Fortt Knox

The Consumer Electronics Show, CES, is how tech starts the year. It’s a massive event in Vegas with halls full of booths, wall-to-wall people, and companies competing to convince the world that they own the future.   Julia Boorstin and I were there for CNBC, interviewing executives, taking in the news, now we’re going to break down what it all means.  This year there is no single hit product to take over for the smartphone. And unlike the past few, there’s no contender. We know drones aren’t really going mainstream. Virtual and augmented reality aren’t either. Artificial intelligence is fun, and 100 million Alexa-powered devices have been sold by Amazon and its partners, but no one’s getting rich off of selling voice-powered devices.   At the same time, we’ve got 5G, fifth-generation wireless on the horizon, and big ideas like autonomous driving and quantum computing. Julia and I got into all of that in Vegas.

Wellness, fitness, nutrition – all of it is getting a makeover in this age of mobile tech.   Now you can book doctor appointments on an app, get your blood drawn and the results back in 20 minutes. You can give your doctor access to your genetic code and get truly personalized service.   Your stationary bike can connect to the Internet to motivate you.   But how much is too much? And what are the best services to check out?   We have got just the show to kick off the year, whether you do resolutions or not. Joining me today, CNBC reporters Chrissy Farr and Diana Olick. And I’m thrilled to have WW CEO Mindy Grossman here with me. What’s WW? It’s the artist formerly known as Weight Watchers. 

The economy is in a very odd place right now. The overall numbers are great in the United States. Unemployment is low, growth is decent, several companies have been raising the wages of blue-collar employees.   But at the same time, stable, full-time jobs with benefits can be hard to come by. To make ends meet and improve their quality of life, lots of people are joining the gig economy, or doing other kinds of temporary work.   These observations about the state of work and the economy led me to a conversation with Stephane Kasriel, the CEO of Upwork. Upwork is a digital platform where people who have skills can put those skills out for hire, either by the project or on a longer-term basis. I met Stephane at CNBC’s Productivity at Work event, where he gave a talk about how employment is changing. We took it further, to talk about geopolitics, his journey as an executive, and what today’s workers need to know to seize control of their careers. 

When Intel found itself without a CEO, the board of directors turned to Bob Swan, the chief financial officer, to keep the company running. That was six months ago. A few days ago Swan and I sat down at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York to discuss a tumultuous year, an ongoing transformation, his path to the top of corporate finance, and more. But first, on the Fortt Knox live show this week, it’s the most expensive purchase many of us even consider: a place to live.   As we head into 2019, a complicated landscape in real estate: For a decade in a rebounding U.S. economy amid cheap loans, home prices have marched steadily higher. When the market bottomed in February 2009, the median sale price for a home was $140,000. Last month it was nearly $258,000.  That might sound OK if you’re looking to sell a home, but not so fast: Interest rates are creeping higher, reducing how much buyers can borrow. And the number of homes for sale is rising, giving shoppers more homes to choose from. Are we heading into a healthi

As 2018 draws to a close, a panel of journalists looks back at some of the defining controversies of the year. Digital data became a flashpoint as more people considered the implications of smartphone apps that literally track our every move. Digital fun came into question as parents heightened their concerns about kids glued to screens. And digital money experienced a crash, as the price of a Bitcoin dropped from nearly $20,000 to less than $3,500. Ina Fried of Axios, Ed Lee of the New York Times and Josh Lipton of CNBC join Jon Fortt to explore how those issues played out in 2018, and what's likely next in 2019.

Keith Block spent a long career at Oracle before joining Salesforce five years ago. This summer he became co-CEO alongside Marc Benioff, the company’s chairman and cofounder.   I spent time with Block at CNBC’s Capital@Work event this week in San Francisco, talking strategy, his background, and more.  Plus: Not many people are getting a cloud for Christmas. But … chances are a lot of the stuff you do get is going to require that you buy online storage sometime down the line. You’ve got to back up those holiday photos and videos eventually, in case your hard drive fails or your phone gets lost, or just to free up space!  So. Today we talk cloud, to save you money. Joining me to break it down, Rob Marvin is Associate Features Editor at PCMAG.com. Jefferson Graham is a tech columnist for USA Today. And Jordan Novet is a tech reporter for CNBC.com.

