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Welcome to Eye on AI, with AI reporter Sharon Goldman. In this edition: Microsoft CFO’s AI spending runs up against tech bubble fears…How AI helped one man (and his brother) build a $1.8 billion company…Apple escalates crackdown on vibe coding apps.

AI can now write code faster than a human can possibly type. With “vibe coding” tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex, developers are gleefully building—and shipping—at a pace that would have been unthinkable just a year ago. Even Claude Code’s creator, Boris Cherny, has boasted that the latest version was written entirely by—yes—Claude Code.

But while vibe coding may be fast, it can also introduce subtle bugs and vulnerabilities. And human error hasn’t gone away: Claude Code is now under scrutiny after its own source code was accidentally leaked this week due to a packaging mistake.

For enterprises, these kind of vulnerabilities are a nonstarter. At large companies with sprawling codebases, it’s not just about writing code faster—it’s about ensuring that code is correct, secure, and compliant with internal systems and external obligations. As AI tools begin to generate production-ready code automatically, the bottleneck is shifting from writing software to verifying it. And at enterprise scale, where millions of code changes can flow through a system each year, even small errors can quickly compound into major risks.

That got me thinking about an interview I did two years ago with Itamar Friedman, cofounder and CEO of Qodo, an AI code review tool that has just raised $70 million to tackle what he calls the growing problem of “AI slop” in codebases.

When I first spoke to Friedman in early 2024, when the company was called CodiumAI, he talked about “flow engineering”—a system where one model generates code and another critiques it, adding layers of testing and reflection. But even then, it was clear that generating code was considerably easier than making sure it is accurate and works well, and that “code integrity” was key. 

In a chat with Friedman yesterday, he argued that today’s AI coding tools, powered by LLMs, are designed to complete tasks, not to question them—making a separate “governance and trust layer” essential to determine what should (and shouldn’t) ship.

“AI is not enough when you’re talking about real-world software quality and code governance,” he said. “What you need, actually, is official wisdom.” He explained that as a developer in a big organization, creating quality code isn’t just about being smart. It’s about knowing how a specific company does things—all the tribal knowledge within the organization. 

Qodo, he explained, analyzes how developers in an organization actually write and review code—looking at pull requests, comments, and past changes—and turns that into a set of rules that define what “good” looks like for that company. Those rules are then enforced automatically, flagging new code that violates them.

In the age of AI, the challenge for enterprises is that they want to move faster, but don’t have the freedom to change their codebases unless they can be sure that code will remain trustworthy. 

“That’s the gap we’re trying to close,” said Friedman, who spent three years as a director of machine vision at Alibaba before launching what is now Qodo in 2022, just a few months before ChatGPT launched. Qodo clients, including Walmart, Nvidia, Ford and Texas Instruments, want to move fast, he explained, but they also know their systems depend on layers of accumulated knowledge and constraints. 

Today’s vibe coding landscape, he added, overestimates how much these tools can be trusted in the short term—and underestimates how much a trust layer is needed to make them viable in the real world for the long haul.

With that, here’s more AI news.

Sharon Goldman
sharon.goldman@fortune.com
@sharongoldman

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Asian investors reacted poorly to U.S. President Donald Trump’s nationwide address on Thursday. After more than a day of speculation as to what Trump might discuss, ranging from sending in ground forces to plans for a ceasefire, the president’s address instead signaled a continued conflict and energy disruptions.

Trump delivered his address right as trading had started in some Asian markets. In his 20-minute-long speech, the president said the U.S. will likely continue military operations for another two to three weeks, that he was ready to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages,” and ready to hit power plants if a deal wasn’t reached.

West Texas Intermediate crude surged past $106 per barrel; rising oil and gas prices will continue to put pressure on Asian economies that rely on imported energy.

South Korea’s KOSPI, which has swung wildly since the war began over a month ago, fell by almost 4.5%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped by 2.4%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell by around 0.7%. Taiwan’s Taiex fell by 1.8%. As of 4:30 a.m. Eastern Time, India’s Nifty 50 is down by 0.67%.

Reopening Hormuz

Trump’s messaging on Iran has constantly shifted over the past few weeks, oscillating between calls for expanded and aggressive strikes on the Middle Eastern country, to suggestions that he might be comfortable with withdrawing from the conflict and leaving Iran to hold the Strait of Hormuz.

The strait is a critical waterway for much of the Middle East’s oil and gas, bound for markets in Asia and Europe. The strait has been effectively closed since the war began.

The U.S. president has tried to lobby allies to do more to keep the strait open, to little effect. While countries like Japan, Australia, and the U.K. have criticized Iran’s decision to block the waterway, none have committed to using military force. 

Trump’s patience may have run out. In his address, he called upon countries to show some “delayed courage” in taking the strait for themselves, arguing that an “essentially decimated” Iran wouldn’t be able to provide much resistance.

“Countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage,” the president argued. “We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on.”

Iran, in the meantime, is quickly institutionalizing its control of the strait, taking the power to decide what ships are allowed to transit the waterway—and how much they should pay for the privilege to do so.

