A little-known semiconductor company just won an entrepreneur contest that previously honored Jensen Huang and Michael Dell

(Credit: Courtesy of EY)

• In today’s CEO Daily: Astera Labs wins a top entrepreneur prize.
• The big leadership story: Marc Benioff says agents are doing a lot—but not ‘selling and communicating.’
• The markets: Mixed with big surges in parts of Asia.
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune .

Good morning. Astera Labs CEO Jitendra Mohan, along with co-founders Sanjay Gajendra and Casey Morrison, won the prestigious EY World Entrepreneur of the Year award in Monaco last night. This tops off a banner year for the Silicon Valley semiconductor company, which creates pioneering connectivity solutions, primarily for AI data centers. As Gajendra put it: “We designed a nervous system for the brain, purpose-built for a world where you have so many computing devices that need to be connected at extreme speed.”