Transcript
live from your ESG air fryer to business plans Friday show here at January 10th Studios featuring Analyst whole Matti. Hey, ho on today's show, 2025 predictions. You're 20, 25 predictions show. Wow, wow. Wow, you're excited about this and a humbling recap of our 2024 predictions. Yeah, they were not great. We are not good at predictions. I don't think mine were terrible. Mine are all right. I got one like on the nose. Like nailed it, really great? Yeah. Not so much, everything else. I don't really believe. Our show. Today is being sponsored by free flow analytics.com. The only platform measuring board power connections and performance for free. There's also some news stories on there, too. So a lot of money If you want to know the kind of story that work Trucking, you can go on to the landing page there. Before you do your search and you can look at some news oh, by the way, if you're watching the live stream and you're not There's a Damien is a black hole. So you can't see his face because Damien, where are you? I don't trust my internet. You're, you're in the middle of Maine saying somewhere. I'm buy a frozen. Pond, a literal frozen pond. Where, where I just saw a man with his auger digging a hole, cutting up hole of the ice, so he could catch a fish. I don't really know why I'm gonna join him after after the house is so nice and big. I think he probably already has a lot of fish, but whatever. He's gonna buy a fish at Whole Foods and put it in the ice and then pull it out. We'll be a long drive to Whole Foods from here. But yeah, I hear what you're saying. You ready for this? Yeah, let's do this. I don't have like music for this but let's just come on, go pick something different. No, there's nothing. That's not different. we're going with it, it's Surprise you. I know you have access to so many different themes and sound effects. I'm always surprised that you just take the same old, lazy route. I don't understand that. How much can I do? I'm one guy. Let's start with their 2024 pictures. Let's just go back and forth a bit. If you want to do that you want to go back for that, you know, I Know particular, order I'm starting with mine that I got raw kind of wrong. Okay, I'm not going over every single prediction because that would be boring. But here's one, here's here's one that I got kind of wrong but maybe I got kind of write too because I don't know if I was being sarcastic or not. I said that BP, you know, British Petroleum BP. I know that man was gonna surprise everybody and hire an Asian Pro ESG CEO know well what you got the opposite of that and then I said that shell was gonna buy BP after its shares tanked but I think I might maybe I was being sarcastic because who would believe such a thing? You know what? Yeah, that the opposite thing happened, they hired they hired a Canadian who was really not Asian as far as when you look at the low. As far as, you know, well, what I meant was like, actually, from Asia, but yeah, living in Asia, but he's clearly not. When you look at the globe, his name is Murray, ocean clause, and he has decided to leave anti ESG. Yeah. And of course, so there are the shares did not sink. It's so, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. I don't know what I was doing there. I knew that was never gonna happen. So, Well, I would call that wrong, I would call it stupid. You can't say your prediction was a sarcastic prediction and then say, I don't even know what I was thinking. Why was I making such a prediction in the first following your your quiet East Asian male. Yes session plan and its kind of blown up this year last year. I think it doesn't apply to anything except Tech is what we're really finding out. Right? Like yeah like like Starbucks fired their East Asian quickly very quickly quickly. They basically said like okay every other industry needs people to bring attention to the company or the tech companies are doing the opposite. But we yes. Why is this? Well because the tech turns are hiding behind the fact that there's really a secret control their exactly a guy or two guys who actually control everything. So as soon as like there's not some secret cabal controlling it that cabal being one guy who like as a white guy who founded the company then You have the problem of other stakeholders don't like East Asian males. Like I don't know, something like that. It's sort of like the NFL like, like if you're a minority higher, if you're a coach, it was not white. You kind of last like a year, you basically have a year to figure everything out, but poor job, if you're But not just him. It's it happens. Pretty frequently. They don't they don't just like laxman near a semen. They give you like a few months, to figure it out a few months, that's it. So anyway, that's my first. Well, wrong prediction. What do you have? Here's my straight up wrong prediction. Like I'll give you three super fast wrong predictions, because I made three Twitter predictions. Okay? All of which were dramatically wrong. Go ahead, number one, musk fires, Linda yuck Arena. Really? Yeah, I I suggested that he actually realized that she was the Dei higher. And is fired. Actually. To the coat of the law. She is a Dei higher and sense because she actually did not have the expertise necessary to run Twitter, according to what they claim Dei really is. I'm not saying that's what I think I'm saying. I'm their understanding of Dei, is that no woman or person of color, has any ability to actually do a thing? I mean musk is currently saying that the LA fire chief because she is a she talks about it is a lesbian that's not do it and black reason why there are five fires on Earth. Let's not, let's not discuss that. I also said that Trump would return to tweeting full-time and true social would fail to go public and it would die. That was wrong. I wish that was right and Twitter record. I Twitter records, profits record. Profits is advertisers, poor back in. I was wrong on, basically everything about Twitter. I was wrong wrong. Yeah. All right, here's something else. Stay with the tech. Here's