Transcript
Oh, I like this new internet. Yeah. Oh, you like that? Live from your wow. ESG shaped Rubik's Cube. It's a business pants Friday show here at March 7th Studios featuring analyst Elementary on today's weekly wrap-up. Ogre leaves the good part out. Exploding rockets in Texas. Rain debris over Florida. And defining meritocracy has become as difficult as defining. Whoa. Oh, no. Oh, today is being sponsored by free flow analytics.com. The only platform measure measuring board power connections and performance for free. I love those that group over there. Whatever those people have free flow analytics are doing, they're doing it well. Yeah, I would say I guess that's why, I mean calm down. I know it's just the sponsor, the show. I don't want you to get too high up, but the heavy side right before I say? Yeah, I know they called me their day, saying like lay off a little bit, you're laying on a little too thick, you're always. But you know, I enjoy I use it for all our shows. He told you really they told you to lay I guess they're into authenticity, they think I'm like, faking it. But I really honestly do like I have access to some really big ESG data providers and I actually use that the free flow platform for everything they just released. I just got an email saying they released, they added non-profit board data to their their board, sort of connections, I said it was, it's an insane. I saw a preview of it, there's an insane amount of data like did you know that? the CEO CEOs on average 30% of the average CEOs board, they know through nonprofits because they sit on like a foundation, which is creepy because What does it take to get a high high ranking executive at a company to go home and spend time with their families like correct go. But just put a little FaceTime in like, just like a little you don't need to be. First of all, these nonprofit boards. They don't really want you. They want your money but they don't, they don't, they hate your Insight. They hate to tell you because honestly, you know, nothing about visual art or storytelling or whatever you're doing even education, you know, nothing about. So just go see my favorite nonprofits that they like, in the preview that I saw from freefloat, what were like the Massachusetts Council on Massachusetts? It's like what do they do? Exactly. They just like, talk about Cape Cod. This, what are you doing? All right. Let's do this. Let's do stories. I got, you know, I got no time. Waste, I have some good ones. Finally, your story is the last two weeks of kind of sucks. Well, it's difficult to understand the news cycle, these will pass and we had tariffs, then we didn't have tariffs that would happen in 12 hours. So, and I'm sure now and I'm trying to avoid Elon Musk for every news story. So, the first, big story which I hinted at the top is crowd Kroger which I don't actually even really know. Kroger's, I've never been to, it must be a Midwest West Coast United. It's just that, isn't it? I think that's what it is. Fortune, 500 company Kroger out longtime CEO after probe, into personal conduct. I should say misconduct, but that's what the headline says. And we've talked about this a lot. First of all, Matt, when you're doing things like personal misconduct, they get you fired at big companies. Can we put the person's name in the headline? So, yeah, so they don't get a job immediately at a competing company, it would be nice if they Yes, so you know, that's the guy like, yeah, here's the only thing that shareholders know that on October, on February 21st 2025, the board of directors was made aware of certain personal conduct by Mr. McMullen in immediately retained out immediately retained immediately. Yeah, that's outside independent Council to conduct an investigation, which was overseeing by a special board committee. But what we don't know, Matt is what the conduct was. Why they were running out to find lawyers who sits on the special board committee. We know nothing. They also said, Matt that Mr. Macmull, Mr. Mcmullen's conduct is not related to the company's financial performance operations are reporting. And it did not involve any Kroger so it's but I asked you mad. When you're the CEO of a major company that you've been there for over 40 years, you've held the roles of CEO chair. CEO, Vice chair, CFO EVP, strategy, planning, and finance. Anything else he did and you get immediately fired. Does that not have a direct relation? Is that not material? Does that not have a direct relation to the company? Its operations, its financial performance everything. Well, come on, what are we doing here? So you could argue, he got immediately fired. What was that? That was, that was like two days ago, three days ago, right? Yeah, early this week earlier this week he gets immediately fired. The stock is up this week six percent which is odd because our all retail businesses scared to death of these tariffs. Well you know here's the question. Well the tariffs came and went away. Right? So maybe know. Is that true not? Yeah. They already called a bunch of Canadian. Terrorists. They are just the auto Terrace but they pause. I think they pause. They pause the bunch but do you think the markets slightly celebrating? That that guy's gone. Like, do you think they're like, oh my God, we've been waiting for so long and and now he's finally gone. I don't I know like everything I've read about this, They the conduct is not related to companies financial performance. Yada yada. I guess it wasn't fence. So let's narrow it down. Your policy, your personal conduct policy covers, things that people can do and can't do. In the company. Will fire you for which is not related. No not do. Yeah. That is not related to the company itself and its operations. What does snorting coke off of a hooker? Like how was that not related? Know how is that not related to his day-to-day operations? well I mean clearly there's got to be something knock on effect like if yeah there's got to be something but like it's crazy that you kind of know nothing and