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Boards and management all have the same fear – the ominous news story, 13D filing, or even the first phone call when an activist investor introduces themselves as one of their largest shareholders. What happens next is swift and often sets the tone for the engagement. The Board is notified, advisors are summoned, and a defense plan is assembled. Directors are flooded with counsel from advisors who claim they know the activist best and have seen this situation many times before.

In these moments, it’s easy for Boards to slip into self-preservation mode and engage in standard defensive tactics. However, many of these well-advised tactics may jeopardize trust with the activist and ultimately reduce the company’s negotiating leverage. Rather than establishing the basis for a thoughtful exchange of ideas, some standard defense tactics can inadvertently signal resistance and bad intentions, making it more difficult to maintain a constructive dialogue that could lead to a mutually beneficial outcome.

Here we examine Ten Tactics that Unnecessarily Frustrate Activists and their influence on the negotiating process to better inform companies and boards about how their actions may be perceived by the other side and may have unintended consequences.

1. Approaching meetings strictly as “listen only” sessions, thereby preventing an intelligent exchange of ideas. Advisors may recommend that their clients engage in this approach to mitigate risk and better understand the activist’s objectives to get ahead of their demands. This can lead to frustration among activists, who may feel the engagement lacks genuine dialogue, which may lead the activist to make their concerns public.  
2. Slow-rolling discussions to delay meaningful engagement until after a key calendar event or the nomination or record dates. Activists recognize these delay tactics immediately, viewing them as an attempt to run out the clock and avoid accountability. Activists don’t necessarily need speed, but they expect clear, reliable timelines for follow-ups and next steps.
3. Leaking information or stories about the ongoing private engagement to shape the public narrative. Doing so damages trust with the activist while simultaneously escalating tensions. The same can also be true when the company files a proxy statement without giving the activist advance notice, further eroding trust.
4. Avoiding direct engagement with the activist and relying solely on advisors to communicate. Activists generally expect board-level engagement early, which signals seriousness and respect. Further, activists often become frustrated when they ask to speak to certain people on the board or ask to omit certain executives from discussions and the company doesn’t accommodate. Having the wrong attendees in discussions can chill direct dialogue and make it difficult for the activist to openly explain their views. 
5. Making unprofessional comments about the activist. Management may at times make defensive, dismissive, or emotional remarks about the activist in public communications – for example during media interviews or earnings calls. There have also been instances when a CEO has made disparaging remarks targeting the integrity of an activist’s investment process. Such incendiary comments can strengthen the activist’s narrative by undermining the company’s credibility in the eyes of long-term institutional investors, who prefer to see both sides engage in good faith negotiations instead of engaging in unproductive rhetoric. 
6. Filing bedbug letters. Companies sometimes nitpick nomination paperwork and regulatory filings like 13Ds and proxy statements via “bedbug” letters filed with the SEC. Efforts to invalidate nominations based on minor technicalities are rarely successful, but they are highly frustrating for activists who are focused on the broader case for value creation. 
7. Entrenching the board with measures such as adopting poison pills, changing advance notice bylaws, or even redomiciling the company in a more corporate friendly state. Activists and long-term investors alike interpret these moves as protecting management and the Board rather than acting in shareholders’ best interests.
8. Dismissing the activist’s ideas prematurely. At times, boards and management teams reflexively reject activist proposals without giving them a fair hearing, issuing statements such as “the Board has already evaluated these options.” If leadership truly believes it has explored the activist’s recommendations, it should be willing to explain – within the bounds of Regulation FD – why the proposal is not viable. Sophisticated activists are reasonable; they recognize they lack an insider’s perspective and are open to the company’s views. At the same time, Boards and management teams should keep in mind that activist perspectives are often informed by extensive due diligence and years of experience as investors.
9. Appointing directors preemptively in an attempt to get ahead of activist demands. Appointing directors preemptively can reduce the likelihood of a constructive settlement since the activist’s priorities were not considered in the selection process – even when a genuine skills gap may have been addressed. Moreover, proxy advisor firms often perceive proactive director appointments made in the face of activist pressure skeptically and view them as reactionary rather than strategic. Understandably, defensive appointments may seem preferable to leaving a material weakness unaddressed and appearing vulnerable. However, boards should carefully consider the specific circumstances and the potential implications for any settlement process, as such actions are likely to inflame the activist.  
10. Pushing for overly restrictive standstill terms. In settlements, standstills are designed to provide a company with a period of stability and time to implement new strategies. Companies will seek to restrict future nominations while pushing for extensive non-disparagement clauses or long-duration standstills. At times, companies will request the right to approve all trades made by an activist above and beyond the typical open trading windows and any MNPI restrictions. Pushing for atypical or unnecessarily onerous standstill terms may ultimately undermine the possibility of a settlement agreement, and further, upon the expiration of the standstill, could lead to increased risk of renewed conflict. 

Though fear understandably makes aggressive defensive tactics appealing, understanding the unintended consequences of such actions can help boards increase their chances of a constructive engagement and mutually beneficial outcome. Ultimately, directors may end up sitting next to the activist or their nominees in the boardroom. Hostile tactics have the potential to cause dysfunction in the boardroom when the dust settles after a settlement or proxy contest.

True fiduciary responsibility calls for directors to view activist investors as significant shareholders with potentially value-creating perspectives. Fostering a climate of respect and lessening the probability of a combative engagement or proxy battle ultimately ensures a better outcome for all shareholders. 

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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Good morning. A recent sell-off in software stocks has fueled debate about whether AI could disrupt traditional software business models. But Adena Friedman, chair and CEO of Nasdaq, has a clear stance: AI isn’t the death knell for software but a catalyst.