Andy Jassy started the cloud business at Amazon, and still runs it. As AWS re:Invent, Amazon's annual cloud conference, I talked to him about Amazon's cloud strategy, global tech momentum, rivalries with other tech giants, and more.

Max Levchin learned to write code out of necessity. His mother's necessity, specifically. Levchin co-founded PayPal, reaped a windfall from its IPO and sale, and became one of the best-connected investor/entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. But before all that, he was a teenage refugee from the Soviet Union, figuring out how to make his mark at the dawning of the consumer Internet era. Before the family had left Ukraine in the early 1990s, Soviet officials had given Levchin's mother a poorly translated programming manual, a PC, and a mandate: Learn to program it. Mother and son took turns reading each other the manual, and by the time they moved to the U.S., both knew how to code.

KIND Snacks today is a business valued in the billions of dollars, but this wasn't Daniel Lubetzky's first food company. That would be PeaceWorks – a venture with the lofty goal of bringing Jews and Arabs together through mutually beneficial trade. What they have in common is a strong sense of mission. KIND bars come in mostly clear packaging, intentionally showing buyers exactly what's inside. Lubetzky started out selling $100 worth of bars at a time – he says he now sells more than 1 billion in a year – and he believes in making a simple, straightforward promise about the ingredients inside. In our conversation for the Fortt Knox 1-on-1 this week, I talked to Lubetzky about how his family's legacy as Holocaust survivors informs the way he thinks about entrepreneurship and mission. He also talks about mistakes he made along the way. Also in this week's episode: It’s upon us: the holiday season. I don’t know about you, but I got an email come-on from Amazon about early Black Friday deals the day after Hallowe

The theme this week is "underdogs." John Chen has history in this department: His parents escaped communist China to Hong Kong, and his father had to work jobs beneath his education level so Chen could have a shot at a better life. At age 17 he came to the United States to finish high school. After he entered the workforce, Chen hit a roadblock. It wasn't common at the time for engineers to get promoted into broader management positions, and he was still growing in his comfort with communicating as a leader in English, his second language. Fast-forward to today, and Chen has been CEO of BlackBerry for five years. He has taken the company from a dying smartphone maker to a stable provider of security and automotive software. And it's not Chen's first turnaround; after becoming CEO of Sybase in 1998, he led a reinvention that saved the company. In all of my years covering Chen, I'd never heard his personal story. For the Fortt Knox 1-on-1 this week, I finally get to the root of why Chen is so comfortable playin

Panera had a problem. At lunchtime, customers were mobbing the counters to order and pick up, and it was a mess. It was frustrating for everyone involved, and management knew they were probably missing out on sales because of it. The company's founder turned to Blaine Hurst to lead the search for a solution. As the company's chief technology officer, he put together a team to make Panera a leader in digital ordering and fast pickup. First through a website and in-store kiosks and now through mobile ordering and delivery, those tech efforts have paid off. The company now books more than $1 billion worth of digital orders a year, and digital is more than a quarter of total sales. To talk about how he got there, I sat down with Hurst for this week's Fortt Knox 1-on-1. The answer isn't what I expected. There was no getting buy-in from across the company about what the problem was before the team crafted a solution. And now that he's the CEO and not the CTO, he's had to shift his methods somewhat. Plus: Richard Fr

Luis von Ahn is familiar with the idea that education is a great equalizer, but the reality he’s observed is different. More often than not, the opportunity for an exceptional education is available only to the wealthy – and it makes them even wealthier.  So what can be done about it?  Von Ahn was born in Guatemala, where much of the population is poor. So after he struck it rich selling a company to Google, he decided to build technology that really does address the wealth gap, by targeting one type of education that does make a difference: language.  That was the genesis of Duolingo. Today, it has touched 300 million users, and has both ad-supported and subscription versions. 