Iran first evaluates ships asking to cross the strait to ensure they have no links to Israel, the U.S., or other countries Iran deems an enemy, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. Then negotiations over the fee, paid in Chinese yuan or stablecoins, begin, with friendlier countries getting a lower fee.

The Asia energy crisis

Asia, which gets much of its oil and gas from the Middle East, is now girding for an extended energy crisis. Oil and gas shortages have pushed many Asian countries to impose export bans on refined fuel products, which have knock-on effects on other countries in the region. The Iran war is also snarling shipments of other commodities, like fertilizer, aluminum, and helium.

Southeast Asian countries are now trying to ration fuel and lower energy consumption to preserve stocks. They are also trying to turn to other ways of generating power, including reopening coal plants and setting out pathways to adopt more nuclear power and renewable energy.

On Wednesday, Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave his own national address, where he laid out how his government is trying to secure fuel supplies. Australia imports most of its fuel, and has been hit hard by shortages of refined oil products like petrol and jet fuel. The country has cut gas taxes and is trying to source fuel from other suppliers. 

“Australia is not an active participant in this war, but all Australians are paying higher prices because of it,” Albanese said. 

Airlines in the Philippines and Vietnam are suspending flights, and governments across the region have implemented four-day weeks for public officials. (Malaysia, on Thursday, ordered civil servants to work from home starting April 15.)

Several Asian governments also subsidize fuel, which is increasingly expensive as oil prices continue to climb upwards. On Tuesday, Indonesia limited the amount of subsidized petrol people could buy. Fuel subsidies threaten to blow a hole in Jakarta’s already strained budget. The government is considering rolling back social programs like its free-meals scheme, a core plank of President Prabowo Subianto’s political agenda. 

Another hard-hit country is South Korea, which relies heavily on imported oil and liquefied natural gas. The country is considering curbs on driving for the first time since 1991 if oil prices continue to rise, and officials are pushing for an additional $17.3 billion in government spending to bolster the economy. 

“The current crisis is not a passing shower that quickly subsides, but rather a massive storm whose duration is uncertain, making it all the more severe,” South Korea president Lee Jae Myung told lawmakers on Thursday.

“If we save every drop of fuel, avoid wasting even a single plastic bag … we can emerge from the tunnel of crisis safely and swiftly.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Between client calls, meetings, and assignments, it may feel as if every minute of our working week is squeezed to the max. But as it turns out, we are all just procrastinators. 

That’s according to research which shows that workers can get as much done in a 33-hour week as in 38 hours. 

The 2023 report from nonprofit advocacy group 4 Day Week Global—which is the largest of its kind and the first to examine the long-term effects of the four-day week—found that the longer people worked a four-day week, the shorter their work weeks became without output or productivity taking a hit.

Workers could shave 5 hours off their workweek

Up until now, most studies have examined the short-term effects of working a shorter week. 

For example, Britain completed the world’s largest trial of the four-day week, enlisted more than 60 companies and just fewer than 3,000 workers to feedback on the “100:80:100” working model: 100% pay for 80% of the time, in exchange for 100% productivity. 

The results were a 65% reduction in the number of sick days, maintained or improved productivity at most businesses, and a 57% decline in the likelihood that an employee would quit, dramatically improving job retention. But the pilot was just for six months.

The 4 Day Week Global report examined workers in the U.S., Canada, Britain, and Ireland over an 18-month period. After just six months of working a four-day week, burnout, general health, and job satisfaction improved.

Workers were given a paid day off a week but the same workload to see whether they could get as much done working more effectively—and the study confirmed they could.

Not only that, but unlike previous studies of its kind, the report also highlighted workers could cut their average work time by about four hours, to 34 hours a week, in that time.

This is because workers cut out inefficiencies that a more lengthy workweek allowed, like meetings, to dedicate more time to uninterrupted focus work: Essentially, those of us on a five-day week are filling up our days with time-wasting activities. 

Meanwhile, those who continued with the schedule for a year shaved a further hour off their workweek and, as such, reported better work-life balance and a further uplift in their mental and physical health.

Plus it’s not only employees who gained from a shorter week; the four-day week was also an organizational win: Revenue increased by 15% over the course of the trial, weighted in accordance with company size. 

It’s probably why no organization expressed a desire to return to five days post-trial and 89% of workers also wanted to stay with the new four-day plan.

The cons of moving to a four-day week

In theory, shifting to a four-day week looks like a no-brainer for businesses. But in reality, experts previously warned Fortune it’s a logistical nightmare that could make some staff members miserable. 

Charlotte Morriss, a associate director at ESP Solicitors, explained: “Businesses can’t simply change a person’s contractual terms unilaterally.” Before making any permanent changes, there will be an abundance of contractual changes that must be made with employee buy-in, such as what happens with part-time workers who already work a short week, which day workers will be “off,” and how holiday pay is calculated.

What’s more, although for the most part employees reported an increase in their well-being and work-life balance, for a small minority of employees this was not the case. 