“I don’t think any software business is going to sit still,” Friedman said during a fireside chat with David Rubenstein at an event hosted by the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., on March 11. “Any business that sits still in the world of AI will ultimately fail,” she said.

Friedman views AI as a transformative force redefining how companies operate, including Nasdaq itself. Once known primarily as a stock exchange, Nasdaq has evolved into a large-scale software and technology provider for the financial industry. Nasdaq has 10,000 employees worldwide, and about half are in product and technology, she said.

“We’re leaning in very hard on integrating software at an enterprise level—frankly, an industrial-strength, secure level—to bring that to the industry,” Friedman said. She highlighted how Nasdaq is integrating AI into its systems to make financial operations more efficient and secure. One such tool, Settlement Guard, uses AI to predict settlement failures, helping firms save billions by identifying potential issues before they occur.

“Our financial industry needs precision; they need complete accuracy,” Friedman said. And that includes “battle-tested systems” that are highly secured and able to integrate very complex workflows, she said. AI empowers that, she added, when integrated properly.

Friedman became CEO of Nasdaq in 2017, leading one of the world’s largest exchange operators and home to many of the globe’s most prominent technology companies. Her career journey includes the CFO role at Nasdaq, and CFO and managing director at The Carlyle Group, the private equity firm co-founded by Rubenstein. During the fireside chat, Friedman also discussed how her experiences clarified the type of role she preferred. You can read more here.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

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If Pete Nordstrom has a pep in his step as he gives a tour of his family’s luxury department store flagship in Manhattan, it’s because he is starting to see signs that his executive team’s efforts to rejuvenate the 125-year-old retailer are working.

As he walks the store’s street-level floor, he proudly shows off the recent overhaul of the beauty section: While Nordstrom still offers the decades-old department store counter service, it has added a lot of the self-service, discovery-centered style favored by shoppers at Sephora and its ilk. The beauty section still stocks the luxury brands you’d expect, but has added hip, less pricey items to help Nordstrom reach a wider clientele.

“We thought, ‘Let’s create more authority,’” says Nordstrom, who serves as co-CEO with his brother Erik. “The store feeling good and feeling energetic is in large part because we’ve improved our beauty.”

There are other signs in the store of Nordstrom finding its mojo again in the nearly one year since the family and a Mexican investor took the retailer off the stock market. There is an overhauled, much larger jewelry section on the same floor, as well as a two-level, design-y brand-showcase section called “The Gift Shop at The Corner” that changes every month, prominently placed at the busy intersection of Broadway and 57th.

The glow-up at Nordstrom’s flagship, along with upgrades at many of its other 89 department stores and its resurgent discount “Rack” chain, has helped fuel the retailer’s return to form after some difficult years: In 2025, sales rose 7% to a record $15.9 billion, finally surpassing its 2019 high-water mark. Profits before income and taxes were at their highest in more than a decade.

Just a few years ago, Nordstrom was struggling to get its footing back after COVID. Its Rack chain proved unable to compete well with other discounters including T.J. Maxx and Marshalls. The hard times squeezed Nordstrom and led to it compromise on some of high-end standards that had made the 125-year-old company such a beloved institution.

Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The American department store is by no means out of the woods—but recent agita in the sector could play out to Nordstrom’s advantage. The bankruptcy filing by Saks Global, which owns Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus, has shaken the U.S. luxury market to its core—but Nordstrom stands to win market share among well-heeled department store shoppers if its strategy proves to be the correct one.

“There is this huge opportunity in the market,” says consulting firm SW Retail Advisors president Stacey Widlitz. “There is also this opportunity for brands to partner with a retailer that is intact and doing the right thing when so much of the market is really incredibly unstable.”

Risky bets and activist crosshairs

Nordstrom was founded in 1901, when Swedish immigrant John W. Nordstrom and a business partner opened a shoe store in downtown Seattle after they struck gold in the Klondike. The company built a reputation for quality goods and customer service early on. During World War II, when leather was rationed, Nordstrom paid vendors upfront, rather than on credit as was the norm—a philosophy that still gives the company an edge.

By the 1960s, Nordstrom had moved beyond shoes and into fashion; and by the late 1980s it had expanded its footprint from its Pacific Northwest and California roots to the East Coast. Nordstrom established itself as a well-appointed department store chain for the upper middle class with peerless customer service—and it thrived that way for years, eventually listing shares on the New York Stock Exchange in 1971 with the Nordstrom family remaining in charge of company.

But it hit a rough patch a decade ago: Under pressure to grow from Wall Street at a time when all department stores were facing pressure from e-commerce and discount chains, the company plotted an ill-fated Canadian expansion and it vastly expanded its “off-price” Rack chain before it really figured out how to compete with T.J. Maxx. Adding to the financial pressure, Nordstrom spent years and several hundreds of millions of dollars (the company won’t say exactly how much) opening a flagship in New York City in 2019, only for COVID to stop its momentum mere months after opening.

The pandemic felled other retailers on weaker financial footing—among them Lord & Taylor—and Nordstrom made it through, bruised and battered. But leaner times meant less staffing in stores and the resulting clutter and uneven customer service eroded Nordstrom’s luxe cachet.

Post-pandemic, stores got cluttered and the chain let some of its famed customer service standards slip. “We’ve done some soul searching on that. The pandemic in some ways threw us off our game,” says Alexis DePree, Nordstrom’s operations chief.