Matt how 2025, how? How was it not absolutely required that they tell us what the hell is going on. People on social media, just close their bowel move, everything on an hour, a minute by minute basis. And we don't know, like stuff about executive. They don't even put his name in the headlines in the time, in the headline of this story. And if you want to hear some really horrible, corporate governance principles, here's what they did. They named lead director. Ronald surgeon as the interim CEO, and the interim chair, and he's still the lead director. So now all roads lead through Ronald Sergeant on that board. Yeah. Just the soul. Winner. All right, moving on. Tara, I did include tariff stuff. But why? Do we have to talk about any of it? I mean like isn't it all like we're just at the whim of like 80 year old man. Now like it does feel like someone gave Grandpa the wheel as a car and he's deciding while we're driving where we're going to drive to except he's not, yeah, he's not really sure. Even as he's doing it, he doesn't really have a license and he's got catering hits the trash can. He actually says he meant to hit the mailbox kind of thing, but here's why I included it because there's a headline from axios.com. Chaos? How American CEOs are reacting to Trump, tariffs? And then there's a bunch of headlines talking about a little bit of pushback, right? And then I'm wondering now what does it take for a CEO to get involved with the The Dei thing, they immediately A lot of them are immediately. Capitulating the K, the tariffs that they're still kind of sitting on their hands. What does it take? What, what's going to, what can Trump do for CEOs to actually kind of? Okay, so here, so I have a whole, like, piece a little bit about this Dei thing to begin with because what happened, This week is all of the lawsuits are actually starting to get like into the hands of Courts. And they are saying things like like most of the things that you're declaring to just be banned or gone are not legal for you to declare like even the fire Rings, the freezing of, you know, the the US Aid the freezing of NIH funding. All of that stuff. You can't just say You can't like it's dead. You can't just like a president. Can't come in and say that. It's not the way it's supposed to work. So in fact, they're just suspect. Yeah, I just saw the Georgetown University coming out yesterday saying, no, we're not listening to you because this is a First Amendment issue. Like we have, this is our choice. Well that is what I that is what you would expect. So the Dei you don't expect. He can he can say like no more Dei in the federal government. He cannot say a private company cannot do Dei. They can sue and they can go through a process and what they're going to find when they're done with these lawsuits is like largely four years will go by, and you are likely to win a lot of these lawsuits because a lot of it has to do with your talent pool. It isn't discriminatory. If you're not stupid like Harvard in the way, they wrote up their sort of argument for affirmative action I don't know why people aren't fighting. They they're what? Yeah, like I don't know. There's fucking stand up. Say something. You ask hole like it's all right. Anyway, welcome back. Anyway, let me be at this for the Tariff stuff. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, call it a quote, very dumb thing. A second sums it up, right? Okay. Third story of the week. Goodbye Stefano. Matt ready for this. One of our favorites is leaving our Airwaves Walgreens to be bought by private Equity, Firm in 10 billion dollar date deal. Oh, that's sad to me. We've talked about Stefano pessina several times on several of our shows because he's the, he's The Not So hidden ruler of all things Walgreens, although the rest of the business Market gets it wrong. Matt, according to my calculations at 11 dollars and 45 cents per share. Stefano Pacino, piscina is gonna make about two billion dollars for all his failure. Wow, wait, a fail up buddy, 2 billion dollars the way you do it. Sadly. Oh, Walgreens, again, this is Stefano pessina. He's the executive chair at Walgreens. He owned a considerable amount of shares. His wife happened to be the CEO. This is kind of like, Kimball musk being on the board. Her name is Ornella Barra, she only gets 36 million. So, Yeah. Why didn't she get put on the board if you're Stefano just put her on the board right? Or maybe you just want a little time away from your wife and that's the room is very sad goodbyes. We don't get the kick around Stefano anymore. I mean, he's gonna leave our database soon, right? Because you don't think he sits on any other boards. You know, we're making changes. And by we I mean free flow analytics. The sponsor of the show told me that they're making a company boards private boards. They are going to keep boards data on store quickly in the data set, but the move is to try to get into private company boards. Now, there's some data around it, it's just really bad. And finally in a very nerdy wonky Story the week which I just love. Maybe this. Maybe this gives you a little bit of extra juice for your Dei story is but ready for this one. Matt at this happened at quantix Building Products. Okay. And this this shows you the the wonderful Lunas of ISS and glass Lewis and all the proxy advisory services at Kwan X Building Products. 