Financial Mindset

Adobe is searching for a new chief executive after CEO Shantanu Narayen said Thursday that he plans to step down after 18 years in the role. Narayen announced that he will step down once a successor is appointed. He will remain chair of the board. “Over the coming months, I will be working with Frank Calderoni, our lead director, and the board of directors to identify my successor and to ensure a smooth transition,” Narayen said in a memo to employees. On Thursday after the bell, Adobe reported financial results for its first quarter of fiscal year 2026, which ended Feb. 27. Earnings per share (EPS) came in at $6.06, beating analysts’ estimate of $5.87 per share. Revenue hit $6.4 billion, topping analysts’ expectations of $6.28 billion, while sales increased 12.1% year over year. Annualized revenue from AI-first products more than tripled year over year, Narayen said in a statement accompanying the earnings release. “Our mission to empower everyone to create represents an even la...

If it seems like your electricity bill is higher than it’s ever been, you’re probably right.  Americans’ electricity costs rose by 30% between 2021 and 2025 and show no signs of going down. And with the war in Iran threatening the global oil supply , and data centers pushing up energy demands and prices, the cost of energy is almost guaranteed to increase even more. In an unlikely collaboration, Google and Tesla are paying attention to Americans’ unease and sentiment. The two companies announced on Tuesday they are partnering to lower electricity costs and improve the efficiency of the electrical grid. The two Silicon Valley giants are joining HVAC powerhouse Carrier, data center builder Verrus, electrical panel startup Span, and energy distributors Renew Home and Sparkfund, to form a coalition called Utilize.    “The time for greater grid utilization is NOW ,” the coalition’s website reads, adding that the power grid needs to be “bigger and smarter at the sam...

Oro Labs , a Silicon Valley startup that uses artificial intelligence to automate companies’  procurement processes, has raised $100 million in new venture capital funding.  The fundraise, which is the company’s Series C round, is being led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity and Brighton Park Capital. Existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, B Capital, XYZ Capital, and Felicis are also participating. As part of the deal, Clare Greenan, a vice president at Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, and Mike Gregoire, partner at Brighton Park Capital, will join Oro’s board of directors. Oro declined to disclose its valuation following the new fundraise. The new capital raise brings the total amount of money the startup has raised to date to $160 million. The five-year old startup has built what it calls a “procurement orchestration platform”—a layer of AI-powered software that sits on top of a company’s existing enterprise resource planning and procurement systems. Rather than replacing t...

Closed schools. Work-from-home demands. Price caps. Asia’s governments are scrambling to manage a fuel shortage caused by high oil prices and a closed Strait of Hormuz. Asia is particularly dependent on oil exports from the Middle East; Japan and South Korea respectively source 90% and 70% of their oil from the region. The energy crunch is forcing governments to adopt more extreme measures to save fuel. On March 10, Thailand ordered civil servants to take the stairs rather than the elevator, and to work-from-home for the duration of the crisis. It increased the air-conditioning temperature to 27 degrees Celsius, and will tell government employees to wear short-sleeved shirts over suits. (Thailand has about 95 days of energy reserves left, according to Reuters ). Vietnam also called on businesses to let people work-from-home to “reduce the need for travel and transportation.” The Philippines is pushing for a four-day work week , and has ordered officials to limit travel “to esse...

This morning, three vessels were struck attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz . The Strait is effectively closed . Since the beginning of the conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, oil tanker traffic through the world’s most critical oil shipping choke point has collapsed, dropping by more than 90% . Iran has threatened to destroy any ships, including oil tankers , that pass through the strait from the oil depots of the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and the rest of the world. Companies that insure ships against the risks of traveling in war zones are deciding whether to issue coverage on an individual-ship basis. The international body that sets many shipping regulations has told ships’ crews that they have the right to refuse to sail into the area. As of March 6, more than 400 tankers were stranded in the Persian Gulf , without permission from their owners to move. But some vessels are still transiting the strait. Most of the ships still mo...

Oracle called the third quarter of fiscal 2026 its best in 15 years with revenue up 22% to $17.2 billion and cloud infrastructure up 84% to $4.9 billion. The market rejoiced, sending the stock up nearly 10% in after-hours trading on Tuesday. Despite the market’s ebullience, the enterprise software giant is blowing through cash at a steadily rising pace. Just three quarters ago, Oracle’s free cash flow was essentially zero, and this quarter it clocked in at negative $24.7 billion over the trailing 12 months as its capital expenditures rocketed from $21.2 billion in fiscal 2025 to a guided $50 billion this fiscal year as the company forges ahead in its AI data center buildout.  Chief financial officer Doug Kehring said after the market closed that Oracle would offer up more information about its capital expenditures for fiscal 2027 next quarter. “I think we’ll get back to everyone at the end of the fiscal year and talk about next year’s capex at that point,” said Kehring in resp...