Wall Street was a punishing taskmaster, and as Nordstrom missed targets, it had little leeway to make deep investments to renew itself. The threat of activist investors loomed, along with the risk that the family could lose control of the company. The Nordstroms tried first in 2017 to take the company off the stock market but failed before ultimately succeeding in 2025. In its $6.25 billion deal, the Nordstroms teamed up with Mexico’s El Puerto de Liverpool department store, an operator of multiple chains. The Nordstrom family now owns a majority 50.1% stake.

John Nacion/WWD via Getty Images

Freed from Wall Street’s gaze, Nordstrom no longer has to worry about investor sentiment before shelling out for store improvements, better computer systems for more personalized marketing, or more precise inventory management.

Going private has, in short, has allowed the Nordstroms to fully concentrate on the aspects of its business that made their company a leading retailer for decades.

“We don’t want to be known as the generation of Nordstroms that screwed it up,” says Pete Nordstrom of himself and his brother, along with cousin Jamie, another great-grandson of the founder, who oversees stores.

Inventory, experience, and inspiration

When asked why the U.S. consumer needs Nordstrom, Erik is quick to say that he or she doesn’t. “I don’t think we’re entitled to any business,” he says. “There are lots of choices, and it’s very easy for customers to go elsewhere. Some healthy paranoia serves us well.”

To be successful, Nordstrom must earn its business by standing out and giving shoppers a reason to go to one store over another.

“They’ve had a wake-up call, and are evolving and going after experience,” says Widlitz, the retail analyst. “Shoppers don’t need to come into a department store to fulfill their needs. So successful ones are leaning into ‘how do we get them in and keep them? And that is through excitement, experience and great service.”

Katie Jones/WWD via Getty Images

The Nordstroms know this. Stores that sell what people want but do not need have to be fun to visit, which explains why the New York flagship has multiple bars, and restaurants. “We spent a fair amount of time going to all the best stores around the world,” Pete explained, name-checking Selfridges in London and Galeries Lafayette and Bon Marché in Paris. “They’ve got a lot of food. It gives people a chance to dwell and hang around—and people like drinking.”

Focusing on food and drink is hardly a radical new strategy, but that’s the point. “It wasn’t about blowing it up and running a bunch of new plays,” says Erik. “It was about building upon the foundation that has been built.”

In the last decade, many top brands like Ralph Lauren, Coach, and Nike—along with newer ones like Vuori—have become sizable retailers themselves, opening more stores of their own. But they know that direct-to-consumer sales won’t replace stores that can offer brands and products priceless exposure.

Nordstrom had 32 million customers last year, an audience that would take eons and tons of money for newer brands to build themselves. What’s more, most consumers don’t wear the same brand head to toe, so multi-brand stores, as department stores prefer to be called nowadays, still have a role to play in the retail world.

Perhaps more crucially, Nordstrom is strong financially and pays its bills, unlike some of its competitors in recent years. (At the time of the bankruptcy filing, Saks Global owed Chanel, about $136 million and Kering, which owns Gucci and Bottega Veneta, $60 million. (On March 6, Saks Global announced it was closing another 12 Saks Fifth Avenue and three Neiman stores but also that it had the liquidity to fund new orders from vendors.)

Another way the Saks Global meltdown has been helpful to Nordstrom: talent. Last year, Nordstrom hired Catherine Bloom, the top-selling individual shopper at Neiman Marcus, with a huge clientele of high net worth individuals, to serve as its new Director of Luxury Styling. Nordstrom last year also hired former former Bergdorf Goodman chief merchant Yumi Shin, leading to a Saks Global lawsuit to block the move.

This past holiday season made clear that Nordstrom is back playing offense again. During a private party for loyal customers in early December, there was a line around the mammoth block at its Manhattan store. The bars in that store and others  nearby were teeming and the decorations plentiful, as was the merchandise available for sale.

“The way we just played the holiday season shows what our investment in in-store experience needs to be when customers are out in stores looking to be inspired,” says DePree. Nordstrom ordered a high level of inventory to keep the shelves robustly stocked—a move that a publicly traded Nordstrom might not have been able to convince Wall Street was wise.

The feedback, so far has been good, with analysts and shoppers agreeing that the Nordstroms have figured out how to make the stores a fun destination again, as they were during the golden era of American department stores.

“I don’t think the department store model in and of itself is something that can’t work. It needs to evolve. There needs to be a modern vision of it,” says Pete Nordstrom. “That’s the opportunity for us.”

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The war in the Middle East has rattled global portfolios and triggered the kind of energy shock investors haven’t seen since Russia invaded Ukraine. But Goldman Sachs’ two most senior international executives have a message for markets: the fundamentals haven’t broken and if you’re waiting for deal activity to freeze — don’t hold your breath.

In a new episode of Goldman Sachs Exchanges recorded March 12, Anthony Gutman and Kunal Shah — co-CEOs of Goldman Sachs International and the firm’s global co-heads of Investment Banking and FICC, respectively — offered their most detailed public read yet on what the conflict means for markets, M&A, and the AI era.​

‘The parallels are very real’

Shah noted the historical comparison. “The parallels to the Russia/Ukraine shock from 2022 are very real,” he said. “And that playbook is very much in our clients’ minds.”​

But he was direct about where the analogy breaks down. In 2022, central bank rates were near historic lows, the global economy was still emerging from the pandemic, and a prolonged supply shock drove one of the worst inflation overshoots in a generation. This time, the starting point is different.

“Monetary policy in most economies is closer to neutral,” Shah said. “And it’s really then a function of how long this shock persists for.”​

Goldman’s base case: central banks won’t respond hawkishly unless the conflict becomes protracted or energy markets face renewed pressure — a threshold Shah said remains high.​ The firm’s economists have already revised their scenario range upward on inflation and downward on growth, Shah noted. “We’re doing a lot of analysis really trying to compare the playbooks.”

