Transcript
oh, Whoa, Nelly. Come on. Hey, ho live from my own private snow squall to business pants Friday show here at February 7th Studios. Featuring analysts whole map mascardi who took about Matt. Yeah, come on. I am bowing. Yes. On today's weekly wrap-up The Super Bowl of confusion. EOS. Are being paid to be. Good bosses. Spinelessness. And tiktok at my lipstick. You say Super Bowl. Doesn't sue you. As soon as you say, it isn't that the way that works our show today is being sponsored by free flow analytics.com. The only platform measuring board power Connections in performance for free. Yeah, love that. Love all the things. You just all those words? For all of you investors out there who actually care about this stuff. One of the stories I cover in our goodly, I'm gonna make a reference to free flow analysts.com to our data, our proprietary data. Because it's interesting, No, it's not, it's not us there. There are sponsors. I don't mean us. I mean just I mean like whoever free flow analytics. We who use the platform? Yes Collective. We So can I just say before we jump in here? Yeah, of course. I hated every story this way. Oh, I will say I I it's like I have some like glass half full glass half empty for you, okay? In 2025, at least the small victory is that every moment of every day before the Super Bowl is not about the Super Bowl anymore, you used to be just like that's all we cared about was Sports and football and Super Bowl. I have like barely heard a word about it, Matt so at least. That's that good? Right. Okay, well we have all the culture, you don't live in Kansas City, I don't Philadelphia. Neither do I? We both live in New England, where we lived for the Super Bowl for 20 years because it was functional news sources. I'm not just looking at the, the Portland paper and the Providence Gazette or whatever. Providence Gazette. What is it? Providence, News Journal. It's the projo, the Providence. Okay. That come on. All right, let's just do this because it's depressing. Let's do it. It's depressing. I have some good stories though. Good news. Come on. I have one and I don't like it. I will say that my stories of the week are not the most uplifting but let's just get to it anyway. Oh good. Let's do it. Yeah. Let's start with Google, the Shameless, Google flip-floppers, you know. When you look at Silicon Valley, Matt you when you squint you know, it always say to yourself. Okay. Well we know, meta and Facebook, we know they're out. They're they're horrible people and maybe Apple's. Okay, maybe Microsoft's. Okay. Maybe Google's, oh, maybe there's sort of. Okay, Google you. It was basically started by Librarians, right? So but I don't know, I don't think, I think you're squinting is Sending you the wrong message because this is what happened at a Google this week. First Google ends, diversity hiring goals, as it reviews, its Dei programs. And then, second in the same week Matt Google axes its promise. Not to use AI for weapons or surveillance just weeks into the Trump presidency. Wow. When they acts a promise. What is where do they do that? Do they take it out back to exit? Do they like like is it just a lawyer with like wordperfect from 1997 deleting that line? All you shareholder shareholder, derivative lawsuit fans? I know there's a lot of you. Why are you suing for any promise broken? I mean, first of all that you should sue if they got rid of their Dei program because maybe maybe you bought shares based on that, you should definitely sue for using their AI for Weaponry. I mean, what are you doing? Come on. Is it false advertising that their motto used to be? Don't be evil. And well, that there was another article that which and I don't know what percentage of actual that workers this represents, but suggesting that workers at Google alphabet. We're looking at each other being like, wait, are we the bad guy now? Yes, there you go, you are correct. You are the bad guy now. Sorry. And you know, here if you work on Google cloud or you're doing like Google like oceanography, Or you're just like, you are paid by the same two Bros who owned all of these decisions and your 4000 dollar a year salary, which makes your life livable and Kush and delightful livable. I mean, I mean Sam for in San Francisco, you're like middle class. That's here. Uh, that salary. I don't care if you think you're doing good. Your firm is no longer on that side, that's just the way that works, right? Okay. But the way that works, but these people work for Google Maps. They've seen all the the new stories that say, like I quit. My horrible, Google job, and move to New Hampshire, and I work for the forestry service. I've never been happier. You've seen those? You've seen those articles. That's why do you do that? Isn't that all of business, insiders, articles? Yes. All that actually, yes. All right, that's the first story that weak to Shameless. Google flip floppers I did I I'm probably the idiot here because I just thought I don't think Google would suck that bad but I guess I know we're just we're desperate for an adult somewhere. Speaking of sucking badly, I had to throw this story and just a tweak you, but this one was making the rounds last night. So it just seemed like possible Story the week, type of story because maybe it kind of in a nutshell kind of demonstrates what we're going through as a culture better than any other story. I could have used to highlight this and that is VC giant andreesen Horowitz Hires man, acquitted in New York City subway, killing guess. The guy who what did he do? Matt he strangled someone on the subway because he didn't like that he was homeless or something. Yeah. No the homeless guy came in and was making a lot of noise and this guy putting a Terrain put him into Perry. Yeah. And and somehow he he now works he's now been hired for a venture capitalist firm. What my favorite part is what he's working and on Andrews and Horowitz is American dynamism portfolio. That's that's what makes me a little nervous about the current age where like are we