something that I think I was wrong about, but I also was kind of weirdly. Right? About again? See, I have a hard time admitting when I'm wrong. This is a trend, but check this out. My I said on April 5th, our show was recorded on. No, I'm sorry, January 5th. Our show was recorded on January 5th, and I predicted that apple. Would develop a game-changing AI product, right? Which is wrong. They did not. Yeah. In 2024 they actually did not develop a game-changing, our product, but three days later on January 8th. Apple announced the release date of its Apple Vision Pro now. You are wrong that's kind of weird right? I mean, okay wrong you said something different. They didn't do that thing and it's not an AI product and it failed. Yeah. So that's correct. That part is correct. But they did release a product though. Well, here is my maybe right. This is close to right? Yeah. So I made a prediction that I said that there's no actual CEO turnover in 2024, Every white male CEO would actually not, they would, they would announce they were like, you know, stepping down a CEO and all that stuff, but they would all become executive chair. Which the rest of the world outside of you? And I the rest of the World Views is that they don't even think that the thing they don't care about that. What is that even mean? But we know that's that means you work 70% of the hours. Are you make 70% of the money and work 12% in the hours? It's the greatest possible job, right? Exactly the chair. And I also said that they would replace the cells entirely with women. So they'd effectively stays that, we know that's not true. Yeah. So in that spirit, I chose Bob Iger would step down early. And be named executive chair. Again, again, again, again, I mean, who knows who who even knows what the hell is going on at Disney. So that's that's a hard one. I said, Disney's co-chair, Dana Walden would be named CEO and that's wrong and set the stage for eager to Boomerang back in 2027, but Dana Walton still might be the CEO, right? That's why it's maybe right, because all right, okay. But she's no, she's not gonna be and this climate, this political climate. It's not gonna be a woman. We know this at not going to be black, no or no, or a woman, forget it. Yeah, no not gonna happen. All right here, not know. Here's one that I definitely got wrong. I I tried to look around but I couldn't find any evidence of this being true. I said that one just one one person. Would jump from being the chief head of Human Resources to the CEO. So they would they would be, you know, I'm trying to say they would be what's the word I'm looking for? When you're promoted, they'd be promoted from the head of Human Resources to see you like Mary Barra the most famous version of this who led human resources at GM and became CEO. But no, man, I think she's like the only one who's ever accomplished this. I it no one else managed to do this and yet people love Mary Barrett, don't they seem to really love her. Loves me better. She's on the top of a lot of these lists of like the best most powerful CEOs. That's because she's like, the only female you need like someone right? Like you need someone, why is she the only one who's managed to jump from the head of Human Resources to the CEO position? Well, that's the only one that's good question. I was at that someone would be a man and I did but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna It following on the, the, my executive chair, white, male, executive chair. I suggested that the pressure on target would Brian Cornell. The CEO of Target would step down. Oh, two executive chair. Okay. And Claudine. Gay would be hired at. Oh yeah, setting waiting for him to Boomerang. That's what I said. Whoa, not close on that one. Not. We weren't. We weren't reading the political Tea Leaves there. How about a few that I may be? I kinda almost got right. I said that an Anti-Trust case out of the EU would hit a US tech company. I said, maybe met a maybe alphabet. I kind of right there. Wasn't a pretty significant Anti-Trust case but didn't actually come out of the EU it actually happened right here in the US and that was awful bed right? I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you half partial that one. That's pretty good, that's pretty good. Let me stick with another one. One more. I kind of write, I suppose I said that there would be an even bigger cyber security Scandal but I guess that's kind of a weak prediction, I mean, but now, in November, The FBI confirmed reports that that China. Was compromising a bunch of us. Telecommunication companies is that count? I is that a bigger? I mean, cyber Scandal when you make as Vega prediction as there, will be a cyber. I know that was terrible Scandal. Like I said, you could count anything and be, right? I will say this though. I was, I was on the verge of something, because one of the biggest ransomware attacks, in the country last year, was that change Healthcare, which is a software controlled, by the company United Health Group, where Andrew witty, is CEO and where the name executive officer, Brian Thompson was murdered. Right? So so there was something going on Right. I mean kind of like you credit kinda like because you could count right now the fact that my daughter figured out my phone password and I tried to change, did she? They all know my phone pass, it's like the same as my but I know your phone even. I know, everyone knows my. Just think this, I'm the least cybersecure, but you didn't even mention the fact that like a Windows update, crashed, all of transportation for like a month. Yeah. Except it was their own, except it was like the, it was snow. It was a Crouch strike or snowflake was proud strike. Yeah. And it was their own update, like, no one actually busted in. They just they updated their software wrong, right? Oh, I know. But you could like your your big prediction you can just kind of you just okay. Give me this one then I predicted a high-profile assassination, but I produced that cop 29 and as her Beyond but still, there was a high-profile assassination