15% of shares were against Susan Davis director, Susan Davis and this is very high because all because all other directors got at least 93%, wait a minute much higher. Yeah, let me guess is it because she underperformed on TSR at several other boards? There's no performance measure. There's no performance measured. No, no nothing. But I, I know the reason. Oh, yeah, and this is a classic because she Susan Davis. Yeah, she chairs the nomination committee on a board with only one woman and that's herself. So she's the token woman on this board and she's getting punished. Wow, was because she figured out how to break the glass ceiling and get more female directors. So they're blaming her the blame. The woman you're saying that they are because there weren't enough women on the board. And they're blaming and the only woman on the board was the Nom chair. That's love that I love that. That's the great. That's a great headline that that She didn't know way should be story of the week but also is fat. I just had a wedge it in there. I had um that should have been good list. I I'm gonna go with the winner here. I mean, it's only one choice. Yeah. Well for me, there's not maybe not. There's one, there's one that is going to just eke it out. I really want to pick the final Pacino because that's seems like our story of the week, but the story of the week is Kroger, um, yeah, it's really hard to not have that be the story because it is absolute, lunacy, that they don't tell us what the hell is going on. Yeah, I mean, also we we're a little biased in that. I mean, we come from a school of thoughts. Not you very famously on the show, and when I say famously, I mean, like the one to seven people that I've ever heard the show ever, in five years of doing it have said, repeatedly that you want as a mandatory practice everyone in the company needs to do five minutes of stand-up comedy. Yeah, that's the Doge effort I'm looking for. I don't want to fire anyone. I want them just to get up on stage and do a little comedy. I think you'd learned everything you need to know about your Co-workers when they're standing on stage trying to do it stand up comedy. I think that's the right way. Well, we know what he should have a pretty good set this week. He's got a lot to air out. A lot of you could do that. It's like John Malini when he got out of rehab, there you go, the Rodney McMullen could do the same thing. All right, let's do good list. Come on. When you go first, because one of yours, I don't really understand. So I want to use. Yeah, I got. I got two. I'll go the one. You don't understand first. Because I know this is, you know. Yeah. You know how simple my mind is. All right. The headline, was why State Street lost 35 billion dollars to amundi and Invesco, over ESG. Yeah. What are we talking about? All right, so this is fabulous. This is what we've been saying about Florida for five years. Like, I don't know why company if you had problems with the way, Florida was governing move out of Florida like just like just get out This is exactly what happened, because State Street changed their diversity, you know, a week covered last week about how they sort of changed their diversity. They said Nom committees are well, positioned to choose their own boards. They all positioned there. That basically, the only ones who know how to handle their boards right there. They know, they know, they know, we don't they know nobody. Um, they also changed ESG goals that they had, and I don't know which goals specifically, but they, one of many who have been pulling back on, like, Net, Zero and climate commitments, and all of the kind of stuff. Well, that's the boring, the people's pension, which is a uk-based pension had has had like 35 billion dollars worth of assets with State Street that they were managing, they pulled all, but like, three billion of it out of State Street and they told them because you're, you're ESG stuff is shity you. You're changes made it shity. And this is when ssga has been voting less and less for, you know, environmental and social shareholder proposals. So, just one of the very few instances where you see not like, you know, John's retirement fund with 60,000 dollars where he's hoping to maybe, you know, eke out before he was dead. This is the people's pension with billions of dollars moving assets. This is not the only one either there, a pension funding Gana, did this? There are a bunch of Pension funds who were basically looking at these major asset managers and saying you we had asked, we have assets with you, we want certain things done and you're backing off of the things that we want done. So we're out. I love, I got to tell you the state. I wasn't, I'm not surprised by BlackRock and Vanguard the State Street flip flop. Confused. Me confuses me because I remember visiting them, their Headquartered in Boston, right? Yeah, I've been there. Yeah. I mean Massachusetts is the most liberal country on Earth. Let's just be clear. There's nothing more Progressive or liberal than the country of Massachusetts and and we've been there multiple times and I couldn't have seen this shift happening. I it's it's quite a remarkable turnaround. So I applaud A Monday and Invesco for actually paying attention. And let me add a street to all the State Street listeners. That if you're going to make this asinine approach which is I don't know who wrote the copy for this, because it's just utter stupidity. And you're going to tell us that the only people who understand the board are the nomination committee itself then, shouldn't the next phrase, be because of this, we should put extra scrutiny on, on nominating committee members, when they first join the board. And that committee, we should spend a lot of time, paying attention to who these boards are pointing to nomination can be because once they get their matte, it's basically like a college professor, a 10 year old college professor. Right? Because they're Geniuses when they get there. Right? So, but, no, they're just, they just throw out some weird cockamamie idea. That has no, no, objective data behind it. We don't objectively know why they're a genius is on these committees. They just State. Street has determined that the members of the nomination committee know more than we do. Well, first of all as soon as you said in, Because that's when the negative that's when the no buzzer went out, just none of these. Not there's no. Because is anyone doing their jobs anymore? And like they're so. So, it's I talked a pretty good game. 10 years ago, they were they, but I guess you're right, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, like, given the fact that on average director gets 96% four