“Just like any change, it will suit some and alienate others, and the reality may be that the structure doesn’t suit every employee or business model,” Pierre Lindmark, founder and CEO at management consultancy Winningtemp, told Fortune. “The truth is that the four-day working week isn’t for everyone.”

He warned that “one less day at work could lead to increased anxiety and isolation as the result of having the same amount of work to do, but less time to get it done.”

A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on July 27, 2023.

Read more about the evolving work-week from Fortune‘s Orianna Rosa Royle:

• ‘America’s Got Talent’ creator Simon Cowell has given up working on Fridays because ‘it’s pointless’—and research shows he’s right
• Working hard at the beginning of the week to ease into a ‘quiet weekend’ can help fight burnout, expert says
• Leaders are facing mounting pressure to consider a 4-day work week—are ‘summer hours’ an attractive alternative?
• Forget the four-day workweek: Despite what Bill Gates and Elon Musk predict, the CEO of the world’s largest workspace provider says it’s not happening
• COVID gave us hybrid work. The Iran war might give us a four-day week—and this time, experts say it could stick

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

After two years of tweaks to its value menu, McDonald’s has a new strategy: keep it simple.

The fast-food giant’s budget-focused McValue menu will have 10 items that each cost under $3 starting April 21. The breakfast items include hash browns or a Sausage McMuffin. A small order of fries or a McDouble burger are among the options the rest of the day.

Some of the items already cost less than $3 in some parts of the U.S., but others don’t. The standardized selection will replace McDonald’s current McValue menu, which lets customers choose from a limited array of $1 items if they purchase a regular-priced item.

The shift to simpler value menu messaging and more flexibility follows similar by moves by rivals of McDonald’s. In January, Taco Bell launched a Luxe Value Menu, which also features 10 items that cost $3 or less. Panera Bread introduced its first value menu in February, with 10 items priced at $4.99 each.

Wendy’s revamped its Biggie Deals value menu in January. It now features $4 Biggie Bites, a $6 Biggie Bag and an $8 Biggie Bundle. KFC recently added $5 bowls to its U.S. menu.

Value menus are designed to offer customers more affordable options, even as fast-food companies also bring out higher-priced items like McDonald’s Big Arch burger or Burger King’s limited-time Peppercorn BLT Whopper.

Chains have emphasized value for several years to win back customers who were frustrated by food price inflation. Historically, prices for food away from home rise 3.5% per year, but in 2023 they rose 7%, in 2024 they rose 4% and in 2025 they rose 3.8%, according to government figures.

“In all retail, including quick-serve restaurants, ‘value’ has become a promotional expectation,” said Roger Beahm, an emeritus professor of marketing at Wake Forest University’s School of Business.

In June 2024, McDonald’s introduced a $5 Meal Deal; it will add a $4 Breakfast Meal Deal on April 21. It debuted the McValue menu in January 2025, and last fall it brought out Extra Value Meals, which promise a 15% discount for a bundled meal compared to buying items individually.

“Value matters more than ever to our customers, and we take that responsibility seriously,” Alyssa Buetikofer, the chief marketing and customer experience officer for McDonald’s USA, told The Associated Press.

Buetikofer said McDonald’s has improved customers’ perceptions of value and affordability since 2024. But the company decided to revamp its McValue menu after customers said they wanted more flexibility and better value in the morning. Half of the items on the under-$3 menu are breakfast items.

Scott Rodrick, a McDonald’s franchisee in California, praised the new strategy. He thinks ordering will go more smoothly because customers will have fewer questions about the deals.

“The value proposition is super clear — no deep explanation or mental gymnastics needed to understand where value is on my menu board,” Rodrick said.

Rodrick said the changes received broad support from franchisees and most U.S. stores will be offering them. Around 95% of McDonald’s U.S. stores are owned and operated by franchisees, who set their own pricing.

Fast food’s juggling act – investing in value through promotions and discounts while raising prices on some premium items – appears to be paying off, according to Revenue Management Solutions, a restaurant consulting company. In February, customer traffic at U.S. fast-food restaurants rose less than 1% compared to the same month year. Traffic was down 2% during the last three months of 2025 and in January.

But the company warned that higher gas prices due to the Iran war likely impacted fast-food traffic in March. That could put pressure on fast-food chains to offer even more value.

The term “value” is at risk of overuse, Beahm said. Over time, the surprise-and-delight of a deal loses its appeal, and customers forget what they used to pay for certain products, he said.

“If everything is always positioned as a value, then can anything really be a value?” Beahm said.

He thinks new products are a good strategy for attracting customers. Improving service or offering unexpected perks – like a donation to a charity with every purchase – are other ways.

Jennifer Fritch, an assistant professor of marketing at Arcadia University, agreed. The fast-food market is crowded, she said, and focusing solely on price turns food into a commodity. Younger customers, in particular, are looking for emotional experiences, personalization and transparency about ingredients, and are willing to pay more when they find them, she said.