like oh we're gonna be like weaponizing. Daniel Perry types to sort of start killing our homeless. Like what are we doing? I don't know what's happening. Oh, I think we weaponized patriotism. Everything's not like that. You like like the freedom is the freedom to be able to do things in opportunity, right? It's not like killing. Hobos in New York. Subways, that's not the freedom we're going for, usually, so why don't we weaponize filling potholes. But this story, I don't like, it's either a troll like, Andrews and Horowitz realizes like, you know, this is a great way to troll certainly or, or it's like, you know, kind of like fine. He was acquitted. Like that went through the trial. He was acquitted. You know. So it was OJ. You didn't hire OJ. Well, they could have maybe he's next. He used to be, he was a board member at CBS Corporation. He would have been a better higher. See, there you go. All right, the next one. I'm sorry. Matt, you can turn off your headphones but I had to do it. I I do. I always wrestle with myself. Am I avoiding the Elon Musk stories? Because I heard the stories, I already hate the words coming out, but, you know, this is sort of the one of the personal mandates of this company in these shows is that we're we're trying to shine a light on stories that maybe a lot of people are avoiding or, you know, a lot of people they're kind of sick of all this since Trump won. So they just they look away because they can't handle the horror but but I I sorry. I gathered a handful, a very big handful of musk Doge. Shit, show stories and I'm just gonna go over them one by one. So it's probably take, this will probably take me 45 seconds. So, feel free to tune out if it's too much. Well, before you jump down, I just want to remind our audience who Elon Musk is go ahead. It's very confusing. Go ahead, Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla. A publicly traded company that Sells Cars. That's all. So, that's the only. That's the only public corporation. He's CEO of. He's also the CEO of several other corporations that go to space. That dick tunnels inside brains, that dig tunnels. So he's, he's a CEO and he's very well. He and he's the wealthiest man in the world. He is not. He's not from a government or a government employee. He's a CEO and sells cars that's his primary source of as well. Okay. He was not elected to his role in the government. Nor did he have to pass any kind of congressional oversight? I don't make sure we're clear. I just want to make sure we're clear. Elon Musk is the CEO. All of his money comes because he's the CEO of a company that sells cars that's and he does. I think what Matt's saying is that if you're an investor in Tesla, you were absolutely 100% complicit and all of this. So I don't care what you tell yourself. I don't care if you're you worship to the throne of shareholder, Primacy or whatever it is, but you are absolutely complicit in this. So that's you. I'm sorry. Company car. He makes cars car company. Yeah. Okay. Giving Elon, musk's Doge access to the treasury payment system, risks. A US debt, default and Global financial crisis Senator Warren's. Elon Musk just pulled something. Unbelievably sketchy at the US Treasury Elon musk's Doge gains access to sensitive treasury data, including Social Security and medicare payment systems. Elon Musk says, Doge will now shut down government payment. He doesn't like Elon musk's pet us. Attorney threatened, anyone reporting on Doge? That's a fun one. Elon Musk says it's time to get rid of all regulations. Official warns that Elon Musk is poised to kill quote, thousands. If not hundreds of thousands, quote of people, Elon Musk says naming specific. Government workers is illegal after doing exactly that himself. Oh, some members of Elon musk's Doge Squad art sharing their last names as they attempt to remake the federal Workforce like that one. The person ruling on Elon. Musk's Doge conflicts of interest is Elon Musk. Assault on. The government has canceled a human trial for a promising, HIV vaccine. Elon musk's henchmen feeding sensitive government data into AI, Elon Musk said Doge would provide maximum transparency, it may be years before its records are public. Musk's doge is trying to access your data, your right to be paranoid. And that's out of the Washington Post, not some weird blog, okay? And finally, 25 year old employed by Elon musk's Doge who posted he was, quote racist before. It was cool and quote resigned, after being linked to deleted social media accounts. Yeah, I actually left out some headlines. So I don't know what to tell you. I just, I just had to do it. I had I had to let people know. So again, if you're an investor Tesla, if you're driving a Tesla, if you're on, Jenny has a Tesla, you you're absolutely complicit in this. If you just don't do anything about it, come on. I mean, so, Elon Musk. like, If you drive a Tesla or not, he now knows every tax payment you've ever made, or didn't make. He knows your name and social security. Number in fact, their reports that his 19 to 25 year old males staff, which is almost speaking of them. 19 to 25 year old males, including the kid who posted he was racist it before. It was cool. That is entire team still, not cool. It's been reported to be walking around with unencrypted hard drives with millions of pieces of private information of US citizens on. It just well, Matt and about the good news is a, there's a there's still Netflix and tiktok and people don't have to pay attention. They can just questioning their shows. Yeah. Let's make this concrete right because it would be easy to be like really alarmist about the richest man in the world bought, you know, like himself access to every government. In fact, there's Ports that he like helped craft tariffs in, you know, against Canada and Mexico, that benefited him. That now SpaceX employee is now been appointed at Nasa. So he's basically taking over every arm of the government that he can seriously not even born in America. Yeah, cam maybe president to his