votes, I'm not sure they were doing much of a assessment. Well, they were voting up. There were a lot more four votes for pro ESG, proposals back in the day. Now, it's like it's laughable, but didn't they all kind of know most of those were gonna pass and what out of the I mean, what they're non-binding. What do you get out of the proposal? You get a report that says something you're just saying that there was a woke washing of of yeses for Sheryl. Proposals back in the day. Maybe you're right. Maybe it was appeasing People Like Us. I think the joke is on, is on every one in November of people. And by a lot I mean a person from a stewardship team that listens to this show and and stewardship, work is great work. But stewardship is largely focused on shareholder proposals. I mean to focuses on directors, on the margin. Is like those are harder voting against you vote against a chair of a committee and that's about it. And there's like four of those like there's this real committees right as we've seen, they've made these cockamamie scalable rules that they don't even look at the, the boards and data. They just say if they're under this for tendons, if if the if there are fewer than this many women, you just like they don't even look at the, they don't look at the fact that Aquatics Building Products that you're actually penalizing. The only the token woman on the board. I mean, that actually that one's a great example of who's just voting, whatever issue in glass, look like the doctor of the policy. It means roughly 15% of the market is probably just voting the dumb policy, they don't even look, that's, that's 15% stupidity. And then the other half is just voting with management, right? Like, we'll say this, the glass Lewis, I think it's glass Lewis, right? That's adding a four year consideration. Flag now to diversity decisions for proxy investment advice, right there. If Right. Aren't They? Isn't that glass Lewis? Yeah, it's definitely not ISS. So what they're gonna do now in the future, as I guess, they'll add a flag to Susan Davis saying, yes, we're recommending you vote against her but this is It's really stupid. We're being really stupid. Is that what the flexing to say? I guess, that's the flag says, like vote against but also we're dumb, we're done. So it really good makes messages. I mean, the fact remains here, that like investors didn't really do anything with this these votes anyway, like that's your perspective, maybe it's right. Maybe you're right. I mean, like look, we spend a lot of time analyzing should we ask for this report or not? From a shareholder proposal, right? Like but we don't expect any time on the 11. People who actually are managing your asset on a regular basis. We don't, we don't measure their performance on anything, right. Like there. There's been zero directors voted up because they've gone from company to company and their carbon performance is terrible. I if we hear so much about environmental issues and we think that's a fundamental risk to not only Earth but the company itself in your assets. Why do you vote for directors? That keep sucking at it? Like, you don't have to look at their expertise and say oh you're a carbon expert or not. It's not about that. It's about look at their track record everywhere. They went carbon emissions went up. Well, you're no one even does that you're talking about, my ultimate wish list. My dream list would be the to see how the directors voted on all the issues presented to them over the year, right? I mean, we'll never get that, but that was amazing because because we, we have been mocking Demetri Stockton for being a double DPI guy. But actually we don't know. He sits on the boards of Target and deer. We don't actually know to be fair and we don't include thus we don't have this data in our database, but but he actually might have been fighting to keep Dei. That's true. So, I would love that vote. I would love to see the Of those votes. So that was my first good, 20 minutes later. I'm gonna shut up. Go ahead. What else do you have? My second? Good list is really simple. Here's the headline bourbon is banned California. Wine, canceled. As Canada pulls us, alcohol. I love. There's a, there's there was the response of Canada? Yeah. Like Canada gets tariffs against them. It's gonna be, like, on and off. It's gonna be. Did he have his meds today? Do we have a tariff? We're fighting with Canada. What's happening? We're fighting with the only country that wants tonight. Nobody literally wanna understand anything anymore. They literally would just want to have pancakes in a beer, every minute, every day. I sure I share the story, when I talk about Canada. So I spent two years living in Montreal and when I was leaving, I rented a truck to move my stuff out and I all they had was a oversized truck that I couldn't handle it because I'm inept more on. It was too big for me to drive. I'm bringing it home. I side. Swipe my neighbor's car. Oh, and he, and, and he all he can talk about is, how were worried he is for me. That I'm going back to America, where Healthcare sucks. He wasn't mad at me at all. He was Just worried about my health care. When I went back the United States. That's all he talked about. Well, Isis people, nice people. I love that Canada. Unlike Trump who's just like, 25% tariff on all things from a place, I don't know, an unsystematic approach, right reason. And the reason why is fentanyl but none of it comes from that place or like it's like Point 1% of the problem. But whatever tariff Canada was like, you know what we're gonna do. We're gonna Target red states and their biggest exports to Canada. Those happen to be alcohol solar. Oh, I just love it. I love this. How about this? Whiny Jack Daniels executive? The headline is a top Jack. Daniels. Executive says Canada's Canadians. Removing us liquor from store. Shelves is a disproportionate response to yeah, he's like as holy is I like how he gets to weigh in on how the Canadians get to react to their bully. Like like let the Canadian Society