He added that the shock arrives at a particularly complicated moment for policymakers already wrestling with AI-driven labor market disruption. “This also comes at a time that was already complicated for central bankers who are still trying to digest what’s going to happen to the labor market given the technology shifts in AI,” he said. “But now coupled with what looks like a stagflationary impulse.”

Record deal volumes. In the middle of a war

The data point that may surprise markets most: European equity issuance has hit record volumes over the past two weeks, even as the conflict escalated. Gutman cited a $5.5 billion deal in which EQT exited its investment in Galderma, plus major transactions from Zurich Insurance and Naturgy — all executed against a backdrop of geopolitical turbulence.​

“Activity levels remain elevated,” Gutman said. “It’s consistent with our view that we are in a cyclical upswing.”​

The reason, he argued, is that the M&A driving markets right now is fundamentally strategic — Santander buying Webster Financial, Engie acquiring UK Power Networks — deals built on long-term logic that won’t evaporate with a market shock.

“They’re not deals that these corporates are going to do or not do because of AI,” Gutman said. “They’re doing them because they’re growing out their portfolios.”​

The bigger AI theme, he added, is actually accelerating M&A rather than slowing it: “What AI is doing is driving a view that scale is critical.”​

How business leaders have learned to tune out the noise

That resilience in deal activity reflects something broader that Gutman said he’s observed across his conversations with the world’s top CEOs: a psychological recalibration toward volatility. After COVID, the Ukraine war, and last year’s tariff turbulence, business leaders have simply gotten better at operating through uncertainty — without letting short-term instability derail long-term strategic decisions.​

“CEOs and business leaders at large have become a little bit more accustomed to this,” Gutman said. “There’s no question when I talk to CEOs they’ve learnt to work through these risks. And they’ve learnt to work through this volatility. And I think there’s a greater tolerance for it than there has been before.”​

This resilience includes reactions to the bearish narrative in markets that have seen software valuations clipped by 20% to 30%. Shah argued the market is conflating genuine disruption risk with companies that have deep enterprise relationships and regulatory moats that won’t disappear overnight. “Someone being able to vibe code is not just going to be able to recreate their business models in any short order,” he said.​

The best career advice for the AI era came from a 2003 Internship

Shah offered a memorable moment, too, when the conversation turned to bearish ideas about the prospects for the future, posed by AI. Gutman referred to AI as a “technological revolution,” and his partner pushed back hard on host Allison Nathan’s question about “AI pessimism.” He said, “When I speak to those most involved in that space, they think we hit an inflection point in the last few months. And their enthusiasm has only grown.”​

His evidence was personal. As a Goldman intern in 2003, Shah was told to avoid fixed income trading because automation would make the job obsolete. “Back then, there were many people that told me, ‘Don’t become a trader. And especially don’t go into fixed income. And for sure, not the currencies business because the machines are going to take over. You won’t have a career then.”

Two decades later, he said, those predictions were far off the mark. He runs the firm’s global FICC business, and “we still have thriving teams of humans aided by technology.”​

The implicit advice for anyone navigating AI disruption today: don’t leave the field — become the person who deploys the tools best. Goldman, Shah said, is “just trying to lead the charge with the applications there so that we can continue to scale and arm our humans with the best technology.”​

Gutman closed on a note that cut through the noise of the moment: “Both in structural terms and cyclical terms, we don’t see a basis for us heading into deep-seated recessions around the world.”​

For Goldman’s international leadership, the conflict is an event-driven risk layered on top of a structurally sound economy — serious, worth watching, but not a reason to change the thesis.

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In a matter of months, a new face will stand behind the lectern at the U.S. Federal Reserve, following the meeting of its rate-setting committee. Jerome Powell has (in all likelihood) only got a few press conferences left before his term as central bank chairman ends—an event he may increasingly be looking forward to.

With Powell’s term due to end in May (unless delayed by a legal back-and-forth arising out of a Department of Justice investigation), the chairman will lead the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings this week and in April before stepping aside, likely for Trump nominee Kevin Warsh to take his place.

Despite the drama surrounding Powell’s final year leading the Fed, Wall Street isn’t expecting anything particularly surprising from the Powell-led meetings. In the past few months the FOMC has been split over how quickly and steeply rates should be cut—if at all—and recent military action in Iran will do little to firm-up the economic outlook.

Geopolitical tensions have bubbled over since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes in Iran 17 days ago. Since then, oil prices have been increased as traders assess how severely supply from the region will be disrupted. Rising oil prices have a direct knock-on impact for households, with their inflation expectations soaring as they scour headlines for a de-escalation in tensions, which is yet to appear.

With price expectations rising, and with limited contemporary data to inform the Fed about the real economy right now, analysts are largely expecting Jerome Powell to announce no cut this week. At the time of writing CME’s FedWatch places more than a 99% chance of a hold at the meeting this week.

Despite the fact that this week is something of a central bank bonanza (the Fed, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and Bank of England all meet this week), there’s a general perception that wait-and-see will once again prevail. Economists also aren’t expecting anything major from Powell’s presser, as Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid noted to clients this morning, saying his team “only expect minor statement tweaks, including smoothed language on recent labour data (especially given January and February’s conflicting payrolls) and a nod to geopolitical risks, highlighting uncertainty and near-term upside pressure on inflation.”

An overly hawkish picture?

He continued, Powell’s press conference is “likely to stress that recent events mainly transmit through financial conditions—particularly oil prices. For now, however, our economists think he’ll avoid signalling any meaningful shift in the near term policy outlook.”

