Fortt Knox

Panera had a problem. At lunchtime, customers were mobbing the counters to order and pick up, and it was a mess. It was frustrating for everyone involved, and management knew they were probably missing out on sales because of it.

The company's founder turned to Blaine Hurst to lead the search for a solution. As the company's chief technology officer, he put together a team to make Panera a leader in digital ordering and fast pickup. First through a website and in-store kiosks and now through mobile ordering and delivery, those tech efforts have paid off. The company now books more than $1 billion worth of digital orders a year, and digital is more than a quarter of total sales.

To talk about how he got there, I sat down with Hurst for this week's Fortt Knox 1-on-1. The answer isn't what I expected. There was no getting buy-in from across the company about what the problem was before the team crafted a solution. And now that he's the CEO and not the CTO, he's had to shift his methods somewhat.

Plus:

Richard Freed is a child and adolescent psychologist, and the author of Wired Child: Reclaiming Childhood in a Digital Age; he joined me from San Francisco. Anya Kamenetz is lead education blogger for NPR, and author of The Art of Screen Time: How Your Family Can Balance Digital Media and Real Life; she joined me in New York. And Katherine Omerod is a social media influencer and author of Why Social Media Is Ruining Your Life; she joined me from London. In our conversation I got feedback and a few pointers on how other parents can set boundaries. Be a friend and share this episode with a parent you know.

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Luis von Ahn is familiar with the idea that education is a great equalizer, but the reality he’s observed is different. More often than not, the opportunity for an exceptional education is available only to the wealthy – and it makes them even wealthier. 

So what can be done about it? 

Von Ahn was born in Guatemala, where much of the population is poor. So after he struck it rich selling a company to Google, he decided to build technology that really does address the wealth gap, by targeting one type of education that does make a difference: language. 

That was the genesis of Duolingo. Today, it has touched 300 million users, and has both ad-supported and subscription versions. 

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This week, Canada legalized pot. That’s a big deal because it’s the largest country to do it, and because it’s a major milestone in one of the most impressive rebranding exercises in a generation. When I was growing up, many warned against marijuana as a gateway drug, the province of hippies and slackers. Now it’s becoming a multi-billion-dollar global industry, and Elon Musk is toking during a podcast. Seems like an appropriate time to polish off that old meme: “We would like to congratulate drugs, for winning the War On Drugs.”

For the Fortt Knox 1-on-1 this week, I bring you my conversation with Sam Shank, cofounder and CEO of HotelTonight. That business is another example of seizing the moment. Shank had achieved smaller success with a travel technology businesses in the past, but this one was timed to a revolution when it came to life eight years ago. The idea: a smartphone app that finds you last-minute deals on hotel rooms. At first, you couldn't book any further out than a week in advance.

The concept has evolved significantly since then. Today, it’s not just on smartphones, and you can now book three months in advance. The startup has raised more than $100 million. Shank has some advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, intriguing insights into why HotelTonight needed to start the way it did, and an update on the prospects of an IPO for the company. 

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Arnold Donald has led cruise company Carnival for five years – the company is now worth $40 billion. Before that, Donald had a long career at Monsanto. His path to the top of a publicly traded company is unique. He's one of the few African American Fortune 500 CEOs, and rose to his position from roots growing up in segregated Louisiana in the 1950s and '60s.

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Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategies joins on how to buy a PC in 2018.

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Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren joins to talk the future of subscriptions online.

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We’ve got a fascination with founders in our culture – people who start stuff. Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos. Bill Gates.  

I’ve had a new generation of founders here on Fortt Knox: Stitch Fix founder Katrina Lake, and Guild Education founder Rachel Carlson to name a couple. 

So this week we’re going to dig into what successful founders do right, and what we can learn from them. Because hey: The way I look at it, even if you’re not starting the next Apple, the chances are pretty good that a lot of us have started something, or will before too long. Maybe it’s a small business – a major project on your job.  

My guests: CNBC Wealth Editor Robert Frank, who has chronicled the ways of successful entrepreneurs for many years now. And the irrepressible Scott Galloway, Professor at NYU’s Stern School of business, author of New York Times bestseller The Four, which examines the animating ideas behind Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.

This week for the Fortt Knox one-on-one I’ve also got Maynard Webb. He’s former Board Chairman at Yahoo, former CEO of LiveOps, chief operating officer at eBay, and board member at Visa and Salesforce. 

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Three new iPhone Xs and a watch that's a cleared medical device: That's what Apple announced at its biggest event of the year.

But what does it mean for Apple? Which, if any, of this stuff is worth buying?

Jon Fortt breaks it down with Christina Farr, CNBC.com health reporter who has been breaking stories left and right on Apple's health advancements; Jillian Manus, Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and CNBC tech correspondent Josh Lipton.

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Big week for social media.

Colin Kaepernick tweets his new Nike ad, Nike retweets, and it’s on. Did Nike just make a big mistake, or did it lock in the loyalty of a valuable customer base?

Plus, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey go to Capitol Hill and … I know what you’re thinking, no, Dorsey didn’t go for a Civil War battle reenactment, though with that beard he’d make a dashing Rufus King – I’m just saying – with a bow tie? That’s fresh.

No, they went for a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, to talk about what they’re doing to make sure foreign powers aren’t futzing around with our Midterm elections, which are coming up in just two months.

This is Fortt Knox, rich ideas and powerful people. I am Jon Fortt of CNBC.

Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize-winning contributor to the New York Times Magazine joins me; he has covered the legal upheaval coming to the social space. And Ellen Pao, CEO of Project Include, former CEO of Reddit, and canary in the “Me Too” coal mine joins us.

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The economy's supposed to be really good, if you look at the official numbers. According to the U.S. labor department the unemployment rate was under 4 percent in July, which is a level that a lot of people used to consider "full employment." Everybody who wants a job has one.  

Except … not really. 

The system isn't working the way it's supposed to for working people. Here's what I mean. Typically in the past, when so many people have jobs, pay goes up. I mean, how else are you going to get people to work for you if everybody has a job. You've got to pay them more.  

But that's not happening – at least not anywhere near at the level it should be. The Labor Department reported last month that if you look at median weekly earnings, and you factor in inflation, the typical worker is just treading water.  

And what about the future? Having a job and making a living are not the same thing. The cost of a four-year degree rose about 25 percent in the last decade according to the College Board, to $34,740 a year. Meanwhile student loan debt Is exploding.  

So: wages flat. Traditional schooling expensive. We haven’t even talked about the cost of raising a family if that’s your thing. What are you going to do if you’re not already in the job you want to be doing for the rest of your life? 

Today we’re going to find the smart way to navigate all this. Getting the skills for a better job or higher pay without crushing your bank account and going deep in debt.  

Welcome to Fortt Knox, rich ideas and powerful people. I am Jon Fortt at the Nasdaq Marketsite in New York’s Times Square.  

Joining me on the show today to help you make your plan: Here with me at the Nasdaq, Laura Pappano is an education reporter who lives and breathes this stuff, writing in the New York Times, the Hechinger Report and more.  

Joining us from Denver, Rachel Carlson cofounder and CEO of Guild Education, a company that helps employers offer education as a benefit to employees, kind of like healthcare – clients include WalMart, Lowe’s, Taco Bell and Chipotle.  

And finally, joining us from Cambridge Massachusetts, Anant Agarwal is an MIT professor and CEO of EDX, a free-to-learn platform.

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