personal benefit and that like Grandpa Trump who's like, sort of doddering and doesn't really know what's going on. Never like the details in the first really knew was going on. Yeah, I mean, now, you know, I must be is like the, he's taking advantage of poor. Grandpa telling him like Grandpa. Can I have another 20 bucks? You didn't give it to me after like, you know, doing that over and over again and just taking money just being Elon. I almost like, I get that. Here's the reminder. Yeah, Elon Musk is the CEO of a publicly traded car manufacturer. A car company, whose sales are Plumbing across the globe, all across Europe. And in China, they announced. Yesterday and in parts of the US California where they're used to be the most Tesla buyers, their cratering everywhere. if this is how he runs the government, How does he run the car company? That he's not actually at running well because he's busy running the government. The more question Point. More important question for you. Matt is, since we're all about kind of the, the mechanisms behind this world recover, the accountability. Why are his shareholders voting him out off the board? At least his brother like why aren't they at least voting against every sample package? Why aren't they at least voting him out there? Tesla what's going on? I don't have, I don't know. I don't know. We'll come back. We move on. Yeah, and finally, the fourth story the week. This is a simple one and NFL to remove and racism messaging in End Zone ahead of Super Bowl. Again, it was there. So, they're actually removing it, it's not like they're deciding not to put the message and racism a little remind you that the, the NFL, the last time I noticed is not really a group full of like white people from Nebraska's. What pretty big mix of cultures there. But I will say this map on the other hand, commissioner Roger, Goodell reaffirmed, the League's diversity equity, and inclusion, efforts aimed at goals, such as increasing the number of non-white coaches, despite the recent wave of Dei pullback. So The reports were Matt. I hope this is not true. The reports were that they were moving the messaging because Elon musk's buddy. Donald Trump is showing up to the game in person and then I don't want him to be angry. But it could, it really is our world, really that simplistic and stupid. Is that possible? Is that Paul? Why they're moving it? You know, what's he gonna do? What's he gonna do? Yeah. Like, could you say the end racism is not actually Dei like, because it's not, it's absolutely not the. I know the whole entire movement is saying racism, they're just saying it's racism against white men. Yes, they're calling out systemic racism against white guys. So if they remove and racism, does that mean they want more racism? Is that I don't know. Like, what's the messaging? Why would we? Yeah, because why isn't controversial that's a good point. I like that. All right. Yeah, for a story of the week are the Google flip flopping and recent Horowitz hiring a killer acquitted killer? Yeah. I shouldn't Giggles musk Doge and and NFL removing and racism, I Don't want to vote for this but it has to be missed dose, right? Like this is the weak and again, not only did they get access to the treasury payment system, but a judge actually stopped access to the treasury payment system. He they tried to fire all these employees and then a judge basically they sued. And now there's a temporary hold on the firing. Like literally everything that is happening is contravening law. And he's in, he's like founder molding the government, which isn't the way God turns out, um, government is not run by Venture capitalists it is Run for the benefit of the population. And when you load government, You. Actively hurt, big swaths of the population and I want all the listeners to be clear. I know I repeat this often because I think it's worth repeating. Is that first of all the data we look at is not on the left or right, it's not Republican and Democrat the way you use the data. Certainly could support. What you're, you know, what you're up to politically, that's not what the data is. It's this ESG is not a political force, it's not a political ideology, beyond that map. I accumulate thousands of headlines. Every week, I tagged the ones that I think are most important. I think I've seen, I think it's about 1500 articles a month that I tagged, I am not looking at, I know you find this hard to believe. I'm not looking at like the Ben and Jerry Gazette. Like I'm not looking like the hippie times. Like I, I only actually look at some of the biggest business news sources in the world. So these are all of the Elon musk's headlines. I've accumulated from that from those new sources like from like Fortune mag. And from The Washington Post from things like that. This is not just like I don't even follow the very left publication. So this is not a leftist thing. This is just the normal business news worried like the rest of us. Yeah. And you're saying that it's both sides of the political aisle. Like it's you know like the Wall Street Journal which is come a fox verdict owned. Yeah. It's a Murdoch own joint. And you're looking at the New York Times, which someone might say, is incredibly liberal, but kind of his just journalism. but, That knot was standing. We don't actually limit our news sources. This is what everyone's saying. Yes, absolutely. All right, that's right. Unfortunately, the musco, let's move on. And like I said, it's a horrible show. Let's go on to good list of the week. I'm so tired already. I I have three of them here because I really need to make myself feel better. So do you want to go first? You want me to go first? I have three. I have one. Yeah. So I can, I can do this. Yeah, so the headline is, it's just a headline. It's very, very simple, Harvard. Law Library is saving the data that the Trump Administration is removing. In fact, Harvard Law's Innovation, lab has so far managed to preserve more than 300,000 data. Sets that are actively being at 16. Terabytes