Fortune

Warren Buffett says not many people will know the name Pete Liegl, and yet he is a man who contributed “many billions” to the wealth of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. In his annual letter to shareholders, 94-year-old Buffett paid homage to “one-of-a-kind” Liegl, who died in November at the age of 80. Liegl was the CEO of Forest River, an RV maker nestled in Indiana, which turned out to be one of Berkshire Hathaway’s soundest investments. Buffett told shareholders he was contacted on behalf of Liegl in June 2005: The introductory letter said Liegl would sell only to Berkshire, and outlined the price that the RV boss—the 100% owner of the brand—expected to be paid. “I liked this no-nonsense approach,” Buffett recalls in the letter, and responded in kind. A week later Buffett and Liegl met, with the man now worth $150 billion on the spot offering to pay Liegl whatever salary he wished for. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eNTpUBVC

Shortly after joining MassMutual in 2013 as its first data scientist, Sears Merritt created a small team to figure out how data, machine learning, and other forms of artificial intelligence could improve life insurance.  “A life insurance company, maybe to everyone’s surprise, is sitting on a wealth of information that no other business actually has access to,” says Merritt, who was promoted to chief information officer in 2022. Read more in the #CIOIntelligence newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gC2tixXi

Damola Adamolekun reached the pinnacle of restaurant leadership in a somewhat unconditional way. Although the Red Lobster CEO waited tables back in high school, his first big career move was landing an internship with global investment bank Goldman Sachs at age 19. At the time, Adamolekun was a student athlete at Brown University, where he studied economics and political science. He continued to work as an analyst with Goldman Sachs following graduation for a couple of years, then moved on to become a private equity associate with TPG Capital, where he worked until 2015. Fast forward to today, Adamolekun, 36, is now CEO of Red Lobster, and has a three-pillar roadmap for reviving the seafood chain. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ehfZPAMJ

From the moment OpenAI released GPT-4 in March 2023, the company has faced one persistent question: When would it release GPT-5? OpenAI ignited the generative AI craze with its large language models, and anticipation for its next big launch can rival the buzz around a new sneaker drop or a pop star’s latest single. But the GPT-5 rollout has not gone according to script. Two years after the launch of GPT-4, the world is still waiting for its successor – and wondering what’s been holding it up. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eY2v_aRD

Ten years after Amazon debuted its virtual assistant, Alexa is finally being upgraded for the generative AI age. The new Alexa+, unveiled at a splashy event in New York City on Wednesday, transforms the familiar voice-activated chatbot into an action-oriented, interconnected service. Instead of simply telling you the weather or playing a song, the new Alexa can manage and coordinate a string of activities, booking a table at a restaurant, while scheduling an Uber pick up for your spouse and texting the babysitter. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy described Amazon’s mission of “using this new generative AI revolution” to improve Alexa. “Our team has been working on this for several months. I’ve had chance to use it for the last several weeks. It is really remarkable,” Jassy said at the event. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eD3kZM9s

NEW: Amazon’s new AI-powered Alexa is finally here — for $20 a month Ten years after Amazon debuted its virtual assistant, Alexa is finally being upgraded for the generative AI age. The new Alexa+, unveiled at a splashy event in New York City on Wednesday, transforms the familiar voice-activated chatbot into an action-oriented, interconnected service. Instead of simply telling you the weather or playing a song, the new Alexa can manage and coordinate a string of activities, booking a table at a restaurant, while scheduling an Uber pick up for your spouse and texting the babysitter. read the full story: https://lnkd.in/e_Auxk36

Shortly after he became CEO of Bayer AG in 2023, CEO Bill Anderson began waging war against bureaucracy. “If I had arrived 10 years earlier, I don’t know that we could have made these changes,” says Anderson. “When I arrived, what I found was a company where there was a really nice culture but people were burdened by the rules … so many rules that nobody can even keep track of them.” So how do you redesign a 161-year-old, 100,000-person company without unleashing chaos? Read more in the #CEODaily newsletter with Diane Brady: https://lnkd.in/gCFvKxYX

President Donald Trump believes he can pay off America’s $36 trillion national debt by charging rich immigrants $5 million for a gold card—which has green card privileges “plus a route to citizenship.” https://lnkd.in/ePgPN3KE President Trump made the impromptu announcement in the Oval Office yesterday, telling reporters: “Remember the words gold card.” The president said he had planned to make the announcement next week but seized the opportunity to share the news while signing executive orders on Tuesday. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/ePgPN3KE

“I should never curse, ever." Jamie Dimon’s outspoken leadership style and colorful language made headlines after a heated February town hall where he slammed remote work. Now, the CEO is expressing regret for some of his fiery remarks. In a Monday CNBC interview from JPMorgan’s global leveraged finance conference in Miami, Dimon acknowledged his missteps after an audio recording—leaked to Barron’s —caught the CEO using several expletives. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eg5AXSd5

“Look, being a CEO’s child is not the easiest thing." Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan is used to commanding over 200,000 employees, but when it comes to his own children, he is content to let them make their own career decisions. Moynihan, who has headed Bank of America (No. 18 in the Fortune 500) since January 2010, spoke with David Rubenstein at the The Economic Club of Washington, D.C.’s event on Tuesday. Rubenstein, chair of the club and co-founder of private equity firm The Carlyle Group, asked Moynihan about his experience as one of eight children growing up in Ohio, where his father worked as a research chemist for DuPont. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eDqgzYSJ