Fortune

If I told you you were heading towards "slow agony"... you might rethink some things, no? And yet, 18 months after Mario Draghi published his landmark report on the future of European competitiveness, little has changed. A rapidly growing innovation gap, stifling regulation and skyrocketing energy prices are all making doing business at the cutting edge far too hard. So what are frustrated business leaders doing to get around the continent's restrictions, particularly on the subject of AI? To find out, I spoke with AWS's Tanuja Randery CBE, Ericsson's Erik Ekudden and Per Narvinger, Experian's Shail Deep and KPMG's Yael Selfin. Thank you to all of them for sharing their time with me. To read their insights, head here: https://lnkd.in/eH_VjqcT

The secret to Ed Bastian’s success leading Delta has been to empower and support his people though thick and thin. When you have a workforce that trusts you, they can do incredible things. They put the company first, and then they pay it forward to customers who then have stronger product affinity. I asked him how he will handle the AI future for his 100,000 employees, when other CEOs are replacing jobs with AI agents and favoring efficiency over their people. Bastian was steadfast that he has no plans to stop being people first in the AI future, and that human pilots will always fly his planes.

Ed Bastian has been the CEO of Delta Air Lines for a decade and an executive at the company for almost 30 years. As CFO and president, Bastian led the airline through a significant turnaround that began with filing for bankruptcy two decades ago. It all paid off: Today, Delta is the most profitable airline in America. Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell flew to Delta’s headquarters in Atlanta to interview Bastian for the Fortune 500: Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast and discuss: ➡️ His "people-first" leadership philosophy ➡️ The evolution of the lucrative American Express partnership ➡️ His vision for the future of travel 🔗 Read more from the #CEODaily newsletter: https://lnkd.in/e9Vb4FvS

The 2026 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list is here. The AI era has arrived, and every company must become a digital company in some capacity. As Fortune's Matthew Heimer explains, what stands out among year's 100 Best Companies to Work For is their ability to rebuild the social contract at work so people feel supported, trusted, and future-ready as they undergo that transition. For the 29th edition of our list, editorial partner Great Place To Work compiled confidential surveys from over 640,000 workers at eligible companies. Top companies include: ➡️ Synchrony ➡️ Hilton ➡️ Cisco ➡️ American Express ➡️ Wegmans Food Markets 🔗 See the full #100BestCos list here: https://lnkd.in/e4se7kHt

“You have to let your people know that you’re supporting them and putting them out front, rather than the management being out front." From one of the largest bankruptcies in U.S. history to leading the industry in market capitalization and premium customer satisfaction, Delta Air Lines has rewritten the business of flying over the last two decades. Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell sat down with Delta CEO Ed Bastian at the airline's Atlanta headquarters to discuss the strategic maneuvers behind its resurgence. Bastian detailed his "people-first" leadership philosophy, the evolution of the lucrative American Express partnership, and his vision for the future of travel, from AI-powered concierge services to the launch of flying taxis. 🔗 Watch the full conversation from the Fortune 500: Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast here: https://lnkd.in/eMfFJYPi

The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list is here.🎉 For the 29th edition of our list, editorial partner Great Place To Work compiled confidential surveys from over 640,000 workers at eligible companies. Against the backdrop of the AI revolution, three themes define this year's top employers: They are listening more closely than their peers; they're investing heavily in AI-ready careers; and even as work becomes more digital and always-on, they're doubling down on analog perks that give employees more time to care for the people they love most. Top companies include: ➡️ Synchrony ➡️ Hilton ➡️ Cisco ➡️ American Express ➡️ Wegmans Food Markets 🔗 See our full #100BestCos list here: https://lnkd.in/e4se7kHt

People are always advising executives to think about AI like an intern, or PhD-level researcher, or a expert colleague who is occasionally fallible, or even a middle manager. But all these analogies to types of human workers are actually a kind of category error. It doesn't capture how truly bizarre AI models are. We no more understand how these models "perceive" the world than I truly understand how my dog perceives the world. Today's AI is more like working with an alien species than it is working with a human, be that an intern or experienced pro. Recent research from Stanford on the way in which multimodal AI models can experience "mirage reasoning" further highlights this. I cover that research and plenty more in my latest Fortune "Eye on AI" newsletter.

“The fight in America is all about protecting the cultures in places like Miami or Silicon Valley, and keeping us a nation of entrepreneurs,” says Citadel CEO Ken Griffin. There is an optimism in his voice that is rare these days. Griffin is rich, and he’s fearless, that much is not in doubt. And given his incredible wealth and potential influence going forward, it’s worth understanding where Griffin came from and how he developed a set of beliefs about society and the economy. Because if Ken Griffin believes there’s a path to remaking American capitalism—based on what he sees working in Miami—he might be one of the few people on the planet with the money and influence to make it happen. Read more of Shawn Tully's piece for Fortune magazine: https://lnkd.in/eb-7rVmn

Americans aren’t getting laid off. And they’re not quitting. They’re simply just not getting hired, and the numbers haven’t been this bad since the pandemic closed the economy by force. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday the hiring rate fell to 3.1% in February, with just 4.8 million hires, the lowest since April 2020. Job openings dropped to 6.9 million, down 358,000 from January. The quits rate held at a low 1.9%, while layoffs also stayed pinned at 1.1%, and retirements fell back near record lows. Everyone, it seems, is staying put, whether in their jobs or in unemployment. “It’s a brutal job market,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, told Fortune. “To see that 3.1% hiring rate, the lowest since April 2020, when the economy was closed down literally during COVID—it just underscores how little hiring is going on.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/e6v8Ym_g

Another security lapse at Anthropic. This one potentially more serious than last week’s leak of draft blog posts revealing previously a undisclosed model and other documents. This time it is some of the source code for Claude Code, Anthropic’s premier product that has leaked. It could let people reverse engineer Claude Code’s agentic harness or simply duplicate it as open source code. It could also let bad actors potentially bypass guardrails on the use of Claude Code.