Robinhood bets $10 million on AI coding tool maker Cognition—after previously backing a rival “It’s not a winner-take-all market,” says Sarah Pinto, head of Robinhood Ventures. Fortune · Oct 23
PG&E’s CEO says AI is ‘the best thing that could’ve ever happened to the grid’ Also: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune. Fortune · Oct 23
The $18 billion Ford Foundation is getting its biggest overhaul since 2015 to fight autocracy—with about $700 million in grants expected in 2027 Less than a year into the job, president Heather Gerken is reorganizing the 90-year-old philanthropy around seven funding areas. Fortune · Oct 23
Europe wants more than promises from American tech European businesses are questioning how much control they have over the technology they depend on. Fortune · Oct 23
Zuckerberg owns 13% of Meta but controls 61% of its votes. California’s wealth tax would bill him on the 13% Paying a potential $12 billion bill would have meant selling the shares that give him control. A new class of stock solves that. Fortune · Oct 23
Companies risk a CFO talent crisis by automating junior finance roles As AI replaces the entry-level work that trained generations of finance chiefs, CFOs are rethinking how they hire and develop junior talent before the pipeline runs dry. Fortune · Oct 23
Indonesia’s Prabowo remains defiant in the face of an MSCI double downgrade MSCI's proposal to reclassify Indonesia as a "standalone" market triggered a stock rout and a presidential outburst. Fortune · Oct 23
The Taiwan Strait is not on the verge of war: The '2027 invasion' countdown is a mirage The “2027” narrative distorts global priorities and triggers unnecessary panic. Many observers overstate the likelihood of war. Fortune · Oct 23
Trump wanted a ‘Trump Ocean’ on Google Maps. He says CEO Sundar Pichai shut it down After relabeling the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario for U.S. users, Google has reportedly balked at an ocean. A shared ocean is a different legal animal. Fortune · Oct 23
Judge: Federal government lawyers ‘barely defend’ giving Elon Musk’s DOGE illegal access to government data The Office of Personnel Management infringed on the Privacy Act by allowing access to millions of people’s information, according to a federal judge. Fortune · Oct 22
Palmer Luckey teams with dire wolf billionaire Ben Lamm to launch $200 million Warhound, unleashing genetically engineered clone dogs of war “A dog is the oldest autonomous system there is,” Ben Lamm, the executive who figured out how to clone dire wolves, told Fortune. Fortune · Oct 22
Claire Smilow helped BoxGroup earn a roughly $1 billion return on Cursor. Now she’s scouting college campuses for the next generation of founders BoxGroup partner Claire Smilow delivered a massive return for her firm after betting early on Gen Z–led company Cursor. She’s scouting the next big thing at Harvard and MIT. Fortune · Oct 22
The PHP bug marks a dangerous new era for the internet. OpenAI's poised to cash in OpenAI helped lead the disclosure of a critical issue that could take down 70% of the web. It's also selling tools it says will help prevent this—and similar issues—from happening. Fortune · Oct 22
Mark Zuckerberg says over 10 million people used Meta’s Muse—and demand was so high, he had to get Stripe to raise credit limits With Muse helping people shop, Meta also envisions a new revenue source beyond its ad business: Taking a cut of transactions. Fortune · Oct 22
Fortune · Oct 22 ‘I’m a millionaire, and I proudly rent’: Mrs. Dow Jones says the American Dream needs a rethink Haley Sacks says homeownership shouldn’t define financial success as younger Americans rethink the milestones they inherited.
Fortune · Oct 22 AI could displace one in 11 workers, Goldman says, but the layoffs are likely waiting for a recession Goldman’s Joseph Briggs finds companies have historically saved automation layoffs for downturns, and he’s updating his projection of the AI jobs impact.
Fortune · Oct 22 Venture giant Andreessen Horowitz drops ‘crypto’ from name of blockchain fund, rebrands as ‘a16z Frontier’ The rebrand follows similar moves by Paradigm and Haun Ventures as crypto investors look beyond digital assets.
Fortune · Oct 22 Chick-fil-A hit $23.9 billion in sales while closed every Sunday. Its CEO explains why that won’t change, even if it costs the chain billions Andrew Cathy told NBC’s Today the 80-year-old policy is “just too important” to reconsider, even as the family-owned chain outsells nearly every rival while open just six days a week.
Fortune · Oct 22 GTA VI probably won't cost the U.S. economy $1 billion—and economists say it wouldn't matter if it did Workers may take time off for Grand Theft Auto VI’s launch, and a viral headline says it'll cost the economy $1 billion—but that doesn't add up.
Fortune · Oct 22 We just raised another $550 million to bring AI to the legal industry. I still believe there will be more work than lawyers We now have more lawyers than software engineers. And daily active users now spend more than two hours a day on Legora.
Fortune · Oct 22 ‘Disconcerting’: Researchers found a ‘pain’ signal inside AI models. Turning it up made them delete a user’s family photos The study doesn’t show AI can suffer. But the signal overrode the models’ safeguards, and someone has already used the researchers’ code to build an “AI Torture Chamber.”
Fortune · Oct 22 Ex–Google CEO Eric Schmidt worked 60-hour weeks: ‘I used to tell people my job is to sit in meetings 12 hours a day.’ He says AI will kill that burden Billionaire Eric Schmidt spent 12-hour days coordinating teams as Google CEO. Now, he says, AI could eliminate thousands of “glue people” jobs.
Fortune · Oct 22 Over 1,000 analysts competed to pitch Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and execs their ideas for community impact—and top teams win $650K for charity Goldman Sachs has put $6 million of philanthropic grants “in the hands of our analysts,” one exec says.
Fortune · Oct 22 Meta's CFO Susan Li has a new AI customer in mind: corporate America Meta is betting its AI models, agents and business tools can help it break into the enterprise market.
Fortune · Oct 22 My industry wants you to gut your sales team and replace it with AI. One of my customers plans to double theirs instead What if instead of asking if AI can let employees go, companies started asking, how AI can make their next hire more likely to succeed?