“If it’s just cheap food, that’s not a winning long-term strategy,” Fritch said. “The list of demands and list of expectations is higher than it has ever been, and it’s insufficient to try to gain sales just on cost.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Elon Musk’s space exploration company has filed preliminary paperwork to sell shares to the public, according to two sources familiar with the filing, a blockbuster offering that would likely rank as the biggest ever and could make its founder the world’s first trillionaire.

A SpaceX IPO promises to be one of the biggest Wall Street events of the year, with several investment banks lining up to help raise tens of billions to fund Musk’s ambitions to set up a base on the moon, put datacenters the size of several football fields in orbit and possibly one day send a man to Mars.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the confidential registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SpaceX did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Exactly how much SpaceX plans to raise has not been disclosed but the figure is reportedly as much as $75 billion. At that level, the offering would easily eclipse the $29 billion that Saudi Aramco raised in its IPO in 2019.

The offering, coming possibly in June, could value all the shares of SpaceX at $1.5 trillion, nearly double what the company was valued in December when some minority owners sold their stakes, according to research firm Pitchbook, before an acquisition that increased its size.

Musk owns 42% of the SpaceX now, according to Pitchbook, though that figure will change with the IPO when new owners are issued shares. In any case, he is likely to pierce the trillion dollar mark because he is already close. Forbes magazine estimates Musk’s net worth at roughly $823 billion.

In addition to making reusable rockets to hurl astronauts and hardware into orbit, SpaceX owns Starlink, the world’s largest satellite communications company. The company also recently brought under its roof two other Musk businesses, social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and artificial intelligence business, xAI, in a controversial transaction because both the seller and the buyer were controlled by him.

SpaceX has become the biggest commercial launch company in its industry, responsible for sending payloads into orbit for customers across the globe, but has also benefited from big taxpayer spending. That has raised conflicts of interest issues given that Musk was the biggest donor to President Donald Trump’s campaign and is still a big backer.

In the past five years, SpaceX won $6 billion in contracts from NASA, the Defense Department and other U.S. government agencies, according to USAspending.gov.

Among current SpaceX owners is Donald Trump Jr, the president’s oldest son. He owns a shares through 1789 Capital. That venture capital firm made him a partner shortly after his father won the presidency for a second time and has been buying up federal contractors seeking to win taxpayer money ever since.

The White House and Trump himself have repeatedly denied there are any conflicts of interest between his role as president and his family’s businesses.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Britain accused Iran on Thursday of holding the world’s economy hostage as diplomats from more than 40 countries held talks on ways to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route that has been choked off by the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.

The U.S. is not attending the virtual meeting, which comes after President Donald Trump made clear that he thinks securing the waterway, closed as a consequence of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, is not America’s job. Trump has also disparaged America’s European allies for failing to support the war and renewed his threats to pull the U.S. out of NATO.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the talks, which focus on political and diplomatic rather than military means, showed “the strength of our international determination” to reopen the strait.

“We have seen Iran hijack an international shipping route to hold the global economy hostage,” she said at the start of the meeting. Cooper said “unsustainable” spikes in oil and food prices were “hitting households and businesses in every corner of the world.”

Shipping in the strait has slowed to a trickle

Iranian attacks on commercial ships, and the threat of more, have halted nearly all traffic in the waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the rest of the globe’s oceans, shutting a critical path for the world’s flow of oil and sending petroleum prices soaring.

There have been 23 direct attacks on commercial vessels in the Gulf since the war began on Feb. 28, and 11 crew members have been killed, according to shipping data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

Traffic through the strait has slowed to a trickle, with what remains dominated by sanctions-evading tankers carrying Iranian oil, Lloyd’s List Intelligence said in a briefing Thursday. It said a murky operation under which Iran vets who can pass continues to operate as Tehran maintains its chokehold over the key waterway.

In a televised address on Wednesday night, Trump said countries that depend on oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz “must grab it and cherish it” — because the U.S. would not.

No country appears willing to try and open the strait by force while fighting rages and Iran can target vessels with anti-ship missiles, drones, attack craft and mines.

French President Emmanuel Macron said opening the strait by force is “unrealistic.”

The reopening of the strait “can only be done in coordination with Iran,” through negotiations that would follow a potential ceasefire, Macron told reporters Thursday during a visit to South Korea.

France is pushing for an international mission involving European and non-European nations to escort oil and gas tankers through the waterway after the most intense phase of the conflict is over. The British government said military planners from an unspecified number of countries will meet next week to plot ways to ensure security once the fighting ends, including potential mine-clearing work and “reassurance” for commercial shipping.

In the meantime, more than three dozen countries including the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and the United Arab Emirates have signed a statement demanding Iran stop its attempts to block the strait and pledging to “contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage” through the waterway.

Cooper said the 40-plus countries at the meeting — up from the 35 announced Wednesday — discussed “diplomatic and international planning measures” to ensure the strait can reopen safely, and action to guarantee the safety of 20,000 seafarers on 2,000 ships trapped by the conflict.

The meeting sends a message to Trump

The international effort idea has echoes of the international “coalition of the willing” that has been assembled, led by the U.K. and France, to underpin Ukraine’s security after a future ceasefire in that war. That coalition is, in part, an attempt to demonstrate to the Trump administration that Europe is stepping up to do more for its own security.

