Fortune

Ed Bastian has led Delta Air Lines with a rare blend of salesmanship, showmanship, and an accountant’s mastery of return on capital. He’s served as CEO for almost nine years, the longest reign among chiefs of major U.S. airlines, and has helped Delta to build strong employee-management relations in an industry where those ties are often strained. On-time reliability and smart investments in airports and amenities have helped build the airline’s dominance, as have good labor relations. (Delta ranks No. 15 this year on Fortune’s list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For.) The question now is how long the good times will last. For the latest issue of Fortune Magazine, Bastian walked Fortune through the playbook that earned Delta its lead. Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/eYGTguFW

Ed Bastian has led Delta Air Lines with a rare blend of salesmanship, showmanship, and an accountant’s mastery of return on capital. He’s served as CEO for almost nine years, the longest reign among chiefs of major U.S. airlines, and has helped Delta to build strong employee-management relations in an industry where those ties are often strained. On-time reliability and smart investments in airports and amenities have helped build the airline’s dominance, as have good labor relations. (Delta ranks No. 15 this year on Fortune’s list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For.) The question now is how long the good times will last. For the latest issue of Fortune Magazine, Bastian walked Fortune through the playbook that earned Delta its lead. Read more on Fortune: https://lnkd.in/eYGTguFW

Ana Botín doesn’t have “normal” days. As the decade-long executive chair of Santander, one of Europe’s largest banks by total assets, she’s always flying from one part of the world to another. In 2014, when Botín succeeded her father, Emilio, the longtime chairman of Santander credited with making the bank a household name globally, she had big shoes to fill. Today, she’s one of the few women to lead a major bank, counting over 170?million customers. Yet she doesn’t let that burden get in the way of her jubilance. Read more on Fortune: https://lnkd.in/es-wAFp8

A quick exclusive here from me in Fortune on a $38 million funding round for an interesting startup—CADDi. It helps large manufacturers deal with a common problem that you probably didn't even realize they had if you don't work in that sector. It certainly surprised me. It turns out that many manufacturers use way too many duplicative components, often sourcing them from different vendors. CADDi's software ingests technical drawings and component descriptions and then searches a company's data to find similar parts the company already has in inventory or has ordered in the past. This allows the company to find the best supplier for new components as well as shrink the number of suppliers it is using overall, while potentially achieving cost savings through volume discounts and other economies of scale. It turns out a lot of companies were already doing these searches, but did so through a highly manual process, that took a lot of time and labor. Read more about CADDi and its ambitions here: https://lnkd.in/ejbmEry7

Over the past few years, Trump's business empire has dramatically shifted from real estate and licensing to his publicly traded Trump Media shares and crypto holdings. Conflict of interest concerns from his first term look quaint in hindsight. For Fortune's upcoming magazine issue, Paolo Confino and I dug through financial disclosures and spoke with watchdog groups to try to answer the thorny question of Trump's actual net worth. With beautiful visualizations by Nicolas Rapp: https://lnkd.in/e-7zeXU2

Anyone can now call or text Mark Cuban for business advice—via his new AI agent, and it works surprisingly pretty well. In partnership with MasterClass, the billionaire is among the first round of celebrities embracing the creation of AI agents using their past thought leadership. I asked the Cuban bot about how to become a millionaire, new startups ideas, and his true thoughts about Kevin O'Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful:

Long before Donald Trump was president of the United States, he was a brand. That brand has grown massively since, and now powers a media company and crypto operation that have added billions to Trump’s net worth. As Trump’s portfolio and wealth have grown and entered new sectors, they now provide myriad new avenues through which Trump and his family can amass more wealth, potentially with the help of political allies or business partners, with little public visibility. Fortune reporter Paolo Confino breaks down what we know about Trump’s business wealth. Read the full story on Fortune: https://lnkd.in/ergcnYyR

It has been nearly two decades since the workplace mockumentary?“The Office”?first set an episode inside a Chili’s, where Michael Scott handed out Dundie awards to his ever-tolerant employees, including trophies for the whitest sneakers and for stinking up the bathroom. Over nine seasons, “The Office” regularly name-dropped real places and products associated with Scranton, where the Emmy-winning show was set. There’s the big pirate ship restaurant known as Cooper’s Seafood House and Poor Richard’s Pub inside a bowling alley. But in 2005, there was no Chili’s in the Pennsylvania city. So, at last, the chain is filling a hole in Office lore by opening a Chili’s in Dickson City, about 6 miles (10 kilometers) north of Scranton. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ejw_i7uv

Consumer confidence is waning—and it’s hurting retailers big and small. It’s even come for the world’s largest retailer,?Walmart, which?lost nearly $22 billion off its valuation?on Tuesday. Walmart’s share price dropped about 3% by market close on Tuesday, resulting in its?market cap?falling to roughly $680 billion. This comes at the heels of mega e-commerce retailer?Amazon dethroning Walmart?in its quarterly revenue for the first time ever last month. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eZDhjtFr

Have you ever had a business idea and wondered what Mark Cuban would think of it? Well, now you can ask him—or, at least, his artificial intelligence chatbot. The?billionaire?Shark Tank?star?is partnering with?MasterClass On Call?to democratize his intellect to the whole world. Users can call or text the Cuban chatbot at all hours of the day for entrepreneurship, business, or leadership advice. “Think of this chatbot as your secret weapon for business success. It’s packed with insights from my decades of experience, tailored to help you tackle challenges, spark ideas, and push forward,” The Cuban chatbot told?Fortune. Read more: https://lnkd.in/epVf3WqA