Transcript
Oh, did I see the countdown? Hey. Oh, live from your don't say, ESG annual letter, writing AI bot. We see a lot of jokes about Bots. That wrote annual letters and proxy says, but now it's real. So, the joke we don't do the joke, I think we called those Bots, the legal department before, but now it's a real, it's actual box. It's a business pants Friday. Show here, from April 4th Studios featuring analyst whole Matt mascardi. I let the audience soaked out in my car is here. Yes. Soak it in peeps on today's weekly wrap-up. See a CEO turns violent. After looking up his influence score on free flow, an wow, penguin's are a little bit poorer after tariff shock. I don't know. That is true. Yeah and the Heritage Foundation manages to get a bit whiter and its pursuit. In quote building in America where Freedom opportunity prosperity and Civil Society. Flourish if your skin color and genitalia are correct, no. Wow. What a mission statement. Imagine that. Imagine if that was the mission, our show today is being sponsored by free flow analytics.com. The only platform measuring board power connections and performance for free, and it is featured in one of our top stories. Yeah, those that was a pathetic and this whimper of an app. Well I guess if you're an analyst using our data, our data is the best bar none. But I don't know if it's, you know, if you're an analyzing, is it that I mean you're happy to use it. Yes, that exciting. That's you're supposed to sell know, you're yeah. Well, I don't. All right, but even like a analyst working for like a sports book, like FanDuel, you know, working they're doing the Super Bowl and everything, it's just data, you know, it's still just data, I don't know. Yeah, myself well today I got but if that is the comp, like FanDuel Underwriters of, you know, this is not going to be that this is look at, I think the data is incredible and amazing. I'm just talking about why the audience had this reaction today. Maybe they're just ready for the weekend. It's not. It's kind of a nice day up here in Northern New England. So maybe they're just excited to get out just tired. Reading about what a tariff even does it is and how we do math. Well let's just get to it. All right, let's do it. I'm not, here's a new one. I don't already. Yeah, this is a I, I'm constant. Is I'm the one thing I'm most pleased about is that I'm constantly re astounded by the horrid behavior of CEOs at publicly traded companies. Yeah, who are all men Bar, None. I think it's funny that you're astounded by anything anymore. That's that's it's so cute. Yeah, well, I guess that's why I'm still able to tag all these headlines. Because why would anyone else? Why would anyone do that? I don't know why. Anyone that's very massive kissing, CEO, a cues up. And once again business news, you know, Screw you for not outing. First of all, that they don't even have to dig a while to even find out the name of the company, little on the name of the CEO. But but when this happens say that guy's name, the American needs to know who's choking. Who okay? Oh wait, you know, sorry, just like CEO accused of choking, a fellow Cruise passenger. This is the actual headline, by the way, we're not. I know, you think we're all satire, but this is all fact-based. CEO accused of choking a fellow Cruise passenger after the man, allegedly danced Barefoot at a bar. Aboard the ship and insulted the CEOs wife. Oh what, which was, which do you think prompted the choking the barefootin or the wife insult? I think both actually, I think a combination but actually I have other theories. First of all he has a name, it's Kenneth the Giorgio he is the CEO yes of a publicly traded company. First American Financial Corp a company that is actually in our database that leads me to actually the first theory of why he got so angry. But before I get to that I want to here's a little bit of background. So the wife told the police that she said to the victim, the guy who got choked look, we are all grown-ups here. Can you put your shoes on? First of all, why is the CEO? Why is this the CEO's wife? You're on vacation. You're on a cruise. Yeah. What are you doing? What you're wrong place. Not be a grown up. There's such a thing. There's a thing called Airbnb and you can actually get a private home on a beach and you don't have to have anyone dancing Barefoot near you. My family uses it all the time, because we don't actually like to be by a bunch of drunken idiots. Dancing, Barefoot, the victim responded by cursing at her and sticking his middle finger up. Okay. That's according to the complaint and then the CEO then started choking him. Oh, so that's his response right to the violent choking. Yeah, I like that. The wife asked him to, to be a grown-up and put a shoes on and the husband's reaction was to choke a man. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It seemed like it, a childish response to a guy not wearing shoes. Well, this again, reinforcing the this is the year of 2025. You keep saying. This is the year of the middle school man. Flag the right. I mean, that's what it's man Flakes and it's still. Yeah, I don't know. The company is made no announcement that this guy has his job still anymore, but anyway, according to the victim, the CEO said I'm going to fucking kill you. So that's Good. So here's my okay. Here's what I'm thinking. First, I went to free flow, analytics.com to learn a little bit more. We don't talk a lot about first American Financial Corp, maybe that's one of the problems. It's just, it's not a very known company, but I looked at the influence numbers, Matt. Uh Kenneth the Georgie who's actually the third most powerful board member. He is behind, he's behind chair and former CEO. Dennis Gilmore. So he's already feeling a masquerade. We always talk about this. If you keep the former CEO on your board as a chair, it's a mess with the mind of your current CEO, right. Good point. Yeah. Third, he's also behind compensation compensation, committee chair, Michael McKee. And part of the reasons that macei has been there for more than a decade more than the new CEO. So, That might be part of the reason why he feels so emasculated in general. But there's another possible reason, maybe he's angry, because the CEO at peer company, Cincinnati Financial not only has a way cooler name. That's more appropriate for ocean. Cruising his name is Steven spray right better name for ocean cruises not that is that is definitely a better name for going on a cruise. Yeah. But also spray received about 18,000 dollars for spouse or travels one of his Works which would have been perfect for cruising, right? For an Airbnb. Yeah. Or whatever. It's a dual voice, the crews. So I could have been the reason why it kind of George was so upset, but I'm guessing. No, it's probably none of that. It's probably just the alcohol. Oh, the large amounts of alcohol, shoved down the faces of every Cruise goer. Yes. So anyway, that's the normal virus on Sundays, is that? So that's actually a real story. Yeah, that's actually it's Look, I want to give props at least for you. Picking the story in the face. Yes. Exactly. Blending news from about ciao. So happy to do it, too, like firings. And shuttering of government offices in the US a global trade War, every all the nonsense you managed to find CEO chokes. Well, dude on cruise, I say this. Yeah, I say this to everybody. I know that one of your, I'll tease one of your asshole is the weeks is spineless. ESG years. I