The urgency of stronger continental defenses has been reinforced by Trump’s renewed suggestion that the U.S. could leave NATO. He said Wednesday that the military alliance had “treated us very badly.”

David B. Roberts, reader in Middle East Security Studies at King’s College London, said international coalition-building efforts over Hormuz are “definitely linked to the wider Trumpian antagonism toward NATO, that other members of NATO are not pulling their weight.

“Without a doubt, this is Britain and France, notably, trying to lead the way, to very visibly show a certain sort of utility” to the Trump administration.

“There’s also the very pragmatic reality that America is an oil exporter,” he added. “The immediate pressures about the fallout of the of the energy blockage in the Gulf, they fall on Europe and of course Asia, far more than America.”

———

Associated Press writers David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

In late March, I received a troubling message from Fortune’s IT administrator. “There is a process that’s exposing a vulnerability,” he wrote, telling me that someone may be prowling around my computer. “I need to kill it.” I panicked. A file I had downloaded at 11:04 a.m. had the capacity to monitor my keyboard strokes, record my computer screen, see my passwords, and access my apps, according to logs later reviewed by Fortune’s IT department.

After shutting down my laptop, I rushed out of my Brooklyn apartment and ran to the nearest subway station. While waiting for the train to Fortune’s office, where I planned to wipe the laptop with IT’s help, I texted my editor: “I think I may have been phished by the DPRK lol.”

I had reported on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and knew the country liked to target American investors. But I would have never thought its notorious hackers would come after me—and teach me a first-hand lesson about the depths of their deceptions. 

‘Scam vibes’

The Hermit Kingdom has been tormenting the crypto industry for years. Cut off from the global financial system by sanctions, the country has resorted to state-sponsored crypto theft to help pay its bills. In 2025 alone, hackers tied to the North Korean army accumulated $2 billion in stolen crypto, about 50% more than the year prior, according to data from the crypto analytics firm Chainalysis.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has developed tried-and-true strategies to trick its victims. These include convincing companies to hire them as IT workers—and the techniques used to trick me.

The North Koreans laid their trap in mid-March. The bait came in the form of a message from a  hedge fund investor sent over Telegram, the crypto industry’s messaging app of choice. The investor, whom I’m not naming because he was an anonymous source for stories I had written, asked if I wanted to meet someone named Adam Swick, who had been the chief strategy officer at the Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings.

I replied sure—my source was historically friendly and helpful—and I was put into a group chat. My source said Swick was exploring the creation of a new digital asset treasury and “had a potential large seed investor.” 

The venture seemed dubious. Still, I was willing to at least listen to what Swick had to say. On Telegram, he asked me to book a call with him, and one week later, my hedge fund source sent me what appeared to be a Zoom link. I clicked on it.

The program that launched looked like the Zoom I use every day, though something about the design seemed slightly off and the audio didn’t work. I was prompted me to update the software to fix the sound issue, and, at same time, Swick wrote to me: “Looks like Zoom is acting up on your end.” I clicked to download the update.

My adrenaline kicked in when I saw the link in my browser wasn’t the same as the one sent to me in Telegram, and I asked to move the meeting to Google Meet, another videoconferencing service. “This is giving me scam vibes,” I wrote to Swick and my source, the hedge fund investor.

Swick persisted. “No worry. I just tried it on my PC.”

I didn’t try running the script on my MacBook and decided to flee the Zoom meeting. “If you want to talk to me, let’s do it over Google Meet,” I wrote over Telegram. My source promptly kicked me out of the group chat.

Viral hacks

As I was rushing out of my apartment to visit IT, I messaged Taylor Monahan, a veteran security researcher. She’s a member of SEAL 911, a group of volunteers who help victims targeted in crypto hacks. I sent her the script I had downloaded and the videoconferencing link I had received.

“That’s DPRK,” she messaged me back moments later.

If I had run the script, hackers would have stolen my passwords, my Telegram account, and any crypto I owned. (I, luckily, only own negligible amounts of Bitcoin and a few other cryptocurrencies.)

The nature of hacks means that it’s rare to be 100% sure of who’s behind them, but, in the case of my near-miss, Monahan told me the link, the script, and even the fake account associated with Adam Swick all pointed to North Korea. Investigators use a combination of evidence, including blockchain analysis, to tie incidents to the Democratic People’s Republic. Two other security researchers who track North Korean hackers later backed up her assessment when I sent them the script and videoconferencing link.

“Tell him Tay says hi lol,” Monahan said, referring to the North Korean who came after me.

Monahan and other security researchers have responded to hundreds of cases in the crypto industry involving fake videoconference calls. The scheme is formulaic but effective. 

Hackers take control of a real person’s Telegram account and then reach out to their contacts. Those contacts are asked to log onto a video call, where, invariably, the audio doesn’t work. The victims are asked to run an update to fix the sound problem. When they run the script, the hackers gain access to the victims’ crypto, passwords—and Telegram account. In fact, the same group of North Koreans that targeted me were behind a hack designed to exploit software developers writ large, Google said in a report published Wednesday.

