- In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady talks to Roblox CEO and cofounder David Baszucki.
- The big story: Trump’s war against Fed chair Powell moves up a gear.
- The markets: Many markets are closed today in observance of Good Friday. After yesterday’s session, the S&P 500 remains down 10.2% year-to-date.
- Analyst notes from Bespoke Investment Group on investor sentiment, Wedbush on Nvidia, UBS on The Fed, and Goldman Sachs on recession.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Coins2Day.
Good morning. This is a holiday weekend for many of our readers, so Happy Easter and Happy Passover to those who celebrate. It’s also a day off from the ups and downs of the U.S. Stock market, and a good time to reflect on some broader lessons in business. Leadership Next is the weekly podcast that I cohost with Kristin Stoller, where we speak with luminaries about their industries, their career paths and their perspectives on the business landscape.
We recently sat down with Roblox CEO and cofounder David Baszucki to talk about how the gaming platform became such a hit, drawing more than 85 million daily users and 2.8 million developers. As a father of four, Baszucki talked about the importance of safety: for users, creators, and brands. “Hearing even one bad experience from a person on the platform really puts it all in perspective when we multiply by that scale,” he said.
On a personal level, he wants to transform the Roblox experience for the people who work there, “thinking about how we treat our employees, how we run our cafeteria, all the way to the way we run our safety and civility as having wellness at the core of how we operate the company.” He also spoke about his philanthropic work in metabolic health, inspired by the impact that diet had on his son’s bipolar symptoms. That inspired him to pay more attention to his own sleep, diet and wellness routine, which he says is as critical for effective leadership as it is for elite athletes.
We also recently spoke with Scott Boatwright, the CEO of Chipotle about how he’s leveraging AI in the restaurant chain, his response to tariffs, and his relationship with Brian Niccol, his predecessor and the current CEO of Starbucks. You can listen to that episode here. And this past week’s episode is with Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner. We talked about Tanner’s formative career experience at PepsiCo, his expansion plans and how consumer behavior informs his strategy. Here is a link to that episode. You can also download the podcast on Spotify or Apple. Let us know who you’d like to hear from in future episodes and, as always, we welcome your feedback.
More news below.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at [email protected]
Top news
Trump’s war against Powell. The president claimed Federal reserve Chairman Jerome Powell would resign if asked (even though Powell has never said he would agree to that). Trump’s remarks came after he blasted Powell on Truth Social, calling him 'TOO LATE AND WRONG,' for not cutting interest rate cuts and warning of tariff-induced inflation in a speech on Wednesday. “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough,” Trump wrote in the same post.
Trump needs the Fed to lower interest rates to counteract the economic weakness his trade tariffs are inducing. But because those tariffs are also inflationary the Fed isn’t likely to oblige.
Context: The law protecting the independence of the Fed is weaker than most people think.
Google is an abusive ad monopoly, a federal judge has ruled. It is the third recent federal court ruling that the search engine’s parent, Alphabet, has lost in a string of cases against the company’s dominance of search. The ruling potentially paves the way for the breakup of the company — although we are many, many court appeals away from that proposition at the moment.
Ukraine signed a memorandum of intent for an eventual mineral deal wit the U.S. There are few other details.
Tough times at Tesla. Tesla is scaling down its Cybertruck production goals and transferring some workers to other production lines, Sasha Rogelberg writes. Cybertruck sales have slumped amid a slew of recalls and protests against Elon Musk’s political views. At the same time, Musk ignored the advice of his own managers to make a compact EV and pushed ahead for a robotaxi instead even though his colleagues believe the product will be a nonstarter in terms of sales.
Trump vs the courts: The White House lost a federal appeals court ruling which said it must obey the law and return a Maryland resident who was accidentally deported to El Salvador. The administration is also trying to overturn the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which grants U.S. Citizenship to anyone born on American soil. Legal experts worry that if the president is able to establish that he can defy the judiciary without penalty then it will make the U.S. A less attractive place for investors.
Netflix beats earnings expectations. Netflix announced its first-quarter earnings results on Thursday, beating Wall Street expectations with more than $10 billion in revenue. “Our revenue and profit growth outlook remains solid, with no change to our 2025 guidance forecast for revenue,” the company said.
TSMC will make 30% of its chips in Arizona when its plants there are operational, the company said on Thursday.
The markets
- The Dow slid 527 points on Thursday after the top-weighted stock in the index, UnitedHealth Group, missed earnings expectations. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.13% and the S&P 500 rose 0.13%. The S&P is down 10.2% YTD. Many markets in the West are closed today for Good Friday, but in Asia Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1% this morning and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.61%.
From the analysts
- Bespoke Investment Group on investor sentiment: “The weekly sentiment survey from the American Association of Individual Investors showed that bearish sentiment was above 50% for the 8th straight week. Eight weeks is now a record dating back to the survey's beginning in 1987. The prior record was seven from late 1990.”
- Wedbush on Nvidia being banned from exporting to China: “We do believe the Nvidia poker move puts pressure on Beijing as they know well there is one chip in the world fueling the AI Revolution and that is Nvidia....now the Street waits for the next poker move,” per Daniel Ives et al.
- UBS on The Fed: “Federal Reserve Chair Powell noted US President Trump’s trade taxes would raise inflation and lower economic growth. Markets have already worked this out, but Powell saying it has policy implications,” per Paul Donovan.
- Goldman Sachs on recession: “We still see very weak 2025 US growth of just 0.5% on a Q4/Q4 basis … Given the significant trade policy uncertainties, the outlook remains very fluid and we see a low bar for returning to a recession baseline … Taken together, we see three 25bp ‘insurance cuts’ from the Fed to protect against sluggish growth and labor market softening,” per Joseph Briggs and team.
Around the watercooler
FIS strikes deal worth billions to sell Worldpay to Global Payments in a ‘home run’ for the most powerful woman in fintech by Luisa Beltran
Jerome Powell insists the Fed’s independence is enshrined in law. The Supreme Court might change that by Greg McKenna
How Elon Musk reportedly staked Tesla’s future on robotaxis against the advice of his own senior management team by Christiaan Hetzner
As Trump escalates his war against wind energy, a giant 54-turbine project off the coast of New York ceases construction by Jordan Blum
Melinda French Gates shares the advice Warren Buffett gave her when she felt overwhelmed: I replay it in my head when I get tough on myself by Preston Fore
