Tabla de contenidos para February/March 2025 en Fortune

Fortune conducts an exclusive first video interview with Nike’s Elliott Hill since taking the reins as the company’s new CEO. (fortune.com/videos) The Leadership Next podcast is back for a new season. Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller sat down with Deloitte US CEO Jason Girzadas to discuss what to expect from top CEOs in 2025. (fortune.com/topic/leadership-next) Stream the Fortune YouTube channel to hear from leaders across the Fortune 500 and get in-depth analysis of what’s going on in the world of business. (youtube.com/@fortune) FOR MORE INFO, GO TO FORTUNE.COM…

SOME TIME AGO, top CEOs at an invitation-only seminar at Harvard Business School were asked to imagine the four crises they would likely confront during their tenure at the top: a health emergency, a geopolitical conflict, an economic downturn, and a trade war. For one participant in particular—Michel Doukeris, CEO of the world’s biggest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev—the list hit home. “So, according to your research, I’m ready to retire,” he recalls telling the Harvard professor. “Because I have seen all that in the first two years.” Doukeris had been promoted in July 2021 to lead AB InBev (as the brewing giant is known). It was a baptism by fire, beginning at the height of COVID, when millions of drinkers were under lockdown or avoiding crowded bars. Then came Russia’s…

A FRIEND—I’ll call him Allen—spent years bootstrapping his real estate enterprise software company. After a long struggle to get to $1 million in sales, his business recently surged to $10 million, and revenue is now growing 100% year on year. Prior to that inflection point, Allen had never raised venture capital. I had always perceived him to be a bootstrapper by choice, assuming that he’d never pitched anyone. He wanted to do it his way, I thought. He was scrappy. He owned his whole company. He was a benevolent dictator, revered by his team. His company had always been profitable. A $300,000 loan from a family friend was all the startup capital Allen had ever needed. As I scrambled to raise $128 million from investors to sell pants on…

ELON MUSK has a new job doing something he knows a great deal about: firing people. Lots of people. Now he’s about to test his axing skills on the greatest downsizing challenge in American history. Musk is co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a nongovernmental group formed in November by then Presidentelect Trump to cut back government regulations, dismiss unneeded workers, and save money. Musk has said DOGE could cut “at least $2 trillion” from the $6.75 trillion federal budget. Musk’s partner is Vivek Ramaswamy, a former biotech entrepreneur and candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Together they have rallied tech-industry luminaries to pitch ideas for rooting out cumbersome rules and eliminating waste: Venture capital titan Marc Andreessen described himself on a recent podcast as an…

DURING HIS FIRST TERM as president, Donald Trump shook up global trade by imposing new tariffs on China, the world’s epicenter for manufacturing. Companies importing Chinese-made goods into the U.S. suddenly found themselves having to pay extra duties—sometimes 30% more—if they continued using that country as a supplier. The response by U.S. businesses was swift: Many relocated at least some of their production from China to countries like Vietnam, India, and Mexico, which weren’t in Trump’s economic crosshairs. Now, with Trump’s second term underway, the tariffs plan is again on the table. But this time, he’s promised an expanded version that, if implemented, would create even more corporate upheaval and turn some previously winning countries in his trade war into big losers. “Trump Two is not Trump One,” warns…

IF YOU LISTEN to podcasts of any sort, chances are you’ve heard tell of the magical properties of AG1, the moss-green powder formerly known as Athletic Greens—probably in the voice of a host whom you like and trust. Joe Rogan swears by a morning glass of AG1 as “a science-backed solution for energy, focus, and high performance.” On the Pivot podcast, journalist Kara Swisher tells listeners that a daily scoop can “replace a ton of other supplements like [a] daily multivitamin, minerals, and probiotics,” while her cohost, New York University professor Scott Galloway, shares that he takes his “with some yogurt and some coconut milk and a few berries.” The neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, on Huberman Lab, says AG1 makes him “feel better” and contains “adaptogens to help buffer stress.”…