last year. I mean, I was on to something. I'm gonna give you a quarter. Point for that. One that right. I was I was predicting unrest, and anger from from stakeholders know, let me show you what a correct prediction looks. Okay. 100% on the nose. Correct. Okay. And I'm gonna read it verbatim quote, do it in 2024 generative? AI causes one death, not Auto driving cars, but chat, GPT persuasion. That's what I wrote down there was more than one death. I feel like I'm saying that you death by Suicide. There was one particular case in Florida, where it was like a kid with a chatbot convinced, he loved the chatbot and the chatbot convinced him to basically kill himself and he did and he did and he did that's 100% correct. There's no getting around it, all right, I'm right, fine. Whatever I before we move on to 2025 predictions, I will say that. Here's who I said would win the year last year. I thought it was too. Dudes, from California. One guy I picked was Gavin Newsom. Which I mean, it almost happened, right? It was close. Yeah, so without the misogyny of the United States, Kamala Harris should have been elected as president. And so my, so what I'm, what I'm what I'm thinking is that if Gavin Newsom had been the nominee, which a lot of people were thinking might happen, he definitely would have beat Trump so right? Because it wouldn't have been the misogyny against Harris. So everything was on the something. Every prediction requires the mental gymnastics. Yeah. If this had happened then I would have been correct. Yeah. And I did say the other person who would win the year was Zuck and that's not correct. It was really nice. It was one. Yeah. Um, my final close. Yeah. Almost prediction was I actually said the anti ESG movement would end. Oh boy D E, I would replace ESG. It would become an idea, I movement, I mean you're kind of right because people don't understand ESG and they do Understand hatred towards women. Exactly, exactly. So I was right about the substance of that but I went on my problem was I my prediction went on. I went on to say there would be at least five Congressional hearings targeting liberal company, Dei policies and there was only one it was only about Boeing and they were searching for Spirits like maybe this year. Yeah, I policies maybe this year so I think I was a year early on that second part so all right myself half credit there, ready for 2025 predictions. Oh yeah let's do it. Come on babe. Do have a 20.5 prediction music. Know, but I'm gonna play this and oh no, I'll play this. Here we go. Yeah, let's predict some stuff prediction time. Do this. You want to go back and forth? Yeah, I I have, I have two categories. I have a bunch of nerdy kind of ESG, corporate governance, thoughts that we can have a long-winded conversation about. I also have a bunch of General Predictions like, you know like a CEO who steps down that kind of thing. I didn't categorize I made like six predictions and then I made a set of absurd predictions that are like one, right? So why don't we just start with? Why don't we start with the boring first? So I want to just talk about the state of ESG in corporate governance. These are some of my thoughts for the upcoming year and and these are in no order. I've kind of grouped them, but feel free to chime in feel free to just let me drawn on. If you find that you just want me to end it more quickly. I'm gonna start with disclosure. I think that the next year is gonna represent A huge wave of reduced disclosure. I think it's the next iteration of the anti-ischemic executive officer because I think you're also going to see. You're going to see reduction of actual information about directors on in proxies and on websites. But also I just think the anti ESG movement mostly because of musk and ramaswami are going to are gonna Target disclosure because I know we know muskets disclosure, we know muskets answering to the SEC. So to me I'm just worried that this is the start of rolling back disclosure. Well, so you're okay with that one. Yeah, I totally agree with that one. And the one that I have, that's closest to that is effectively. I'm predicting that Texas is the new Florida. A weak Texas is going to get an influx of incorporation. Okay, so like that to it because of regulatory easing disclosure easing. Basically every company it'll be like a like a company is holding up a sign saying, we really don't like women or gays or people of color and we definitely don't like anyone asking us questions. That's like t-shirt they're going to print for everyone who incorporates in Texas, but that Zuck just closed, his fact, checking offices in California and he's moving it to Texas, right? Like that, this is going to be the ongoing. We're gonna see all of the tech Bros the, the liberty and fake, you know, check Bros College Dropout to a running Earth. All go to Texas in order to stop disclosing stuff doing stuff. But which is ironic because he's claims that they're leaving California because California is biased. And so that suggestion is that people in Texas are not biased, is that what he's saying? I love the irony that like the way they got all their money was by relying on Delaware law and like the capital structures that exist, all these rules, made it possible for them to both get grants and build companies and make maintain control money, maintain control. And they're so pissy about like, little like big Diaper Baby, pissy about every little thing. Now that now they're like, we think we should have no rules, and they got all their money because the rules were in place to make it possible for them to get all their money. They'll tell you like differently, but you're fuking billionaires. So I think not to mention that they want to California in the first place because that was the source of capital needed because that's where all the smart people were. That's where that's all the capital was all. The capital was who were willing to give money to people who had no track record of accomplishing. Anything it's unbelievable. So, let me just jump to that and I did have a