I’m no Lamborghini-driving Bitcoin investor, but North Korea doesn’t just target the wealthy, Monahan told me. She’s seen hackers go after an increasing number of crypto journalists, likely because their Telegram accounts have a substantial Rolodex. Some of these contacts are, in all probability, rolling in crypto riches.

Like a virus that hijacks healthy cells, the hackers corrupt these newly compromised accounts and target the users’ contacts. That’s how I was almost infected. I was lulled into a sense of safety because I thought I was talking to someone I knew.

‘Fake me’

After I wiped my laptop, changed my passwords, and thanked Fortune’s IT administrator profusely, I eventually called my source on his cellphone. Unsurprisingly, his Telegram account had been hacked in early March. “I had a lot of contacts on Telegram that I didn’t have stored on my phone or my computer,” he said. “But to me, even more than that, you feel violated knowing someone out there [is] impersonating you, basically using your name to con people.”

And, although he reached out to Telegram multiple times for help over three weeks, he hadn’t received a response. (“While Telegram does everything it can to protect its accounts, it is not possible for any platform to protect users who are tricked into providing their login details to bad actors,” a spokesperson told me in a statement, adding that the app froze the hedge fund investor’s account after I had reached out.)

I also called the real Swick. Hackers had been impersonating him over Telegram since early February, and the former MARA Holdings executive received scores of texts and calls asking him why he wanted to set up meetings. He was always apologetic. “But a few of them have called me out, ‘Dude, what are you apologizing for?’” Swick said. “And I’m like, ‘I don’t know. I’m apologizing for fake me, I guess. I’m so sorry this happened.’”

Swick didn’t know why hackers were impersonating him, and my source, the hedge fund investor, didn’t know how his Telegram account was compromised. But, at the end of our phone call, the investor and I stumbled upon the potential answer. 

A fake Swick was one of the last people that the investor had spoken with before his Telegram account was hacked. “I hopped on a Zoom with him and his audio wouldn’t connect,” said my source. “I vaguely remember trying to download something.”

In other words, my source was likely targeted by the same hackers who went after me. After he and I realized that his laptop was potentially corrupted, the hedge fund investor hung up and wiped his computer. 

I reached out to the fake Adam Swick on Telegram. “Is this account controlled by someone affiliated with the DPRK?” I wrote. 

I still haven’t received a response.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The AI era has undeniably arrived, and every company must become a digital company in some capacity. The new wave of workplace technology is reshaping how jobs are designed, how people are hired and trained, and how performance is measured.

Yet what stands out in today’s 100 Best Companies to Work For isn’t just who’s using AI most or best: It’s who is rebuilding the social contract at work so people feel supported, trusted, and future-ready as the AI transition gathers pace. Now in its 29th year, the ranking is a barometer of how employees are feeling—and the pressure on companies to get that transition right is palpable.

For this year’s ranking, our partner Great Place to Work gathered confidential survey responses from over 640,000 employees at companies eligible for the list (with 1,000 or more U.S. staff) and ranked employers based on workers’ experiences.

Against the backdrop of the AI revolution, three themes stand out among these top employers: They are listening more closely than their peers. They are investing heavily in AI-ready careers. And even as work becomes more digital and always-on, they are doubling down on analog perks: enabling employees to spend more time with and care for the people they love most.

Listening-led cultures

At many companies, 2025 felt like the year of the top-down mandate, especially around return-to-office rules. But inside the companies that employees rated most highly, change doesn’t start with a memo from the CEO. It starts with asking people what they need—and adjusting accordingly.

At global hotel giant Hilton (No. 2), chief human resources officer Laura Fuentes says the company’s people-first culture begins with designing policies and benefits “hand in hand with our team members, not just for them.” In response to workers’ feedback, Hilton recently expanded digital tipping across all of its nonunion U.S. hotels.

Meanwhile, Hilton’s new Crisis Concierge—which provides workers with a single point of contact for logistical support after the death of a loved one or team member—was directly inspired by a conversation one team member had with the CHRO. So it’s perhaps no wonder that 93% of Hilton’s U.S. team members agreed that management is approachable and easy to talk to.

Supermarket chain Wegmans (No. 5) similarly invites its workforce to help write the rules with its long-running Ask Bob channel. Frontline employees can send suggestions or ideas straight to Bob Farr, senior vice president of store operations. The strongest proposals are put into action, and the employees who came up with them are recognized, creating a constant loop of innovation and inclusion.

At Synchrony Financial (No. 1), the largest U.S. provider of retailer-branded credit cards, listening is baked into the company’s motto: “To be the best, you need to lead for all. And to do that, you need to listen to all.” To put that language into practice, the financial services firm runs Ask Us Anything sessions with senior leaders; monthly leadership roundtables; and regular pulse surveys that feed straight into decisions on workplace flexibility, benefits, and career development.