of data, they are protecting it because they know we're going to need it in the future as the administration is wiping it from the right thing, as usual, libraries are saving the day, you know? I'm not a fan of, like, I don't hate comic book movies, like Marvel, I hate Star Wars. I don't like any of that crap. Oh, the one, my one guilty pleasure is, I don't know why I love like Mission Impossible movies. I love the Bourne, The Bourne Identity movies. But there I was recently watching a mission impossible. Movie. Matt. And there was some evil entity that was trying to control data. And there was this amazing scene of there were government workers which is kind of ironic based on what we're talking about today. Government work. There was thousands of government workers in a room with typewriters trying to offload data from the server trying to preserve it because you know, the data, absolutely, right Harvard Library. The data is in danger if we don't, if we don't have a manual way of capturing, some of it and I they just watching the movie. I'm like giggling like oh that's never gonna happen. But oh man, like it might be starting to happen as we speak the 13 year old middle school man flakes over in Dozier they just got access to Noah. The and that's like the primary place where we hear warnings about you know, hurricanes and tornadoes and stuff. And they're they've been like steadily privatized over years. This isn't unique to write now. But, you know, That's the kind of data that sort sort of, I would call a public good, that is steadily disappearing, so that was my good. One. Did not make me feel good. Let me give it a shot. They're saving data. Yeah, let me give it a shot. I'm gonna start with a female focused. Search engine called DM, DM, which sees 40% growth amid Trump tiktok troubles and met his masculinity moment. I like that female focused search engine. They kind of incorporate a lot of Social Media stuff in there, a lot of but you know, again, maybe this is our way out of this. Maybe this is our future, this is why I personally promote diversity leadership so much because maybe this is literally our way out of it is to wrestle control away from Tech Pros. I mean, again, people are they still have the freedom to delete things like, you know, Facebook and Instagram, or whatever from their phones, and and maybe try a female Focus search engine. I I so I like this but I also I'm like, is it, has it really come to? We need a search engine for women because less the world is so fucked up, part of what she's doing for. Give me a forgotten. The name of the woman who runs this Emma, part of what she is doing. Is, you know, look, she controls the algorithms at her own search and my base. So what they can do is they can absolutely, they can, they can change, you know, they can change what the search engine gives back to you. Depending on what you asked? They can they can. Yeah, I mean Matt they can change a lot. Yes, maybe this is what? It's come to absolutely. Yeah, that doesn't make me feel good. All right, made me feel good. Maybe this one I know will make you feel good. This is a no-brainer, a good list story of the week. A million cars have disappeared. What New York City is like after one month of congestion pricing, congestion pricing began on January 5th. One month in traffic is down public buses are faster and Transit. Ridership is up. How do you know there it is? There it is. Oh, how do you hate that? Because Trump said he was planning on pausing, that was on his agenda, he didn't want to allow, I don't know why. Why was that? Well, I don't understand how you could pause that. Like you're saying that the city and state can't make its own decision about how to like toll its streets, because it's more of a nanny State now than it's ever been beyond that he used to live there. I mean, they might have noise and smells coming on all cars and Manhattan is overwhelming. He knows this means his gold. Limo is not a lot. Yes, he can affordable for that. And finally, I have two stories about Dei related bonuses. So let's keep it. Let's keep on in good, good news here goodly is Costco. Awarded Executives, hundreds of thousand dollars in Dei related bonuses and Novo Nordisk missed. Its diversity targets last year and its CEO paid Financial price. Wow. Yeah, according to Fortune the CEO at Novo. Nordisk Jorgensen is his name. He surrendered about 100,000 dollars and pay because he didn't hit certain targets that was out of 20 ish million, okay? But actually, it's not an American company. So I think it was only like seven million to be fair. Oh, that's actually a bigger chunk then. I gave it a shot. I come online is still the good Minds. The good list. Sorry, like the data. Yeah. No. The data is the best cars. It's the cars. I know, but I think that's a temporary. All right, it's a tie. There we go. If you were to pressed already, let's do assholes. Not to feel good after these cars and in the bonus, the d e, i related bonuses, I'm feeling good. All right, I got three and a half ish. Bring me down. Bring me down. All right, here we go. Here's number one. Spineless people part. One investors in Middle School. These are Middle School, investors. What does that mean? Look, I'm talking to you BlackRock. And Vanguard. Yeah, both voted for Kimball and Elon on the board every year. In fact, BlackRock last year voted four Kimball And against James Murdoch because of conflict of interest. I don't of James Murdoch. This is where I don't understand the ball. I don't get the game anymore. Matt look, I I don't you, you've heard me say that I don't we don't need CEOs on boards. I know that's a that's a bit of a stretch for most of these old school people like BlackRock and Vanguard but you know CEOs brother. Here's, I'm gonna see his brother, Matt who has no expertise in anything. I'm gonna read this to you. They voted against James Murdoch as nomination Committee Member, he's responsible for the lack of Independence. He Yes, more relevant for Kimball musk. But but if you're just