This week, Canada legalized pot. That’s a big deal because it’s the largest country to do it, and because it’s a major milestone in one of the most impressive rebranding exercises in a generation. When I was growing up, many warned against marijuana as a gateway drug, the province of hippies and slackers. Now it’s becoming a multi-billion-dollar global industry, and Elon Musk is toking during a podcast. Seems like an appropriate time to polish off that old meme: “We would like to congratulate drugs, for winning the War On Drugs.” For the Fortt Knox 1-on-1 this week, I bring you my conversation with Sam Shank, cofounder and CEO of HotelTonight. That business is another example of seizing the moment. Shank had achieved smaller success with a travel technology businesses in the past, but this one was timed to a revolution when it came to life eight years ago. The idea: a smartphone app that finds you last-minute deals on hotel rooms. At first, you couldn't book any further out than a week in advance. The concept

Arnold Donald has led cruise company Carnival for five years – the company is now worth $40 billion. Before that, Donald had a long career at Monsanto. His path to the top of a publicly traded company is unique. He's one of the few African American Fortune 500 CEOs, and rose to his position from roots growing up in segregated Louisiana in the 1950s and '60s.

Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategies joins on how to buy a PC in 2018.

Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren joins to talk the future of subscriptions online.

We’ve got a fascination with founders in our culture – people who start stuff. Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos. Bill Gates.   I’ve had a new generation of founders here on Fortt Knox: Stitch Fix founder Katrina Lake, and Guild Education founder Rachel Carlson to name a couple.  So this week we’re going to dig into what successful founders do right, and what we can learn from them. Because hey: The way I look at it, even if you’re not starting the next Apple, the chances are pretty good that a lot of us have started something, or will before too long. Maybe it’s a small business – a major project on your job.   My guests: CNBC Wealth Editor Robert Frank, who has chronicled the ways of successful entrepreneurs for many years now. And the irrepressible Scott Galloway, Professor at NYU’s Stern School of business, author of New York Times bestseller The Four, which examines the animating ideas behind Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon. This week for the Fortt Knox one-on-one I’ve also got Maynard Webb. He’s former Board Cha

Three new iPhone Xs and a watch that's a cleared medical device: That's what Apple announced at its biggest event of the year. But what does it mean for Apple? Which, if any, of this stuff is worth buying? Jon Fortt breaks it down with Christina Farr, CNBC.com health reporter who has been breaking stories left and right on Apple's health advancements; Jillian Manus, Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and CNBC tech correspondent Josh Lipton.

Big week for social media. Colin Kaepernick tweets his new Nike ad, Nike retweets, and it’s on. Did Nike just make a big mistake, or did it lock in the loyalty of a valuable customer base? Plus, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey go to Capitol Hill and … I know what you’re thinking, no, Dorsey didn’t go for a Civil War battle reenactment, though with that beard he’d make a dashing Rufus King – I’m just saying – with a bow tie? That’s fresh. No, they went for a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, to talk about what they’re doing to make sure foreign powers aren’t futzing around with our Midterm elections, which are coming up in just two months. This is Fortt Knox, rich ideas and powerful people. I am Jon Fortt of CNBC. Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize-winning contributor to the New York Times Magazine joins me; he has covered the legal upheaval coming to the social space. And Ellen Pao, CEO of Project Include, former CEO of Reddit, and canary in the “Me Too” coal mine joins us.

The economy's supposed to be really good, if you look at the official numbers. According to the U.S. labor department the unemployment rate was under 4 percent in July, which is a level that a lot of people used to consider "full employment." Everybody who wants a job has one.   Except … not really.  The system isn't working the way it's supposed to for working people. Here's what I mean. Typically in the past, when so many people have jobs, pay goes up. I mean, how else are you going to get people to work for you if everybody has a job. You've got to pay them more.   But that's not happening – at least not anywhere near at the level it should be. The Labor Department reported last month that if you look at median weekly earnings, and you factor in inflation, the typical worker is just treading water.   And what about the future? Having a job and making a living are not the same thing. The cost of a four-year degree rose about 25 percent in the last decade according to the College Board, to $34,740 a year. Me