prediction about the musk effect for the 2025. And I I agree with you. I did say think that there would be a greater red. Domestication push, like you just outlined and I actually think That that we're going to see shareholder proposals that reflect this, I think that we're going to, we're going to be anti-esg proposals suggesting that companies relocate out of blue State. I think the next four years in general, we're just gonna see the the blue States and red States continue to kind of exist and different orbs. Yeah, it's, it's basically gonna be us Europe and US Russia. I don't know what's the other part of it? Like, it's, it's like two different uses. I think that I think you're right. Yeah. And to your point about tech Bros. I actually think that we're gonna for the first time, we're gonna see the influence of the toxic. This is part of my Elon Musk effect that I think it's gonna happen next year. We're gonna see the influence of like the toxic Bros in maybe some activist investor campaigns maybe some proxy cage matches. We've seen the Nelson Peltz type but we haven't seen that kind of degenerate musk, loving Bitcoin, billionaire type. We're going to Try to get into these companies and wreak havoc. I think we're going to start to see these these horrible types kind of making their way into. So, are you like National Center for Public Policy? Research making an activist play at a company. Basically, trying to, like, disrupt them or not. Those kind of delves. Yes, not those kind of boring bureaucrat types, more like, the flashy, like Lamborghini driving women hating like types like the the real, the real bratty, kind of tech Bros. So that's what else do I have. Oh, I have a predictions about anti d e, i board composition. So I think we're going to see the first time Because of the anti-derivatives, that's kind of an obvious prediction. But also I think we're going to see an increase in overall board size, in the sense that I, instead of actually replacing diverse directors. I think we're just gonna see an increase of white male directors, like that happened at meta platforms. I think we're just going to be adding a bunch of white dudes to boards for. Absolutely no reason. I don't know why they'll just add them. So I'm going to just piggyback on that. Not only do I 100% agree but that is one of my predictions by the ways. It was. The prediction is men, finally get some power. I mean, finally, it's yeah, well, this is their, this is their window right to to reclaim the power that never lost and and they used The Meta method, which is the board size and no reason men for no reason at all. Men, and you go from like a below average like above average, you know, level of female particip. Patient or inclusion of some kind to below average. And in fact, I pulled the data on this. There are nine boards in the United States that by adding just one more guy, you you increase the blood by one person. If you make them a white male, you would go from having 50% or more female representation to less than 50%, female representation from a positive female power, gap of which there are very few companies to a negative, female power Gap and from, but keep the companies highly Democratic. So those dudes get to push the, you know, anyone around like everyone's gotta say, Yeah, well that aligns exactly with my permission. Because my thought here was that they're not going to, it kind of like ugly to remove people of color to remove women. So the best method is dilute their power, right? Dilute their influence just by simply adding more bodies. And if you're if you're on the board of Cardinal Health, HP or Stryker Corporation, You all you got to do is find one white guy to join your board and you'll find the scales I made an honorable mention too because these are realistic, I use real data to generate this list. Honorable mention was Cracker Barrel, which has to be somewhere on Robbie Starbucks. List of, you know, like isn't Cracker Barrel. Like, doesn't that feel like one of those companies take restaurants? I don't even know. I've never been to a Cracker Barrel. Yeah, that's just feels that way to me. I think it's worth Carol. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe cracker Getting the obvious but they are one. Robbie Starbucks away from negating female power. There's a handful of these guys. You could dilute just add a man and you tip the scales back in men's favor. Finally, I mean, finally men get it back. And again, I also think that as part of this, I think we're going to see the ages of these new directors, be significantly, young girl. I like that. I don't think that's gonna happen. Okay. Let's move over to the SEC. I think that the SEC is going to move to greatly restrict shareholders right to submit proposals. I think we're gonna see a significant decrease in environmental and social proposals, both in the one submitted and and the ones that they can the companies remove. I think that's kind of an obvious prediction. Yeah, with the caveat that. Yeah. Now the anti-esg proposals, the anti proposals are part of the ens proposals. So the SEC has to figure out a way to allow the anti proposals in, but not the ones, they don't like, like, they have to turn mobile it, right? Like, that's the trick. They have to that. And I don't know how they do that, but I do have things on shareholder rights coming up. So, I'm with you on that, that motion. So, not so not only will see fewer proposals, but we'll also, of course, see a decrease in the support. The percentage of support for these proposals will continue to go down. I mean, thank you. I always think we're going to see a new active, conservative, anti-esg, proponent like we've had those two, the two centers, the national Center, for, whatever, Paul say, or public or whatever. I don't even know what they are. I think we're gonna see a third player. This year, a third know just horrible anti-trans, racist. That's exactly. And finally my just these are just my very ESG, very wonky predictions. I think what we're going to see is I call this category, the blame