Brian Sozzi

    Executive Editor

    Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor. He hosts executive interviews on Yahoo Finance Live, Yahoo Finance's 'Lead This Way' digital series and at major conferences such as the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Milken conference. He is also the host for the Opening Bid podcast and leads direction for Yahoo Finance's annual 'Invest' conference. Sozzi was previously the Executive Editor of publicly traded financial media company TheStreet. He led editorial direction for multimedia publications TheStreet, The Deal, several subscription news and data services, video and the company's conference business. He was a member of TheStreet's executive management team and reported directly to the founder, CEO and chairman. Sozzi began his career on Wall Street as a sell-side stock analyst covering retailers, banks and numerous other sectors. He won the 2011 FT | StarMine Analyst Award for No. 3 Earnings Estimator in the Textiles Apparel and Luxury Goods Industry.

  • Nike CEO John Donahoe stepping down, replaced by Elliott Hill

    Nike (NKE) CEO John Donahoe is stepping down, to be succeeded by Elliott Hill as chief executive and president of the athletic apparel company. Hill will also be joining Nike's board of directors and executive committee. Yahoo Finance executive editor Brian Sozzi joins Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton in breaking this news and evaluating Donahoe's leadership at Nike and what Hill can offer as the new chief executive. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination Overtime. This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

  • T-Mobile CEO talks Sprint merger, iPhone 16 demand, what's next

    T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert lays out his long-term vision for the telecom giant.

  • Momentum is 'on our side’ going into AI era: T-Mobile CEO

    Yahoo Finance executive editor Brian Sozzi sits down with T-Mobile (TMUS) CEO Mike Sievert to discuss the company’s momentum going forward, including its artificial intelligence (AI) integration and the company’s position amid changing macroeconomic conditions. “We’ve got momentum on our side,” Sievert says, explaining, "when we did our Capital Markets Day three and a half years ago and said we would penetrate smaller markets in rural areas and get after enterprise and convince people we have the best network, there was no proof." Sievert goes on to say that the company now has "momentum on our side years later" because its "formula is working." “Network is the essential fuel of this industry, and when we made our bet back in the [2010s] that the 5G revolution would unfold in mid-band on smartphones… it turns out we were right, and we were able to use the merger with Sprint to leapfrog everyone from dead last in the 4G LTE era to first and best in the 5G era.” T-Mobile held its investor day on Wednesday, September 18, as the wireless network operator pursues new acquisitions following its 2020 merger with Sprint. The company has pending mergers with US Cellular, Metronet, and Lumos. Sievert outlines how each brand “has a different story” that compliments T-Mobile’s portfolio. T-Mobile announced a deal with OpenAI as it integrates AI tech into its customer support systems: “Our job is to figure out, first and foremost, how do we prevent the need for you to call us in the first place. Every time you finally have to call us, something's gone wrong. We haven't predicted your intentions correctly. And so IntentCX, which is the model we're creating with OpenAI, is all about using the vast amount of data at our fingertips to curate an experience for you at T-Mobile that makes your experience successful so you don't have problems in the first place." Sievert forecasts a 75% reduction in "calls offered to our human agents at our stores and in our care centers, but those remaining 25% will be some of the gnarliest ones and so it will require a higher level of expertise" and human engagement. The CEO also sheds some light on demand for Apple’s (AAPL) new iPhone 16 and comments on the economic environment after the Federal Reserve opted to cut interest rates in September. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts. This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.

  • Salesforce co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff: Autonomous AI agents will beat Copilots

    Salesforce co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff comes out swinging again at Microsoft's Copilot.

  • Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff talks AI regulation

    Salesforce (CRM) is in focus with its annual Dreamforce conference underway. The big topic of discussion is artificial intelligence (AI), with issues such as safety, regulation, and even the possibility that AI could create job losses. Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi sits down with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to discuss the state of AI regulation as the tech advances. "I think that we are doing a lot of the right things, but we don't know necessarily what the wrong things are because the future is still somewhat undetermined," Benioff says. At the Salesforce conference, California Governor Gavin Newsom is signing three bills into law targeting the misuse of AI-created content in an effort to combat election misinformation. The governor has been outspoken about the need for AI regulation after Elon Musk, Tesla and Space X CEO and X (formerly Twitter) owner, shared a deep fake video featuring altered footage of Vice President Kamala Harris. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts. This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.

  • Hasbro CEO goes all in on kidults and gaming

    Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks's turnaround plan begins to take hold after a long slog through the operational muck.

  • Affirm founder: We want to be the modern American Express

    Affirm matures as a public company.

