Good morning. Bill Gross has spent a career trying to scale himself. He launched Idealab in 1996 as a pioneering tech incubator for the internet age that’s so far produced more than 175 companies. Today, he’s launching Idealab.ai, a free public platform that lets users search more than 1.2 million business ideas generated so far, giving people AI-powered tools to test and build them into businesses. The concepts were created through a system that analyzed more than 17 million sources, applying Gross’s 31 methods for generating business ideas that include how he identifies current opportunities such as unmet needs, enablers such as new technologies, and market shifts such as regulatory or cultural changes. He’s also developing a “periodic table of business functions” required to operate a company that can guide users through steps and ultimately create a community where founders can collaborate and find support.
The goal: to help fledgling entrepreneurs create a million new businesses and 100 million new jobs by giving everyone free tools to test their ideas and build them into businesses.
“This is the biggest thing I could do to have the most positive impact on the world,” Gross told me last week. “With Idealab, I could do 10 companies at once; now, I could do 10,000 at once. I feel like this is the ultimate use of AI. What could be better than using it to solve actual world problems?”
If Idealab can get involved in some of the ventures—great, but his main motivation is to spur more global entrepreneurship with ideas and an ecosystem to get things done.
Matthew Prince of Cloudflare has already committed $100,000 in credits to each startup using the platform. As Prince explained to me on Friday, “helping match talented entrepreneurs with vetted business ideas matched to their skill sets seems like a killer way to unlock more entrepreneurship and solve some incredibly important problems.”
Gross is planning to approach other companies to seek similar support. He also said versions will connect users to potential funders and partners, among other things. And he anticipates that users will have their own ideas. JUST Capital’s Martin Whittaker, for one, has already asked him for a filter to identify disadvantaged cities since impact investors often want to focus on supporting startups in those areas.
I asked my colleague, AI editor Jeremy Kahn, what he thought of the idea. He responded that “Bill’s idea is a really fascinating use case for AI,” adding that such a system could help supercharge entrepreneurship. Whether new business formation will offset job losses remains to be seen, Kahn noted, and he echoed Gross’s contention that “having an idea is just a tiny part of what building a business is all about.” The most important tools may be those that connect people to collaborators and help with execution.
With this platform, Gross could unleash a lot of entrepreneurial energy and help shift the narrative that AI is something to fear. He’s acutely aware of AI’s destructive power, having removed about 100,000 ideas that could be deployed to do harm. People can type in their LinkedIn profiles or skills into Idealab.ai to serve up ideas that align with their talents and passion. And Gross is creating ways to connect with capital and quantify likely startup costs. If you want an idea that costs $50,000 to start, the platform shows you around 32,000 options.
One of the most fascinating features is the patent search, which can be filtered by academic institutions or companies. Type in Caltech and 9,978 patents come up. Type in 3M and there are about 21,000 patents. Imagine how all that IP can now be deployed. For Gross, this is just the start. “Six months ago, this wouldn’t have worked,” he told me. “The quality of Fable and GPT-6 was the essential ingredient to make this good enough to invent new ideas. Before that, gibberish would come out. Now, by giving it my 31 methods, it comes up with new stuff that’s so good, it’s incredible.”
It certainly came up with a lot of ideas for me, from an “expert-owned interpretive news desk” and “evidence room for business decisions” to “publisher-backed vertical intelligence brands,” an independent studio and a newsletter called “The Daily Deep Read.” I guess that means I’m where I should be.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top leadership news
France is on the brink amid debt crisis, protests
Nationwide protests over the high cost of living roiled France over the weekend, adding to turmoil over public spending and debt ahead of a critical vote in the National Assembly. With far-right and far-left candidates in the lead to become France’s next president this spring, markets are losing confidence that either side will take the painful steps necessary to rein in the deficit. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has proposed a 2027 budget that would modestly bring the deficit down to 5% of GDP from 5.4%; it faces a first critical vote on Tuesday.
Utility prices may swing midterm races
Record-breaking fuel prices triggered by the Iran war and global refinery outages have dominated the discourse leading up to the November midterm elections, but skyrocketing utility bills and the data center boom are squarely on the ballot too—and could tip the balance of power in many states and in Congress. Over the last five years, U.S. electricity prices are up roughly 40% on average. Through the first three quarters of 2026, utilities have requested another $23.1 billion in rate increases, on track to match the record-smashing high of nearly $31 billion in 2025.
The ‘golden visa’ isn’t just for the rich
When the UAE launched its golden visa in 2019, the government offered 10-year residency to people who could invest at least $545,000 into property as well as to researchers, teachers and specialized talent. It expanded again in 2020 and 2022 to include doctors, nurses, engineers, tech workers, and e-sports gamers. Expats make up 90% of its population. And that community has grown even after Iran launched thousands of missiles and drones at the UAE during its war with the U.S.
The markets
S&P 500 futures are up 0.47% this morning. The last session closed down 1.09%. The STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.78% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.88% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.62%. South Korea’s KOSPI was up 1.76%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.09%. Hong Kong’s market is closed today. India’s NIFTY 50 is down 1.11%. Bitcoin is at $83k.
Around the watercooler
Susan Dell is the one running the Dells’ $10 billion giving operation—and her biggest bets are on kids, health care, and UT Austin by Sydney Lake
10 million Americans are using advance loan apps to get their paychecks in advance—and it’s costing them hundreds of dollars more, report finds by Sasha Rogelberg
The wealthy boomer problem is metastasizing—they got 38% richer over the last 3 years as Gen Z and millennials under 35 got wiped out by Nick Lichtenberg
CEO Daily is curated and edited by Joseph Abrams, Jason Ma, Claire Zillman, and Lee Clifford.
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