“If people tell us something isn’t working, we move on it fast—and they can see that we moved,” explains Brian Doubles, Synchrony’s president and CEO. “That cycle of feedback and action is what keeps trust high.”

After 85% of employees expressed a desire for remote-work options, Synchrony launched a hybrid model that includes programs like Flexible Fridays, where staff are encouraged to avoid meetings and take off early, and Flexi Company Holidays. Today, 93% of Synchrony’s 10,000-plus workforce say they are encouraged to balance their work and personal lives. And Doubles says net earnings (at $3.6 billion in 2025) have more than doubled since the changes were made. “Listening is only meaningful if it leads to action,” he adds.

Zoom out across the 100 Best Companies to Work For and you see the same pattern. Only four of the top 100 offer no option to work remotely, while the majority avoid one-size-fits-all rules about in-office days in favor of team-level approaches.

Building AI-ready careers

AI is redefining the idea of “hybrid” work: Increasingly, it will mean pairing humans with AI agents—with these digital “co-workers” handling tasks, surfacing insights, and freeing up people to focus on what they do best. The companies on this year’s list aren’t waiting for that future to arrive: They are building for it now.

“AI is a once-in-a-generation turning point—a foundational shift closer to the internet or electricity than to other technology waves,” says Doug Beaudoin, chief people officer at consultancy Deloitte U.S. (No. 24). Meeting the moment means not just bolting new tools to current systems, he says, but “reimagining how work is performed” altogether.

Deloitte is making a $1.4 billion investment into upskilling its people—on the assumption that everyone, not just tech specialists, will need a baseline of digital fluency. Already, employees have taken more than 200,000 courses across AI, cloud, cyber, data, and software engineering through Deloitte’s Technology Academy. Meanwhile, its new Deloitte Certified credential will help people prove their new digital skills to future hiring managers. “Technology is an amplifier of human talent, not a replacement for it,” Beaudoin says.

Other companies on the list are similarly moving to make AI feel less like a threat and more like a helpful partner. Delta Air Lines (No. 9) has introduced AI coach Nadia—an always-on digital coach that helps employees set goals, prepare for performance conversations, and think through career moves. It sits alongside the airline’s talent hub, where workers can map out the skills they’ll need to win potential future roles.

Cisco (No. 3) is pushing AI adoption with its Teaming With AI program, which encourages employees across the business to experiment with generative tools in their day-to-day work—drafting documents, summarizing meetings—backed by training that stresses ethical use and critical thinking. The message: AI is something every employee, regardless of their role, can learn to work alongside.

At EY (No. 30), AI evolution is happening at every level of seniority, says Ginnie Carlier, EY Americas chief talent and culture officer. While other firms have trimmed entry-level hiring as AI takes over the admin tasks normally palmed off to younger workers, EY is actively investing in early-career talent.

It just launched a new assessment tool for such candidates that looks past traditional credentials in favor of skills, “things like critical thinking, collaboration, and curiosity,” Carlier explains. The tool helps EY spot high-potential hires from nontraditional talent pools and personalize their career paths. Once inside EY, a companywide platform lets people apply to projects across the business, helping match the right people to the right work.

That learning by doing continues in programs like FutureHack, an immersive hackathon-style event where EY professionals team up to tackle AI transformation challenges. And an AI Adoption Network lets frontline workers feed ideas (and concerns) back into the firm’s AI strategy. “We’re equipping our people not just to respond to change, but to lead through it,” Carlier says.

Designing better benefits

The idea of worker “well-being” has moved beyond yoga mats and free snacks to include serious financial, medical, and emotional safety nets that empower workers to make the most of their time outside work. Think parental leave that runs into double-digit weeks on full pay; unlimited IVF cycles when medically necessary; surrogacy and adoption reimbursements; free virtual therapy and on-demand mental health support.

Add backup childcare, sabbaticals, menopause and neurodiversity programs, and cancer support, and you start to see a pattern: As work increasingly requires employees to be constantly plugged in, the perks are getting more human.

At American Express (No. 4) in the U.S., this includes 20-plus weeks of fully paid parental leave for all parents—whether they’re welcoming a child through pregnancy, adoption, or surrogacy—as well as up to $35,000 in reimbursements per child, twice. Workers and their families have access to free counseling and coaching. Many offices have on-site wellness centers staffed with doctors and nurses. And employees can work from anywhere for up to four weeks annually—on top of existing hybrid arrangements.

Support isn’t just a nice-to-have. Monique Herena, chief colleague experience officer at Amex, says supported workers are “able to be and deliver their best … and that ultimately strengthens our teams, our customer experience, and our long-term performance.”

At EY, staff can access $1,000 a year in reimbursements for “activities, experiences, and products that promote health and happiness”; $500 for commuting and pet-sitting costs to cover team get-togethers; and a $2,000 backup-care allowance for when usual arrangements fall through.

Recognizing that it’s nearly impossible to keep work and life in separate boxes, restaurant chain the Cheesecake Factory (No. 25) leans into the blur—inviting family life into the workplace and celebrating it.

