- In today’s CEO Daily: Unpacking the areas where Europe still has an edge.
- The big leadership story: Are we on the cusp of a productivity boom?
- The markets: Mostly down as investors await news of an Iran peace deal.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. I’m in Monaco this week, speaking with leaders from 46 countries competing in EY’s World Entrepreneur of the Year competition, which takes place tonight. Being here is a reminder that U.S. leaders may be too quick to write off Europe as a place to invest, hire or expand. For all the complaints about regulatory costs, labor laws, risk-taking, energy costs and other challenges, there are merits to creating companies here. A new EY study found 60% of businesses surveyed expect Europe’s attractiveness to increase over the next three years. Here are some perspectives from successful CEOs there who help explain why.
Johannes Reck is CEO of GetYourGuide, a Berlin-based travel platform valued at more than $2 billion, with 50,000 supply partners, over 200,000 experiences and more than 33 million bookings logged in the past year. Reck has turned down multiple offers to move to Silicon Valley since the site launched in 2009 because Europe has clear advantages. “It’s where most of the international tourists actually go,” he told me recently, noting that the continent also boasts a strong immigration system and deep pool of multilingual talent. “We see a lot more loyalty of staff in Europe versus the U.S. If I look at longevity and turnover costs, it’s much, much lower here …The U.S. is fantastic if you want to scale really fast. But for a business like ours that takes decades to build, Europe has a lot of advantages.”
David Reger, CEO of NEURA Robotics and an EY finalist from Germany, knew the challenges of producing smart robots in Europe when he set up near Stuttgart in 2019. But building a factory in a region that gave birth to brands like Mercedes-Benz and Porsche also gave him access to engineering talent from top schools in a land of universal health care and a strong social safety net. His stint as a social worker with homeless clients in San Francisco in 2009 inspired him to build a business back in Germany. “I want to become the biggest taxpayer in Europe and create a sustainable tech ecosystem here,” he told me. “With AI, governments will not be able to catch up. I think the responsibility of the entrepreneur will rise by like 100x because you’re not just thinking about how to make your business successful but the whole social impact it will bring.”
There’s another advantage that’s often overlooked. Stina Ehrensvard, last year’s WEOY winner and founder of Stockholm cybersecurity firm Yubico, credits Sweden’s childcare system with making her path possible. “I could be a mom and create a company,” she told me yesterday. Ask some of the women on the 2026 Fortune Most Powerful Women list if they had that choice, and you might get a different answer.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top leadership news
An AI-driven productivity boom may be ahead
The U.S. economy might be at the start of a productivity surge akin to the internet age, according to a note published this week by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Back then, the economy saw a lull in productivity growth as a transformative new technology took hold.
Most SpaceX shares are already spoken for
SpaceX could raise $80 billion or more in its upcoming IPO, which would be the largest sum ever raised. But 78% of that money is already accounted for by insiders and vendors.
China and Russia are growing more capable, aggressive in espionage
Anne Keast-Butler, the director of GCHQ, the U.K.'s intelligence and cybersecurity agency, warned in a speech this week that China and Russia are becoming more aggressive and capable in their espionage, which is "increasingly data-driven, AI-enabled, and automated." She warned that the window to stay ahead of both countries is closing.
The markets
S&P 500 futures are down 0.15% this morning. The last session closed up 0.02%. The STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.57% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.73% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.47%. South Korea’s KOSPI was down 0.53%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.12%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 1.27%. India’s markets are closed today. Bitcoin was down at $73K.
Around the watercooler
The unlikely origin of a $2.5 billion hospitality unicorn: a bored teenager working the night shift at his family business by Catherina Gioino
Real estate billionaire was called the ‘worst analyst’ at Goldman Sachs—now he says the criticism was the best thing that ever happened to him by Emma Burleigh
Jamie Dimon said the American Dream was slipping away. JPMorgan just put $40 million on the table to fix it by Nick Lichtenberg
CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.