Indeed, some analysts have even suggested it’s entirely plausible that there will be no cuts at all in 2026—after all, a dovish new chairman is only one vote on the FOMC. But Bank of America Global Research’s Antonio Gabriel wrote this morning that perhaps hawkish inflation calls are overcrowding the picture when it comes to the Fed’s path forward.

Gabriel wrote that to assume the Fed won’t cut is based on the assumption that geopolitical tensions are transitory—that inflation may be a relatively short to medium-term hiccup which will not impact the wider global economy. The BofA economists isn’t so sure, writing this morning that markets could be underpricing a more protracted war.

“While a quick resolution to the conflict is certainly a possibility, we view the conflict extending into 2Q as an equally likely outcome, and a more protracted war cannot be ruled out. However, markets seem to be pricing a largely transitory shock,” Gabriel observed. “The U.S. dollar is stronger, but the S&P 500 is just 4% below its peak, and rates markets have priced out about 35bp of Fed cuts by year-end due to inflation concerns. In our view, the more disruptive scenarios for global growth are underpriced.”

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Last Monday, the impossible happened: I attended a venture capital event where I didn’t hear the terms “AI moat” or “application layer software” a single time. Instead, in between bites of sashimi and suspiciously sweet flavored water, about two dozen tech-curious influencers and self-described content creators gathered to hear pitches on aggressively non-AI-based companies, including a service that turns cherished remains into diamonds and a beverage startup. 

We spend a lot of time here focused on the established voices of venture—the Sequoias, Insight Partners, and Kleiner Perkins of the world, which take a methodical approach of applying tried and true quantitative frameworks to divining the windfalls of the future. But as I spend time with the next generation of venture investors, I’m struck by their overwhelming belief that narrative and reach are just as important as the Rule of 40. 

That’s the guiding argument of Bulletpitch, a hybrid media outfit and investing syndicate founded by the Gen Z entrepreneur Brett Perlmutter and run with the podcaster Felix Levine, who serves as managing partner, and their head of operations Alexis Ballo, who attended Middlebury with Perlmutter. Alongside its newsletter and the special purpose vehicles it organizes for trendy companies like the food startup Sauz, Bulletpitch hosts these monthly events where it brings together influencers with large social followings to listen to startup pitches, demo day style. “Founders need attention, and creators have attention,” Perlmutter said to open the event, which was hosted by Hudson Yards at their Japanese restaurant BondST. 

The pitches felt like a soft-edged Shark Tank, with the content creators lobbing mostly inspiration-bait questions that would serve well as 20-second TikTok clips (though none seemed to be filming). The diamond startup, Eterneva, actually had been on Shark Tank and had received funding from a Bulletpitch SPV, though its founder Adelle Archer said the company was no longer seeking funding. Another, Popwtr, filled the table with its as-of-yet-unlaunched cotton candy and lemon-lime-themed drinks, which quickly disappeared as the night went on. (Their slogan, “Tastes like soda, hydrates like water,” is somewhat undercut by the fact that one of its first ingredients is sucralose, better known as Splenda, which unnerved one of the influencers by me.) 

The motives of the attendees were varied. I sat next to Garrett McCurrach, who presented the first pitch of the evening for his startup PipeDream, which is building underground robotic delivery systems. McCurrach, who lives in Austin, had just flown in for the event after meeting the Bulletpitch team a couple of weeks before. When I asked what he hoped to get out of pitching, he had a simple answer: “Serendipity.” 

For the health-conscious influencer, who I won’t out here for her Splenda candor, she wanted to learn how to better invest into startups. Outside of pure brand deals, this seems to be the increasingly popular monetization avenue for many brand creators, who want to turn their legions of followers into equity. It’s a symbiotic relationship for consumer goods startups, who want to find captive customer bases and wield attention. Whether application layer AI companies soon start to look for Instagram brand ambassadors remains to be seen. 

Leo Schwartz
X: @leomschwartz
Email: leo.schwartz@fortune.com

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Good morning. In today’s Fortune:

• Oil was at $106 per barrel this morning.
• Trump threatens NATO, again.
• Wall Street digs in, and not in a good way.
• Who won what at the Oscars.
• Investment in physical AI robots hit $41 billion per year.
• Fertilizer prices go through the roof.
• Crypto markets are betting big on oil.

THE MARKETS

Oil driving everything

Oil was up to $106 per barrel this morning. S&P 500 futures were up 0.44% prior to the opening in New York. The index closed down 0.61% on Friday and is now 4% below its peak. Asia and the U.K. are largely up or flat this morning but the Stoxx Europe 600 was down 0.43% before lunch. Bitcoin is at $73K.

• Central bank-a-palooza: There’s an unusual confluence of base interest rate decisions coming this week from the U.S. Fed, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, the Royal Bank of Australia, and the Bank of Canada.

Chart from TradingEconomics.com

TOP STORIES

IRAN

Trump threatens NATO if it doesn’t support him on Iran

In a move that will win him no new friends in the West, President Trump threatened “very bad” things for NATO if the alliance’s countries don’t send ships to help him reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Fortune’s Jason Ma noted late last night. “If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO,” Trump said. Context: Trump previously threatened to invade Greenland and Canada, both NATO members. He also implied he might retract support for Ukraine. And he lifted sanctions on Russian oil even though that country is bombing Europe’s Eastern flank.

Trump’s plea underlines the most important dynamic in the war against Iran right now: The fact that Iran controls the strait but has not blocked it. Iran allowed a tanker to sail to China, for instance. U.S.-Israeli forces haven’t been able to gain access for Western-allied vessels. “It is only closed to the tankers and ships belonging to our enemies, to those who are attacking us and their allies,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday.

