Adobe CEO on Change Leadership, LinkedIn CEO on $10 Billion Milestone, Duolingo CEO on IPO +More

Shantanu Narayen of Adobe, Ryan Roslansky of LinkedIn, Luis von Ahn of Duolingo

It was a week of earnings and IPOs, with most of the biggest tech names reporting and both Robinhood and Duolingo making their public debuts. My conversations with leaders spanned both; I spoke with LinkedIn and Qualcomm’s CEOs after earnings reports, and Duolingo’s on IPO day.

I also got a chance to have a Fortt Knox 1:1 conversation I’ve wanted to do for a while — Shantanu Narayen of Adobe. I’ve followed Adobe now for most of the last 20 years, starting as a beat reporter for the San Jose Mercury News in 2000; Shantanu and I have had lots of conversations about the company’s vision and progress. This was the first one that included both the corporate and the personal.

Should Vaccines Be Required to Return to the Office? On the Other Hand

Should companies mandate vaccines for employees returning to the office? I argued both sides in the latest edition of On the Other Hand, on CNBC's Squawk Box:

Adobe CEO on the Move to the Cloud: Investments, Not Bets

This week I got time with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen for a Fortt Knox 1:1. We talked about tech’s challenges navigating the pandemic, his personal journey, and his rise at Adobe. I’d wanted to talk to his about how Adobe managed to be the first major packaged software company to transition to a cloud subscription model:

LinkedIn Brings in $10 billion; CEO Talks Recovery

The day after Microsoft earnings, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky joined me on TechCheck to talk about the $10 billion in revenue LinkedIn contributed to Microsoft’s fiscal 2021, and what’s next:

Duolingo IPO Brings Learning Platform Higher Visibility

Language learning platform Duolingo had its IPO this week, and ended up with a market value of about $5 billion. Cofounder and CEO Luis von Ahn, who joined me in a Fortt Knox conversation nearly three years ago, joined me on TechCheck before the stock started trading:

Qualcomm Shows It’s More than Phones in Amon’s First Quarter as CEO

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon told me a month ago in a Fortt Knox 1:1 that his biggest challenge is getting the world to recognize Qualcomm for powering more than phones; he joined me after the earnings report to show results that should help:

Check out The Black Experience in America: The Course, an online educational resource I researched, designed and built. A free PDF download is available to bring the material to kids, and the online interactive experience is made for adults.