game, oversight, greenwashing section. I think we're going to see an increase in board level committees in general. Partly due to the fact that they that they want to do something but really it's probably to pretend that they're doing something. So we're going to see more AI committees, more cybersecurity committees, more succession planning committees. And again I think this is just to to make it seem like they're doing something. So they're not sued or people don't get angry at them, but I think they're going to start to we're gonna just see an increase in committees in general. I like the idea of protection via committee does that mean they're going to have like a Dei audit committee to audit Dei matters or not or whatever? I think they'll be very again I think they'll be very greenwash. Yeah I think they'll either be to appease a certain stakeholder sect or it'll be to fend off a certain an increase maybe stakeholders that wants to sue it but whatever it'll be they won't actually be doing a thing but they'll appear to be doing a thing. That's I love the appearance of doing things. That's my favorite and speaking of the appearance of doing things, I think we're going to see a increase in Co Arrangements like, oh CEOs, co-chairs because I think that that people were in a blame. We're in a blame world now, right? So that there's fires and and California and and Trump, and mushroom immediately blaming things, social media's blaming. So, I think that the more cos and co-chairs, we have, it makes it difficult to know who to blame, or maybe you can just sacrifice this co-chair. And you can keep your job, you know, it's kind of the blame world. It's blame defense. Huh? So, so in this world. Yeah, you have, let's say 11 board members and a CEO on the board. You have a committee for everything that anyone could sue you for d e, i yes, Purity, whatever you gotta committee for that. The Committees are generally two to three people. But you don't have one CEO. You actually have Co CEOs and Coach chairs. You know what you have? Co-chairs of every one of those committees that I was gonna predict that I thought. That'd be a step too far. This is maybe that's next year. That's the most amazing thing. Everyone's a chair, and no one's to blame. That's, yes, exactly. Thank you. Thank you. So, those are my very wonky ESG productions for 2025. All right. Well, just sticking with the little bit of wonky. Yeah, I think this is 2025, is the year. We say goodbye to shareholder rights. Okay. I actually think that they're going to abolish say on pay they're not even going to advisory. They're going to abolish it, straight out and okay. The data actually wouldn't disagree with them the percentage of times that investors agreed to pay. Is incredibly high. It's it doesn't happen that often that pay fails. When pay fails. It's an advisory vote. In fact, we've covered stories here where a company has given excessive pay. They've had engagements and investors have yelled at them. They said sorry we won't do it again and that's it. They didn't take the Payback right. Like, it doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't reverse and often. Yeah, and often the sum of the votes against pay or not even really about pay their angry about a share price, that's gone done too far too low. So think about the the secondary and tertiary effects. If you abolish say on pay how much Pages disclosure do you even need? Well, I was gonna say Yes, this aligns. I was gonna say this aligns with my prediction because really don't forget that this the Sean pay movement was combined with a big increase in Pay metric disclosure, right? Exactly. So I so I, I agree with you that both will eventually unwind them. Because, as you reduce disclosure in general, you've kind of, you're killing the fun and incentive to vote against pay in the first place because it's gonna be more opaque and you're not going to know what's going on. And yeah, so I agree with you. I I also think 2025 is the year. We start to see the reclassification of boards boards move to actually classify ourselves to protect themselves against The two now, all the sudden you cannot like there's an activist event, you can't challenge a single, you know, like you're only a small number of the directors are for vote in the first place. You can't take over the board. All at once investors, hate a challenge and frankly investors aren't voting against board members anyway. So why you put them up for a vote every single year? Why have the right? I agree with you and I I would categorize this as part of the musk effect, so let's not forget, that Tesla is one of the few minutes classified S&P 500 companies that remains classified and it is just a just to be a piss ant just to be annoying because there is no reason why investors at Tesla shouldn't have a say on those directors every single year. So I think you're going to see a lot more in general a lot more copying of the kind of things that Elon has gotten away with it. Tesla including retesting classified boards, outrageous pay. I think you're going to see The one thing that I didn't forgot to mention is I think you're going to see, pay is going to start to get reconfigured for higher payouts that kind of emulate what happened. Yeah I think you're going to see long-term pay periods. Start to shrink because I think they're gonna they're gonna find just any kind of method. They can to reward CEOs more quickly. You know, hey there, hey they're 10 years are falling anyway, so why not? So why wouldn't you reconfigure pay plans to get them paid more quickly? Because they're not even at the company. As long as they used to be, they say this about the NFL and sports teams, right? It's copycat League's, right? Like you basically one person sort of like challenges the league on a certain thing. They they're, you know, push the rules to the Limit or they come up with a new strategy and then everybody else over the next two or three years copies them the fact that musk's pay went through years ago and then went through legal challenges, come some companies, try