Iran has options, according to MIT political science professor Caitlin Talmadge: mines. “Historically, mine clearance has been slow and it is almost impossible to do under fire,” she wrote in Foreign Affairs. “In short, if Iran effectively mines the strait, all U.S. response options are suboptimal,” Talmadge warned. “The United States should therefore focus aggressively on preventing Iranian mine-laying in the first place and finding an off-ramp from the larger war. If it does not, Washington should expect that ongoing harassment of traffic in the strait will be but one of a number of responses that Iran has long prepared and will now deploy.”

• Live coverage of today’s attacks from the BBC here.

It’s the media’s fault: With his poll numbers in decline and MAGA supporters frustrated by a war he promised not to start, Trump is increasingly complaining about media coverage of the conflict. On Saturday, he said: “Media actually want us to lose the War.” His FCC chief threatened to cancel network broadcast licenses unless they “correct course.”

• Trump was up late last night writing long posts about judges he doesn’t like.

Wall Street sees a long war

Six more weeks? As of Saturday, the Pentagon “believed that it would take four to six weeks to complete this mission and that we’re ahead of schedule,” Kevin Hassett said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “We expect that the global economy is going to have a big positive shock as soon as this is over.”

“Protracted war cannot be ruled out”: But investment bank analysts are increasingly pessimistic that Trump will declare victory and leave the Gulf anytime soon. Bank of America’s Antonio Gabriel sent a terse note this morning: “While a quick resolution to the conflict is certainly a possibility, we view the conflict extending into 2Q as an equally likely outcome, and a more protracted war cannot be ruled out. However, markets seem to be pricing a largely transitory shock…In our view, the more disruptive scenarios for global growth are underpriced.” 

$100 oil will “break parts of the world economy”. Oxford Economics’ Michael Pearce told clients that the impact of oil going to $100 per barrel is “a worst-case scenario that begins to break parts of the world economy. The impact to the U.S. economy is still mostly via higher gasoline prices, which boost inflation and weigh on households’ real disposable incomes and consumer spending. There would be some offset from higher oil production and investment, but there’s a lag effect, and in the near term, the economy would take a hit,” with GDP growth being cut by the better part of a percentage point:

HOLLYWOOD

Who won what at the Oscars

One Battle After Another was the big winner with six awards last night, including best picture and best director. Sinners got four (Michael B. Jordan got best actor), and Frankenstein took three. Full coverage from The Hollywood Reporter here.

CHART OF THE DAY

Record funding for physical AI robots

Investment in companies looking to develop physical, artificially intelligent robots made 32 equity deals with developers in 2025 compared to just three in 2021, according to Bank of America’s Vanessa Cook and Lynelle Huskey. Funding hit a record high in 2025 at $41 billion. 

NUMBER OF THE DAY

60%

The rise in the price of urea—the world’s most widely used nitrogen fertilizer—since the war began, per Bruce Kasman and the team at J.P. Morgan.

QUICK HITS

• Ray Dalio: I’ve studied 500 years of history and fear we’re entering the most dangerous phase of the ‘Big Cycle’
• What Airbnb’s CFO learned when the pandemic made trust a balance sheet decision by Ruth Umoh
• Asia scrambles to respond to Trump’s sweeping Section 301 trade probes, which could pave the way for new tariffs by Angelica Ang
• Top airline CEOs plead with Congress to restore DHS funding and pay airport workers. ‘Once again, air travel is the political football’ by the AP
• An OpenAI cofounder ‘vibe coded’ an analysis of the U.S. labor market’s exposure to AI, and the highest-paying jobs have the worst scores by Jason Ma

THE FRONT PAGES TODAY

WATCH: Anduril’s Palmer Luckey talks AI, nukes and Iran on “The Axios Show” – Axios

Retail investors pull billions from private capital’s credit gold mine – FT

OpenAI’s Bid to Allow X-Rated Talk Is Freaking Out Its Own Advisers – WSJ

How Trump’s Homeland Security Pick, a Prolific Investor, Got a Lot Wealthier in Congress – NYT

The best-dressed celebrities at the Oscars 2026: Teyana Taylor, Jessie Buckley, Rose Byrne and more – NY Post

ONE MORE THING

The crypto nerds have come for the oil market

Oil markets are going crazy and one crypto ecosystem has become a go-to destination for speculating on where prices are going next: A blockchain called Hyperliquid saw daily trading volume for a popular oil contract reach a high of nearly $1.7 billion, which is nearly 250 times more volume than the contract saw right before the U.S. and Israel started bombing Iran in late February. Fortune’s Ben Weiss reports.

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In March 2020, Airbnb was nearing an IPO that would cap one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched growth stories. Then global travel stopped.

Within weeks, the company’s business effectively collapsed as borders closed, flights were grounded, and consumers retreated indoors. For Ellie Mertz, now Airbnb’s CFO, it was the kind of corporate crisis that rendered the usual finance playbook almost meaningless. Scenario planning, she recalled in a wide-ranging interview on Fortune Next to Lead, broke down under uncertainty that was “orders of magnitude beyond” what any company would normally prepare for.

That moment became a defining test for Airbnb’s business model and its leadership. Like many companies in the early days of the pandemic, Airbnb faced an immediate tension: Preserve cash to survive, or support the guests and hosts who make the business possible. It chose to support its community.

