Silicon Valley’s ‘player‑coach’ fantasy misses the point of good managers

In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady debunks the latest management trend.

The big leadership story: Investors aren’t buying Enrique Lores’s new plan for PayPal.

The markets: Mixed globally after the S&P 500 touched another new high Wednesday.

Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. Few things transform a career or a company like an excellent boss. Most of us have had them and we know what it looks like in others. Here are five CEOs who have low turnover and inspire people to do their best work: Marvin Ellison of Lowe’s, Patagonia’s Ryan Gellert, Linda Hubbard of Carhartt, Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Builders and KIND Snacks, and Hamdi Ulukaya of Chobani. I moderated an on-stage discussion with them about purpose-driven leadership at Milken this week and was struck by how their values permeate their organizations and drive growth. We talked about dignity, opportunity, agency, creativity, and creating a shared mission.

Contrast that with the rhetoric we see around Silicon Valley’s latest push into “player-coaches,” along with its continued vilification and misunderstanding of managers. We saw Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong telling workers to be more “front footed” as he flattens the organization or Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg saying he needs to cut back people-oriented things to invest more in compute infrastructure. (Shout out to folks like Aaron Levie of Box for trying to “bring reality to the valley.”) Do we need to reimagine work, leadership and how we structure companies in the age of AI? Yes. Should we look to companies like Coinbase and Meta to lead the way? Not necessarily. Here’s why:

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