had not made 200,000 qualifying EVs for U.S. sale. It would also immediately eliminate the $7,500 credit for leased EVs.
This administration has staunchly gone after EVs amid Trump’s targeting of what he calls a “mandate,” incorrectly referring to a Biden-era target for half of new vehicle sales by 2030 be electric.
Nicholas Hartnett, owner of Pure Power Solar, carries a panel as he and Brian Hoeppner, right, install a solar array on the roof of a home in Frankfort, Ky., July 17, 2023.
They met at 10 p.m. each weeknight, after class at Columbia University.
Sometimes talking over Zoom until 2 AM, Anish Agarwal, Raaz Dwivedi, Ahmed Lone, and Raj Agrawal talked about what it might mean to walk away from their lives—for a startup. All academics in some form or fashion, the group swapped ideas at the intersection of their research: causal machine learning, reinforcement learning, and AI agents.
For Agarwal, the decision wasn’t to be taken lightly. That semester, he’d just started a tenure-track position at Columbia after earning his PhD from MIT—he had an academic career that was taking shape. But he was drawn to the entrepreneurial unknown.
“I had to get in the game,” said Agarwal, who’s originally from Singapore. “I was looking around at my peers—for example, at Cartesia and Reflection AI. They’re all super smart, and out here building companies. By DNA, they’re researchers with some commercial instinct. They’re solving really hard technical problems, and continuing to produce research in a very cool package. That felt right. That was my motivation.”
From those late-night meetings came Traversal, a startup founded in 2023 that focuses on observability and site reliability engineering (SRE)—helping engineers pinpoint and troubleshoot complex software failures with speed and precision. Troubleshooting is “one of the most complex workflows in software,” said Agarwal, Traversal’s CEO. “It’s why you can have 50 people firefighting in a war room until they find the answer.”
Today, Traversal launches from stealth with $48 million in funding from its seed and Series A rounds, Fortune has exclusively learned. Sequoia led the company’s seed round, while Kleiner Perkins led Traversal’s Series A. Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross’s NFDG and Hanabi are also investors. Traversal—named for both the computer science concept of a graph traversal and the idea of journeying through complex systems—counts among its customers Digital Ocean, Eventbrite, Cloudways, and a number of undisclosed Fortune 100 financial services companies. The company and others like it exist to stop software infrastructure crises and limit downtime.
“Imagine you’re having a heart attack right now,” said Agarwal. “That’s the only thing that matters. It doesn’t matter what happens ten minutes from now, or what your dinner is going to look like. An engineering team has two heart attacks a week, and a debilitating condition. So, you never get time to think about planning ahead and being great.”
The bigger the company, the higher the stakes of this problem: Bratin Saha, chief technology and product officer at DigitalOcean, said via email that “the sheer volume and complexity of our cloud infrastructure—serving hundreds of thousands of customers—means that even minor platform incidents can quickly escalate, impacting customer experience and incurring significant costs.” Saha told Fortune that, over six months, Traversal has helped resolve problems 37% faster. Traversal’s traction over the last two years is both a product of this moment in tech, the AI wave—and timeless.
“Whenever something new shows up, whether it’s a new trend, new market, new kind of product, or a new kind of technology, guess what? It needs to be monitored,” Sequoia partner Bogomil Balkansky said. “That’s observability. And it needs to be secured, which is security. And that’s why those two domains—observability and security—periodically produce big winners.”
Some winners from observability in recent years that Balkansky points out: Splunk, Datadog, Dynatrace, AppDynamics, and New Relic. For Traversal—which sits at the intersection of observability and AI, and builds on existing observability tools—this means there’s opportunity, especially given that the company’s riding the vibe coding wave.
“The amount of code being written was already growing at a staggering rate, and with AI code generation, it’s accelerating like never before,” said Kleiner Perkins partner Mamoon Hamid. “With more code created by AI, there is more surface area to troubleshoot. There is a need for AI to autonomously troubleshoot, mediate and even prevent complex incidents at scale—self-healing codegen.”
The academic-to-entrepreneur path that Agarwal and his cofounders now walk is well-trod, from VMware’s Mendel Rosenblum to Databricks’s Ali Ghodsi, and more. And though there’s much they don’t have in common, academic research and startups do share at least one key feature.
“Most jobs, you’re at A and you have to get to B, and getting from A to B is really hard,” said Agarwal. “In research, though, you don’t really know where A is and you don’t know where B is. And even if you do know, it’s still very hard to get to—and I loved that. I enjoyed the uncertainty.”
ICYMI...Here’s our exclusive on the New York-based health tech startup Tennr, which raised a $101 million Series C at a $605 million valuation to tackle the convoluted web of patient referrals.
