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

What does innovation look like in 2025? From AI to autonomous vehicles, one company keeps setting the bar higher. This is the third year Fortune has published its list of America’s Most Innovative Companies. The 300 companies on this year’s list generated over $12.6 trillion in revenue over the past 12 months, with a median revenue of $22 billion. Amazon, which ranked?#7?on the list, gave Fortune an inside look at the facility where it’s testing its multibillion-dollar robotics fleet. See the full list here: https://lnkd.in/gnVHKbVb

What does innovation look like in 2025? From AI to autonomous vehicles, one company keeps setting the bar higher. This is the third year Fortune has published its list of America’s Most Innovative Companies in partnership with Statista. The 300 companies on this year’s list brought in over $12.6 trillion in revenue for the latest 12 months, with the median revenue figure at $22 billion. The majority of companies on the 2025 list are based in California, in line with the previous years’ lists. And while the top three companies are all in the technology sector, health care made up a bigger portion of this year’s list than any other sector, with 63 companies represented. See the full list here: https://lnkd.in/gnVHKbVb

Amy McClelland was just 31 years old when she was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer, or invasive ductal carcinoma, on March 14, 2024. Despite employers today touting their inclusive benefits, including cancer support groups—McClelland says the diagnosis has killed her career prospects and that she’s even been asked to work for free.? “I had a forced exit from my career to focus on cancer treatment, and it turns out re-entering the tech world with experience as a senior leader is the hardest professional hurdle I could come up against,” she revealed?last week on LinkedIn. “In 4 months, I’ve submitted 108 applications, had 9 interviews, reached 3 task stages, and been unsuccessful in all,” she continued. “Stopping my career to fight for my life is something I never expected to do at 31. It feels like being hurtled out into space without a tether, after a decade of dedicated hard work.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/ems6Rv8K

For 14 months, Whitney Wolfe Herd was?not?Bumble Inc.’s CEO. The founder launched the dating app a decade ago, right after she turned 25, and although she flashily?brought in new CEO Lidiane Jones?in 2023 to herald the public company’s next era, she now says she was essentially burnt out by then. “I had been going for about 10 years straight,” she says. “I’d been in this long-term relationship with Bumble, and it was time for a break.” Wolfe Herd instead served as the company’s board chair while it encountered a challenging market. Just over a year later, Jones?has left, and Wolfe Herd is back as Bumble’s CEO. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eCH7MQFV

America’s Most Innovative Companies in 2025 list is here. To create America's Most Innovative Companies list, Statista compiled a list of more than 10,000 companies and ranked them on three pillars: ? product innovation ? process innovation ? innovation culture Companies would receive a score in each of these dimensions, with each dimension accounting for a third of the total score. The 300 companies with the best overall score were awarded as America’s Most Innovative Companies. See the full list here: https://lnkd.in/gnVHKbVb

It’s 2003 in Tallinn, Estonia. Taavet Hinrikus, a 20-year-old computer whiz, has just accepted an offer to become the first employee of a little-known video-call startup, Skype. Little did he know then, but it was the start of a multi-decade evolution that would make him one of Estonia’s first billionaires, spawn dozens of startups, and generate billions of dollars in venture funding across Europe. “The idea that you can start using this [video-chat technology] to have voice and video conversations was pretty crazy for a boy who was born in the Soviet Union. But it was also obvious to me that it was going to be an exciting journey,” Hinrikus tells?Fortune. Today, at age 43, Hinrikus can add cofounder of payment platform Wise and partner of founder-led venture capital fund Plural Platform to his résumé, having steered multiple companies through countless funding rounds. Read more: https://lnkd.in/e-JsxC55

Black Eyed Peas front man?Will.i.am?has built a fortune off chart-topping hits like “Scream & Shout” and “Where Is the Love?” As of 2025, he’s reportedly worth around $50 million, according to?Celebrity Net Worth—but it’s not just music that’s made him millions. Beyond his success in the studio, he was an early investor in?Tesla, Pinterest, and OpenAI, proving his business instincts are just as sharp as his songwriting.Now the rapper, producer, and?The Voice UK?judge has revealed what he’s looking for from his next investment. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eBt9-z4D

The uncertainty surrounding President Donald Trump’s tariffs is pushing markets around. Earlier this month, the S&P 500 entered correction territory on the back of on-again, off-again tariff threats. On Tuesday, stocks edged higher in early trading off hope that reciprocal tariffs would be?diluted, but that volatility was enough for Kate Moore, chief investment officer for Citigroup’s investment solutions team Citi Wealth, to warn against putting any more money in stocks. “It’s uncomfortable to say this, but I would not be putting more money to work in kind of risk assets at this point, so equities or credit,” Moore?told?CNBC?on Tuesday. “I think the equity market is going to be caught in more of a trading range in the near term as both technical pressures and policy fears bounce us around.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/eiQZ9AZw