Fortune Brainstorm Tech wrapped yesterday. Right here have been a couple of highlights from the ultimate day of the convention:
- Tom Hale, the CEO of Oura, informed the viewers that whereas total wearable gross sales are flat and even declining, gross sales of his firm’s good ring have greater than doubled previously 12 months. Significantly in style is an AI-powered well being coach that analyzes knowledge from the ring and offers bespoke wellness ideas.
- Neil Vogel, the CEO of writer Individuals Inc.—whose titles embrace Individuals and Meals & Wine—mentioned Google is the worst in terms of compensating publishers for utilizing their content material to coach and enhance AI fashions. The search big has refused to license content material from information organizations and publishers, whereas different AI labs have performed licensing offers. “Some AI shops are good actors. OpenAI is a good guy,” mentioned Vogel. “The worst guy is Google.”
- Hayden Brown, the CEO of Upwork, mentioned that beginning this summer time the hiring website noticed a definite shift in an important {qualifications} employers have been searching for in job candidates. Whereas as soon as they favored deep technical know-how, they’re more and more in search of smooth abilities and folks abilities as AI automates some technical work and makes it simpler for much less technical staff to perform technical duties.
In the meantime, the tech world is speaking about Oracle’s large market positive factors, which have boosted Oracle founder, chairman, and chief know-how officer Larry Ellison’s internet price, permitting him to surpass Elon Musk to say the title of world’s richest man. Serving to to drive Oracle’s inventory was the announcement of an enormous $300 billion cope with OpenAI to produce the AI firm with knowledge middle capability. (Now we all know why OpenAI is telling buyers it’s going to burn by means of $115 billion in money by 2029.) In fact, the one cause Oracle is on this place is right down to Ellison’s courting of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, which has allowed his firm, beforehand a definite back-of-the-pack cloud firm, to safe an enormous stockpile of top-of-the-line Nvidia GPUs. Extra on Ellison’s hovering fortunes beneath.
Purchase-now, pay-later fintech Klarna’s IPO went off, with the corporate’s shares gaining 15% on opening day. (Whether or not that “opening day pop” is an effective factor is a debate for an additional day. It looks as if the finance profs have largely misplaced the argument, with bankers convincing corporations that the cash misplaced from underpricing the shares is price its weight in advertising and marketing and investor buzz from the opening day leap.)
The MAGA wing of the Republican Celebration views AI corporations with at greatest skepticism and at worst, downright disdain, seeing them as woke bastions of left wing coastal elitism, exemplars of Silicon Valley’s inordinate, insidious, and arbitrary energy, and, of their quest to construct AGI and “superintelligence,” responsible of a form of idolatry (basically making an attempt to construct God in a machine). You may watch Carlson press Altman on these factors all through the podcast, whereas Altman tries, usually awkwardly, to parry the premise of Carlson’s questions, or guarantee Carlson that there’s actually not as a lot ideological distance between them as Carlson appears to imagine. It’s all barely cringey (particularly Carlson’s over-the-top facial expressions). However, regardless of the cringe issue, it’s most likely price watching, if solely to get a deeper sense of the explanations MAGA distrusts Silicon Valley on the whole and AI particularly.
—Jeremy Kahn
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Larry Ellison’s temporary stint as world’s richest man
Oracle’s sturdy quarterly outcomes added a whopping $101 billion to Ellison’s wealth at one level, boosting his fortune to $393 billion and leapfrogging above Musk’s $385 billion, in keeping with Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. The staggering enhance was the most important one-day enhance ever recorded by the index.
Oracle inventory surged 36% on Wednesday—the corporate’s largest one-day enhance ever—after executives reported blowout bookings and gave a bullish cloud outlook. The rally provides to the 45% achieve the corporate already notched up this 12 months.
The Wall Road Journal reported that almost all of the brand new income will come from OpenAI, which signed a staggering $300B cloud settlement with Oracle. The AI agency will faucet Oracle’s computing infrastructure underneath the billion greenback deal, which is among the largest cloud contracts ever signed. The dedication far exceeds OpenAI’s present income.
Oracle’s income projections shocked analysts, who informed CNBC they have been “blown away” and “all kind of in shock.” Some, nevertheless, are urging warning, warning the unprecedented success has made the inventory overvalued.
—Beatrice Nolan
Frost-Nixon meet Carlson-Altman
The pair additionally mentioned OpenAI cofounder Elon Musk, with Altman saying he now “feels differently” in regards to the man he as soon as noticed as an “incredible hero.” Maybe it is due to the lawsuits, or the X spats.
In a single tense second, when the pair mentioned OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji’s dying, Altman requested if Carlson was accusing him of homicide after the podcast host declared the dying, which authorities have dominated as a suicide, “definitely murder.”
“I haven’t done too many interviews where I have been accused of murder,” Altman said.
—Beatrice Nolan
What, you mean Teams isn’t as good as being there?
Microsoft is cracking down on its hybrid work policy.
The tech giant is mandating a minimum of three in-office days a week for employees beginning February 2026, according to a Business Insider report.
The coverage will first apply to Seattle-area employees, later increasing nationwide and globally. Employees have till Sept. 19 to request exceptions. Microsoft rolled out a versatile work coverage after places of work reopened from pandemic closures the place staff have been permitted to work at home as much as half the time with out official approval.
This transfer follows related steps from Large Tech rivals together with Meta and Google, which already implement related RTO guidelines. The stricter strategy comes as the corporate will increase strain on staff, reshaping efficiency expectations in an effort to arrange for the following part of AI-driven development.
Workers in Microsoft’s AI division, led by DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman, will face an excellent stricter requirement: 4 days every week on website beginning January 2026, with exceptions solely granted on the highest ranges.
—Beatrice Nolan
Pop goes the Swedish fintech
Klarna climbed 15% in its Wednesday buying and selling debut.
The Swedish-born fintech shares closed at $45.82, 15% above the $40 provide worth. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski framed the itemizing as proof Klarna is transferring past buy-now, pay-later into broader banking merchandise, even when the corporate’s worth has dropped effectively beneath its 2021 peak.
The closing worth values the corporate at over $17 billion primarily based on its excellent shares, with inventory choices and warrants including barely to that determine. The firm’s debut additionally made dozens of staffers millionaires, and its cofounders billionaires.
The itemizing arrives amid a resurgence within the IPO market, which has been underneath strain, with corporations together with Figma debuting with sturdy performances. Klarna’s debut didn’t fairly make the identical splash as Figma’s in July, which noticed the inventory greater than triple from its provide worth.
—Beatrice Nolan
Extra tech
—Meta and TikTok rating a win in opposition to EU tech charges. However received’t obtain any a refund whereas officers reformulate the levy.
—Apple’s new AI tips are Trump-friendly. The corporate marked DEI as a “controversial” matter.
—Reddit removes subscriber counts from subreddits. The platform will change to displaying weekly energetic guests.
—Amazon-owned Zoox launches public service in Las Vegas. It’s restricted to pick-ups and drop-offs at a choose variety of pre-approved areas.
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