had a Realty know, the best part about that and I'll deal with this. And as holy is He's acting like it's Canada's fault. Yeah, like like a Canada. That's doing this right? Let me go. Let me go quickly, so we can move forward my two good list. Headlines of the week, first Target, Dei Retreat, is sparked a 40-day boycott. We talked about last week, how they? There was one day that people weren't gonna shop, but now they're trying a 40-day boycott. Let's see if this one works. You know what, it's pretty easy for me. I've been on like a 200 day boycott so far. Like I just don't go there at all. And finally SpaceX, this is kind of a nature. This is kind of, in the vein of one of your goodness. Kind of ironic goodly a spacex's Starship explodes in space again, raining debris over the Caribbean, but here's the good part of it. The good part. Is that the FAA briefly halted flights to several Florida? Airports. That's seems like a victory, right? Like, I had to go to Florida. I would first be very angry, but if they cancel the flight I would just Be thrilled. So that seems like good news. Honestly, I have a couple of flights coming up because we're gonna be really visiting my in-laws. Why is fine? I'm terrified to fly. The FAA is basically being controlled by SpaceX employees and dismantle people are being fired. Yeah. Like if it planes start, flying the way SpaceX rockets work. I don't know that. I'm happy about flying anywhere. This is it's a good thing because if everyone's terrified of flying, no one will stay home. We won't go anywhere. Good thing. Matt. Is that we know who to blame for all this. It's, it's the end. It's the it's, this is a DUI problem. Blame drivers, true, cause all this problem. It's an African man. An African is causing all how dare you, it's just rude. All right, let's whoa, this I feel like, like, pension people moving, all the money out is a winner. I never care about these women. I know you don't care about anything else. I'm gonna try to shut up. I'm gonna try to shut up. Actually, two of them. It's this is mostly headlines. This is good Branson, headline, still driven asked yet. I'm still gonna try to shut up. Go ahead. I doubt it. All right. Number one, asshole nominee. Passing the buck. Okay. You already mentioned, top Jack Daniels, execs Canadians were moving U.S liquor from store. Shelves is a disproportionate response to Trump tariffs. It's it's like he's saying, it's your fault candidate. Even though Trump said, like, just random stupid trade were to help, vice president Doge musk you took it too far. Can your fault asshole? Well, there were actually five other headlines. I saw this week that were exactly the same arsonist set fire to a dozen Tesla's charging stations amid anti-capitalist coordination to Target Tesla. Is it anti-capitalism? Only because he had no guard rails on the board. He picked the most compromised boards you can have investors. Keep turning a blind eye to him. They paid him billions of dollars a hundred billion dollars so that he's the richest person in the world and can buy the government on the cult of personality but somehow it's the anti-capitalists fall that they're burning Tesla's. Matt not to mention something that you've outlined several times. And I see the regular business news finally catching up to this that, that Elon Musk himself has benefited from so many government. Handouts, 38 billion dollars in government. Like, this is the most, this is the biggest most egregious. Mythologizing founder fetish in the history of founder Federal Way, but we can't blame the man whose rocket just exploded over Florida. I don't hit the number of rockets that have exploded over everything. Like, what are we mythologizing? He bought. Tesla Heat last year the way he ran it. The most recalled car on Earth to Tesla had the most recalls of any car company. His SpaceX really fabulous rockets that continually explode and what we can say over and over and over again. Well, he's just innovating, it's just innovating. He's made amazing things, something that perfected but now NASA, not only perfected it, they paid him to innovate. This is subsidized Innovation. This isn't him. He keeps subsidizing what he's really good at. His core skill is raising money. He's incredibly good at that. He he's got the boring company, they drilled the hole under Las Vegas, it has traveled and no, no, there's no place for pollution to go. It's shittiest. Hole ever done. Nobody needed it in the first place. What are we pathologizing here? I don't get it. Well in the same vein, Elon Musk here. The deadline Elon Musk tells Republican lawmakers, he's not to blame for federal filings, which is ironic because Trump actually cited him during his State during his address to Congress that he is responsible. So have fun with that lawyer's. Who is to blame? Is it the American public's fault? Well, like, who's to blame? Maybe they did. They did like the new king. Don't look. Here's another one. More CEOs are getting fired. Fomo board. Yeah, tell me about this one. So what is that? So that the article suggests that beards have less patience for underperformance in the used to there were about missing out and so they're firing CEOs faster. Missing on what like higher stock prices. The data shows that boards are hand chosen by the CEO pretty much and the CEO, when they underperform when the company underperforms, Are we supposed to blame the board for firing? Isn't that them doing their job? Aren't they supposed to fire underperforming? Why? Why is there blame? I don't understand that one. I don't like, what are we talking about? Blame. That's called like, you want to be capitalists? Isn't that capitalism? Show me. Show me over sediment. Absolutely. Well, here's my favorite one. Here's my last one. My favorite one of the week. Starbucks CEO. That's Brian Nicholas. They don't say his name. Brian Nichol Starbucks. CEO tells workers to step it up after layoffs. Yes, it's your fault work. We laid a bunch of you off, but now you got to work more. It's your fault. You get