Here we go again…Elon Musk’s xAI, according to Bloomberg, is in talks to raise $4.3 billion, adding to the $5 billion in debt he’s seeking for the company.
The U.S. Federal Reserve will give us a new interest rate decision today and offer commentary on how it sees the economy. The Israel-Iran war enters its sixth day. And yet, in the markets, somehow it’s all going to be about President Trump.
The Fed will likely keep interest rates on hold today. The CME Fedwatch market has priced that in with a 99.9% (!) level of certainty. Normally, therefore, investors would spend the rest of the day closely parsing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s remarks for changes of tone and clues as to when the Fed might next change interest rates.
But whatever Powell says might well be overshadowed by Trump, who will no doubt complain this afternoon that Powell did not cut rates.
“US President Trump advocates rate cuts, but this is a distinctly minority view. The trade tax increase is big, and the Fed wants greater certainty about its impact before changing policy,” UBS analyst Paul Donovan told clients this morning.
Although today’s Fed decision is the most predictable in years, the VIX volatility index (often called the “fear index”) is elevated today. It was up nearly 9% this morning—and global stock markets are all over the place as a result: The broad Europe market was down in early trading but the U.K. market was up. Japan was up but Hong Kong was down.
Stocks just don’t know where to go.
Why?
Trump, again.
In the last 24 hours he has threatened to intervene militarily in Iran:
“We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff.’ Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We know exactly where the so-called “Supreme Leader” is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” He then added: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
Oil prices have spiked as a result. A month ago a barrel of WTI crude was $62 and change. Today it’s about $74.
In that light, the sudden uptick in volatility is not a surprise.
Donovan, though, thinks the markets are becoming more inured to the president’s interventions.
“Trump’s social media posts have suggested increased hostility toward Iran, raising the possibility of the US striking (presumably) Iranian nuclear facilities. Markets are still inclined to view this as a local conflict, with limited global economic consequences,” he said.
Here’s a snapshot of the action prior to the opening bell in New York:
S&P 500 futures rose 0.21% this morning even though the index itself sunk 0.84% yesterday, ending below 6,000 again, at 5,982.72.
The VIX volatility index was up nearly 9% this morning.
U.S. President Donald Trump stops and talks to the media before he boards Marine One on the South Lawn at the White House on June 15, 2025. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Tennr cofounder Diego Baugh first encountered the nightmare of the patient referral system when he was hospitalized with stomach issues in college. He was told to meet with a specialist, but didn’t hear from them for six weeks. He decided not to schedule an appointment but was hospitalized again. Another six weeks went by before he heard from the specialist.
It turns out the issue is pervasive across the knotted bureaucracy that is the U.S. healthcare system. Delays, denials, and dropped services are common after the first line of medicine—primary care, urgent care, and emergency rooms—refer patients to specialists.
Baugh and his cofounders, Trey Holterman and Tyler Johnson, have been working to solve the problem since 2021, when they founded their startup, Tennr. The New York-based company has exploded over just a few short years, recently closing a $101 million Series C funding round, Fortune can exclusively report, less than a year after closing a $37 million Series B.
The new round, led by venture capital firm IVP with participation from existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed, values Tennr at $605 million, making it one of the fastest-growing health tech startups in a vertical increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence companies.
And while Tennr has built and trained its own proprietary model to help parse through patient documents and doctors’ notes, Holterman—who is Tennr’s CEO—said that he tries to avoid branding the company as yet another AI healthcare company.
“I want to talk about problems and I want to talk about solutions,” he told Fortune. “I don’t want to talk about just the technology.”
Referral headache
Before founding Tennr, Holterman had always been interested in healthcare, working as a software engineer at the Medicare platform Health IQ and the fitness company Strava. The idea for tackling patient referrals, however, was born out of his cofounder’s experience finding a specialist, as well as his mother, who works in family medicine, complaining about the problem over the years. “I probably should’ve just listened to my mom sooner, which I think is a tale everybody knows,” Holterman joked.
When he dug further, he learned that while one-third of Americans are referred for specialty care or some follow-up form of treatment every year, more than half of those never make it to the next step. The goal for Tennr was to create a system that would help decipher the convoluted web of paperwork to help automate the process, figuring out key details like eligibility, benefits, and payer rules.
Even before ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, Tennr’s founders began building their own specialized model, trained on tens of millions of medical documents and specifically designed for the use case of patient referrals. Holterman said that even with the growing popularity of generalized AI models from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, Tennr’s is superior for this application because it is ingesting the hyper-specific type of information that wouldn’t make financial sense for broader competitors to pursue, like figuring out how to interpret the famously inscrutable doctor’s scrawl. “Betting on open source, betting on a proprietary data set that we’ve accumulated, continues to totally smash benchmarks,” Holterman said. (Tennr complies with regulations like HIPAA through de-identification.)
