Innovation Through Uncertainty: CEOs of Sanofi, Five to Nine, Pure Storage

Paul Hudson of Sanofi, Jasmine Shells of Five to Nine, Charlie Giancarlo of Pure Storage

Welcome, new subscribers!

For those who have signed up recently, a primer: This Fortt Knox newsletter is as close as I get to producing what we used to call a “reporter’s notebook” in my days working for newspapers and magazines.

What you see on TV when I’m anchoring TechCheck or presenting On the Other Hand and Working Lunch? That’s finished product. Behind the scenes I’m having in-depth conversations with founders and CEOs, coming to a better understanding of both industry dynamics and individual leadership styles.

I don’t expect that you’ll watch every video here. That would take hours. But hopefully this gives you an overview of the questions I’m asking and the companies I find interesting — and you can go deeper on the things and people you find most interesting.

Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson on AI for Drug Discovery, and Recalibrating Risk

I don’t always spend time with CEOs in the pharmaceutical industry. But we’re in a time when software is rewriting the rules across all kinds of businesses, and pharma is one of them. That’s part of the backdrop for my conversation with Paul Hudson, CEO of Sanofi, an industry giant with a $96 billion market cap. The company is looking into how artificial intelligence might help scientists boost their win percentage in developing new drugs:

Five to Nine CEO Jasmine Shells on Tailoring and Measuring Employee Community and Engagement

Employee resource groups are a valuable asset in a tight economy, helping employees develop a sense of belonging and connection to a company’s broader mission. But the tools available to the employee leaders of these groups often have been clumsy and disconnected, and organizations have lacked data on how well the ERGs are working. Jasmine Shells, CEO of Five to Nine, set out to change that:

Pure Storage CEO Charlie Giancarlo on How Big Data and Cloud are Changing Storage

Charlie Giancarlo has a long history in enterprise tech, as an engineer, entrepreneur, executive, investor, and now CEO of Pure Storage. I spoke to him about the arc of his career and the specific challenges enterprise tech faces in this moment:

Does TikTok's Political Funding Ban Matter? On the Other Hand

TikTok says it's no longer allowing political accounts to raise money on its platform, and more changes are coming. Is this a sign that the popular social app is getting safer, and avoiding the kinds of problems that plagued Facebook? I argued both sides in the latest On the Other Hand, on CNBC’s Squawk Box: