CEOs are still betting on the leadership trait AI can’t replace

In today’s CEO Daily: Leaders haven’t forgotten the value of a good boss.

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The markets: Stocks rebound ahead of the Fed’s rate decision.

Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. I did not expect to return from the Yale CEO Caucus in Washington yesterday feeling more hopeful than when I arrived. After all, this is day 200 of the Iran War, which has killed thousands, exposed security gaps, cost U.S. taxpayers at least $42 billion, and sparked global protests amid rising fuel costs. There’s concern about the economy, the markets, jobs, climate, compute, and the state of the union, not to mention OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei pondering whether their products will kill us all.

Where’s the hope in that? While the semiannual gathering of CEOs, policymakers, journalists and scholars hosted by Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, founder of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, is off the record, I can share some polling data and feedback from private conversations. Here’s what stuck with me:

A shared desire for common ground and rule of law. I didn’t meet anyone, left or right, who disagreed with the Supreme Court decision to reject President Trump’s plan to make it harder to vote by mail. There were standing ovations for former Vice President Mike Pence, who was honored with the Yale Patriot Public Service Award for Executive Leadership, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who received the first Yale Patriot Public........

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