• In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady on Xerox’s reinvention.
• The big story: U.S. and China agree to framework deal.
• The markets: Up but not soaring after U.S.-China framework.
• Analyst notes from UBS, Convera, and Deutsche Bank.
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. Xerox CEO Steve Bandrowczak is a determined man. Disowned by his family at 16, he took 10 years to complete a two-year degree from a community college while working nights on the Long Island Railroad. So he doesn’t mind playing the long game when it comes to what he calls the “Reinvention” of a 118-year-old brand that’s struggling with a shrinking print business, geopolitical headwinds, and short sellers seeking to profit from the company’s distress.  

As Bandrowczak told me yesterday at the Fortune COO Summit, the shift from being a manufacturer of copier machines to a services and software company is well underway, “this public reinvention is critical and the hardest part is the second half, which is where we are now.”

Hard is an understatement. Bandrowczak’s recent decision to cut the dividend to reduce debt as he navigates tariffs, a tricky acquisition, and a volatile economy sent a struggling stock even lower.

“When you’re reinventing a company, it’s always a lot easier to do it in private,” said Bandrowczak. “However, we rebuilt an incredible board…and I want to reward the shareholders who have stuck with us for so many years.”

As for the skeptics, Bandrowczak says he doesn’t care because he’s confident that his strategy will yield results. As long as his board and leadership team have his back, he’ll stick with the plan. After all, starting out he “was going from garbage to garbage scraps, trying to get enough money to put gas in my car. I don’t fear anything.”

Click here for the full interview.

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© Xerox

• In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady talks to her digital AI twin.
• The big story: Trade talks with China.
• The markets: It’s pretty quiet out there.
• Analyst notes from Wedbush on Musk and Tesla, JPMorgan on Apple, Goldman Sachs on Switzerland’s negative interest rates, and Joachim Klement on defense stocks.
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning from the Fortune COO Summit in Scottsdale, where a lot of the conversation was focused on how leaders are using AI and preparing their companies to embrace it. We created some multi-agent systems in real time with Babak Hodjat, who is chief technology officer, AI, for Cognizant, our founding and knowledge partner for the summit. Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright said his company will open a new restaurant almost every 24 hours thanks to AI, and leaders like LRN founder Dov Seidman talked about how to create more human-centered organizations in this next wave of transformation.

I had an opportunity to interview my digital twin on stage. It—or should I say, she?—was created by Delphi cofounder and CEO Dara Ladjevardian, whose company has created thousands of digital clones for clients who want to, as he put it, “scale their minds.” That could be consultants who are using digital clones to engage potential clients in conversation or CEOs who want to help employees understand their thinking on a range of issues. The goal, says Ladjevardian, is to train these digital replicas to “be predictive of you.”

What’s fun, and disconcerting, is how these clones can engage in conversation. Mine knew my sister’s name, thanks to a podcast from a decade ago that I hadn’t realized it found, and it cited my own phrases back to me. (Note to self: the alliteration that seemed clever on a LinkedIn bio can sound trite when you hear it said out loud.) And, unlike me, my twin could instantly call up facts and anecdotes from past stories and serve up observations about current affairs in my voice.

Did it capture the essence of who I am? No. I thought it was more humorless and way more superficial than I am in real life. There’s a mildly creepy quality to my video avatar—the movie Cats comes to mind—where my mouth and eyes didn’t seem quite in sync. But—hey—maybe that’s because I never look at myself as I talk.  I presume the technology will get better at capturing tone, personality and empathy. But let me know what you think. You can speak with digital Diane yourself by clicking on this link. 

• Change the World is Fortune’s annual list featuring companies that are doing well by doing good. These companies are using the creative tools of business to help the planet and tackle society’s unmet needs—and they’re earning a profit while doing so. You can see last year’s honorees here. The deadline for applications this year is Tuesday, July 29; the list will be published in late September, and will appear in the October/November issue of Fortune magazine.

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Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at [email protected]

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady talks to Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio.
• The big story: Trump urges confrontation with LA protestors.
• The markets: Looking up.
• Analyst notes from UBS on the impact of the LA riots, Goldman Sachs on U.S. debt, Pantheon Macroeconomics on China exports rebounding.
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. This past week, I talked with Ray Dalio, the billionaire investor and founder of Bridgewater Associates, about the period of profound political and economic change we’re in right now. In his latest book, How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle, he writes about the confluence of forces threatening to undermine U.S. prosperity. (We also ran this excerpt on his views of AI.) Of particular concern to Dalio and others: America’s escalating national debt, which is about to hit $37 trillion and could increase by $2.4 trillion under the Republican bill now moving through Congress.

In Dalio’s view, servicing that debt squeezes out more productive spending, makes us beholden to investors who are increasingly reluctant to buy our bonds (Hello China!) and prompts actions like interest-rate hikes or currency devaluation that can harm the economy. “You get both the central government and the central bank creating debt to pay for debt and you begin a spiral,” he says. “There are no easy answers.”

He also suggests a “3% solution” that involves halving the annual deficit-to-GDP ratio to 3% by cutting spending, raising taxes and lowering interest rates. For investors, Dalio has long preached diversification, which he defines as a portfolio of 15 uncorrelated assets. As for Fortune 500 leaders, Dalio’s advice is to “immunize yourself: What is a currency-neutral position? What is an interest rate-neutral position? Do you have secure funding? What is your flexibility for being able to source?”

“We are coming into a period of much greater risk,” adds Dalio. “I made a lot of money with these kinds of understanding for many years. I’m now at a point in time where I want to pass along knowledge that could be helpful.”

More news below.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at [email protected]

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com