  • Affirm CEO explains why he's an AI 'techno-optimist'

    Affirm (AFRM) plans to leverage artificial intelligence to boost productivity, not cut jobs, CEO Max Levchin tells Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Tech Conference. Levchin says there are two ways to think about AI: the “techno-optimist” and the “techno-doomist" mindsets, adding that he stands on the optimistic side. “I think the future of AI, as far as I can see, and that is what we're doing at Affirm, is more productivity,” the CEO says, believing the company doesn’t “need to lose jobs” just because AI can replace its workforce. Levchin says the financial services company plans to equip its customer service teams with AI agents and its engineers with AI programming assistants. “We use a lot of the AI today in just the running of the enterprise, and we expect to do a lot more than that,” he tells Yahoo Finance. The CEO says he’s “optimistic, but also pragmatic,” noting that there are “risks associated with AI” that have “less to do with the [large language] models themselves and more to do with what the models are allowed to do in the real world.” “I'm not diminishing or dismissing the need for controls and model governance and oversight and thoughtful rule-making,” Levchin says. He just wouldn’t opt to “shut it all down.” Catch more Yahoo Finance coverage and interviews from the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference, including the full interview with Affirm CEO Max Levchin. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts. This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.

  • Affirm is building a 'modern answer' to AmEx, CEO explains

    Affirm (AFRM) CEO Max Levchin met with Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference to discuss the fintech business's evolution and where it could be headed next. Levchin highlights the company’s strength, nodding to its recent quarterly earnings. He said the company is “moving from startup mode to growth mode” to its next phase as a financial services company. Affirm CFO Michael Linford described the payment service to be "firing on all cylinders" in an interview with Yahoo Finance in August. “We think of ourselves as a forever company,” the CEO says, adding that “for a long time as a startup, you say that, but you mean let's survive another week." Now, Levchin's outlook on Affirms has extended by decades. Levchin notes the initial framing of the company as a buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform was a mistake: “One thing that I wish I could rewind the clock on is not to use those four dreaded letters.” “We're much more than BNPL,” the CEO tells Sozzi, saying the company is “payments first and foremost” as a financial services business with a “deep relationship with consumers.” Looking forward, Levchin says Affirm aspires to “build a modern answer” to American Express, (AXP) a company the CEO admittedly admires greatly. “It's a wonderful brand” and “a great service,” but it is “a club and a club with a velvet rope, and you've got to be good enough to be on the right side of the rope.” “I wanted to build a payment system, a payment network, reach merchants, serve consumers, offer access to credit. But for everyone, for anyone who wants to be a part of something that stands for no late fees, no deferred interest, real transparency, [and with a] real pro-consumer attitude," Levchin explains. “Now, the next few steps are just [getting] bigger,” with more services, consumers, and merchants, Levchin tells Yahoo Finance. Catch more Yahoo Finance coverage and interviews from the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts. This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.

  • Affirm CEO on business evolution beyond BNPL and AI future

    Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi sat down with Affirm (AFRM) CEO Max Levchin at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Tech Conference to discuss the evolution of the company's business beyond a buy now, pay later (BNPL) solution and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). Levchin says the company is “moving from startup mode to growth mode” in its next phase as a financial services company, noting that its offerings have expanded beyond BNPL. “We're much more than BNPL,” the CEO tells Sozzi, saying the company is “payments first and foremost” as a financial services business with a “deep relationship with consumers.” Looking forward, Levchin says Affirm is working to “build a modern answer” to American Express (AXP) as a payment system with a "real pro-consumer attitude.” The CEaysO s Affirm's next steps are getting bigger with more services, consumers, and merchants. Levchin also discusses his views on AI and how Affirm is leveraging the technology. The CEO defines himself as a "techno-optimist," saying that "the future of AI, as far as I can see, and that is what we're doing at Affirm, is more productivity.” He states the company will use AI to make employees more productive rather than replace jobs. Levchin notes that he's “optimistic but also pragmatic" about the risks associated with AI. Catch more Yahoo Finance coverage and interviews from the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts. This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.

  • Companies are being careful with software spending, Okta CEO says

    Okta co-founder and CEO Todd McKinnon weighed in on the demand environment for software.