At the height of the crisis, Airbnb allowed guests to cancel bookings for free, including nonrefundable stays. At the same time, it paid hosts a total of $250 million to help offset their losses from pandemic-related cancellations. It was an expensive decision for a company whose revenue had fallen off a cliff. But Mertz frames it as something larger than a financial calculation. It was a decision about what kind of brand Airbnb wanted to be after the crisis.

In the short run, the more conservative move might have been to defend cash and let market forces prevail. But brands like Airbnb do not thrive on transaction mechanics alone. Their durability is built on trust, especially in moments when customers and partners are vulnerable.

That kind of brand longevity is hard to model neatly in a spreadsheet, but it can shape a company’s trajectory for years. If Airbnb had forced guests to absorb losses on trips they could no longer take, it risked appearing opportunistic at precisely the moment when people were frightened and financially strained. If it had left hosts to shoulder the blow alone, it could have damaged the supply side of its marketplace and weakened the loyalty of the entrepreneurs who underpin the platform. By absorbing pain on both sides, Airbnb was effectively paying to protect future relevance.

That choice says a great deal about how Mertz sees the CFO role today. In many companies, finance is still viewed primarily as a control function, there to set limits, impose discipline, and say no. Mertz rejects that narrow framing. At Airbnb, she sees finance as a strategic partner, charged with protecting the business while also helping it reach its ambitions.

The pandemic made that philosophy real. Airbnb was not simply trying to survive the downturn, she says. It was trying to emerge from it with trust intact and a brand strong enough to recover faster than the industry around it. It also cemented a core lesson for Mertz: In the moments that matter most, a leader’s job is to help decide what is worth protecting beyond the numbers.

Watch the full interview here.

Ruth Umoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com

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• In today’s CEO Daily: The Bridgewater founder describes a more unstable world order in a piece for Fortune
• The big leadership story: Palantir CEO Alex Karp says, don’t worry, the DoD isn’t using AI for mass domestic surveillance
• The markets: Mildly positive across Asia as oil passes $100/barrel
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. How will AI impact Ray Dalio’s prognosis for the economy? The Bridgewater founder published a piece in Fortune this weekend, in which he argues that we are in stage 5 of what he calls the “Big Cycle.” (The global macro investor has studied the six stages of how major empires rise and fall, with stage 5 being the period prior to collapse.)

Dalio writes that “it is indisputably clear that what is happening now is more analogous to pre-1945 times than the post-1945 times that we have gotten used to, which misleads most people’s expectations and causes them to be shocked about what’s happening.”

Among the hallmarks of stage 5:

 “Large and rapidly rising government debts and geopolitical conflicts that lead to concerns about the value of and security of money, especially of the reserve currency, which drives a movement out of fiat currencies and into gold.” (Gold prices are up 70% over the past year.)

 “Large income, wealth, and values gaps within countries that lead to the rise of populism of the right and populism of the left and irreconcilable differences that can’t be resolved with compromises and rule of law.” (The income gap has increased and, well, look around.)

“The movement from a world order with a dominant power and relative peace to a world order that reflects a great powers conflict.” (Iran could be the final blow to the WTO-based world order.)

Other forces could disrupt or accelerate the Big Cycle: AI is creating a drastic shift of wealth, with the potential to destroy jobs unlike anything we’ve experienced before. Artificial general intelligence could materially change the structure of money and nature of growth while creating faster and more volatile cycles. And one other factor comes to mind, following a fascinating discussion at the Explorers Club on Friday with NYU glaciologist David Holland about the “doomsday” Thwaites glacier in Antarctica: The accelerating pace of climate change, if not addressed, could make that coveted stage 1 seem even further away.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

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After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down much of President Donald Trump’s tariff regime in February, he threatened to use other legal powers to reimpose import duties on the rest of the world. The world got the first indication of how sweeping those measures would be last week, when the U.S. opened two trade investigations on dozens of countries. Together, the two Section 301 probes—the first on “excess manufacturing capacity,” the second on not doing enough to stop the import of goods made using forced labor—cover 60 different economies, including key trading partners like China, India, Mexico and the European Union. 

On Monday, the Chinese commerce ministry condemned the investigations as “extremely ​unilateral, arbitrary ​and discriminatory, and ​a typical protectionist act”.

“The ‌U.S. has once again abused the 301 investigation process to override domestic law over international rules,” a Chinese spokesperson said. “We urge the U.S. to immediately correct its ​wrong practices, and meet China halfway.”

U.S. and Chinese officials are currently meeting in Paris to hash out the agenda for a meeting between Trump and China President Xi Jinping in early April, even as Trump said he might postpone his visit in an interview with the Financial Times, and demanded Beijing help protect ships traveling through the closed Strait of Hormuz.

Other Asian governments are slowly formulating their response to the new trade investigations.

Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said in a media statement that it would “engage the USTR” on the new Section 301 investigations, and disputed its claim that it maintained a large trade surplus with the U.S. 

Taiwan, which was listed in both probes, said it remained “confident” the investigation wouldn’t affect the terms of its U.S. trade deal, agreed last month. 

“It is the government’s abiding goal to bring labor standards in line with international norms,” Taiwan’s cabinet wrote in a press statement released Friday.

Awkwardly, South Korea’s government approved $350 billion in new U.S. investments on March 12, after the U.S. launched its probe of the country’s “excess manufacturing capacity.” The investment pledge was part of the East Asian country’s trade deal with the U.S. announced last year.

Other countries are taking a more forceful approach. On March 15, Malaysia’s minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani, called the country’s trade deal with the U.S. “null and void.”

“It is not on hold, it is no longer there,” Datuk Seri told Malaysian reporters at the New Straits Times. “If [the U.S. claims] it is due to a trade surplus, they must specify the industry involved. They cannot impose tariffs on a blanket basis.”