know it's one year. People we still have work to do like you know, you can't give up. You can't just get rid of your Dei program. You can't just stop, but you're yes, stop giving up and keep focusing on what's going on, correct? All right, let's jump to the second horrible story of the week that matters to do. You know, when there are SEC, filing is all I can look it up. If you don't know off the top for the proxy, I'm wondering. If if maybe for first American guy, is it? I wonder if I assess will include that in their recommendation. I actually think she'll work the guy. I think their proxy just came out. Yeah. Came out at the end of March a few days ago. So I was also wondering, was there something in that proxy statement? What are the things I looked at? Was that his CEO pay ratio, is only like I say only but, you know, in America it's pretty low. It's only like 120 to 1. So maybe he's angry about that. I don't, I don't know. I don't know what something. I think it's I'm glad you pointed that out because it came out on March 31st. That's only like, two days before two days before he was so pissed about something right in there and he's not even up for election this year. Maybe. Oh, maybe that's it too. It's a classified, boy. He's not up for election this year, so maybe he thinks he's just get away with choking. Look at this. Look at this investors. We just made this relevant, right? This CEO has absolutely no accountability because you can't even vote him off the board. You can go choke a guy on a cruise and you can't really do anything about it. Except vote against other board members to send a message to the CEO and this is the problem. Yeah. Like if you want to live in a post accountability Society, feel free to ignore this proxy and vote 96% in favor of everybody on it. If you want to accountability Society, why don't you vote like it's not, okay? To choke a dude, you know, you're still right? You actually might have come up with the the the best reason ever to, to get rid of all classified boards. Yeah. Right. Because what are you gonna do when your CEO who's also on the board is choking guys out. And you don't have a investor voice until like 20 40, right? I mean, like, imagine what it's like, isn't it? Like the, it's like, It's the purge only in reverse, right? Like like it this is the year that because you're not up for election. You can go get drunk punch. A guy in the face. Kick a little lady in her shins. You know, like you could do all sorts of crazy stuff. You can go drunk driving. No one can vote you out. So what do you give a fuk? Like, I like this is as perfect and argument against the classified board or dual class shares or any of these, like, constraints on your, your actual democracy. The corporate democracy. This is a good case, study is why you shouldn't have any of those constraints as I could. Think of choking a guy on a cruise. But we spent a lot of time on choking a guy on a cruise. I'm actually shocked. Well, I think we had to, I think we had to. I mean, look, I mean, it's a again, it's usually these things happen at small, weird companies and, like Utah or Oklahoma. But this is actually an actual in our database, in our day. It's a little, a little smallish and weird. But yeah. Okay, let's just get to the big story that everyone else is covering and that is Trump's tariffs amount to quote worse than worst case scenario and quote as investors brace for stock market beat down which is already happening. I'm looking I I'm peaking at the stock market, it's yeah, it's yeah, it's getting of course, it's getting beat down. I mean, it's just another time. This is like the 5th 6th 7th time that we've had to on the show. I make we make fun of Larry Summers, who's now on the open AI board. We made fun of him Ad nauseam about his takes on how women are not as smart as men and his cranky old man, stick and whatever. And and now I have to side with Larry Summers. Another time I have to take the side of people who are fucking like blow hard morons for years and all of the sudden seem reasonable. Yeah. But because lazy isn't it, I mean, Larry Summers went on like a multi tweet rant a tweet rant. No, no one. Like of course, on Twitter, right? We can't see to divorce ourselves from Elon Musk stupid. Fucking platform. Went on a tweet rant about how this is like, you know, this is this is the most asinine kindergarten level thinking, oh, we're getting him anyway, what is it? What is ranting on X? Get. Where does that get anyone? I mean, he should do it on our show. Do it on business. Yeah. Come here, Larry. I promise to make funny for the 30 minutes, you're on this show even Fox Business. We that's one of the outlets that we tag that we look at even their even their uncomfortable. There's a headline today. Economist says Trump's tariffs could replay devastating history, they're talking about the depression. You know, you know what everybody around the world really wants to replay the Great Depression. That was fun. I mean I haven't spent a lot of time looking at this, but the except for the one country that I don't think got affected at all. Which is Russia of all countries. Yeah, but In fairness like that, that I, I thought about that, that seems clickbaity only because we don't have a trade imbalance with Russia because we haven't been trading with them for like three years. Okay, sure, sanctioned them. So there's no trade so they didn't get a tariff because the math that they used was baby math. In fact, I'll come to this later, they're pretty sure they used Chachi people here. I think we're clear that this is the, this is what's happening. All right, again, like, like tune in to us if you actually want to understand the future of not only is she corporate governments but the business world because every dumb joke we make happens in like true. And for those of you've been listening for a while or if you haven't, I'll tell you what. What we're talking about. Back in the day, we had this excessive joke that we would do over and over and over, which is that all the companies and CEOs were using some kind of ridiculous chat Bots, chat like machines basically to generate their their ideas and their and their theories and and and and their annual letters and whatever. And this is what's actually happening now. Yeah. How How likely do you think when we do the post mortem on these tariffs? Here's another like half tin foil joke that will like be true. How likely is it that we will read a report a year and a half from now about how Trump told, you know, on mosque or a bunch of people in his orbit, Rich, donors, whatever he told them that tariffs is going to be his way. He loves these tariffs. He thinks it'll help whatever, and they all sold the bunch of their stocks, sold, their shares got, you know, reorient, their portfolios, the gop's in on it. Reorienting, the portfolios and now that everything's like down 20%. Yeah, you buy well in that market pops, but that's like I again like I don't I don't usually weigh in on stuff like this because I don't know what I'm talking about the stock market, but it's correct. That was my, that was my only Instinct here. It's like, isn't this just a way to depress the market. So that, that everything we've been talking about at the beginning of this trend at this beginning of this Administration is that? Everything is transactional now everything. But it's transaction between his buddies and in fact I have something later about now. Jeff Bezos is a