Financial Mindset

Peter Lee, who recently announced his departure as president of Microsoft Science, plans to join the Mercedes Formula 1 team in a newly created AI advisor role, he told Fortune . Lee spent 16 years at Microsoft shaping its science and research efforts, exploring how AI can help doctors and scientists crack hard problems in the physical, biological, and medical sciences. At Mercedes, he said, he’ll focus on four main goals: using AI to tackle physics problems for the team’s car, breaking down organizational and data silos across departments, building financial and predictive data models, and advising the team on how the sport’s regulators might govern AI use. His exact title is still under discussion, but he’s expected to join on a one-year contract with an option for a second. “I have always wanted to be a racer. When I was young, I grew up racing carts,” Lee said. “I’m completely thrilled, and I’m in disbelief that they would think of me for something like this.” The...

At many large companies, CEOs are squared away in plush corner offices, where they take meetings and receive elaborate lunch orders. But when midday rolls around, Ancestry employees find their CEO Howard Hochhauser taking his meal in the office’s eating area. It’s a habit he picked up from Ace Greenberg when Hochhauser worked at Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns in the late 1990s. He held multiple positions within the equity research department, ultimately serving as a vice president and equity research analyst. And when it came time to step away from the keyboard and sit down for their midday meals, the company’s longtime CEO, Greenberg, would eat among his employees.  “Ace Greenberg, who founded the firm, sat on the floor every day, and it stuck with me. Like, gosh, that’s really a visible statement. He’s really accessible,” Hochhauser tells Fortune . “You could talk to him. He wasn’t sitting in some glass office that’s untouchable.” He...

Christina Zhu , the head of Walmart’s China business, remembers when Chinese shoppers did not have much choice. As a child, she watched her parents wake up at 4:30 a.m. on Sundays to go to the wet market. “They had to haggle, and high-quality produce wasn’t always guaranteed,” Zhu, born in 1973, recalled at the Fortune Leaders Forum in Macau in September. Today, Chinese shoppers are “probably the group with the most choices [in the world],” and they have become “the most demanding customers,” she said. Meeting those rising expectations has become the defining challenge for retailers in China, and Walmart has managed it better than most. It entered China in 1996 with a Supercenter and a Sam’s Club in Shenzhen. Three decades later, the U.S. retailer is thriving in the world’s second-largest economy even as other foreign brands struggle. China represents 3% of Walmart’s overall business, but it is growing, generating $24.6 billion in sales in its past fiscal year, a 19.3%...

The Jessica Chastain horror  “Other Mommy”  topped the North American box office this weekend with a bigger audience than expected, while  “The Social Reckoning”  got off to a lackluster start. ‘Other Mommy’ is another win for horror “Other Mommy,” released by Universal Pictures, earned $27.5 million in its first few days in 3,365 theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday. The movie, about a sinister supernatural creature that terrorizes a young girl who thinks it’s her mother, got dismal reviews from both critics and audiences. It also joins the ranks of “Megalopolis” and “Hereditary” with a D+ CinemaScore. But with a production budget of around $19 million, it’s also another win for the horror genre and producer Blumhouse Atomic Monster, which was behind  “Backrooms” and “Obsession.”  “Other Mommy” opened in 50 international markets as well, boosting its global debut to $45.2 million. Jim Orr, Universal’s head of domes...

To hear Silicon Valley tell it, artificial intelligence will usher in a glorious new era of abundance. But ask the chief financial officers of the world’s largest companies how AI is transforming their bottom line and, per McKinsey’s 2026 State of AI survey , the answer for 88% of them is: “Not so much.” We have been here before. When the iPhone launched in 2007, pundits predicted a mobile-first transformation of everything. When broadband went mass-market, Businessweek heralded a “New Economy.” When the PC colonized every desk, Robert Solow quipped that you could see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics. Over five decades, waves of digital innovation have delivered spectacular consumer adoption yet continuously declining productivity growth. I call this the Innovation Paradox: the faster we innovate, the slower we grow. Two K-shapes, one problem Technology diffusion in the digital age follows what I call a double K-shaped pattern. The first...

Sometimes, when relationships and world politics give people plenty to be angry about, the impulse is to go outside, disconnect, and be one with nature. But for some women, it means letting out a good guttural scream . At Lumalia Emmy Armstrong’s Holy Rage Retreats in the Oregon woods near Portland, small groups of women gather among the trees, expressing themselves through sound and movement. In intimate groups of up to 10 women, hearing one woman growl can give another permission to do the same. Later, they burn letters written during a group discussion and close the retreat with a song. A group of adults growling in the woods might sound like an unusual way to spend an afternoon, let alone money. But organizers are selling something they say participants struggle to find elsewhere: a place to be angry without judgment. Prices vary widely. Armstrong charges $600 for a 3.5-hour session , while the Bay Area CBT Center advertises multi-day rage retreats for up to $4,500 p...

The new, bipartisan legislation to expedite the construction of energy projects—and power the AI boom—is creating strange bedfellows and opponents. In a rare instance, the fossil fuel industry is united with renewable energy, while some environmental groups are pitted against the green power sector. There’s arguably more momentum than ever for the seemingly boring topic of infrastructure permitting reform, but it could be the most important decision Congress makes from now until January for the future of the tech boom, the environment, and energy affordability. Power demand is rising at a nearly unprecedented scale—largely, but not entirely, driven by the data center construction spree—and electricity and utility prices are spiking for a myriad of reasons, including rising demand and antiquated infrastructure. In short, the legislation accelerates permitting timelines for everything from solar farms and power lines to oil and gas pipelines, makes it harder for presidential...