doing a comp, if you just doing a conflict of interesting and you have to pick one, I would even pick James Murdoch. Why are you picking Kimball musk? I don't get that. I don't get that at all. James Murdoch, they vote against because he's responsible for a lack of Independence and then BlackRock without irony votes for the brother of the CEO, the brother of the CEO, When investors act basically like greedy middle school, man, flakes, like what we're seeing in government. The CEOs also act that way, that's why we just spent 20 minutes talking about Elon Musk and basically dozing his way through the US government. While. It occurs to me. Musk actually now because he had access to the payment system of the treasury. He has visibility into his own investors treasury transactions first, which would be bad when you read a headline that says, Elon Musk, clashes with CEO of 1.7 trillion, Norway wealth fund, and Tesla shareholder who voted against his Paypal, 5 6 6. Any treasury ownership of the Norway? Well fund. He can Tinker with it because he doesn't like that they voted against his pay package. It's not and, Just to remind you BlackRock Vanguard these like Middle School investors, who are it? Can't be less clear about their voting and their voting policies. This is what musk is supposed to be working on. Here's the I'm just gonna read five headlines musk affect Tesla sales, slump and five European markets. In January, Tesla car sales in China, fall 11.5% as competition, intensifies Tesla, stock fell, California might be turning against Elon Musk Tesla recalls more than 239,000 Vehicles. Over rear view. Camera problem, Tesla to recall one point two million cars in China on safety concerns as well. He's supposed to be doing, that's his job. he's supposed to be CEO, but in CEO, he's playing video games making tariffs against Canada, and Mexico, which are the biggest losers if those tariffs at State because they've been halted for 30 days would be Auto competitors of Musk. We got to get you a cough button. Oh my God, we have four coffee for you. so, While you guys are voting for Kimball Musk. And you guys are not holding the CEO accountable in any way shape or form. Recalls are up, sales are down. The company is actually not doing anything really and people just exercise 27. Point five, nine million dollars of stock 27 million, 50090000, 6007 other fifty cents. Brother of these, you just paid Kimball musk more than 27 million dollars to be Elon, musk's brother. And to be clear, the share price was was performing terribly in 2024. It's only bounce was the fact that he was basically just elected president. Like, it had no idea with Tesla itself. Let me add to this black rock and Vanguard, you're kind of also partly responsible for the mess around his Paypal package because the Delaware century is trying to get rid of rule against that, payback package because you Keep voting for conflicts of interest on the on the Tesla board. So you're you're creating a quagmire but not doing your job, not not not performing your due diligence. So BlackRock, Vanguard stop being middle schoolers and stand up for yourself. Ask for an adult CEO who has one job and how about board members? One, provide actual oversight as a number one, keep going number two, where you call yourself to death, Yeah, I know it's unbelievable. Number two is another set of spineless, distort distraction extortionists here. Oh no, two stories. NCAA bars, transgender women from competing and women's sports no reason for that and NFL to remove and racism messaging and end zone. No reason for that. I had the Super Bowl. Here's some stats. Yeah. In the NFL 53.5% of the players in 2023 were black. 75.6% of the the league are people of color 24.1% white. Yeah. Interesting. Did not know the US population is 75.3% white. Oh so and racism. Is not controversial in the NFL. Well, they NFL needs and its own racism, how unlike the NBA? How are so few of its head coaches black? How was that possible? Aren't they the it the league? If the if the players are black and now like the Matt, the two starting quarterbacks in the Super Bowl are black? I mean, ostensibly they are the experts of football. How are they not running these teams? So but the NFL isn't the worst one in my mind NCAA barring transgender women from competing on the back. So on the back of a trump order mandating that women can't compete men's sports and when they say women they mean are Men can't compete in women's sports. So when they say men, they means Trends gender women because they're all over them using their biological sex. Look, here's, here's a, here's a number, okay? There are 530,000 student athletes at NCAA schools. The president of the NCAA Charlie Baker the ex-governor of Massachusetts. Yeah the most liberal state in the in the world. Yeah. Said in a congressional Hearing in December. There are fewer than 10, transgender athletes of the 530,000. So why is he been? What is he doing? So we've banned, why, why do the headline say? We bought we banned transgender women from competing in women's sports. Why doesn't it say 10 women are not allowed to play in women's sports and then have them stand on stage and be like, like Trump thinks you're weird all ten of you and that we constructed laws and mandates orders. We are wasting government time for you. 10 women, that's it 10. Well, here's a part. Here's a part of the problem. Maybe, maybe Matt is a different perspective, I can give you maybe part of the problem is, why is the head of the NC double A Charlie Baker, right? You're focusing on the fact that he used to be the governor of Massachusetts. But what who he really was and how he probably became Governor is he's the former CEO of Harvard Pilgrim. Healthcare. Why is the former CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare running in the NCAA in the first place? I don't know why doesn't Charlie Baker stand up, and rather than NCAA barring transgender women. Why don't they say? This is a non-issue. We've had zero complaints. This applies