While the referral system may seem like a niche market, IVP partner Zeya Yang says that Tennr has found a strategic wedge where it can build out services for specialists, primary care physicians, and patients. Yang first invested in Tennr’s Series A when he was at Andreessen Horowitz and decided to lead its Series C after joining IVP in 2024.
He said that potential areas for growth for Tennr include tackling new subverticals within medical specialties, which is currently the company’s main customer base, as well as selling new tools within the referral workflow, like verifying insurance information. “This can be a very big company if they figure that sort of stuff out,” he told Fortune. Tennr is already expanding its product to create a network feature that allows both primary care physicians and patients to have visibility into the referral and payment process.
While Holterman declined to provide specific financial figures for the business, he said the company is in the eight figures of revenue, triple the level when it raised its Series B round in October. And as people, and companies, increasingly look at off-the-shelf solutions from AI for their medical needs, he’s betting that Tennr’s specialized approach will provide a better solution. “It’s not about automating work,” he said. “It’s really about making sure that the patient actually gets the service and understands what it’s going to cost, so that they show up.”
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order this week to extend a deadline for TikTok’s Chinese owner to divest the popular video sharing app, the White House announced Tuesday.
Trump had signed an order in early April to keep TikTok running for an additional 75 days after a potential deal to sell the app to American owners was put on ice.
“As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “This extension will last 90 days, which the Administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure.”
Trump had told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington early Tuesday from the Group of Seven summit in Canada that he “probably” would extend the deadline again.
Trump also said he thinks Chinese President Xi Jinping will “ultimately approve” a deal to divest TikTok’s business in the United States.
It will be the third time Trump has extended the deadline.
The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when the ban approved by Congress — and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — took effect.
The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement.
It is not clear how many times Trump can — or will — keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a “warm spot for TikTok.”
Trump had signed an order in early April to keep TikTok running for an additional 75 days after a potential deal to sell the app to American owners was put on ice.
More than 200 central banks and other foreign entities like sovereign wealth funds keep Treasuries and other assets in the custody of the New York Federal Reserve. Those holdings declined by $17 billion last week and have fallen by $48 billion since late March, just before Trump’s tariffs sparked a confounding bond sell-off.
Markets are watching closely for any signs foreign investors are souring on U.S. debt. A pullback in bond buying from central banks could send borrowing costs higher if other investors don’t fill the gap, potentially putting the U.S. government in a tight spot.
President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff rollout in April marked the high point of the “Sell America” trade as stocks, bonds, and the dollar all sank. Since then, equities have rallied dramatically to pre- “Liberation Day” levels, and Treasury yields, which fall as bond prices rise, have settled.
A sinking dollar remains one of the biggest stories on Wall Street in 2025, though, and monetary authorities seem to be reducing their exposure to American bonds. As large and stable central bank buyers take a step back, it’s fueling concern that more turbulence could be careening into the fixed-income market.
“The other big thing that we worry about is the fact that foreign private investors may not be adding to Treasury securities [and] may likely be stepping back from the market as well,” Meghan Swiber, a managing director and U.S. rates strategist at Bank of America, told Fortune. “So it creates a lot of concern around foreign investors continuing to support the Treasury supply picture.”
Foreign buyers account for roughly 30% of the U.S. Treasury market, according to Apollo chief economist Torsten Sløk. A note from Swiber and fellow BofA credit strategist Katie Craig on Monday suggested demand from these investors is showing “cracks.”
Because of the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency and confidence from investors that America’s government will always pay its bills, the U.S. borrows at much better rates than its underlying finances would normally allow.
If foreign investors no longer see U.S. Treasuries as a safe haven, however, that could force the Treasury to pay higher yields to bring back buyers. Such a move would put upward pressure on interest rates for mortgages, small business loans, and other common types of borrowing throughout the economy.
“The big picture here is that [the] Treasury has more debt to finance,” Swiber said. “We’re of the view that deficits are going to continue to climb higher in the coming years, and what we struggle with is, ‘Who is going to help support that higher level of supply?’”
The paradox of a weaker dollar
Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries hit an all-time high of $9.05 trillion in March, according to the latest data from the Treasury, up nearly 12% from last year. The Treasury will release data from April, which marked the height of bond market volatility, on Thursday.
More current data, however, might already be flashing a warning sign.
More than 200 central banks and other foreign official entities like sovereign wealth funds keep Treasuries and other assets in the custody of the New York Federal Reserve. Those holdings declined by $17 billion last week and have fallen by $48 billion since late March, just before Trump’s tariffs sparked a confounding bond sell-off.