potential buyer of tiktok but isn't that's the only thing I could think of why else would you do this? You, you're just you're just depressing the market so that the people who can like you're Warren Buffett to who have, I mean Warren Buffett has made a whole career out of doing this, hasn't he just like he wait tiredly? Do you remember like six months ago the all the stories were about how he was so much just cast? Position in history of Warren Buffett, my dad's Theory. I just talked to my dad about this is that this is obviously you, you do these things, you depress the market, you get some concession, the market goes up and you can claim like you won, right? Like you saved everybody because well and your Dopey supporters who don't deal. Things. Like new ones anymore, will they will? Yeah, I've read the stories that this is basically a Shakedown. This is basically a way for him to consolidate power and get concessions from Individual companies, like don't tariff. Our product exempt, us, and we'll give you X, right? Wonderful. I'm so glad to live in a country. Everyone hates even more. Yes. All of it is stupid. It's And stupid. What Economist actually had a statement that I that made the most sense to me. She said let the what's really going on here is let's make the world poor again and then we can buy it at a discount. Yeah that's that Rings true to me what you're saying, what. But bring it back to like because you and I we can like talk about how we think it's dumb but we're not economists and I don't frankly like the process by which just happens is so asinine to me that it's We're Not Gonna add any value to this conversation, where we will add value is understanding which companies have either. A, whether this before, this is something that people have seen before, as in Trump, 1.0 there were tariffs on China. We actually tagged in our database directors that had gone through tariffs in China and outperformed right in Trump 1.0 there's a way to look at this and say who are the people that are kind of like will understand how to do this. And number two. Yeah this is an a way to understand the people. That are going to basically Neil and Kiss the Ring. Well, and what that means. Yeah, say yeah, I mean, the, the CEOs have been doing everything every dance, they can to get out of Dei, but what are they doing? In the face of this? Well, the there's a quote that you have here about CEOs of the Business Roundtable, and those are the same CEOs who didn't want to weigh in when Trump was running, or they sided with Trump. And now they're getting ready. I programs or they're just looking the other way as they fire. They are literally everybody's a flip-flopper or, you know, as they're not giving money to the universities for Science and they're just still not saying anything. What is many corporations benefit from that R&D happening at University's next week? I just got interviewed for the Ed 4S, which is a final sustainability. Finally got that. I know you've been angling for that for a while. Like that I have been calling. What is it free? Every day, Ed for us. Yeah it's Matt or sag is over there and he interviewed in the world. Thought he was a shout out to them for. I'll be on their podcast next week, but one of the things that we we talked about their Is the the what you can measure when something is is like voluntary as in. There's a lot of standardized like reporting around financials and all the stuff that we know and there's a move to standardize like ESG data or governance data like some of the voluntary stuff like skills matrices which we think are like spurious and terrible but I actually argued on their podcast that not having a standard tells you a lot about the behavior of these companies. And this is a, this is kind of a case study in that in a really, like, horrible way. But when you watch directors and Executives sort of bend, over backwards flip their, you know, they said directors here. Yeah, they cancel the target. They they, you know, they're doing the D. I think they're not doing the Dei thing that they're like bending over backwards. So basically sit in whatever the like immediate moment is you learn something about either resilience and be their ability to actually navigate tricky Waters. Yeah. Fighting this. Very short-term, they're worried about largely themselves and keep pointing jobs. I'm glad you put on directors because there are a couple of things that I thought of too. First of all, some of these companies actually embedded in their risk. Statements are things like this, right? Yes. Correct. The nature of global markets could affect blah blah blah. So so they they have every reason to already be preparing for that. So any of these directors who've been on the boards for years? Have these risk statements and actually don't have a plan or aren't fighting back should be voted out immediately because what are you doing, right? I mean, I'm looking at like the the Nike board as an example. I'm only mentioned Nike because it's one of the companies that the Press is talking about a lot, taking a big hit because they Source most of their stuff from Vietnam, which is getting a huge tariff. So, I bet you embedded in their wrist. Statements, is this type of thing? And yet, what, if what it what? What are they doing? What are they doing? What's amazing about the Nike story? We covered this on our show. We actually, this is back in covid. Is when they transition from China to Vietnam, under the same. Yeah, and apple did the same. A lot of companies did the same. That was on point pressure from political theater from the first Trump Administration. Exactly. They realized they need to diversify their supply chain and there's a lot of reasons for that and they did it, it took them years, but they did it successfully. And not only is there no upside to having done it because a guy decided a random number using Chachi GPT but it is like strange and middle. They're actually getting punished for it. Like that's that's the behavioral sort of strategic thinking that you should look at how they Diversified. The first time through the tariffs, we have those directors tagged in our database, you should be able to say, like they did a good job of weathering. The storm when it came up before. But guess what, like they were, they couldn't have possibly predicted that a random number generator would Side that there is an entire supply chain is too expensive to use anymore. Maybe Matt or Segel. Will agree with me. I know that Matt is actually getting more involved with this D growth moment, right? Am I wrong about that? Yeah, he's into it. So maybe so who knows? Maybe there's the Silver Lining here is just less junk in general. No water. Actually had a LinkedIn post about how these tariffs are the ultimate carbon reducer, right? Right. You're not sending stuff around the globe, which we don't, which is it. That's the thing. We were so excited. The only Silver Lining out of the out of covid. Out of the pandemic. Was that? Sure. Yes, it shut up all the horrible instincts of humanity. Essentially, one of them being just this like addicted, this addiction to buying crap from. I love that we come off as like old misanthropes. All right, we have this conversation. Come on, let's move on away. I one other thing I want to say, is the the takeaway another guy in our database Gary fried CEO of Home. Furnishings company are H. First of all right. You used to be called Restoration Hardware. Oh yeah. This year