to statistically speaking. You could prove it to non-issue this applies to Beyond negligible students, according to our own, president Beyond eligible. At least impactful waste of time. Matt, that we just think of you said there's point, oh one, eight percent transgendered athletes in the NCAA math. There's probably point. Oh eight one eight percent like charcoal in my oatmeal. I mean what point oh one eight percent like what? Like that's like barely a trace of anything. It's pointless. It is literally literally it is purely is purely. Lgbtq plus one. Now thing about it, why write a Super Why this week, what would we do in Charlie Baker? Charlie stand up for yourself. Yeah, I mean you Healthcare Company. What are you doing? Roger Goodell stand up for yourself. Just say Like racism isn't D E, I like racism applies to everyone everywhere ending racism, we should all strive for Charlie. You could stand up and say this is the biggest non-issue in the history of issues. What are we doing? The NCAA is going to say, says to Trump's order. Fine, sue us. Because you have to, like, prove that there is actually any negative impact here. There is no negative impact. I'm not. Well, that has been, that that's the reality of all. This man, we're talking about like like volleyball and like softball and football. Who cares? Nobody cares. It's their dumb games. Stop it. It's like a D4 pickleball League. Just stop. Like, stop. And then number three, yeah. What are we got? Dei whiners Dei whiners. Was that mean? Auntie Dee I wanted to talk look you just covered. I don't want to cover all the anti-deflation. I can't believe I'm about to say this. Do it. Activist investors seem to be the only ones left doing any work at all. Because here's the headline starboard, nominates four directors at Ken views board so Starbursts taking out a 1.1% stake of kenview. The company it's worth nearly a half a billion dollars. That's like a lot of real money like a half a billion dollars worth of money, is the value of their investment. Here's who they nominated. Jeff Smith, who's who's a starboard investor? He's the rap. He's like, you know, helps run starboard. Michelle Millstone, schraff Bed Bath & Beyond a woman Dei higher. Kara, Robinson from Unilever, a black woman. Dei Bindu Shah from Sephora and Indian woman. How is it that Starburst can go out with a half a billion dollars of real money? Making a financial case of why they need to turn kenview around and starboard? Takes an activist in this. They managed to find not one but three out of the four directors, their nominating are all women. Well here isn't that like are we accusing starboard of not doing meritocracy with a half a billion dollar investment? But here's a real thing, here's the real game about meritocracy. If you if you look at a spreadsheet of the, the qualifications education of men versus women you and if you're too stupid you can like literally put your finger on the spreadsheet so you can like trace it over rows and columns you will see Matt that if we're just gonna do meritocracy you should be hiring the women. Right, which is exactly what I'm saying. I'm like, I'm working behind this. That's the way it works. That's what the data tells you on some of this on some of this because that the data says exactly that, if you follow the data people autocracy, so anybody who comes to you and says we only hire on Merit demand that they proved it. If you're an investor in a company, every new director you should say, can you show me why this director that you've appointed? Because these are appointments. These are directors that have not been elected yet. They've been appointed every single appointment. You should go in with your engagement team. Write a letter. That's a stock letter that you can send immediately upon appointment and say we have X percent money in your company. We want you to prove that this appointment is a meritocratic appointment and not based on some other Factor because right now in climate, And this climate that is what Trump is saying. His orders says, you can't you gotta erase the EI dei's, racism, or whatever. Fine. Give me the proof of meritocracy. This yeah, when starboard does it. They find three out of the four directors or women and the other one works at starboard, right? Like that's that's so when they went outside and they said let's find some some of the most highly qualified directors that investors will vote for because we have a half a billion dollar stake in this company you want to change it. What they came up with was three women. I got two things to say here. First of all, for the anti Dei, the anti-esg crowd. I guess, your antide issue. Do you realize you're just doing ESG, you just you just using you just doing it and like the opposite direction. You're just, you're still doing what you hate ESG to do. You're you're basically scolding companies to act the way you want them to act, right? No, but I I'm incredibly like I'm so tired of Defending Dei. I want someone to defend meritocracy like we spent years decades in ESG Gathering data showing, you know, like what you wrote a paper on women on boards. Well, I was gonna bring that up. Yeah, 12 years ago now. Yeah, I'll tell you Matt, that the one thing that. So when I used to go to clients or potential clients and share the paper, two, notable things happened. First of all, the women were always super engaged and the men were always super angry and confrontational but the one thing that I learned the one trick I learned, it wasn't a trick is how I really felt is that I have eventually pushed back on the men who were challenging the purpose of the paper, the beginning with. And I said, well prove to me that the male directors should be there and that they're, you know, they're better for the company and they, that's the one thing that shut them up because Matt, they have absolutely, no, there's no system set in place. To prove the meritocracy that the men, the white men are better performing none. There's no, they don't have that criteria to