Fortune

As the job market has tightened, many Gen Z college graduates have struggled to find stable footing—raising new questions about whether a degree is still worth the time and debt burden. But for many MBA students, the return on investment still looks hard to beat. Recent data from Harvard Business School found MBA alumni are raking in median salaries of about $260,000 three years after graduating. At the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, alumni are earning $248,000, while MIT (Sloan) graduates are bringing in $246,000, according to the Financial Times. Read more: https://bit.ly/4kPcicp

When Aneesh Raman was working as Barack Obama’s speechwriter there was one piece of career advice the former president would often share that stuck with the former CNN war correspondent: “Worry about what you want to do, not who you want to be.” You only have to glance at Obama’s career to see his motto in action. The first African American president in U.S. history worked in community organizing and law for decades before being inaugurated in 2009. “He wanted to build communities in a different way,” Raman told CNBC Make It, “and it led him on his path that led to this moment where he became president.” It’s why instead of focusing on your dream title, Obama recommends thinking about the impact you want to make through your work first and then honing the skills you’ll need to get there. And that advice has taken Raman from writing Obama’s speeches from 2011 to 2013 to partnering with NGOs as Facebook’s head of economic impact to coauthoring several books. Now, he’s LinkedIn’s chief economic opportunity officer—and his framework highlights how to tangibly focus on impact and skill-building over job titles. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dTm_jaj4

When life feels chaotic and unmanageable, it often feels easier to just procrastinate or ignore snowballing problems. But one of the wealthiest and most successful people in the world says that’s not the real cure for anxiety and stress. “I find if I’m stressed about something it’s usually because I’m not doing anything about it,” Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in 2017 during a visit to The Museum of Flight in Seattle. “I’m listening to my body as a signal that something is wrong, and I find that the stress goes away the second I take the first step.” Bezos, who has a net worth of $234 billion and is the world’s fourth-richest man, undoubtedly experienced stress while building what is now the No. 1 Fortune 500 company. After all, he started Amazon in a rented garage and had to take 60 meetings to raise the first $1 million in seed capital for his nascent company in the mid-1990s. Read more: https://lnkd.in/g3jxy3kf

“When you’re rolling your finger down the resume and you see, ‘Oh my gosh, competitive Excel, What is this like? I want to talk to this kid about this. Just that alone is enough to get you in the interview room.” https://bit.ly/4rP2uCg

Experts, parents, and educators have spent the past three years worrying AI made cheating too easy. A massive Brookings report released in January suggests they weren’t worried enough. The deeper problem, the report argues, is that AI is so good at cheating that it’s causing a “great unwiring” of students’ brains. The report concludes the qualitative nature of AI risks—including cognitive atrophy, “artificial intimacy,” and the erosion of relational trust—currently overshadows the technology’s potential benefits. “Students can’t reason. They can’t think. They can’t solve problems,” lamented one teacher interviewed for the study. Read more: https://bit.ly/4s88eq6

The relationship between Silicon Valley and the Trump administration just took a dramatic turn, one with potentially epic consequences for national security, the AI race, and the independence of American business leaders. The response of the Trump administration to Anthropic’s refusal to cave on safety requirements is unprecedented against an American company, equivalent to a political assassination attempt against one of our country’s top startups. Especially since it accepted essentially the same terms for its rival, OpenAI. If fully executed, Trump and Hegseth’s demands would essentially demolish Anthropic’s enterprise business, which has been growing rapidly. At a minimum, they’ll sizeably dent Anthropic’s prospects for an IPO in 2027. Anthropic has said it will sue the government to try to overturn Hegseth’s decision. The bigger questions here, though, are about democratic accountability and the relationship between government and business in America. Who should decide how the U.S. government uses AI: The Pentagon—which, as defense-tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey and others argue, represents a democratically elected government, and faces adversaries in China or Russia who won’t play by any AI rules in times of war? Or the AI maker, which understands the technology’s power and limitations best? The other big issue is whether it is OK for a democratic government to attempt to effectively destroy a business just because that company declines to agree to contract terms, or because it simply doesn’t like the politics of its CEO. The latest in the saga is in the weekly Fortune 500 Digest newsletter, subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/etkpdRy6

Gen Zers jaded by sky-high tuition costs and workers wanting to ditch their unfulfilling desk jobs are turning to blue-collar jobs as their next professional adventure. And now, some artisan businesses like Rolex are welcoming them to the trades with open arms. The luxury-watch manufacturer launched its Watchmaking Training Center in 2023, and so far, the training has driven fierce competition. In 2024, more than 560 candidates applied to the Rolex program’s 27 open spots. That’s a 4.82% acceptance rate—nearly as competitive as getting into Harvard University. Read more: https://bit.ly/4r4Bu0n

When a loved one dies, a pregnancy is lost, or a serious diagnosis lands, most employees uncover the true value of their workplace benefits—not in the enrollment brochure, but during the worst week of their lives. Increasingly, they’re finding those benefits don’t measure up. Research from Empathy’s 2026 Workplace Benefits Report, shared exclusively with Fortune, underscores a “clear gap” between what workers need during major life disruptions and what employers actually provide. Their study shows 95% of employees say bereavement-related benefits are valuable to them, but fewer employers plan to expand that support this year. “Our new research shows workplace benefits are falling short during life’s most disruptive moments,” Ron Gura, cofounder and CEO of Empathy, told Fortune. “It spotlights a critical shift: Benefits success is now defined by support during major life events, with bereavement support as the clearest, most urgent opportunity.” Empathy, a workplace benefits tech company, surveyed more than 5,500 employees and benefits decision-makers in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eHffBmYA

It takes hours for some people to craft a résumé and cover letter, listing past experience and accomplishments on a sheet of paper—details your interviewer is likely to ask you to explain face-to-face anyway. That redundant, time-consuming process has forced many to ditch the career materials, and Elon Musk is leading the charge. In an X post Musk said he was looking for applicants to join Tesla as it restarts work on the AI supercomputer project Dojo3. To be considered, all applicants have to do is to submit “3 bullet points on the toughest technical problems you’ve solved,” Musk wrote in the X post. Read more: https://bit.ly/4cGiZLV

We’re nearly six years past the pandemic, but the remote work debate rages on. Many large companies like Amazon, Walmart, JPMorgan, and Uber have mandated five days a week in the office, and others including Google, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft are back to three or four in-person days. But workers are still rebelling against return-to-office policies by coming in late, leaving early, “coffee badging,” and stealing snacks. Some even work from home when they’re supposed to be at the office, a trend coined “hushed hybrid” and something managers are too burned out to enforce. A late 2025 study by researchers at Harvard University, Brown University, and UCLA shows workers still value remote work so much, they would be willing to take a massive pay cut in order to get it. Read more: https://lnkd.in/enEzqRWc