and I say him because he controls like 70% of board influence and like 25% of voting stock. This jerk changes, his company name to RH for why. First of all, it makes it making it virtually impossible to find it in any database. Like, you know, hard is to search for like a RH. It's just, it took me a lot of find it but anyway, Gary Friedman, he is making the rounds in the Press because he was in an earnings call when the tariffs were announced and he said in live action, he said, oh really. Oh shit. Okay. I just looked at the screen I had looked at it. The share price got hit when I think the Tariff came out and everybody can see in our 10K where we're sourcing from because he gets 40% of his junk from, I don't know. I mean maybe from somewhere in Asia no two no two thirds of his company's goods are sourced from Asia so he's not enough. Oh shit moment. So, yeah, and that kind of is a kind of a tease for some of my other stories. You ready to move on from the tariffs? Yeah, please. Let's, you know, I'm, I'm gonna say this now, I'm not making them the story of the week, no, because everyone else will and it's it's you don't come here for just that, my next story is a two leaders stepping down about to step down because someone complained, I like this one, somebody complained. First it BPM from shareholders over the green agenda. Because they don't want. It's really just one shareholder which I think is is it Elliot investment Elliot? Yeah I believe it's really just one investor who owns like less than 5% of shares I believe but they don't they don't like the green agenda and they're mad. So the chair so they're basically forcing the chair out so said about the green agenda? Yes. Okay congratulations. Hell go for for giving up the fight and also the Primark CEO Paul Marchant he quits after a woman complained about his behavior. Well that one. All right we talked about this earlier in the week. Um, yeah. What is the probability that they Vince McMahon their way back into the board? Paul Marchand is a perfect like possible, Vince McMahon, right? Like he's been there for like 25 years, he'll rescind his residency like step off. And then all the sudden he comes back is executive chair. And in a year when he's like, no one cares about the woman anymore and then, and then he sells like, you know, huge stake in the company. So, I don't know, it has all the feelings of like that, but I'm glad that people are listening to complainers a little bit. I just wish they listened to the right complainers, the woman complaining. That's the right complaining. Like, it takes complaining, not but still, like, as we keep pointing out the investor Market is there. Absolutely, they're dead, they're dull, they're Dopey. They have like, unless, unless the CEO is harassing a woman or or some activists Comes in and just like shit, like shakes their jazz hands. That's the only time they wake up. I don't know why I don't, because they have free flow, analytics.com, and they can look at some data. They actually can make decisions, so a nice plug. Yeah. And by the way, I had a listener tell me that I'm slurring the name of the database because she looked for Free flow analytics. It's free. No, no, no float. And we're the dumb ones for naming our company, something stupid, like free floats. It is a name Should have been, it should have been? What is it for dit? For DS? For what is that? What is your, where did you talk? I don't remember what your conference for us, but that was taken. So, yeah, we allow in, we, we did, when we launched this company, we wanted to call it alt street, without the W old Street, kind of a kind of a shout out to our, our childhood with like, alt Rock, like, smashing out. Exactly like all, you know, all music all, you know. And, and it's, it's sounded a little like Wall Street Wall Street. Of course. Yeah. Right like, but we told us like three people and they were responses immediate. They just say you mean like the old, right? Yeah. We like, oh, and do that. Not that. And finally, the fourth company that week is. I know, like this is just getting in the weeds but I just had to get mad at Macy's and I didn't know how else to get mad at Macy's. So, I threw, everybody's got to get mad at me. Here's the headline companies. Well, my headline is Companies still don't take governance really okay, I'm having a strike companies. Still don't take governance seriously and investors don't seem to care, right? This is like what we talk about every week, the headline is Macy's to claw back executive bonuses due to accounting Scandal, Okay? So The earnings metric was overstated by 81 million dollars in 2023, so they overpaid Executives. So now they're clogged back that money right? Their clawing back about 600,000 dollars, okay? And that's like 600,000 dollars more than my salary. Yeah. And so here's Macy's announcement Macy's announces this by saying that they've hired a new CFO, right? And then Barry at the end is at the old CFO is stepping away, but of course, they said the move was part of its planned to return to long-term profitable growth. That's not because it's so was an idiot because he couldn't add and here's why I'm mad at Macy's investor because I know they're not gonna know how to react to this. First of all, Macy's investors. How did you allow your your board to the CFO who screwed up was named Adrian Mitchell? He was the CFO and the CEO. Oh yeah. What what Well, at a large cop company. Why, why would you allow this in the first place? That's horrible government. It's more efficient, it's just CFO ends and what have they done? They've replaced them with a new CFO and CEO. How much did it cost them? I am so glad you asked that. So the guy who screws up Adrian Mitchell, he first of all, he already got six million dollars. Last year, his quote, unquote, full walk away value of a severance package is another seven million dollars. So he's getting seven million dollars to walk away. Yeah, it's good. And they're giving the CFO and CEO for about four million dollars and go golden hello. So that's what are you doing? You? But you should photo everybody for this. This is just everybody know that recognize that a golden hello is giving money to somebody for something they haven't done at all. Have done this, like hiring them and then when they show up for the job, giving the money just for showing up on the first day. If they quit the next day they often still like the way the golden the lows are structured. They can keep. Yeah, at least a portion of it because companies refused to actually terminate people with cause they let almost everybody walk away for just like let them resign basically, right? So my options here are a choking CEO Trump Tower Real, by the way, he really did choke a guy because he was dancing. Barefoot, essentially leaders, quitting after someone complained and then companies not taking G. Basically really Macy's. The the what this is? I mean, like, look, everybody else. It's, I don't care. I'm going with CEO accused of choking. Yeah, hassle, Cruise practice. I mean, it's the, it's the ultimate governance story that is not a governance story, right? Like because the CEO does a thing that's in his social life and you're looking at his behavior and you're like that's terrible and maybe you fire the CEO, maybe you don't, but the fact that it's a classified boy, maybe fire the CEO like Dana White, punched his wife and he's sitting on the meta board currently and he made millions of dollars as