share. So that's the inherent problem. While everyone outraged. Outraged about the sort of like attacks on Dei, what you should be outraged about is the lack of backing for meritocracy, ask for you. The proof ask for the flip this on its head. Constantly ask I want to me the Merrick show, me beyond that method thing that where I support starboard two. Is that like you got? I mean, you would think at a minimum that the black woman, the Indian woman, the white woman. These people who've come up this far in this patriarchal corporate world, you would think that Have an incredible skill. An expertise and experience that, they've even risen this far in the first place, right? I mean, shouldn't they get credit for that? I mean, if you, if you are creating your meritocracy spreadsheet with data points, you're going to find that the women are going to be leading them, like across the board for what that, not only for their education, and their experience and their expertise. But also what they've overcome to even get there because they've been sitting on boards where they have no voice. Just so many things. So that's why you're right Matt show me the proof and you're gonna maybe the reason why they're not showing the proof is that they're not gonna like what they're what, they're not like it because we've actually done studies around it but you can get the data from us. We like we said, the data is a political, right? Like we just have a whole bunch of data on every single director and how they perform you could look at the performance metrics, you can look at the education metrics, you look at the knowledge metrics and what you would find. Is that routinely women and people are color are held to a much higher standard they have higher education. They have more knowledge and they like they get held always to a higher standard despite the fact that they usually have less power in the boardroom and at least they have less. They have less institutional support at the companies where at, which they're operating, you find it with numbers. I'm not saying you find it. Like that's not like an anecdote that's not like oh like my brother Gus said that Kim's true and like this is like this is numerical, it's measurable. You can in fact, measure Merit I want someone to do it as always the week. So my three choices. Yeah. So I got bunch of spineless choices investors. In middle, schoolers your furniture to the tech Bros, like Elon Musk distraction extortionist. So you're talking about really, I think of the Rupert Murdoch family when you talk about distraction extortionist. But you're talking about essentially that Sports And then, finally do wineries, this is a tough one. Do I know? I, I look, we there all great candidates, I'm landing squarely on the Dei winery because I support look, we struggle constantly here in this new year, in this, in this new Trump Administration. Like, how are we going to? How do we fight back against everything that's going on? This is a very calm simple genius, way to fight back. Matt is really is for any investors out there. Ask people to prove to prove it prove that that these candidates are better. Prove? Prove your meritocracy, just prove it, prove it, I, but I think that that concept should be applied across everything like we do here. If Doge has access to like, you know, your individual Medicaid payments and like taxes, and whatever disclose what you're doing first. While we file, the First Freedom of Information Act request for Trump's taxes through dose, right? What? Why not turn all of it around. Why not like everything that gets attacked? The the attacks are ideological. They're not based on science and data or anything like that. As you refer to flip its Middle School Tech, bro. Man. Flake, what did you say something of their Tech when middle schoolers are throwing a temper? Tantrum, you can very quickly, turn it back. Ironically basically an ironically, that was a thing that they used to critique women for the most right. Was that there were two emotional, but that's all they do know. It's all they how they run everything. Now man, someone told me this and I thought it was great. It's the same as if, like your middle school or is, you know, you catch your middle school, or smoking a cigarette, and they throw a fit like, whatever. My mom, I want to do, whatever, whatever Dad. I'm gonna do whatever I want and it's like, cool smoke the whole pack right in front of me right now. It's like turning the whole thing on its head because the fact is as soon as you do all of the arguments fall apart. So let's do headlining it out of here. Come on. You're gonna a couple belong anyway, headlines the week, honestly. That's so angry. Grandma. I cheated again for headlines the week because I I wanted to find things that made me feel better. So I actually went with, I know I'm supposed to pick one, I don't care, I pick three, I pick three headlines headlines the week, well, that start with mine because it's good, go ahead, mine have been infected. Cows have been infected with a second form of bird. What does that mean? Like first, they had like pigeon flew. And now they have like robbing the flu. Like, what do you mean? So that was trained with bird flu that had jumped to cows and now they're finding a second strain. That was, that was with birds that has jumped to cows, meaning. It's now very easily jumping back. Is that what you have? Matt, do you have bird flu? Is that why you're coughing so much today? I that's probably what I have. Yeah, I've been licking the beak of a bird recently my my three are more fun. Although one of them is actually not fun at all. Start with not fun and okay, go up research. This is for this is for Jesse the money Whisperer our beloved Jesse who is rightly fixated on plastic so so are the data Queen. She loves batteries and and just the whisper money was for loves Plastics. Here's a headline for you. Jesse researchers found a spoon's worth of nanoplastics in human brains. The latest evidence that plastic is accumulating in