Few companies in history can match the recent meteoric ascent of Nvidia. The company and its GPU chips have both tapped into and helped unleash demand for generative AI. Over the past three years, Nvidia’s revenue has more than quadrupled, while its share price is up 525%. What might seem like overnight success was decades in the making, of course. (Nvidia was founded in 1993.) And the Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies list has been tracking Nvidia’s ascent since well before AI made it a $3 trillion business. Our reputational research generates two lists (see our methodology below), and Nvidia ranks high on both. The All-Stars list ranks companies by the acclaim they earn in surveys of the wider business community. Nvidia first made that list in 2021; this…

LAST YEAR, one thing became very clear: Most people are unhappy with today’s leaders. In a year that saw more than 60 national elections worldwide, incumbents either lost their seats or lost ground in nearly every race. (Welcome back, President Trump.) Trust in our institutions is down across the board. In the latest Edelman Trust Barometer, a well-respected global survey, disturbingly large numbers of people say there’s no one they trust anymore: not the media, corporations, governments, nor NGOs. And they certainly don’t trust CEOs. When there’s no trust, there’s no hope. And when there’s no hope, innovation and progress get stifled. So it’s no surprise that more people are looking to leaders who will shake things up. In Washington, Trump is empowering some of the most influential people…

THE AI SECTOR went on a massive tear last year, and there are few signs the pace will slow anytime soon. For investors, this presents a dilemma. While plenty of public companies offer exposure to AI—from chip giant Nvidia to the utilities that power massive sets of data—their sky-high share prices pose a risk of buying at the top. But what about AI firms that have yet to go public? That’s where all the action seems to be, as companies like OpenAI attract the world’s top venture capital firms with record-breaking funding rounds—a process that mostly excludes everyday investors. Venture capitalists may have the inside track when it comes to the likes of OpenAI, but the coming months are still poised to offer other intriguing new AI investments. Not…

IT WAS THE FALL OF 2022 when employees at Elon Musk’s Boring Company began to notice Steve Davis wasn’t around. Davis, the president of the tunneldigging startup, had stopped showing up at the R&D facility in Bastrop, Texas, and at the project sites in Las Vegas he was known to frequent. It’s not as if you could miss him when he was around: Davis was a hard-driving and seemingly tireless boss. But Davis had temporarily shifted gears to another Musk passion project. After Musk closed the deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, Davis made his way to San Francisco. There, he was seen pacing the halls of the 10th floor of the company’s headquarters—peppering people over the phone with questions about what parts of the organization he could…

“WARREN, WHO’S YOUR HEIR AS CEO?” That question had become perhaps the most oft-asked and never-answered query in corporate history, tossed to Berkshire Hathaway’s legendary chairs year after year during the onstage Q&A at the annual meeting hosted by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. The duo’s regular response—the board has anointed a successor, but we’re not saying who it is—was as much a staple of the weekend as the 5K footrace and the See’s Candies coconut bonbons dipping display. But at midafternoon May 1, 2021 (the meeting was held virtually during COVID), came the ultimate “wow” moment, a famous slip of the tongue by then 97-year-old Munger, who responded to a question about the company culture going forward by answering, “Greg will keep the culture.” Munger’s stumble put to…

THE CEO candidate seemed like a perfect fit. Blackstone, the private equity titan, had acquired a real estate company and was searching for the ideal leader to helm it. The candidate had excelled as a senior executive at another Blackstone-owned real estate company and had greatly impressed interviewers on the CEO search committee. But soon after he was hired to the new position, problems began to surface. The role required a chief executive who had a strong grasp of the local market, relationships with regional policymakers, and expertise in managing regulatory affairs—areas where his experience was limited. Within six months, it was clear that the CEO was struggling. The company had fallen significantly behind on its growth plan and failed to meet key financial milestones. Blackstone initially attempted to…