the head of the, what is it? The UFC group, right? Like the they named they, renamed Endeavor or whatever there is not necessarily accountability, and this is the perfect story to show you structurally. How there can be no accountability, well, we give it up. We've basically abdicated our rights, Is in the corporate democracy. I think it's a great story. I will say this first American Financial is still hasn't really sustainment. Its last statement is from April 2nd, which was two days ago, saying first American celebrate a decade of recognition as one of the Fortune 100 best companies to work for, but unless you're getting choked out by the CEO, I guess that's correct. That's not great if he's doing that. All right, let's move on to goodly. Oh, something good. Yeah, these are quick though. I actually have one that's actually good. I'm really the only one that has something that's actually good. First, no. I both of mine are good. Are you go? You go first. All right, Elon Musk. Here's the headline. Elon Musk gets booed right to his face. What's the tell me the context of that? So he was at like like doing his Wisconsin thing. So if you didn't know you know I must try to buy a Wisconsin judge seat by you know spending 25 million on the election of a judge. Yeah. That's what Elon does. Now that's how we spend his money that because you refused to vote him out. That's how we spent his Tesla cash. Yeah. Because you refused to vote out his board in 2017 and the youth, we've had eight opportunities or seven opportunities. Till now, to get rid of his captured board and all the stuff, right? You, we haven't done it and said he spending his money to buy judge seats. He went to a rally and was like being like his, you know, laminated punchable face at a rally. And, and he got heckled Matt, because yeah, but because it's not possible, is that domestic terrorism? Well, yes, that's correct. Okay, this guy is so protected. Not only to investors protect him and his board, member's protect him but but you can't even protest the company. You can't even domestic terrorism, but he was a mess anymore. Is your terrorist. It's not possible that someone doesn't like him. So he said, George Soros. Planted the Heckler. So that's that. You know what? That means possible. What is that code for a rich Jewish guy? Is hiring horse? What are we doing? I don't know. We still doing George Surah. Well, you gotta love the fact that somebody showed up to a rally like waited, probably like like several hours to stand there at a rally. And when Elon Musk walked on stage, they booed him. They just booed at him and then he is so petty and so small and insecure. He was like, who's George soros's fault? Like somebody who must have been the only way anyone would boot me. Well, so he lost that election. Correct. You did buy a lot by a lot actually what else? Yeah, what else? Yeah um second one is you mentioned this already, but Trump's tariffs on penguin, only islands, Sparks wave of social media jokes. I honestly, I think, okay. So what Matt's alluding to here is that the strangely, some of the, the sovereign states, they're not sovereign states. By the way, are they? They have territories. I don't know what they are. Strangely some, some uninhabited islands got tariffs against that much, which I think is what led people to look into like wait who wrote These tariffs the first place. Right? Yeah, because that because I've been dabbling, you've been using a lot more than me. I know I have a mandate from you that I got a step up. My AI use for. Come on projects, I'm procrastinating on but one of the things I've noticed about using AI is that that you need to apply a level of QC. Let's just say a quality control because 80% of it is actually kind of wonderful but 20% of it is so completely off straight off. And right, terrible. I was doing a project for another one of our shows and I, I kept asking it to help me by giving me a list of tickers from The Fortune 500 and they, they give me like, 111 tickers and I keep asking them again and they give me like, 97, I like what's happening here. But yeah, but the stupid people would just do that and say, here are the Fortune 500 tickers. So that's why I think people thought that they were using AI because what on Trump's long list of tariffs, Territories countries. Whatever is an island that has no people on it. It's just penguins. And there's also like like the highest one of the highest on the lists like a 50% Tariff of Lesotho, which is like a nation, where we don't have trade, but they have a 50% tariff on trade with soda. Isn't that? Like one of the it used to be is like a state in South African region? Like it. Yeah. Isn't it that little independent like, yeah I mean like we are talking about the most like it's not it's beyond astronaut because like these are there actually labeling places like and they have specific numbers like a 37% tarot on the penguins like what did you get that number? Where did you get that? Place the whole thing's a joke, I love it, my goodness of the week, something we alluded to, and I think you posted about this on LinkedIn and and I'm glad you did because this is sort of an intellectual point of confusion for me. But but I think I've We've solved it because I think we won. I think I feel happy about this, but the headline is Blackrock, CEO. Larry Fink's, annual letter. Emit references to Dei ESG and sustainable investing and look. I know people like are like angry about that, but hey, we were, we were yelling and warning people back at the beginning of our shows and our company, which is that. Don't let this guy kind of wash you, greenwash you into thinking that black rock cares about any of this, don't let don't let them fool you. So maybe it's actually good that he's kind of giving up. I think that headlines just missing one word and it would be a true headline. It's and it's finally over, like, if they just said finally, then and then we'd be in the right place, but here's my actually goodly. So the week and I, this is, I love this or Oregon and Washington workers. It hasn't happened yet, but may soon be able to claim unemployment benefits When they go on. I love, this is some. These are states fighting back against the nonsense coming out of Washington DC. I love that. That is a beautiful idea. Beautiful idea. I still think the penguin only Island, that's the way it is. Yeah, that's the winner right there. Anything about the pain. We don't talk about penguins enough. I love not nearly enough. I actually like, it's funny. You say that I did a new search on our platform for the word Penguins, to see how I'm not kidding. I want to see, like, maybe he thought that like this penguin company was like, you know, who is targeting. I just thought it was so funny. I mean, ever since there was a wonderful, wonderful documentary, like, I don't even know like 20 years ago, March of the Penguins ever since that nothing. I mean, hopefully this brings back some some attention, bro. When you need him he should go to the island. That's getting the tower and interview the Penguins. That's what I want to see next. All right, let's press 40 and we're just Well, we skipped one of our shows this week so we have a lot more to say I guess. All right. Number one. You mentioned this at the top spineless ESG. Or what does that mean? Am I one of them? Yeah, we're all kind of one of them. Here's the here's the thing, here's the headline. I saw Trump's Dei Purge drives 34% drop in Pro