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Brian Schimpf has been quietly running Anduril since its earliest days. And once he’s talking, he has a lot to say
In 2017, Brian Schimpf was in the California desert with an engineering problem to solve. The place was Apple Valley, expansive, sandy, and surreal. Schimpf—CEO and cofounder of Anduril, then a startup in the truest sense of the word—had been there for a while, building the defense tech company’s first product: autonomous, solar-powered surveillance towers,…
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State Street’s CEO warns of a global fertilizer crisis due to the Iran war: ‘I personally worry about what happens if this goes on much longer’
In today’s CEO Daily: Ron O’Hanley talks the Iran war, AI, and how global investment opportunities are changing The big leadership story: eBay vs. GameStop The markets: Global markets pull back slightly even as S&P 500 futures tick upwards Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune. Good morning. If you want to understand…
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Anthropic’s SpaceX compute deal comes as AI data center backlash grows—fueled by both real grievances and conspiracy theories
Welcome to Eye on AI, with AI reporter Sharon Goldman. In this edition: U.S. and China pursue AI guardrails to handle race to build powerful AI systems…How a congressional primary became a proxy battle over AI…The reggae band in a nightmare battle against AI slop remixes. I’ve spent a good deal of my time at…
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Exclusive: Gusto crosses $1 billion in 12-month trailing revenue
After closing, a San Francisco flower market isn’t exactly idyllic. But in 2012, Eddie Kim and Tomer London, cofounders of HR software startup Gusto, were there to see Christina Stembel. The owner of Farmgirl Flowers, Stembel needed to hire her first employee and, accordingly, had to set up payroll for the first time. She’d been…
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Silicon Valley’s ‘player‑coach’ fantasy misses the point of good managers
In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady debunks the latest management trend. The big leadership story: Investors aren’t buying Enrique Lores’s new plan for PayPal. The markets: Mixed globally after the S&P 500 touched another new high Wednesday. Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune. Good morning. Few things transform a career or a…
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How Wyndham scales AI to improve hospitality at 8,400 hotels
The business model for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts purposefully embraces sprawl. The hotel franchising company has about 8,400 hotels across six continents, comprising a portfolio of 25 brands, including Days Inn, La Quinta, and Ramada. But the $450 million that Wyndham has spent on technology since 2018 favors standardization and fewer vendors. “We realized years…
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How Amex CEO Stephen Squeri is winning over younger customers
Good morning. For the past eight years, Stephen Squeri has served as CEO of American Express, but he built his entire career, more than 40 years, inside the company. In a new Fortune feature, my colleague Shawn Tully provides an in-depth and deeply entertaining profile of Squeri. The Bronx outsider—who was told he’d never be…
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District, founded by three Snapchat alumni, raises a $14.7 million seed round to help independent sellers build community-driven marketplaces
Eddie Koai, Patrick Mandia, and I are watching Crazy Lamp Lady on someone’s computer. It’s a town hall of sorts. Crazy Lamp Lady is actually a big deal—her real first name is Jocelyn, but as Crazy Lamp Lady, she has more than 800,000 followers across platforms and an online marketplace attracting thousands. She’s reassuring her…
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Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon thinks your relationship to your devices is about to change
In today’s CEO Daily: Qualcomm CEO on the future of AI-first devices. The big leadership story: The quiet engineer-CEO building Anduril, a $31 billion weapons startup The markets: A global rally is underway on reports of the U.S. and Iran nearing a peace deal. Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune. Good morning.…
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Musk’s court fight against OpenAI produces more heat than light on the control of advanced AI
Hello and welcome to Eye on AI…In this edition: Sparks fly as Musk and Brockman testify in battle over OpenAI’s restructuring…the White House does a 180 degree U-turn on AI regulation and may begin reviewing AI models prior to release…OpenAI and Anthropic both target PE-backed companies with new joint ventures…a breakthrough in a foundation model…