There’s no one way to set a career path. There are people who want to lead software companies who find themselves climbing the corporate ladder with different companies in the software space. But there are also those who find themselves getting there through stints at CPG, retail and healthcare companies.

Tariq Shaukat, CEO of code verification company Sonar, said that his executive journey wasn’t necessarily direct—he was an executive at casino and hospitality giant Caesars Entertainment, a president at Google Cloud, a president at dating app Bumble—but there’s been a lot to learn from different corporate perspectives about big areas that all businesses work through, including technology and sales. He talked to me about his industry-hopping executive journey, and an excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

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Sometimes, hinting at a merger—even if it’s not likely to happen—could be a strategy to get the world to pay attention to your company and the issues it’s going through. But, as United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby is seeing, it can also blow up in your face. As jet fuel costs skyrocket because of the war in Iran, Kirby reportedly floated a potential merger with American Airlines earlier this month. American CEO Robert Isom—someone with whom Kirby has developed an adversarial relationship over the years, Forbes senior contributor Ted Reed writes—quickly responded there are no merger talks underway and American is focused on its own business internally.

Reaction to Kirby’s comment spiraled beyond the quick shutdown by American Airlines. Discussion dominated airline business blogs. Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) sent a letter to the CEOs flagging that the merger could be a bad deal for customers, Reed writes. And Trump—often a fan of big business mergers—told CNBC last week “I don’t like” the proposed tie-up.

Talk of the potential merger took over the news cycle about these companies last week—and strong earnings reports from both companies did not get the attention they may have otherwise. And this morning, Kirby issued a statement officially ending negotiations—but defending the merger idea.

The announcement that the tech world has been buzzing about for some time officially came last week: Tim Cook is stepping down as Apple CEO and will become its executive chairman on September 1. Apple’s next CEO will be John Ternus, who has been the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering since 2013. Ternus........

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