Why Workday’s CEO studied the Steve Jobs playbook for returning founders

In today’s CEO Daily: Aneel Bhusri is starting Workday’s “refounding” chapter The big leadership story: Jensen Huang has no tolerance for AI-related cybersecurity incidents The markets: Markets sink worldwide after a hot U.S. inflation report Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune .

Good morning.

Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell writing this morning.

In 2005, at age 39, Aneel Bhusri cofounded Workday.

The enterprise solutions company now ranks No.

430 on the Fortune 500 and generated about $9.6 billion in revenue last fiscal year.

So when Bhusri handed the CEO role to his co-CEO, Carl Eschenbach, in early 2024 and stayed on as executive chair, he felt his role in securing Workday’s future was complete.

But these are not ordinary times.

In the age of AI, Bhusri told me “all bets are off.” The top skill CEOs need today, he said, is the ability to innovate.

Few leaders can do that better than founders.

In February, at the nudging of his cofounder Dave Duffield, Bhusri reclaimed the CEO seat at Workday and began the company’s “refounding” chapter.

“Great companies are not built on one generation of technology.

They pass the test of time,” Bhusri told me on the latest episode of the Fortune 500 Titans podcast .

“I really wanted Workday to be one of those companies that was not just great in cloud but also in this next generation.