on it. They've opened too many stores. They have too many crummy drinks. They have a mobile app ordering system where people can put on like, 17 different tiktok additions. And yeah, let's blame the worker. What's the workers, the workers? We laid you up that these workers have basically become we're forced to become like social workers and most Urban centers where anyone could use the bathroom right and they couldn't refuse. I mean that's that's not easy. That's not, it's not easy. So the number one nominee this week is passing the bus, Which look, by the way investors, you don't have to pass the buck, vote your fucking shares and do the analysis, do it, right? And then you won't have to pass the ball, then I don't have to read. A headline about how the Ohio State Attorney. General is suing Boeing's board for safety issues while voting for Boeing's board, let me know super clear if you're not says, fight with what you're getting use. If you're contracted with ISS or class Lewis, reach out to free flow analytics. That's true. We will do. It will be working funds. Now, we will be super clear. All right, number two, yeah. Um, is this is the meritocracy we're going after. Now this it's what. Is the meritocracy? Okay. Know what is, what is, what is all of it? Here's that line that I saw that just everything's a trigger for me. Like, this could be. Yeah. I mean Robbie Starbucks vows to pursue firms. Doing Dei by another name. Okay. Starbucks CEO but we naming. We're now naming Robbie Starbucks and shouldn't shouldn't. He be referred to as like as like, gross Internet troll? Why are we naming him? Why is, why is it a headline? The like like, this could just be guy named, Gus doesn't like racist. People, write this uses internet, Robbie Starbucks Bonafide days and going after massive corporations around Dei. He got his job, how he, he's not a real person, he was doing music videos and then pivoted to doing a fake documentary about children. Mostly he's just a white guy who goes on conservative radio and talks about how much he feels discriminated against by companies with Dei policies. He rode a wave. He got retweeted by Elon Musk one time and that was it, right? This is the guy. This is the meritocracy. This is the the pioneer of meritocracy. The reason why we're talking about Mary, the reason why dear is dropping its Dei and Harley-Davidson and because this guy who merits us listening to him, Meanwhile. Here the other headlines from Brazil but don't please don't forget. Those didn't warrant Buffet. Tell us, just Ivy, ivy educated, Warren Buffett. I believe. Didn't he just tell us that you don't really even need a great. Yeah, well, that's part of my problem because the other headlines, this week include update on Dei federal court temporarily blocks. Most of the administration's Dei orders but uncertainty continues. So, so not you're vowing to continue pursuing Dei by another name. While it's illegal for you to even do the anti things that you're doing according to a trump appointed Court. Meanwhile, this headline made me angry too Deloitte says office. Attendance will be considered as part of some employees performance reviews to decide their bonuses. You want to know why? That one said, it all set me off and I put it in this meritocracy bucket because women disproportionately take care of kids at home, when they get sick during the school year. This was one of the worst. School years in the history of the United States for every, they called it the quad demick. You know what the class last year, too, last year, too was bad. And now those women who we know by the data on, average are more educated have more industry knowledge. They're better suited for their jobs. They have more Merit, they're gonna get less bonuses. Why? Because they couldn't show up because they had to take care of their kids. Well, let's say they don't have this problem. They could ask the CEO to watch their kids, but to see us busy serving on a nonprofit board. I guess that's true. By the way that I will add this though, however, board directors are penalized for bad attendance, so maybe workers should be penalized for better. That's the only thing we penalize board directors for is failing. A 75% threshold for board, attendance Deloitte. Apparently, your job delayed like a big part of what you make your money doing is Consulting. Strategic management consulting. Did you forget the part of strategic management consulting that was, oh, you shouldn't punish employees who can't show up? You should punish employees who suck at their jobs, maybe everyone needs to fire Deloitte because Deloitte is not showing up on the meritocracy radar anymore, but what is going on? You identify one of the key problems of the fake meritocracies is that the probably the reason why they're targeting uh attendance because they don't know how to define, how they don't correct. Create objective methodology to Define meritocracy. Nobody knows so. So it doesn't surprise me that they turn to this asinine stat that you're right that disproportionately punishes women and just so you can see the. So this is the meritocracy this last headline. Yeah, I love because it's so fucking stupid. I'm probably not gonna love it. Billionaire, 5-hour, Energy. Founder already already that started. That had already living in stupid. I headline, yeah. Billionaire five-hour energy. Founder says, you can learn more about managing a business from your mom. Then getting an MBA. What Is that I don't want to be defending NBA's. I think. Mbas are stupid in general. No offense to anyone. Who's got one, I get why you got one, but really, but it's not gonna like that. He got, he got his from Columbia, I know, I know Ivy League school. Yeah, let's just say it's not for me and yet why are we shiting on someone who wants to educate themselves? Why are we saying like like that's it's like the scene in like Goodwill Hunting when he talks about. I got my education for 20 cents in late fees at the public library. Well, you were dropping, you know, like overpriced