to copy it but very few. Not not too many copied it because they wanted to see the legal challenges. Settle out the repercussions to MUSC were zero, the legal challenges, went against him. He put it up against, you know, shareholders it went against him again. He read domesticates, he hasn't he's not gonna lose a penny. He he's gonna keep all his money and when you see, oh, we can make outrageous pay and even if If we get sued for it, it doesn't cost me anything. Then you're absolutely right. Everyone's gonna do that thing unless I forget that where you're right too, is that the copycat thing can go both ways? Originally, it went in a good way, right? Because all companies started to declassify their boards. All companies started to add diverse board members, right? So so you're right and I think when you have a musk and ramaswami two of the people that probably abhor regulation the SEC ESG industry, the most out of anyone in the. And in America, you I think you're definitely gonna see things go start to go the other way. I mean, they are just two people who hate to be told that they don't know what they're talking about. And whole life is really just pushing back against anyone who knows something that they think they know better even if they don't. So following that vein, I actually think, if you are going down this path, by the end of 2025, why have a proxy voting policy at all? Why? I mean, if you're like Vanguard or who like, if you're what, I mean, if you're like like a. So what we're seeing in this, I'm wrapping this into the anti-esg bills, too, because the anti-esg bill is keep forgetting. The G is in ESG. Like they just say like you can't consider environmental social and governance factors, and they're trying to like get that legislation passed in some places, it has passed. In fact, Wyoming in India, say, yeah, go ahead. Why am I just included language stating quote, assessing corporate board or employment is evidence of having a social agenda and therefore banned, right? Yeah, assessment board and I think that just happen in Indiana to last year, I think it did mention governance specifically, yeah, Outlaw gee gently next to you. Yes, because they meant e&s but they outlaw G. Also, why have a proxy voting policy? The policies effectively are increasingly illegal because Voting against the company and every vote against the company could be considered discrimination could political, could be considered like a social good. You could get sued for anything. I think 2025, we actually see and we just saw it with BlackRock, they're just going to stop writing into policies. Yes. The policies are going to be all nothing Burger as in. So what we have no policy, our policy is everything is on an ad hoc base at Hawk, that's the policy because everything we say, could be used against us. So what BlackRock just did is remove the language that required 30% of boards to be diverse? I think that they their figure was at least two women in one person of color and they removed that language. Yeah, they did good job for you but I actually think look, this is a boom for free flow. Everything's a boon for fluid and you're Twisted mind. Well, look, if you, you still have to vote, right? But you can't say anything in a policy. You can't do anything with that. Like, if you set a guideline of like, 30% diversity, on boards, and you cite a McKinsey report that says that might be good for a company. What is better than having free float data on individual directors and targeting a director that underperforms? Then then saying, like some like using an axe to fix a scalpel problem. That is just add a couple women to the board. Like, that's not and people get you in trouble. The data doesn't get you in trouble when you can say. Look, here's a five data points. We use to assess this. It's just the data. It's not a social agenda and people, I don't, I don't look listeners. I don't care if there's just two of you or two million of you don't, don't give a just, don't, don't give up the fight. I yelled at people at the end of 2024 about this. Don't stop. Don't don't give into this because you're because you're right. Matt for the next few years. Even if you fire an underperforming CEO whose white man, they're gonna claim. It's a political move, they're gonna claim it's an easy move, they're gonna claim it's about diversity, don't but don't just give in to this. Don't don't just give up like, you cannot. Right back here. You can't cowered your way like these. These Dei flippers did and because you're afraid of some lawsuit or afraid of some blowback, you have to arm yourself with the data, take the lawsuit on like this is my problem with our Juneau last year. I know they don't have the capital to fight and Exxon Mobil, right? I know that, but as soon as you back down you lose it does I think like you lose, I think you're right. And I think what Costco proved is that you need to control the narrative control, the story don't just like him and Hanley, your thumbs come right out and say why you have a Dei program? How would it helps your company? What you think they're doing just control the narrative. Like tell your own story, don't just give up. Anyway, let's move on for more predictions about. What else do you have? So you said Costco. Costco is my next prediction, okay? Am I prediction is to this point, Costco will not be alone in 2025. That's promising. What does that mean? Ah, what it means is to push back against Dei pushback, right? Like as in people are pushing back on Dei. Well there's going to this is a positive copycat of Costco. It is basically a positive copycat. This is my uplifting story. We were wondering my we were wondering my prediction, which company would be the first to kind of fight back and put their flag into this, you know, nonsense and you're right. I think that a company that is so powerful and well-known and successful, like Costco doing it. It should open the door for a lot of other companies to follow, right. The Costco had some unique characteristics and we talked a little bit about it on the show the other day, but here's some data. All right, there are 100023, Mega larger mid-cap us companies in our database. 