Last year, it rolled out its Moments That Matter training, so that every manager can honor their staff with personalized gifts to acknowledge life or work milestones. The benefits team emphasizes sending care packages: “That might mean a note of encouragement for someone caring for an ill family member, or a stuffed animal sent to a staff member expecting a baby,” explains chief people officer Dina Barmasse-Gray.

And at a company that began as a collaboration between founder David Overton and his parents, Bring Your Kids to Work Day and Bring Your Parents to Work Day are serious business. Different departments volunteer to host 20-minute activity rotations for the kids, ranging from cupcake decorating and pizzamaking to games and contests.

In an era dominated by algorithms and AI agents, it’s a reminder that the workplaces people rate most highly are built on something old-fashioned: showing up for the humans behind the job titles.

Additional reporting by Jake Angelo, Tristan Bove, Preston Fore, Jacqueline Munis, Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, Sasha Rogelberg, Eva Roytburg

This article appears in the April/May 2026 issue of Fortune.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

In Atlanta, loyalty often runs deep—particularly to the city’s two hometown giants: Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines.

So it might come as a surprise that Ed Bastian, who has spent nearly a decade leading Delta, credits an Atlanta rival—PepsiCo—for making him the executive he is today. On the latest episode of Fortune’s Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast, Bastian opened up about how the food and beverage conglomerate didn’t just shape his own rise to the C-suite, but it has quietly done the same for a generation of business leaders.

“[At PepsiCo], you’re surrounded by great talent. They understood that talent is going to win in the marketplace,” Bastian told Fortune’s Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell. “They were constantly recruiting, bringing talent. It’s one of the only places I’ve ever been to where they tell you when you start, you’re probably not going to retire here because it’s a talent factory.”

And he isn’t exaggerating: PepsiCo has long been known as a breeding ground for top executives. A December 2022 analysis found at least a dozen Fortune 500 CEOs had passed through its ranks, including McDonald’s Chris Kempczinski and Land O’Lakes Beth Ford. 

PepsiCo’s approach to grooming leaders was shaped in large part by Bob Eichinger, an industrial organizational psychologist who spent nearly a decade at the company starting in the late 1970s. Eichinger adapted psychometric testing to assess executive behavior and effectiveness, helping cement PepsiCo’s reputation as what Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld famously called an “academy company.”

Central to PepsiCo’s system is its identification of “hi-pos”—the top 20% of performers at any given time—who are funneled into stretch assignments, international rotations, and cross-functional roles designed to prevent them from getting too comfortable in any one silo. The company’s HR team actively moves rising talent across divisions, even over the objections of their current managers, on the theory that future leaders need broad operational fluency rather than narrow expertise.

The expectation that you could move on, Bastian said, is baked into the culture from day one: “You learn what you can, you grow, and some people stay, but many people take what they have, and they go test their wares in another industry.”

For Bastian, that next move came naturally. As someone who had logged countless hours in the sky working with PepsiCo’s international finance team, the path to aviation wasn’t a leap so much as a landing.

“Someone told me at one point I should consider working for an airline because I’m on a plane all the time,” he said. “And I said that kind of made sense.”

And it made sense for Delta, too. Bastian joined Delta in 1998 as a vice president of finance and was named CFO by 2005. A decade later, in 2015, Bastian landed the CEO role and has since helped the airline achieve industry dominance—boasting top-tier on-time performance, a market value north of $40 billion, and a reputation as the most profitable U.S. carrier.

Ed Bastian skipped an MBA to learn leadership at PepsiCo—and it paid off

Raised in upstate New York, Bastian graduated from St. Bonaventure University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1979 and soon began his career as an auditor at Price Waterhouse (now PwC). While a graduate degree had been a logical early career step, he said it simply wasn’t feasible.

“I went right to work, I didn’t have the money or the patience to get any post-graduate education,” he said.

But as his ambition grew, so did his awareness of his talent gaps. So when PepsiCo came calling, he recognized what it was: a rare chance to get a world-class business education without the tuition bill.

It proved to be the inflection point of his career. But beyond the skills he sharpened—like prioritizing customers and smart decision-making—Bastian said the deeper lesson was about the kind of leader he wanted to become—one who never forgets how he got there.

“My best advice is to make certain that you’re taking care of the people that got you there,” he told Fortune.

That humility, the 68-year-old argued, is what separates good leaders from great ones. Many CEOs, including himself, never set out to reach the top job. Instead, they let drive and confidence be tempered by something quieter.

“We talk about in leadership, the importance of confidence and drive and energy and vision,” Bastian added. “[But], there’s also a really important attribute, and that’s humility with the willingness to actually listen more than you talk, to be able to make certain that you have an appreciation for what people do, to relate to the people.”

Bastian has embodied that behavior in part through Delta’s annual profit-sharing. This past February, the company paid out $1.3 billion to its over 100,000 employees, averaging out to more than four weeks of extra pay.

In an era increasingly defined by technology and speed, Bastian believes human instincts matter more than ever.

“Understand what leadership is about—it’s about people, it’s about leading people,” Bastian said. “And that will get you further than anything you could ever do.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com