  • Companies spending carefully, even on security: Okta CEO

    Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi sits down with Okta (OKTA) co-founder and CEO Todd McKinnon at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Tech Conference to discuss the importance of cybersecurity and how AI will revolutionize the company. McKinnon argues that "identity is as important as ever" when it comes to cybersecurity. He notes that 85% of security breaches are related to identity, and Okta helps its customers by "providing the best set of identity products across all of the identity categories." While companies are currently more careful about their spending, he explains that sometimes it takes longer for them to justify the investment into platforms like Okta. However, he remains "confident" in the company's ability to provide a return on investment. As AI broadens throughout the market, McKinnon views the technology as a "firestorm in terms of innovation." He points Okta AI as one of the company's recent innovations, which allows organizations to build better experiences while protecting against cyberattacks. "What that really forces a lot of them to do is really further the acceleration to more modern platforms like Okta Identity or AWS for cloud. Because one thing about AI, you're not gonna get that in a legacy data center," he explains. While the technology will spur innovation, McKinnon acknowledges that it comes with its own set of risks. He points to new security weaknesses and issues like deep fakes as potential problems ahead as AI advances. Thus, he believes that it is important to "look at what the progress is and how we can balance it out with the benefits and the costs and the risks, and work through that as an industry." The tech sector has experienced significant volatility over the last month, and looking ahead to 2025, McKinnon says that Okta is "very focused on reigniting growth." He explains that the company will continue "doubling down on product innovation" after rolling out products like Identity Threat Protection with Okta AI. He adds, "The foundation of that acceleration is gonna be around products, and we're really excited about the product pipeline we're delivering." After a CrowdStrike (CRWD) update caused global IT outages in July, McKinnon stresses that in critical situations, companies must be able to "communicate directly and clearly and effectively." He continues, "the second thing you have to do is make sure that you're very clear with everyone, all your constituencies, about what you're gonna change and why it happened." While it's important to roll out new updates and integrations, he emphasizes the need for it to be "tested and reliable." For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Asking for a Trend. This post was written by Melanie Riehl

  • Robinhood can still grow in face of interest rate cuts, CEO says

    Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev says his company can withstand a series of rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.

  • Robinhood CEO: These 2 trends will alter financial services

    Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi sat down with Robinhood (HOOD) CEO Vlad Tenev at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Tech Conference to discuss how artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto could change investing and how the online brokerage's customers are trading. "I think there are two big trends that could change how financial services are delivered: crypto and artificial intelligence," Tenev said, adding, "Robinhood intends to be a leader in both." The company has been growing and adding new products. Tenev says "Robinhood is looking less like a traditional brokerage. Of course, we have a big brokerage business, but we aim to be leaders in retirement, in wealth management over time. We think that there's a huge opportunity with owning the financials of an entire generation." September has traditionally been a volatile month for the markets and this September has been no exception. When asked for what sort of activity he is seeing on the platform, Tenev observes that customers who trade things like options and futures, are still staying active. "For customers that are more buy and hold, they tend to see corrections in the market or volatility as buying opportunities because the thesis for these customers is that AI, and to some extent, cryptocurrency, is a transformative force, and that's going to play out over the long run," Tenev told Yahoo Finance, noting that recent market volatility has allowed some customers to buy big-name stocks "at a discounted price." The Federal Reserve is expected to cut rates at its September meeting. Tenev brushed off concerns that could be a negative for the company arguing that "on balance, the business will continue to do well" given how it has diversified. This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.

  • AT&T CEO on Fed rate cuts: They will make our stock look more attractive

    AT&T CEO John Stankey shares his thoughts on the economy as the year nears a close.

  • AT&T's CEO on how a BlackRock partnership will boost business

    AT&T (T) is betting big on Gigapower. So, what is it? AT&T CEO John Stankey tells Yahoo Finance it's a joint venture in which "BlackRock (BLK) is interested in investing in infrastructure. They saw a capable operator in our case. We came together, we put together a management team. They came with some financial backing, and we're now extending fiber outside of what used to be our traditional operating footprint, allows us to go faster, build more homes. It's a shared risk model. Shared return model is a result of that. It's a way to get the AT&T brand deeper out into the United States." Gigapower is part of Stankey's "converge" strategy, which he describes as "a household that buys both fiber and wireless from us. When they do that, they churn less. They have greater lifetime value because of that. Their brand affinity goes up because they like the products together and the convenience of using them." He explains that right now, AT&T is selling its fiber product for less than others, but that it "bodes well for the future because after you get the customer, you bring them in, then you can obviously price to market. And we will do that over time." One thing that could be good for AT&T is the launch of the new Apple iPhone 16. But when asked about it, Stankey points out that it ultimately comes down to people wanting to be on the AT&T network. "What we care is that there are phones out there connected to the network. That's kind of where we make our money and we're kind of less focused on the particular version of the device that we see," Stankey says, adding that there will likely be less of a "big bang... like when we go from 4G to 5G and there's a new air interface, and the phone's gonna perform dramatically differently because of that." For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts. This post was written by Stephanie Mikulich.