721 of those companies have a Diversity Program of some kind that they disclose any kind. Okay? Like according to who to what courtesy I did. Msci data. That's just yes. No tag that says has a Diversity Program. Okay. Of some kind that could just mean, like they talk about inclusion or it could mean they have like, really deep diversity, programs employee resource groups and all that kind of 644 have disclosed targets or internal training around Dei, that's like they disclose they set a Dei Target or they have an internal training. That's actually a lot of companies that's like more than 60% of Mega large and mid-cap companies have done this but only 94 companies out of those thousand have both highly Democratic boards and strong female power at the board that you just describing just described Costco, which Costco? This is the amazing part and it gelled with your instinct on it. Costco was the the top the number one company? When you rank the companies by female power and democracy on the board, they were number one, they were the Democratic with the highest female power on the board and they were the fourth most democratic in all the US, like when you include the small caps when you forget about Dei entirely, they're one of the amazing parody of Costco. Analytics.com data on board influence. So when you look at that list though and I layer in stock returns, there were a bunch of companies that actually both are likely to be targeting because our visible Brands, they have a lot of Dei but they have strong stock returns strong, female power, highly Democratic, and their likely to push back. Here's two, here's two Procter and Gamble. Okay, that's a good one. They're up, 8% and 31%, and one in five year periods, they sell bronze. Gillette Old Spice, like manly Brands, right? Like, sure. Like, I want my deodorant to be manly. They sell it, right? So they're possible Target and they're like one, add away from showing a couple of non-binary people and then getting targeted by the sure, yeah, Starbucks, right? Yeah, 39% female, power, only 4% power deviation on the board meaning they're super Democratic they're almost as Democratic as Costco and they have more female power than Costco does on their board right now. Yeah, I was gonna say, like, unlike a Walmart, not controlled by a family, right? So by a family, this is why we harp on things like democracy, why it could matter and right? I yeah. Well, what other company? Yeah. Number two, all Trio. Altria Altria is the cigarette company. Is there anything that like cigarettes are still manly right like smoking. Oh yeah. Cigarettes somewhere. Like vaping a bridge. Yeah, being feels not manly but being at a construction site with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth? Yeah. Like in the winter. Like you, you're fixing a bridge. It's snowing, you're puffing on your cigarette. I love like rehashing, an ad. I saw a 1987 one five year. They're up three and 25%. So the stock is up it's not cost goes up 200% and 5 year period. So we're talking about like there's still a gap but they're up, right? They have 47%, female power on the board and only five percent deviation. They have near parody of power between women and men on the board. And it's a highly Democratic board that's just too, but there are companies out there that are still likely targets that can now feel comfortable pushing back. And I think that's the beginning, that that's like getting of the pushback that might be the only prediction Bears I'm gonna like. All right, let me give you a few my predictions. These are non ESG prediction, she just random business-y business pants predictions. So I I'm actually predicting the next Bud, Light, the next, the next Target of the The Bud Light being that's where this kind of like anti-wolf corporate fervor began, right? Because Bud Light made the mistake of treating someone with dignity, right last year and then everyone got mad. Is that what happened to give someone a can of beer or five years ago? It does seem like a long time ago, but my, my guess for this is a company called kontoor Brands you ever heard of kontoor Brands. Yeah, I heard in our database they are they make Lee and Wrangler jeans, right? So that's a, it's not seem like a very red State Magica kind of kind of brand there. I mean, I feel like I need to chop wood. If I'm wearing Lee Jeans, isn't that? And here's what I think's gonna happen, I think that that Contour brand is going to accidentally do something that appears woke to somebody. I don't know, who knows what it could be. Maybe a little, maybe a woman is working on fixing a something or I don't know what it could be. And then the mega mob is gonna get triggered when they discover that and kontoor Brands 2024 proxy that the company stated that they had to increase board genetic diversity in 2024, and that they were undertaking a search for a potential additional gender. Diverse directors. They stated that explicitly, they said they were looking for a woman. So this is the perfect storm. I was looking around different companies that they could Target, and I found this to be the perfect storm because when you explicitly say that you're looking to add a woman to the board that I mean, that's, that's enough to trigger. I mean, the whole universe. It's over, right? It's over. Yeah. So, that's my, one of my big predictions is that kontoor Brands will be the next Bud Light. I hope kontoor Brands is not listening to this, because that sounds kind of scary. Well, they weren't in my pushback lists so they're probably gonna cave is what's gonna happen? You want me to go on? You want, you want to give a prediction? I'll do a quick one. I'll do it one. I think the we've been talking a lot about the Divide between us and Europe when it comes to like regulations, particularly sure sustainability regular climate regulations. I actually think the Divide Narrows because Europe moves, hard, right? Well, they are right. They are almost