CHASE GALLAGHER WAS 12 years old when he started mowing his neighbors’ lawns in Chester County, Pa., for $35 a pop in the summer of 2013. At first the Gen Zer had only two customers, but thanks to some aggressive leafleting, he had 10 clients by the following year. Today, Gallagher’s landscaping business employs 10 people and does “everything from stormwater management and drainage work to pavers and lighting,” he says. Last year, CMG Landscaping generated more than $1.5 million in revenue; meanwhile, many of his peers were still finishing their bachelor’s degrees. It’s rare, of course, for an old-school pocket-money job to become so lucrative. But Gallagher says it’s exactly what he’s been plotting since the age of 10. “No one would hire me, because in the state…

ON AN EXCURSION to the ancient city of Petra, Jordan, clients helicoptered in after-hours so they could tour the ruins alone. Another trip, this one to Camp Sarika, the Utah desert retreat billed as America’s most luxe glamping experience, offered visitors the run of the place before it opened to the public. Then there was the tour of Frogmore, the closed-to-the-public English “cottage” where Harry and Meghan lived before decamping to the U.S. All are worthy contenders, but the ultimate example of the latest trend in super-luxe travel has to be a particular Bahamas angling adventure: A stealth diver with a stash of previously captured live fish was concealed beneath the boat to hook one onto the line if the anglers failed to catch enough fish on their own.…

IN LATE DECEMBER, President-elect Donald Trump put pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, on notice. Denouncing the $557 billion industry as “horrible middlemen,” responsible for—and “rich as hell” from—America’s incomparably high prescription drug prices, Trump vowed to get rid of them. “We’re going to knock out the middlemen,” he said at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. Trump is hardly the first to go after PBMs. They make up an industry whose stated purpose is to help employers and other health care purchasers lower the cost of drugs, but for decades they’ve been accused of doing the opposite—and driving up spending through opaque, profitdriven pricing tactics. Indeed, condemnation of PBMs is one of the rare points where Trump can find common cause with progressive lawmakers like Elizabeth Warren and activist regulators…

IN THE SUMMER OF 1990, Nike threw itself a rager of a party to celebrate the opening of its now-iconic campus in Beaverton, Ore. On the banks of a glittering pond at the heart of the campus, cofounder Phil Knight, the Shoe Dog himself, hosted the sneaker and apparel company’s biggest partners in retail, wholesale, and manufacturing, its superstar athlete endorsers, and the company’s top executives. The distinguished guest list very much did not include a 26-year-old third-year sales associate named Elliott Hill. In his short time at the company, though, Hill had already turned a few heads. After a Nike exec came to speak to his sports marketing program at Ohio University, Hill had cajoled his way into what he thought was a job at the company’s Memphis…

Leaders in all industries rely more than ever on Big Tech. And as we’ve learned from the 27th edition of the Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies All-Stars list, those leaders really appreciate the giants that deliver goods and services reliably, at scale, and without drama. For a stunning 18th straight year, Apple finished first in our annual ranking of corporate reputation, based on a poll of 3,380 executives, directors, and analysts; for the sixth year in a row, Amazon and Microsoft rounded out the top three. Nvidia, whose GPU chips are fueling the generative AI explosion, rose six spots to No. 4 as its influence continued to grow. Elsewhere, cloud software provider ServiceNow (No. 42), global chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor (No. 45), and weight-loss drug pioneer Novo Nordisk (No.…

Greater spending on health should correlate with gains in life expectancy—but the U.S., the planet’s biggest per capita spender, lags significantly behind other developed nations by that measure. (Australians spend half as much, but live almost five years longer.) U.S. rates of opioid abuse, gun violence, and maternal and infant fatalities all exceed those in most other advanced economies, driving down average life spans. And in a largely for-profit system where insurance often depends on employment status, access to the basic care that leads to longer lives can be tenuous at best. Even people with access often feel uncared for, as we learned from the polarized reactions to the murder of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson. SOURCES: UN; OECD; OUR WORLD IN DATA ALL DATASETS END IN 2023, EXCEPT…