ESG, investor proposals. What is that? I I know for a fact that it has nothing to do with Trump, but why are why is this happening? Okay, so first of all, there's a headline writer problem, right? They, they're basically saying because Trump is anti-defense. There aren't as many ESG, proposals, most of the ESG proposals were not DIY, like, no. Never like, go in. And say, well, actually, it's the number that the difference is really, just the Dei proposals. The difference is in all of the proposals. Sure, it is straight across the board and meanwhile, the same article, says this Alliance defending Freedom, which is an organ, that I didn't know, existed Alliance defending Freedom, yeah. What. I my my next thing is to look them up like they're a Christian Law Firm. But Matt what they are We've joked about this. They're all like they're all weird in brand inbred cousins of each other because as I point out, the beginning of the show and the Heritage Foundation They freedom is also their big thing. It's they're all like, they're all, they're all doing the same, they're all parenting, the same dumb ideas and they all have similar board members and similar data not that they actually use data, but yeah, go ahead. They don't use data. One of the things that they, that what they actually should do, is actually talk to some Christians, because the nuns who are Christian have been doing a lot of ESG proposals, like, yeah, biblically driven ESG proposals, but forget that Alliance defending Freedom which they said their Coalition. This is they called it a coalition which to me isn't that collusion now? Like we can't have coalitions. Yeah, you always have been angry about. This isn't one of the things that Darren Woods was upset about exactly that, they're all colluding. But this is a coalition submitted 70, proposals this year up from 28 to 2024. So what that means is you're seeing a drop in ESG proposals what they're called ESG ones and they increase in anti, but we pointed out, I put That there's so many times. I don't know why they're not listening to us. Those are ESG proposals. Yeah, of course they are. But that's the same thing. Just from a different political perspective. ESG, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna break it to you. I just gonna hurt you. I just hurt my brain right data itself. It's it's not political, it can't be political. It's just, I mean, what are we doing? Yes, she is not on the left, it's ridiculous. It's nor is it on the right frankly? It's it's just it's how you apply it there. They're they're doing ESG shit. They're just angry at women and black people sunshine. Right? And they think that the climate is this pertain to them? Because they're gonna be dead soon. So who gives a shit, guess what? Going to heaven anyway, right? So who cares when you're angry at women. And black people, you need to know how many women in black people are at places. That's an ESG data point, right? I would waste their life being angry at women and black people. What kind of a life is that? By the way, but here is the asshole. Yeah, and this is not just about as you. So, as you show is a great, or I know, Andy Behar who's the CEO there. But Andy said, in the article is Andy Bihar, is he a client of free flow analytics? These are data. Where is he like lion? No, he's not a client. Well, maybe he isn't asshole. I don't know. I'm just same space. I like and a lot. But this is quote, we use our down really tempered down some of our asses noting that his group filed, 58 resolutions. This year down from 99, last 10, bringing down. It's not just as you sell, everybody is, it's not like as you sew problem, but this is the moment to go harder, not softer, right? Well, is this because you dare is this because the Darren Woods affect? Why do you think they're tempering? I think it's a combination once, in fact, and they are worried about getting targeted by the administration, right? Like, who cares at the Target by the administration, Paul changes. These are all nonprofits. I know for a fact, they're losing people, they've had to lay off people across the nonprofits and they're worried, right? I get it. But you still have to go harder and it doesn't have to be more to be harder. You just need to use data. Like we literally offer these people, not just as you sell amongst them. Yeah, free data to Target directors. Instead of writing shareholder proposal. Don't write a shareholder proposal about a scope three emissions. Yeah, nobody cares about go through a missions. It's a non-binding proposal anyway and no one gives a fuck, we can't celebrate in 12%, vote for and saying we're better than the anti ESG who are getting 2% votes for? That's a stupid astronaut project, right? The wind here is in actual Win. Like why don't we target dressers? Get aggressive about the people. If you don't like what the company is doing, as a fiduciary, you have the ability to vote the people out and putting people you like, yes, you're getting 12%. These investors on, like, Cheryl to proposal. Imagine what you can do, if you get a coalition around a director, who has a long track record of shitty Behavior or bad performance. I tell you, man, that that might actually make a change. If directors are worried about getting voted out, they actually might start talking to you about your scope. Three emissions correct? That's how negotiations often start right here of losing their job. Even with the new guidance about a quid pro quo, you don't have to engage with them. You don't have to tell them you just have to say we are voting against the bottom performers on carbon emissions period. If you're a director, you've been on more than one board and you've had three to five years of 10 year at Least we will vote against you. If you're in the bottom Court tile of a mission's, no matter what industry you're in. We don't give a fuk we're voting against you. This is the moment to change up. No more writing proposals that we're going to get 12% votes for. Can we go at the people and said of the proposals? Can we change the tactic that we use? We don't have to, you're, you don't, have you already mad at Trump. You're mad at MUSC, so, why stop there? Like, use the data. You have justification and Target the directors, it's free. It's fucking free. It's not like a lot of money. All right. So that's number one. I agree with that. Number one, finalist ESG, cheers. And that's not spineless. As you sell, I get it. Andy, I'm on your side. I just want you all waffle. Don't know. I want you all to change up and use some data. Don't do it. The same way you've been doing it, it doesn't work. I tell you. It's, I don't know if I completely agree with you, it's dispiriting to hear him. Say, we've tempered down, some of our, I know what of all of all moments in history, I would think it would have gone. The One Direction, go hard, not suffering down, go hard. Yeah. Because the constituents in the clients, in the Supporters of that organization. What you're right is a good organization. Don't want you to temper down and yeah we want to kick some ass. Now number two on my list. Yeah, fake legitimacy. Let's talk about, are you talking about directors? We talked about anybody, because here's the headline of everybody. Everybody's headline, including it says exclusive. Of course, it's an exclusive, Robbie Starbucks joins Heritage Foundation to continue fight against woke corporations. All right? Calm down audience. Like, Heritage Foundation, was an