Who in Asia was hit by the Section 301 probes?

Asia has been hit especially hard by Trump’s sweeping trade investigations. 

The first investigation, announced on March 11, accused 16 global economies of maintaining “excess manufacturing capacity.” The majority of countries targeted are in Asia, including regional giants like Japan and China, and Southeast Asian nations like Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia.

“Asian governments are extremely interested in how this latest trade initiative unfolds,” Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation, tells Fortune. “Most Asian governments named have in place a trade agreement with the Trump administration, and will want to know how a Section 301 case determination might affect them.”

Many of the economies under scrutiny are export‑led, relying on foreign demand to sustain manufacturing and jobs. “Much of Asia has been very successful selling into the U.S.,” Elms said. “But that leads to high goods trade imbalances, especially if the domestic market is smaller or poorer than the U.S., and imports less stuff from them.”

Just one day later, the U.S. followed up with a second investigation, now covering 60 countries and accusing them of failing to ban the import of goods made with forced labor. The list spans every major region, naming Central and South American nations such as Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Venezuela, as well as U.S. allies including Canada and Israel.

“American workers and firms have been forced to compete against foreign producers who may have an artificial cost advantage gained from the scourge of forced labor,” U.S. Trade Representative ​Jamieson Greer said in a press statement. The investigations will determine whether foreign governments have taken sufficient steps to prohibit the import of goods produced with forced labor and how that could affect U.S. firms.

Section 301 allows the USTR to investigate and penalize foreign countries for “unjustifiable, unreasonable, or discriminatory” trade practices. The law has a more stringent regulatory period, which means the procedures must be open for public comment. Previous 301 investigations have taken close to a year to complete, yet Greer has stated that new tariffs could be imposed within five months.

Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump has imposed a blanket 10% tariff on U.S. imports using Section 122, which allows the president to impose tariffs without Congressional approval for up to 150 days.

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There is no question that for many Europeans, work will look different in the coming years. We’ve seen this “ripple effect” with every major technology shift, from computers to the Internet. And while research suggests that far more jobs will be introduced rather than lost, we can’t ignore that there will be disruption – we must prepare for it.

At one end of the spectrum, we know that new technologies like AI have the potential to birth industries and create millions of jobs. Twenty years ago, the concept of a professional YouTube Creator didn’t exist: today, there are upwards of 60 million around the world.

Across Europe, there are estimates that 61% of jobs will be augmented by generative AI – while up to 7% of jobs will make a long-term transition. Those roles, which will be augmented or transition, are the ones we must focus on, ensuring that AI expands, rather than automates, human potential.

In Europe, the stakes are too high to ignore. Broad AI adoption holds the potential to boost the region’s GDP by €1.2 trillion. That’s an 8% increase over the next decade. We’ve already seen promising AI stories emerging across the continent. Spanish startup Idoven is using AI to detect heart disease earlier, while Roly’s in the UK is reimagining fudge recipes and Maria Teresa Pellegrino has used AI to modernize marketing materials for her family’s 100 year old Italian olive oil businesses.

But these gains won’t come automatically. To enable more Idovens, more Roly’s, more Maria’s, Europe’s public sector, non profits, employers and universities must come together to provide European people and businesses with the AI skills they need. 

Today we’re announcing AI Works for Europe: a series of commitments, research and training to support this effort.

AI’s potential impact on entry-level jobs is a major focus area. Over the past year, we supported European social enterprise INCO and nonprofit Chance to examine how AI is reshaping early careers and to develop tailored solutions for Europe’s future workforce. In addition to drawing from comprehensive employment datasets provided by the OECD and the European Commission, INCO used AI to analyse over 31 million job postings, and interviewed over 1,500 UK and EU employers and young jobseekers. They found that nearly 25% of entry-level roles now require AI skills, and that 74% of SME employers struggle to find qualified candidates. The demand is highest in certain fields: AI-related requirements for Accounting & Finance roles have tripled since 2023 and nearly half (41%) of digital marketing and content roles now require AI proficiency at entry level.

In response and with our support, INCO and Chance have created NewFutures:AI, a set of advanced AI curriculums for final-year students: helping them build practical skills and access career support, especially in the sectors that need it most. The curriculum will be offered directly to students for free through partnerships with fifty higher education institutions across Europe.

But we can’t just focus on the future workforce – we need to to upskill current workers. 

Since 2015, we have trained over 21 million Europeans (including Brits) on digital or AI skills. These trainings work: our foundational course, Google AI Essentials, has become the most popular course on Coursera of all time, and 80% of certificate graduates in the EU report a positive career outcome within six months of completion: a new job, promotion or raise.

New research from IPSOS suggests that AI literacy —the ability to understand, evaluate, and make decisions about AI  — is vital to driving adoption. We need to move from a surface level understanding of AI to a more substantive use of AI as a collaborator. We’ve just released a new Google AI Professional Certificate focused on just that: moving people and businesses from AI foundations to fluency. The certificate is available now globally in English, and will be translated in ten European languages in the coming months.

Creating these resources alone isn’t enough, partnering with trusted community organizations is what’s going to help us drive broad and equitable access. That’s why we’re supporting local nonprofits like Talents for Tech and AI Sweden to share the certificate and wraparound resources with 50,000 workers across Europe through local trade unions and community organizations.

Significant change is coming. Together, across the public and private sector, we need to invest in people: ensuring they have the AI skills of tomorrow. Just as the internet unlocked new ways to work and build businesses, we need to empower people to innovate with AI. 

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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