Josh D’Amaro’s World of Tomorrow is borrowing a page from Disney’s yesteryear.

At the Walt Disney Annual Shareholder meeting on Wednesday, D’Amaro kicked off his first official day as the CEO of the House of Mouse. He faces a tall task. The veteran executive from Disney’s parks and cruises division finds himself at the head of one of the biggest film and TV studios in the world, at a critical and rapidly changing time for the entertainment industry. Meanwhile, his predecessor and longtime CEO Bob Iger will continue to hang around the company in a special advisory capacity and as a member of the board. For longtime Disney observers, it may all feel like a case of Bob Chapek-esque déjà vu. But Disney swears its second take on appointing an Iger successor will be different.

We Don’t Talk About Chapek, No, No

Chapek, like D’Amaro, made his bones in Disney’s parks and cruises division, which continues to be the major profit driver of the company (in fact, D’Amaro stepped in as Chapek’s direct successor when Chapek took over Iger’s job in 2020). But D’Amaro is surely hoping his next chapter is unlike Chapek’s, who was effectively pushed out after roughly two years for his perceived inability to run the creative TV and film side of the company, which generates less profit than parks and cruises but tends to drive interest in those experiences. After all, fans go to Disney World to get a real-life taste of their favorite Disney movies.

On Wednesday, D’Amaro went to great lengths to make clear he understood not to put the pumpkin carriage before the creative horses:

• During the shareholder event, Disney announced that TV and streaming executive Dana Walden, one of D’Amaro’s chief rivals in the running for Iger’s job, will be elevated to the company’s first president and chief creative officer.
• The elevated role places significant responsibility on Walden at a critical time for the entertainment division. While Disney’s streaming unit has recently turned the corner into profitability, sector-wide growth appears to be slowing (Disney recently stopped reporting subscriber figures) at a time when crucial live sports rights values are ballooning and fan interest in key Disney franchises such as Marvel and Star Wars appears to be waning.

The Big Picture: “The fact that they opted for the parks head again, I think it’s an acknowledgement of the challenges in the entertainment business,” Third Bridge sector analyst John Conca told The Daily Upside, and added that the biggest challenge for Disney moving forward will be breaking down operational siloes and reinvigorating its entertainment unit. In his remarks Wednesday, D’Amaro said he plans to do just that, promising a unified vision of the wide-ranging company. “Our greatest advantage is not any one business, but how our global businesses come together,” he wrote in a memo to employees. Hopefully, various stakeholders stay unified in their belief that it’s finally time for Iger to pass the baton.

“We had the tariff shock, we had the pandemic, and now we have an energy shock.” Those were the words of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday, underscoring how his term hasn’t exactly been a boring one.

With his tenure as chair due to expire in May, it doesn’t seem destined to end on a humdrum note, either. Powell, who plans to stay in the role until a successor is confirmed, bemoaned “frustrating” high services inflation and worried that conflict in the Persian Gulf could make matters worse after the central bank’s policymaking committee voted 11-1 to hold the benchmark interest rate between 3.5% and 3.75%.

Higher Cost of Doing Business

Powell’s Fed has worked aggressively since 2022 to reduce inflation to the central bank’s 2% target. In the past year, officials have also had to perform a delicate dance, balancing inflationary concerns with softening labor-market conditions.

War, meanwhile, is not delicate. Since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, oil prices have risen nearly 50% amid Tehran’s de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude futures rose 3.8% on Wednesday to $107.38 per barrel, while the average price of gas hit $3.84 per gallon in the US, the highest since 2023. There are also signs that inflationary pressures were appearing before the war. The latest producer price index reading, which measures inflation at the wholesale level, rose more than expected. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday that PPI climbed 0.7% month-over-month in February, or 0.5% with volatile food and energy prices stripped out, both more than the 0.3% economists forecast; on a 12-month basis, the headline index rose 3.4%, the most in a year. Powell, for one, said energy prices will push up inflation in “the near term,” and Fed projections show policymakers are more pessimistic about inflation:

• The median policymaker now expects the personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, to end the year at 2.7%, up from 2.4% in December.
• Powell said the war is “the kind of thing that can cause trouble for inflation expectations,” which sent stocks tumbling.

“The big takeaway from the Fed decision is that the Fed will not be riding to the economy’s rescue, even if gas and diesel prices keep rising,” said Comerica Bank Chief Economist Bill Adams. “Monetary policy can slow growth and inflation, or it can speed up growth and inflation. But it can’t offset an energy supply shock, which weakens growth at the same time that it raises inflation.”

Mr. Brightside: There’s room for optimism: Fed policymakers expect the unemployment rate will come in at 4.4% at the end of the year, the same as their ​December forecast and in line with February’s actual reading. They also expect GDP growth to reach 2.4% in 2026, up from 2.3% in December.

OpenClaw has the AI world clinched in its pincers, as technophiles from Boise to Beijing try to “raise a lobster.”

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC this week that OpenClaw is “the next ChatGPT” after the chip-maker launched a new product that layers on top of OpenClaw’s personal assistant. The agentic AI platform racked up more than 250,000 stars (similar to bookmarks) on GitHub, where coders share projects, in about four months. That’s more than Linux, the open-source operating system that’s essentially the backbone of the internet.

Making a Big Splash

OpenClaw went viral within months of its initial launch as users scooped up Mac Minis en masse to run the open-source tech 24/7. FYI: OpenClaw used to be called Clawdbot before it changed its name after receiving a nudge from Anthropic.

OpenClaw differs from Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT because it doesn’t run its own AI model. Instead, it taps various AI models, including Claude and ChatGPT, to perform tasks locally. OpenClaw can read and respond to messages on WhatsApp or Gmail, compile research from across the web, manage calendars or shop for groceries online.

The catch: these tasks require giving the AI agent access to sensitive communications (texts, emails) and credit cards. The two big cracks in the AI tool’s shell are its iffy security and not-so-user-friendly setup and training.

Companies are stepping in with their own solutions, though:

• Nvidia this week unveiled NemoClaw, a product meant to act as a secure layer on top of OpenClaw that could appeal to enterprise users who otherwise can’t afford the security risks.
• Chinese companies want to address the difficult setup of OpenClaw, with Tencent launching a 17-city tour to help users install the tool. Beijing’s biggies are also coming out with simplified OpenClaw copycats: ByteDance launched ArkClaw, Tencent released QClaw and Alibaba debuted CoPaw.

Rising Tide: Though OpenClaw is free, it can’t do much if users don’t pay for the AI models it interacts with. OpenClaw users connect the personal assistant to their other AI accounts, accounts that cost more to use more. Basically, one lobster in the water lifts all the AI boats.