inevitable place for Robbie Starbucks, but but I also saw and we talked about this headlines already been like pushed under the rug because of the tariffs, but Trump fires Six National Security. Staffers after meeting with far-right activist. Laura lumer activist is a strong word. It's actually online influencer and nobody, she's a nothing. She's a Robbie, she's an Internet troll. So you just you just described Robbie Starbucks, right? And it's someone who complains a lot on Twitter. And how do they get to this position, right? Like, it's not them to me now. It's not their fault. It is. We have given them kind of Zuckerberg has given them fake legitimacy. We have the algorithm has legitimized, the loudest voice in the room. It democratized a Pandey line, and Elon and Elon, right? Like it's democratized. The the value of an opinion over any facts over anything else and possible. For these two loudmouth diaper, babies, internet trolls actually find like jobs, like they're, they're getting mad long time. National Security staffers fired in their joining foundations. You are parroting my complaint about a corporate directors in America. Is it not the same thing that once you make it on the board that that is so somehow some stamp of legitimacy. It doesn't matter how you perform, it doesn't basically nothing matters. Once you're there, you will get other offers at other boards and you will not get those correct. Investors won't even scare you. Like, you, you just suddenly legitimate forever. I think that it's the same level of Sting but there are there is for investors is a way you measure legitimacy. You measure marriage, you measure performance, you hold people to imagine if we went to a job. I mean like Boards of directors, like these these assholes like doing what they're doing like Zuckerberg's made that possible but imagine if you and I got a job as mid-level management like a job insurance company. Yeah. Right. Oh that sounds amazing. It sounds amazing. Yeah. Imagine if like the reason I got The job is because online, I said a bunch of stuff about the insurance company about how great they were. And that's how I got the job. Yeah, you as mean while you're just you're just trolling minority. That's okay. If you were my boss, that would be the stupidest fucking wait, that doesn't exist. It doesn't exist anywhere else. It seems to only exist in the shareholder democracy and now in the real democracy like our can I can I also point out that I had a joke at the top of the show that The Heritage Foundation now just got a little bit whiter. Yeah. Can I just point out that is statistically correct? Because I'm looking at their boards, right? And know they're bored is not 100% white. So that would have been statistically inaccurate. To say, I got whiter Matt, they have a 24 members on their board. One of the, one of them is not white. I looked so technically speaking, you can get whiter at the Heritage Foundation. It's possible to get white. So I see anyone wanted to complain about that. I, this is numbers bass, that's what we are. All right, and number three on my list, yes, is coddled billionaires? I'm sick of hearing this. Well, here's why because this headline came out this week roadblocks, could be the latest company to follow Elon Musk out of Delaware. Well, let's do a short list of who has announced like the big babies who have announced. They want to leave Delaware. It's musk at Tesla. It's Zuck at meta. It's Dave baszucki at ROBLOX now. And it's Andrew Houston at Dropbox, really said that. Yeah. Okay. Now, just just for seriously, just for a refresher there and happy that this is my bill. Their totaler to tell her, they build their dictatorships at Delaware. They basically these caudal dictator man babies. They broke every possible rule on the way to Untold wealth for themselves. They gave himself dual class shares, they handpick their boards. There's no accountability and they're in upset in the jurisdiction. That people that governs experts for years. For decades have long been shouting that is racing to the bottom, it has been racing to the bottom to to pitch. I'm not even gonna say the word to kiss the ass of CEO Works stroke today. You know I'm feeling I'm not feeling right today but stop me. When I get to the bullet point of the thing that they're there that is bothering. The most the fact that they're tired of shareholder rights because they shareholders, don't really have them or what, right? Or maybe they think the system isn't working for them. Maybe that's their grievance, this system. Yeah, they have all the money. Maybe they don't like the fact that they don't have enough money, maybe it's like we need more. Or like there were not rich. Yeah. Maybe they're angry that they don't have any guardrails. Maybe they need guard. Maybe maybe the rules have been just too stringent and it's restricted them from making Empires. Like it's just too restrictive here in Delaware where we have no one watching us and we could do whatever we want. What the fuck are you complaining about? And why investors are you okay, voting, these companies to go somewhere else. What is the upside for you? I don't understand the vote at Tesla, where they let them go. What's the upside? Yeah, you talking about who doesn't even understand how the market even allows dual Clash here. As we're some shares have more voting power on the other. I don't even here's the fun part. Here's another headline that you pulled from this week because the, the man flakes are just doing too much work burned out. Executives can cost companies more than 20,000 dollars and caused social contagion effect. There are articles about how these executives are burnt out. Oh, Okay, well maybe maybe another reason why that why I should say his name Kenneth the Giorgio CEO of First American Financial. Maybe another reason why he was joking. Barefoot. Dancer. All right, so you maybe he's stressed, man. Maybe he's, yeah, he needs a nap. You got spineless, ESG, yours, fake legitimacy, and cuddled billionaires, does your as billionaires. I I, yes. But I can't. I mean, that's basically every week now, and you should be pointing this out every week, but I, I can't do that one. Fake legitimacy. Again, it seems more like a Evergreen at this point, right? Because there's so much and of course I immediately thought of the corporate directors because I can't for the life of me. Understand why? Nobody pays attention to the work that they're doing. In fact, we have a story. We'll get to late on another show in the future. We were supposed to cover a story that actually talked about the things that, that directors themselves are most preoccupied. Yeah, one of them is not self-evaluation. One of them is, is not looking at their own performance, right? So, so, but I the one that gets me, the most, the one that triggered me the most is, this is how I used to do. These boats is the ones that triggered me the most back in the days of Emma, lurking. No way back. Yeah. Yeah. Is the spineless is Year. Sorry. And so but as you seriously systemic problem of the ESG crowd like backing off and it's not just going. Yeah. I've noticed a lot of our colleagues from I'll say from the left. I guess or just people who didn't support the Trump Administration, a lot of them have gone. Eerily quiet. Wake up. Disturbing do something. Yeah, keep keep talking, keep talking, keep or at least or keep the R&D going. Even if you can't, even if you don't want to do a thing as you so, Send out 