Business is moving past the tech bro era and learning to value ‘real people, real places’

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• In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady talks to Steve Case and David Rubenstein about finding initiative and entreperneurship across the U.S.
• The big leadership story: Is renting AI from another country a national security risk?
• The markets: A modest recovery after yesterday’s tech crash
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. I often wonder when our mythologizing of tech bros will come to an end. The builders, coders and creators of Silicon Valley have done much to drive innovation, but the entrepreneurs who profit from it are often not steeped in tech. And leaders like Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S are increasingly talking about the importance of the humanities grad in the era of AI.

This week, I spoke with two political science grads who became billionaires by having the insight to spot an opportunity to innovate and partner with people who understood the mechanics of what they wanted to do. 

Steve Case was a marketing manager for Pizza Hut in Wichita, Kansas when he decided to join a struggling startup carved out from the carcass of a failed gaming company in the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C. He helped transform it and became the founding CEO of America Online, or AOL, bringing the internet to 30 million American households and giving consumers access to the wonders of email, chatrooms and news-on-demand. 

David Rubenstein, the son of a Baltimore postal worker, was frustrated in a Washington law firm when he was both inspired by a wildly successful leveraged buyout and unnerved by a book that claimed the odds of successfully starting a company plummets after 37. He co-founded Carlyle Group in 1987, just before he turned 38.

Case joined us at a C-suite dinner on Monday that Fortune co-hosted with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in its historic headquarters across from Lafayette Square and the White House. Now the chairman and CEO of Revolution, an investment firm, Case spoke about the need for a more inclusive innovation economy. “It’s not good that all the money’s made…in places like Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston,” he said. 

He believes “the next phase is vertical AI that can advantage companies in the middle of the country that have domain expertise in healthcare, farming, or other sectors.” He’s also moving aggressively into hospitality and real-estate, as “in an increasingly AI-centric world, people are going to value real people, real places, and real authentic experiences.”

I then spoke with Rubenstein at the 2026 conference for Points of Light, the world’s largest organization dedicated to increasing volunteerism, founded by President George H.W. Bush. We spoke about how Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political scientist, was blown away by America’s “spirit of association,” or the instinct to voluntarily devote time to help each other build and solve problems. 

Rubenstein has donated millions to repair iconic monuments around Washington (though not the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool), and left the event to mark the opening of a new museum at the Jefferson Memorial. Before he left, he argued that volunteerism—taking initiative and helping each other without turning to the government—is what set the U.S. apart.   

Neil Bradley, chief policy officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, pointed out at our Monday dinner that “not a single person will say the American Dream is 3% real GDP growth.” But you can’t ignore macroeconomic data entirely: “When you grow an economy at 3%, you double the size of the pie in 23 years.” 

As the U.S. marks its 250th anniversary, these conversations suggest a different way to think about our post-tech bro era. After all, innovation can be found across the country and tapped by those with all kinds of backgrounds—not just those rooted in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. 

Bradley noted on Monday that the U.S. “had more new business applications last year than at any time in our history.”

“The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well.”

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com