Fortune

In 2019, Volkswagen committed $185 billion to transform itself into an electric-first powerhouse. Almost five years later, the carmaker now faces threats from all directions. The question in this new battle is not whether Volkswagen can survive the world’s steady shift from the combustion engine vehicles that it began making 87 years ago; its endurance seems assured. Last year it earned a whopping $348 billion in revenues and delivered 9.24 million vehicles. On the 2024 Fortune #Global500 list, the group—which comprises the Volkswagen brand, Audi, Porsche, SEAT, and several others—is the world’s biggest carmaker and Europe’s biggest company. Globally, it’s the 11th largest corporation by revenue. Read more and see the full #Global500 list here: bit.ly/4dyuzpC

Two high-level executives left OpenAI and its president temporarily stepped away in the latest leadership shakeup for a startup that has slowly shed its original team. Along with its president Greg Brockman, who said he was taking a sabbatical, OpenAI also lost cofounder John Schulman, leaving it with just three of its 11 original founders, according to TechCrunch. OpenAI’s vice president of consumer product, Peter Deng, has also departed, The Information reported. The high-level departures are the latest example of OpenAI shedding its top brass, especially after CEO Sam Altman returned to the company following his ouster by the board last November. Read more:

In 2021, Henley Vazquez noticed two trends. People were eager to travel as cities and borders opened back up, and women were still suffering the effects of the pandemic on their careers, whether they were still out of the workforce or struggling to return. Vazquez was a two-time founder in the travel industry, and she came up with a business model that would attempt to capitalize on both of those shifts. She’s now the cofounder of Fora Travel , a gig economy-style platform for travel agents. The travel industry has already been thoroughly disrupted by players like Airbnb, but Vazquez argues that there’s lots of room to grow in the travel agent space; only 2% of hotels worldwide are booked by travel agents and there’s more social media content about travel than ever. Read more here: bit.ly/3AjwakT

Falling or flatlining home values can mean different things, good or bad, depending who you are. Either way, it’s happening in the Sunbelt, the Southwestern region known for its warm climate and prosperous economic growth. But the area everyone loves to talk about could return to its former glory, if one economics research firm’s prediction comes to fruition. “House price inflation is 6% nationally, but that masks a lot of regional variation,” Capital Economics economist Thomas Ryan wrote in an analysis earlier this week. Read more: bit.ly/4cndsWV

Susan Wojcicki, the former CEO of YouTube and one of the most influential female executives in Silicon Valley, died on Friday after two years of living with lung cancer, the company announced. Wojcicki, who was 56, stepped down from CEO job at YouTube last year after more than two decades leading various parts of Google and its Alphabet parent company. “Even as I write this it feels impossible to me that it’s true,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a note to staffers on Friday that was published on the company website. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ewGJCE_F

Boeing's new CEO began by walking the floor of the factory near Seattle that has become the heart of the aerospace giant’s troubles. Robert “Kelly” Ortberg takes the helm of a money-losing company that has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud, is struggling fix its aircraft-manufacturing process, and can’t bring two astronauts home from the International Space Station because of flaws in a spacecraft it built for NASA. “I’m excited to dig in!” Ortberg told employees on his first day in the job. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eFhdsevk

Throwback to my dialogue with Clay Chandler, Fortune Executive Editor for Asia, where he posed a good and sharp question about how Singapore as a small city-state can compete in the age of AI superpowers given our limited data sets. This is indeed a valid question on many people’s minds. In response, I explained that considering the breadth and depth of activities that Singapore attracts from all around the world —and that every single one of these activities will, in turn, generate data— the data sets that reside in Singapore might not be as limited as they appear. Additionally, how we treat data is crucial. While data is often said to be the new oil of the digital age due to its value, I believe that it also differs from oil. Unlike oil, it does not deplete with usage. Instead, its value increases when it is combined with other data, thereby enhancing its potential and opening up new avenues for innovation. Therefore, in Singapore, we believe in investing in Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), which protect data when they are exchanged. We are also strongly committed to aligning with international standards for cross-border data flows. Thanks once again, Clay, for the interesting discussion, and Fortune for inviting me to your inaugural #BrainstormAI Singapore Conference. - Jo Teo P.S: The plaster on my head is from an earlier accident I had. I had knocked into a glass door, but I have mostly recovered now.

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers warned against incorporating any presidential sway over the setting of U.S. monetary policy, saying it would only end up damaging the economy over time. “Having politicians involved is a fool’s game,” Summers told Bloomberg Television. “You end up with higher inflation and a weaker economy.” Read more:

Wondering why your employee just quit? Sometimes the best recourse is looking in the mirror—that is, if you’re a manager. A lackluster supervisor is enough to push most employees out the door, according to LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence survey. On average, 69% of workers would leave their job if they had a bad manager, according to the survey of more than 6,400 U.S. employees conducted from June to July. It’s not completely shocking news, given the power that bosses have, that a bad egg might turn the whole workplace experience rotten. And the potential devastation a bad boss causes is a well-researched phenomenon, as a Gallup poll from almost a decade ago found that 50% of adults who left a job did so “to get away from their manager.” Read more:

“Our chances of an uncrewed Starliner return has increased a little bit based on where things have gone over the last week or two." NASA is working with Elon Musk’s SpaceX on plans to return two astronauts to Earth in the event that they’re unable to travel on the troubled Boeing Co. craft that initially carried them to space. NASA representatives announced the contingency plan Wednesday, saying astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams could come back to Earth around February 2025 with a two-person crew on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission. That mission is slated to launch to the International Space Station in September. Read more: bit.ly/3WDiZmh