education at Harvard. We it doesn't have to be that binary. It can be. People want to learn things and be better. That is like, well, definition of Merit, someone who goes but like night school to get an MBA because they want to better themselves. They work hard at it. Billionaire, 5-hour Energy founder says just talk to your mom douchebag. Let's just Bear Tucker. See, we asked our mom, what we should do? This is the meritocracy for 13 year old boys who are like Mama. What should I do next? This is the Robbie Starbucks, meritocracy. This is the meritocracy at Deloitte where they say, well, I'm gonna count the number of days that you showed up, and that's going to determine your bonus because I don't have a way to actually figure out whether you're good at your job or not, a few bananas, a few things here. If there was, if this guy's name is Minaj bhargava. I already don't like him. Oh, any name? I wouldn't like it. If he was actually talking to his mom. She would tell him not to sell some horrible, five hours, and imagine how many discussing ingredients from that. Second of all, here's an interesting twist. I think what's really happening here is that this CEO basically just hates his dad, his dad attended. He got, he went to the Wharton School of Business. His dad. Oh, and yet talked to your mom. Yeah. But to be fair, he did Minaj himself does not have a College degree, he dropped out of Princeton. So, oh, we should listen to all the dropouts. That should be a general rule. So shit, who sell like social space. Yeah, maybe if he had gone to MBA, Matt, I got his MBA degree. Maybe he could have The Seven Hour Energy drink I'm getting a call. Hold on one second. Filibuster. Moving on. We have one more story and speaking. Yeah, of the mothers who don't can't attend. That was the school calling? It was just an automated call though. I think I've finished up your right. Yes. A very disjointed segment. Go ahead is you're welcome and it's one headline. Texas leads us renewable energy Generation by a country mile course. A fucking hate that they're already getting three options. Yeah. Okay. It has to getting. They're getting investment from. Aren't they getting? They're getting Tesla factors. They're getting Apple, they're getting everything. Yeah, they're getting all the green stuff that all of the woke States worked their asses off to innovate building infrastructure for help subsidize to pass laws so that it made it possible and then they all move to Texas after they're making money because now they want to protect their money. There is no that quid pro quo. There is no sense of like oh well you know, we built it here. Let's keep it here or let's spread the wealth know. It's protect your ass in Texas, there's your three passing the buck the meritocracy now and you're welcome Texas I'm really focused. I'll go I'll just make this quick. I'm really focused these days on this idea that we can't even Define the meritocracy where. Yeah well which which Guess understandably. Dovetails from our inability to Define what woke is Trump was talking a lot about how we've killed woke. The end of woke in America. I still don't know what woke means because does he mean We've Ended women in black people? I don't know you're talking about. That's a difficult, I don't know. He's talking about but now we're using meritocracy and we don't we still don't know what it means other than the fact that it represents 1950 version of America, where women didn't really hold important jobs. Is that what we're talking about? I don't know. A problem is the conflation of what woke does data? Give me some objective data? Yeah, well, I mean, what woke is, like, the idea of what is just being what is awareness of systemic issues, right? Like that's all it's supposed to be but and that's over we're not. That's we're done is dead. It's got conflated with sort of the policing of language, and the sort of extension of liberal, sort of, you know, like Yeah, which says nothing to do with one has nothing to do with the other. All right, which means we're on to oh, we're gonna finish this off, I love that one. I got a little amped up to now, I'm tired. Well, good news. Is that you have another show to record? Oh great. Headlines the week. I'll go first for all me. Start with this, let me start with sweet green ever been to Sweet green know. I don't go anywhere. If it's like a salad. I only have gone when I used to go to the msci office in Boston. It's like a salad store. You you go and you get a salad. I don't fuk. It's yeah, I mean sweet green. That's what it sounds simply. It's pretty, it's pretty healthy compared to other options. Their mission statement is building healthier communities by connecting people to real food. Here's the headline Suite. Green is bedding that you want fries with that salad. Oh, I Like first of all, I can't think of a more discussing combination. No, you're wrong. Second of all sweet green. What are you doing? You shouldn't be selling Friday. Anything goes stop, just stop. Come on. Okay, so I'm gonna take the contrarian point of view here. I am 100%. You can ask anyone that. I think a rare date. You get fries, I get a salad like some big monster salad and a side of fries that's certainly that's very friendship you that French kind of they always serve fries and salad. I love it. I think it's fabulous. All right, I got two headlines for you. Number one, man, removes huge letters. Reading. Number one, hair implants from his gold cybertruck after Relentless bullying. What? Is that they're making fun of his baldness. Is that what they're doing? Yeah, they're making fun of his cyber truck. So, this guy is a Massachusetts guy. He had a cyber truck that he, he, you know, they put the ads on the side of the car like, he used it as an advertised moving advertising for his business that did hair implants and he is Yelp page. Just got flooded with negative reviews because he had a cyber truck in Massachusetts. I just tell you it's funny. I don't know if you ever actually when you empty your spam