  • Why a 25 BPs cut is the Fed's likely move: Goldman chief economist

    Wall Street is confident that the Federal Reserve will initiate an interest rate cut at its September meeting, but many are split on the exact amount of the cut. Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi sits down with Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Tech Conference to discuss the state of the economy and the Fed's next moves. Hatzius believes that a 25-basis-point interest rate cut will be the likely outcome at the September meeting, explaining, "I think that's more consistent with the data that we've seen since the weaker-than-expected jobs report a month ago." However, he wouldn't rule out a 50-basis-point cut, arguing that there is a "solid rationale" for the larger cut. He explains that the fed funds rate is "really high," the highest among the G10, despite the US making more progress on inflation than other countries in the group. "So you could certainly make the case that they should be bringing down that rate quickly," he explains. He notes that if the Fed moves forward with a 25-basis-point cut, he expects it to be the beginning of a series of cuts. "I would also expect them to signal clearly, as Governor Waller did on Friday, that they'd be very willing to scale up the pace if the data disappoint," Hatzius adds. He argues that a 25-basis-point cut will also give investors less reason to panic, while a 50-basis-point cut would indicate that the US economy is in worse shape than expected. While the economy is slowing, Hatzius believes that it is not doing so too much: "Yes, it is slowing relative to where it was maybe six months ago for sure, but that was very rapid growth, you know, of 3% or more. We're still tracking 2.5% growth in the third quarter. Our forecast for next year is only a few tenths below that — 2.25%. Those are very solid numbers." He explains that while the unemployment rate has risen, it is largely due to an increase in labor supply caused by immigration. "A lot of those people have entered the workforce and now are still entering the workforce, and it's taking some time to absorb them. And in the meantime, the unemployment rate rises. That's my hypothesis for what's going on. And so I think that it's more the labor market rebalancing, labor market softening rather than a big slowdown in growth," he tells Yahoo Finance. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts. This post was written by Melanie Riehl

  • Lyft CEO keeps it real on his stock price compared to Uber

    Lyft CEO David Risher says his company is past the turnaround phase.

  • Disney investors are glued to CEO succession outcome: Goldman Sachs analyst

    Disney investors will be on the lookout for a new CEO within the next 12 months.

  • Apple, Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney: What's next for the stocks?

    Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi and Catalysts Host Madison Mills sit down with Goldman Sachs senior equity research analyst Michael Ng at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Tech Conference to discuss the state of media and tech companies, from Apple (AAPL) to Disney (DIS). On Monday, Apple (AAPL) unveiled its newest product offerings at its highly anticipated "It's Glowtime" event in Cupertino, California. Ng explains that the event "delivered in line with investor expectations," noting that historically, the company has underperformed the S&P 500 by 70 basis points on announcement days, and following the event, it underperformed by about 100 basis points. "We think that was in line with historical events. And when you look at the individual product announcements, it came in mostly as expected," he adds. Ng reiterates his Buy rating on Apple, arguing that "there's an underappreciated uplift in their normalized earnings power as more people start to upgrade their iPhones." He continues, "We think that investors have historically thought about Apple iPhones at a normalized sell-through rate at about 225 to 230 million units. And we think that AI and some of the new product features that are going to get rolled out over the next few years is going to bring that normalized run rate closer to 250 to 260 million." While there is debate among investors as to whether AI will be the demand driver for Apple, Ng is bullish on the technology. He also highlights that hardware changes will also drive an upgrade cycle as screen sizes increase, devices become thinner, and rumors that the iPhone 18 may potentially be foldable. Turning to Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), Ng believes that the company is managing its video business holistically. "The linear TV network business is certainly having challenges. Cord cutting is unrelenting, and paid TV subscriber declines will continue to occur. That being said, it's an incredibly cash-generative business and it helps to fund growth investments elsewhere in the Warner Brothers portfolio," he explains. He points to momentum in its streaming platform Max, and argues that "there's a crown jewel in the Warner Brothers film and television studio." Meanwhile, Ng believes that one of Disney's (DIS) biggest challenges will be its succession planning. Investors have praised the company's growth under CEO Bob Iger, and Ng notes that before Iger's return to the company, Disney faced "a few missteps," especially in its film and TV divisions. "I think there's a tremendous amount of focus on what that succession planning looks like. One observation that I'll make is that they have an incredibly deep bench of talented executives across each of their business lines, theme parks, film and TV studios, and obviously at ESPN," Ng tells Yahoo Finance. For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination Overtime. This post was written by Melanie Riehl