- In today’s CEO Daily: An onstage incident turns into a leadership lesson.
- The big leadership story: Supermicro finally gets a new CFO.
- The markets: Stocks recover from a shaky week.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. A few minutes into talking with Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi on stage this week at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, I felt blood in my mouth. I knew what was coming as an injury to my lip had bled a few days earlier, unleashing a flood that reminded me of an old Saturday Night Live episode in which Julia Child (played by Dan Aykroyd) cuts herself while preparing a chicken. I tried to act nonchalant as a fistful of tissues turned red, and Advaithi paused a few times to ask if I was okay. My colleague Ellie Austin and members of the audience sprang into action, handing me fresh tissues and lip balm. Advaithi’s eyes conveyed concern as she answered my questions about data centers and geopolitics. I cracked a few jokes, called it our Halloween special, and gave Fidelity a shout-out for having the foresight to give away branded lip balm to participants. If you can’t hide it, ride it! (My colleague Emma Burleigh covered the interview here.)
The incident was unfortunate, and a bit embarrassing, but it also gave Advaithi and me an opportunity to talk about being vulnerable and her decision to speak publicly about battling breast cancer as a CEO. The mood in the room was warm and supportive, and our interview had more moments of levity than I’d anticipated when we first sat down.
I thought about that when watching Mark Zuckerberg wince on John Collison’s Cheeky Pint podcast while awkwardly sipping a pint of Guinness. It’s genuinely funny, and I’ve had a similar reaction when trying the beer in Ireland. (“That’s just my face,” Zuckerberg replied on X after the clip went viral.)
I think one of the underappreciated traits of leadership these days is a sense of humor. Richard Branson has long had it, as has Warren Buffett. Apple Executive Chairman Tim Cook often pokes fun at himself, replacing his last name with an Apple logo after President Trump called him “Tim Apple” during a White House meeting and mocking himself for posting a blurry iPhone photo a decade ago.
Humor is a useful tool in any public role. ADP CEO Maria Black and I laughed onstage during the summit about what our Gen Z kids said during the recent Fortune CEO Initiative “generations” dinner. Lumen’s Kate Johnson and EY’s Janet Truncale joked about their first meeting at the Business Roundtable. And Marissa Mayer, the former Yahoo CEO who just launched Dazzle AI, has a wry take on some of the men now spouting doomsday rhetoric in Silicon Valley. (Check out Amanda Gerut’s Fortune coverage of my conversations with Black and Mayer.)
As a student at the University of Nairobi, I had an opportunity to write speeches for Mostafa Tolba, the then-executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). His only instruction when writing my first speech about desertification at a conference for the homeless was to “make it funny.” I worked through the night, trying to come up with jokes about climate change and the homeless. Really. Dr. Tolba laughed because they were so bad and I’d clearly misconstrued his instructions. “No, Diane. Don’t joke about serious subjects,” he told me. “Joke about me.” Before we can connect to solve tough problems, he explained, we have to connect as human beings. Good advice that’s stuck with me ever since.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top leadership news
Supermicro hires a new CFO nearly two years after promising a replacement
Supermicro named former Western Digital finance chief Mark Long as CFO, effective immediately, nearly two years after committing to replace longtime finance chief David Weigand. Long joins as the company faces fallout from a $2.5 billion smuggling case and a co-founder’s arrest.
Jamie Dimon says JPMorgan is blocking outside AI agents from customer accounts
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said on an earnings call that the bank blocks external AI agents from accessing customer accounts due to security risks. A bank spokesperson told Fortune that JPMorgan supports secure, customer-authorized data sharing but rejects agents who try to access accounts using customers’ banking credentials.
Chip expert says U.S. restrictions have pushed China to build its own alternatives
University of Illinois professor Rakesh Kumar told Fortune that U.S. chip export controls have backfired by encouraging China to develop its own semiconductor industry. He said Chinese AI models are approaching U.S. performance despite the restrictions, though China’s chip workarounds still face cost and efficiency disadvantages.
The markets
S&P 500 futures are up 0.19% this morning. The last session closed up 0.33%. The STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.55% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.12% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.39%. South Korea’s KOSPI was up 2.05%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.11%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 0.52%. India’s NIFTY 50 is up 0.44%. Bitcoin is at $82k.
Around the watercooler
Exclusive: ‘I’ve seen this movie before’: A Michigan-raised ex-Tesla exec raises $45 million to break China’s grip on batteries by Nick Lichtenberg
Microsoft’s CEO is still haunted by staying silent in a meeting with Bill Gates. Years later, his boss Steve Ballmer taught him how to speak up by Preston Fore
Pinterest says its trend forecasts are 88% accurate. Here’s how its 2026 predictions actually played out by Sarah Glodek
‘No one was coming to save me’: How Reese Witherspoon built a $900 million company from a problem Hollywood wouldn’t fix by Sydney Lake
CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.