from your email, do you ever actually look at the contents of the spam folder? Know I let it auto empty. Can I tell you that now? It used to be like a third erectile dysfunction, a third baldness and a third like maybe random porn right now. It now Elon Musk is a part of half of every spam email, Elon, I hate everywhere, everywhere. Like what you're saying, but it doesn't does that, not surprise? You could not surprised. He's got what I got. One more last one. 23andMe rejects CEOs, take over a bit of 41 cents a share who rejects. So didn't she create the whole board results? Get that one. The entire board over the in the early fall. Resigned because they the board. So Susan wuji owns like 49 and Susan died. Right. And with Jackie owns like 49% of the shares by vote and she wanted to buy take the company private, she made an offer like two dollars and forty cents a share. And the board rejected, it thought it was such a lowball offer that they all resigned in protest, the entire board, resigned in protest, so and reconstituted, the board with three new people that she picked because she's the only one on the board to pick the people. She made an offer at 41 cents a share, and they were rejected it, it's her offer. Wow, they rejected her offer. I just love that. That's a great headline. Okay, let's just pick that headline. Moving on, that's the best winner. Yeah, you want to finish up with, who won the week? Uh, yeah, so my winner is Michael Bloomberg, okay? Oh, Bloomberg was cited as the largest donor philanthropist of the year in 2024. He gave away. He was. Yeah he was he gave away three million dollars in gifts. The reason why he's the winner is because I looked this up on in five or six different lists Mackenzie Scott not on a single list. Why despite giving away two billion dollars in 2024 and 19 billion dollars? Overall versus the bluebird? Foundation is only giving away 17 billion and its entire existence Mackenzie Scott in like four years is giving away 19 billion and we are overlooking her entirely. We don't even think of her. As a donor on the list are all is the list includes Chan Zuckerberg, it includes the gate, it includes all Buffett, all of these luminaries of donation but Mackenzie Scott, the actual donor, who gives money and says, do what you need to do with it. Not listed well, more congratulations on your win because you've fooled them all more importantly, MacKenzie's not also running a company that is like ruining our our culture at the same time. She's not currently give it time. Give it time. My winner of the week is our very own, Jesse, the money Whisperer remember. Just So, this is for this is for deep inside listeners. So I, I used to yell at Jesse repeatedly on this show. For still owning a Tesla, right? I was as a come on, get rid of your stupid Tesla. Matt last weekend. She finally got rid of her Tesla and she bought a Hyundai right last year. Really and here's why I'm calling her a winner because here is the headline from this week Hyundai stands by D E. I says it quote drives sales. Children, the children of Google workers are going to, they're going to be ordering more Domino's Pizza, and they're going to be logging increased iPad time, because Sergey Brin says AGI is Within Reach if Google Earth Works 60-hour weeks. Oh, he wants them all to log 60 hour weeks, so he can basically. So they can basically help the two people who control Google get just infinitely more rich and Powerful. Here's the worst part about that. Yeah, 60 weeks 60 hours. Matt that I mean, if you have a Thing yet that's like clocking in at 9 a.m. and clocking out at 9 p.m. and then driving home. But who do we talk about? When we talk about, who runs Google, We talk about Sundar pichai, the CEO of Google who has very little control over the company. It turns out if Sergey Brin is saying googlers need to work 60-hour weeks so that we can achieve AGI who's really making the calls there. The guy who's the CEO and name, or the guy who has all the voting power. I I'm glad you pointed out. Here's an absolute great, use case for the data at free flow analytics.com. I just opened up alphabet and and there's a there's a section it tells you the influence percentage of every director on the board. And number one influence is Larry Page or 39%. Number two is Sergey Brin with 36% to combine, they control 75% of all board influence. Yeah, the current CEO, Sundar pichai, only six percent right influence on that board. And that's why you see headlines. For the old, the crazy Ultra billionaire, Sergey Brin telling his workers, his Workers his workers. That works 60-hour weeks. Yeah. So mine is it's looks short but it's there's a little bit more to it but here we go. Are you ready? American Express. My prediction is they will sue one of their shareholders this year. Why? Because of this headline, American Express elects might Michael angelakis to the board of directors. Angela's name might be familiar to you if you pay attention to who's on exons board, they just pulled in American Express, gets an Exxon board member Exxon, who sued our June, the capital. So apparently there's no punishment for suing, a shareholder except getting another board slot somewhere else. Congratulations, Sam also. I bet they're gonna sue somebody. If he joins the nomination committee, then we better listen, very closely to what he what he thinks about. What? Yeah, well State Street will just allow whatever. He says, to be the thing. That's it. That's his little raw. Let me know. We are free float. Come back again. Next week, we got shows on Tuesday, we got shows on Friday, and this show, we've got proxy countdown, which is going out later today. We've got a proxy countdown next week, we have our third show that we produce for Mike Levin and Anne Lipton shareholder. Primacy. Go get that. They're actually Geniuses and go to free flow analytics.com, sign up for free because the date of the Damien's talking about is free, no money. Just put in an email. Yeah, fun for somebody. See you next week until then goodbye.