10 ideas of like what can we do next year for proxy buys. What do you what do you think we got? Like, let's keep talking about strategy. Just if you if you're afraid to do it in public, just send us, we won't out. You just send it to us. We'll have a conversation. We'll give you some data. We might, I might well, I won't tell Damien and then Matt won't nobody cares why I have to say, so it's fine. All right, let's do headlining it back. I just say that. Oh no. Oh yeah, you're cutting me off. I can't just say this is one of the things that we talked about in the past of kind of upset with our own industry that ESG industry, that's the industry we're actually in. So, there are a lot of people there who they hold their tongues too off. They're afraid of saying the wrong thing. They're afraid of sounding stupid. They, I don't know, they have a Friday, it's imposter sandwich, they have imposter syndrome, but stopped stopped all that. Because in 2025, what we need more than ever is to brainstorm together. If you actually do believe in these fights, if you actually are pro, Dei Pro, SG, Pro, stakeholder Pro, share, whatever you actually need to be just thinking out loud because that's how you start movement. You also need to change, can't wait until you have the perfect idea, and then say it python on LinkedIn. That's not how it works. It's not how it works because I'm getting a little tired of those LinkedIn type posters and you know who, you know, you know who you are. If you're doing it. I don't just don't wait until you think you're brilliant before you post. All right, let's do headlines winners. Get out of this show. I need. You made me a ranty today. I know. I know. But Riverside died on you. It's like a trigger. Let me go first and I'll shut up. My headline is to the week. Is a funny one to me. Elon musk's a strange daughter. Labels Tesla a Ponzi scheme. Is something you talk about all the time. Yeah. Sighting. In fact, she's saying the same thing you said, citing stocks high PE ratio and then she gets called out for no evidence. And this may be thinking umap because here's the evidence Tesla's price to earnings ratio is approximately 131 to what to one. It's a ratio, right? And as an example at GM and Ford it's about six to one. So there's the evidence. This is the funny part. Yeah, like we said this on this show like two years ago, we talked about if Tesla didn't trade as a meme stock, if it traded like a regular car company with a tech bonus, it would trade it like a 30, right? Which is still six, seven X, your, you know, GM and Ford. It's like four or five x, its Rivals, and it should have wiped more than half the value off of Tesla. That's how much the meme premium that we we talked about it here that that's what it was and you know where I heard it other than Elon musk's daughter. I heard it on the pivot podcast. Now I heard it on. I've heard it everywhere. People are talking about like it's been a meme stock and their PE ratios suggests it and all this stuff and it's like, all they had to do, was listen to us. They would have, they would have figured, I was a Ponzi scheme, but it wouldn't. But but, you know, corn this headline. They said there's no evidence. I know, I know numbers, the numbers, right. But we already mentioned one, the first one is Trump's tariffs. Show signs of being written by AI which is hysterical on its face. Um, maybe maybe not. I feel more disturbed by that. And then this one just I don't know why it made me. Laugh. It made me think of, you know, just seeing money Whisperer, but it just made me laugh out loud because there's something funny about the phrasing. There are micro Plastics in your chicken nuggets. Oh, well, I don't eat chicken nuggets. I just don't care about like, like, as if we know what's in our chicken nuggets, right? Like, I think that I just said that, the yeah, can I just say that? Can I go jump back quickly into the AI writing Trump's tariffs because I love this quote from the editor at the Journal of public economics said and this is what I was referencing before. But but this says it more succinctly because I I have diarrhea of the mouth and I don't know how to talk I have. I don't think I've known how to talk since I was like five years old. I peed at five but the editor says exactly what the dumb is kid. In the class would do without editing. That's my problem with the use of AI going forward, right? I actually think that they're yes they're a lot of use cases and benefits to using AI but the whole gym, Matt this generation. They're not gonna edit it. They're just gonna take it all as gospel. That's what? Frightens me the most. All right, so who's your, who's your winner? Who's your winner? But on Headline, yes. Anything to do with chicken nugget. Yeah, that's a good. That's a good winner actually. Then who's your, who won the week for you? Who on the week, right? Just this headline Elon Musk bet big on the Wisconsin, Supreme Court election. He lost. So I'm gonna go with Wisconsin. Voters. You won the week. Oh Wisconsin voters. Thank you. Thank you. My winner was exploding Rockets because how I saw this headline, NASA signs contract for Elon Musk Starship even though it's never launched without exploding. Unbelievable. Well, you're talking about fake legitimacy, there is just because you own a company that launches things doesn't mean you're necessarily good at it. Yeah, I like I like when I like signing a contract for something that you know what you want to sign a contract for something that's never been proven, come to free flow analytics like we have so much data that. Nobody like hasn't like proven because the market like refuses to think about people, but our data is good. It doesn't explode. You can actually just. Yeah, in fact, in fact, just today it proved why the CEO Kenneth George he was joking. People. Yeah maybe we need to add a choke predictor. Yeah. Yeah. If I look at the predictions. Let's get out. Yeah, let's do it. Go ahead. I'll let you go second because yours is fun and mine's dumb and yet another move that Trump supporters are too Dopey to comprehend. Trump. Lets Jeff Bezos buy that. I don't like your prediction at all. It makes me unhappy but isn't that like, isn't that definitely coming? I mean, I probably already happened. I mean, we, I mean, we talked about for a while how Jeff Bezos is he like does this incredible one 80? You can't? He he's letting he's Melania. Trump is doing a 40 million dollar contract, Amazon Prime, he's putting out The Apprentice. He's not letting Washington Post Editor to say anything negative. He wouldn't even endorsed. He wouldn't even let you editors and doors. And now, of course, so investors once again, vote against everyone at Amazon just come. Here's my prediction Jake Paul. The online influencer Jake Paul and Bobble man flake Breaux, Middle School like a pink manosphere in cell. Kind of do. He is invited to join the National legal and policy Center as an advisor on future shareholder. Proposals, that might discriminate against his new reality show. He's doing with his brother called Paul American. That's my prediction that I kind of read that as being real. That's real right? That's the status. Got a prediction, the kind that actually could happen. Is that you make that up? I like that, man. Oh yeah, that's all we got its hole. That was guarding. We are free float. Come back next week. It's gonna be all Damian for a couple weeks, oh, but I'll be back in a couple weeks until then good.