our bodies. Like I know that it does sound dark, but I graduated with the writing degree. So I love, I just love the phrase, a spoon's, worst nanoplastics. That's great, that's great for allergy. Let's admit it. My second headline of the week. This one's for you, Matt. You love all like like stories about cyber truck in this way. Here's the headline of juveniles. A tragedy cyber truck to face with large crew drawing. Oh wow. It's just a tragedy little circuit. It's actually tragedy exclamation point a little sarcasm that headline. Yeah. And finally, this last headline, cracked me up. Just how stupid it is and I support elf. Actually, I love the company elf but else CEO says people bought less makeup last month because they were too fixated on tiktok's turmoil. Oh, really now? What Could you imagine like, like a normal college graduate from like, 1976 going into a coma and then waking up and reading headlines like this, that people were just bought less makeup because they were just distracted by a social media. What's happening Matt? I don't know there's a lot. What's going on? What's going on? Okay, I don't like it. We'll just pick the Cyber truck. This yeah. 100% that's ever. Let's move on. All right, winners. We got an easy winner. Yeah. Um, anyone not traveling in an airplane, anyone not traveling? An airplane is not in an airplane. Yeah. Well, not to mention of there. Have been like multiple airplane crashes in like the last week or, you know, that there's a shirt, the Potomac there was just a crash in Rio de Janeiro today. Just rare there was, there was the crash in Korea. There's been, you know, that one's not this week but like it seems like there's this Like steady crash news cycle happening, at least in the news because I don't know by the statistics of I don't know that. It's getting any worse, right? So what are travel? That's why seems safe. Yeah, but that's why this headline should make. You feel really good that you haven't booked that trip. Yet, Elon Musk says, Doge will make rapid safety other updates to Air Traffic, Control Systems, falling, deadly, playing crap. I was, I was yelling about this on our pre-production meeting. I was I was specifically singling out, Travis kalanick, He is the horrible frat, bro. Who founded? Uber. Who was so abhorrent such a, such a bad figure that Uber itself removed the founder. They got rid of their own founder. He was the CEO as a board member. And, and what I was ranting about was, was these Tech Bros just doing making all these fast, stupid changes that nobody wants or needs, or this is what makes me crazy. Matt is, why do we need? First of all, we don't need Elon Musk. Has no expertise in this area and he wasn't elected to for to a government role. He got no Congressional approval. Why do we need rapid safety? Upgrade? What? Why, why is he control that? I don't know, the whole thing. What is exactly. Oh, you have to do with air traffic control system because he because he is and in the world. And a lot of the world has somehow was diluted himself into thinking that he is a genius and that he can solve all problems. Despite the fact that he can't even run a very good car company but this is The same guy that overseeing this headlight, Tesla recall, 1.2 million cars, those are safe upgrades that we want, or they have a lot of recalls through. That's not, that's not an outlier. So I that's my winner is not flying. Yeah my winner is okay. Mine's a little bit more confusing probably because everything I think is confusing, my winner is people who hate the idea. Of ending racism while watching two black quarterbacks lead their teams during the Super Bowl. So that one is confusing. I am I that winner, I'm not watching the Super Bowl. So yeah, I don't know. So like because I guess I I guess the idea is that people all Americans don't want to end racism. I don't to your point, Matt. I mean, the thought the whole anti thing was to protect white men so that's a form of supposed to former discrimination. It's all everything's I don't know what we're doing but then they're all. So they're watching as you pointed out. The NFL is mostly people of colors. So the whole thing is very confusing. It's very confusing. I'm confused. Um, do you have a prediction? Yeah, along that line, my prediction is that a new Bud? Light emerges, after the Super Bowl a new, like a new anti-wolf war emerges, and we find Kid Rock is shooting oatmeal. He's shooting this oatmeal after Quaker Oats Jones and ads supporting motherhood with a biracial, family or something. I don't know what they're gonna mess up, I don't know what they're gonna do wrong the wrong shade of black person that the wrong type of woman with the with the wrong type of shirt. I don't know what's gonna piss them off but yeah it's gonna be a new Bud Light. Yeah, new Bud Light. Well, two things, if you put brown sugar in oatmeal, that is for makes it Browner. Yeah. That doesn't sound right? That sounds like a transgendered, kind of soft cereal, I don't know. Yeah, and also Bud Light there. The they just came out and they said the Dylan Mulvaney thing is still affecting their sales. Yeah. And that they wish to stop calling Bud, domestic beer, they want to call it American Beer. That's one of their ways, they think they get, right. The fact that the company is not American owned or controlled, right? We do this prediction is I will die of tuberculosis before we end the show. Yes, that's a good. Prediction. I think yeah, I don't know what happened. I was like, well, your wife text me, if your daddy you think What happens? I I think you just look it up on DM. I did not miss cardi die and I'll say something. That's it. That's our show. That tastes a lot rollers. I'm your analyst old man is already, we are free float. Come back next week. We're gonna have a proxy countdown. We didn't have one this week. There's almost no agms going on right now. So it's a little early in the season. So we'll have another one next week when we get a few more and we got our regular shows until then It.