Financial Mindset

Cisco shares jumped more than 13% Thursday. The rally followed an earnings report Wednesday that showed the networking giant’s multi-year pivot to AI infrastructure is finally paying off. For the third quarter ended April 25, Cisco reported record revenue of $15.8 billion, up 12% year over year, topping the high end of its guidance. The company also raised its fiscal 2026 outlook, lifting its AI revenue target to $4 billion (from $3 billion) and AI orders target to $9 billion (from $5 billion). It guided current-quarter revenue as high as $16.9 billion, above Wall Street expectations. “In Q3, we once again delivered double-digit growth on both the top and bottom lines, which exceeded the high end of our guidance, coupled with record non-GAAP operating income,” Cisco CFO Mark Patterson said in a statement. The results, he added, show “great execution and financial discipline by our teams.” Chuck Robbins, Cisco’s chair and CEO, said the com...

In an  interview  this week on Fox Business, IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna pressed Washington on the central question facing AI policy: “The balance between too many regulations, it’s terrible; too few, we may not love the outcome, so we got to find the Goldilocks middle.” Krishna extended his warning to the international landscape: “If it turns into a bloated bureaucracy, that would not be so good for us to win the AI race.” The balance Krishna identifies extends well beyond federal policy. It runs downward into a state-by-state patchwork of legislation now reshaping how American companies build and deploy AI, and upward into a global contest where technological competitiveness underwrites both economic prominence and national security. No clear path forward has emerged at any level. In our conversations with CEOs and political leaders, that lack of clarity is the common refrain. In the past nine months, the United States has produced more AI legislation than...

On a recent weekend, I built a version of the classic video game Pong for my kids using AI. It’s a simple example, but it shows how quickly the gap between idea and execution is disappearing. At Nokia , we’re seeing the same compression in our work. It means engineering teams can explore multiple architectural paths in parallel, test them quickly and achieve stronger outcomes faster. Work that was once categorized as operationally difficult or too time-consuming becomes achievable – opening up new opportunities while reinforcing the importance of focus. More output, faster delivery The real productivity gain is more output from the same teams, delivered faster for customers. That happens when AI moves from individual use into repeatable workflows. Since the broad rollout of the AI coding tool Cursor across Nokia earlier this year, more than 14,000 of our team are using the platform across software R&D, with weekly active usage at 67% – and growing. Six months a...

Anthropic’s Claude is telling people to go to sleep and users can’t figure out why. A quick scan of Reddit reveals that hundreds of people have had the same issue dating back months—and as recently as Wednesday. Claude’s sleep demands are varied and, often, quirky variations of the same message. To one user it may write a simple “get some rest,” yet for others its messages are more personalized and empathetic. Oftentimes, Claude will repeat the message multiple times. “Now go to sleep again. Again . For the THIRD time tonight…” it replied to a person with the Reddit username, angie_akhila. Some users have said they find Claude’s late night rest reminders “thoughtful,” while others have said they’re annoying, given Claude often gets the time wrong, anyway.  “It often does it at like 8:30 in the morning. Tells me to go get some rest and we’ll pick back up in the morning,” wrote one user on Reddit.  Online speculation abounds on why the chatbot ...

President Trump has declared that the main focus of the China Summit is trade , specifically unveiling big transactions for signature U.S. enterprises that further swell our flow of exports, and Washington-Beijing accords that mark a defrosting of the icy standoff between the world’s two biggest economies. The stateside player most likely to land a trophy coup is Boeing . In the week or so prior to Trump’s departure for China, leading a retinue of seventeen super-prominent CEOs, sundry media outlets reported that the aerospace colossus is negotiating a giant sale to China’s three major carriers, naturally shepherded by Beijing. Two factors suggest that what might appear a rumor’s really a done deal. First, it’s probable that the news arose from a publicity-enhancing leak from the Administration. And the President wouldn’t put the plum out there if it stood the remotest chance of not happening, a scenario that would serve his critics grist for dec...

Lake Tahoe doesn’t know where its power will come from after next ski season—and it’s a major problem for the 49,000 residents who call the region home. The Sierra Nevada tourist hub—home to ski resorts, lakeside casinos, and roughly 25 to 28 million annual visitors—is facing an energy crisis with a familiar culprit: the data centers powering the AI boom. NV Energy, the Nevada utility that has supplied the bulk of Lake Tahoe’s electricity for decades, told Liberty Utilities—the small California company that services the region—that it will stop providing power after May 2027. The reason? NV Energy needs the capacity for data centers. As in: the energy supplier for the Lake Tahoe region is telling the utility company that it has less than a year to find another power source. Northern Nevada has become one of the fastest-growing data-center corridors in the country. Google , Apple , and Microsoft have either built or are planning facilities around the ...

The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve,  Kevin Warsh , bringing new leadership to the world’s most powerful central bank at  a fraught moment for the global economy . Warsh, 56, a former top Fed official, was confirmed Wednesday in a largely party-line 54-45 vote and will replace Jerome Powell as chair at an unusually difficult time for the independent agency. Inflation has  topped the Fed’s 2% target  for five years and is now rising faster because of  spiking gas prices . The Fed’s interest rate-setting committee is divided and saw  the most dissenting votes  in more than three decades last month. And Powell, after years of personal attacks from Trump and  an unprecedented Justice Department investigation , plans to remain on the Fed’s board even after his term as chair ends, potentially creating a competing power center. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a floor spee...