Usually, monetary authorities will park the cash they generate from selling U.S. debt in the New York Fed’s reverse repurchase facility, where they receive Treasuries as collateral.
That’s not been the case this time, though. Foreign participation in the facility has fallen by $15 billion since late March. All told, that suggests U.S. assets held by foreigners at the Fed have dropped by around $63 billion in just over two months.
“It looks like a net outflow of those asset holdings from the Fed balance sheet,” Swiber said.
This drop is unusual, Swiber and Craig noted, considering the dollar’s big decline in 2025. Typically, these types of sales happen when the dollar is strong.
Monetary authorities, Swiber explained, might sell their dollar holdings and invest elsewhere for cheap. Or nations like Japan, India, and Turkey might sell the greenback and buy back their own currency to prevent it from falling further against the dollar.
That’s not the case right now, however, with the dollar down 9% compared to the basket of currencies in the DXY index.
“So that’s kind of why this is particularly strange, right?” Swiber said. “The sales are not happening to defend currencies or to rebalance.”
Instead, Swiber and Craig wrote, it looks like central banks and other official entities are diversifying away from U.S. assets. Rising trade tensions, of course, give nations more reason to lower their dependence on the world’s largest economy.
“The official sector really hasn’t been buying Treasury securities en masse for a number of years,” Swiber said. “Their holdings have pretty much been relatively flat since COVID.”
Now, the sector is also selling.
If foreign private holders like banks and institutional investors follow suit, Swiber is worried about who will pick up the slack.
Looking at the Fed’s “flow of funds” data from the first quarter of 2025, demand essentially stemmed solely from foreign investors and broker-dealers, she and Craig noted.The latter, they wrote, fills in the gap domestically when households and institutions like hedge funds don’t show up.
“Foreign investors were some of the biggest buyers that we saw in Q1,” Swiber said.
If there are worries about them going forward, she added, that doesn’t bode well for the bond market.
G7 finance leaders and heads of international financial institutions, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (fourth from right) and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell (third from right) pose for a photo.
Amazon’s AI chief reveals the interview red flag that could cost you the job: “If you’re not genuine, you won’t do well in an Amazon interview,” Rohit Prasad tells Fortune. Both Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy have echoed that attitude, and authenticity—not just skills—are what set successful candidates apart.
Landing a job at Amazon is notoriously competitive—with the tech giant known to throw out some bizarre curveball questions. But it’s not stumbling on your response to Jeff Bezos’s favorite question, “how lucky are you?” that’ll cost you the job.
Rohit Prasad, Amazon’s head of AI, exclusively told Fortune at the VivaTech conference in Paris that it’s your attitude that’s make-or-break.
“Be genuine,” he advised. “If you’re not genuine, you won’t do well in an Amazon interview.”
“We take our Leadership Principles very seriously,” he adds. “If you’re looking for a job at Amazon, we look for whether you really model those behaviors. And the way to do that is essentially be, first of all, be authentic.”
And Prasad, says his own 2013 interview to join the tech giant, as its director of machine learning, is a “prime example” of that.
“I did not know about the Leadership Principles and I got hired, which means you have to have it in you, that you’re really caring about making lives better for our customers; you can deliver results; you’re a trusted person.”
“The bulk of our interviewing is very behavioral, and of course, we want you to be competent, but how you work in a team is important.”
And unlike a growing number of employers today who are sussing out cultural fit with sneaky coffee cup tests and psychological mind games, Prasad says he doesn’t use unusual interview methods to spot who is genuine.
“I think it’s very easy to tell whether you’re authentic, whether you really are passionate about why you want this job or role.”
The ‘lucky’ question Jeff Bezos always asked interviewees at Amazon
Attitude has long been as important as aptitude at Amazon. A former Amazon executive-turned-investor Dan Rose recently revealed on X that Jeff Bezos would ask interviewees whether they are “a lucky person” back in 1999 to test for exactly that.
“What a great way to filter for optimists and people who manifest success,’ Rose wrote. “Sorting for optimistic people is a good proxy for leadership potential and likelihood of success. Perceiving yourself as lucky is a good proxy for optimism.”
Bezos has of course stepped down from the company he founded. But it’s clear that the culture of hiring for culture fit has remained.
As well as Prasad’s claims that genuineness is more of an interview green flag than ingenuity, Amazon’s current CEO Andy Jassy has said that an “embarrassing” amount of young worker’s success depends on their attitude.
Now, the company is even cracking down on the use of AI in its interviews because it gets in the way of evaluating candidates’ “authentic” skills, experience, and personality.
Login