every big country is moving to the right. Almost, everyone is Norway. Has a parliamentary election in 2025 German has their federal election. Greece has a Presidential election check party. This is a mess. France is a mess Irish presidential election in which Conor McGregor the UFC fighter. Currently a viable candidate is that right? Yes, he's been true as he has been implicated on like numerous domestic. Abuse charges and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah, okay, that doesn't what you were socialists meat. I guess I'm vote for even point that out. Justice Warrior. Sorry. Um, but I do think it means that the Frameworks and regulations around in ESG issues that were frankly shittily constructed in the first place. They were not, well made in Europe, they are fractured, they're all over the place, they're highly prescriptive, they're they're nuts, but it's the perfect storm for a hard right? Move in the legislature to roll back. A lot of those, those sort of Frameworks and actually race to the bottom with the US. Well, unfortunately, you're probably right on the nose on this one because let's not forget that, it's the, it is the individual nation's of the EU that send Commissioners to the European commission, right? And if all these governments are going to the right, then the the person they send to this commission is going to be on the right. And is that body that legislative body the European commission that I think you're right is going to roll everything back. They're just going to have everything to bids. Yeah, it's going to be All right, I am declaring, I did it last year but I feel even better about it this year. I, I think he's already made the case in the last few days. This is your year of Zucker turns. So, And this isn't even predicated on the fact that you realize Matt, that tiktok is, is hanging in the balance. Her Tick Tock might be done soon. Right there. I think today or soon they're going to the Supreme Court and they're trying to stay alive, but tiktok might be over and, you know, all that power. All those users. No One's Gonna benefit more than than Mark Zuckerberg but that isn't even why I made this prediction. I just think that first of all, I think the Elon Musk is going to fade a little bit because not only is Tesla going to continue to suck and people gonna realize it's not that great, but I just think this is going to be too many battles with Trump too. Many weird manga battles that I think he's, I think his star is gonna fade a little bit and I just think Zuck is there waiting? I think he's gonna, he's gonna emulate, whatever, Elon Musk does. I think that is even going to try to maybe there even a some pivotal acquisition. Maybe they're going to buy a media company or something. Or look. I just I just think this is Of Zuck. I just think they Define what it means to be the year of Zuck. Because I just think that his what it means is that is that the, the, the dominance of his company is going to grow exponentially. So, if it's, if it's Zuck as company, then that, I don't mean. Yeah. Zuck is company, right? But I want to Counting him out. They laughed at him for for The Meta verse because it's, you know, elon's musk wealth is now out of control and Mark, suffers and comparison. I just think that that this is the year that Zuck regains, the mantle of being the most insipid powerful person in the world, if I'm on us. Right. Like I think the reason why like musk has a cult of personality that follows him they suck will never have. This will never have Zuck is a little betta like puppy, dog, compared like he's always behind. He doesn't actually have any original ideas, literally, these people, most of their ideas don't come from themselves. They're stealing from somewhere. Someone else. But Zuck is sort of obviously stealing them now. Now he's just like, we're just gonna be X also, right? Like, yeah. And nobody likes that guy like, literally, no one likes that guy, right? But it does have three billion worldwide users. He's certainly so desperately to be cool. Like, with this new hair and his new clothes, and his like new kind of like, you know, UFC swaggin rid of fact, Checkers, moving to Texas. Look at we're going to pausing at the Trump like Trump's my bro. And yeah, I think it cooling. Literally, I think it's gonna work. I think fooling that world's pretty easy. I think it's gonna work. I think he's, he is, he's always gonna get musk's sort of cast off, and he's, he's just behind what he's not gonna do is what he's not gonna do, is try to become Shadow president, and he's not gonna end up in any battles with Trump. Because now he's already kissed the ring. He's donating money. He's getting rid of fact. Checking, he's doing whatever he can to, kind of Pick up the pieces for. So that's just one of my predictions. Anything else you want to add a few more? I don't, I don't have, I want to. I have a bunch of absurd ones at the end, but I go ahead, I have a bunch of Mr. Ones, too, why don't we go quickly with a, with a bunch here? Go ahead. Yeah, I'm gonna go one more real one. And then I'll get the real one is actually think, I think this is the year 2025 because we're seeing rollback in like everybody's rights. I think this is the year that investors who I harp on maybe more than anybody else weekly like every week and investors are the asshole of the week. Yes nominee. Right. Like I I normally I don't always understand investors how you have so many rights that you don't use. I don't understand it at all and because I don't want to do a thing man. They don't want to lose their jobs, they love their, they love their paychecks, they don't want to try, they don't want to, they don't want to like exert influence on the world. When in activist comes in all the sudden, everyone does their jobs because they're four. Yes, right. And that. Us is like a fascinating problem. Well, because the activist investor provides cover, right? So now they can suddenly have an opinion about. So what happens when all of their rights are actually being eroded and taken away, like do that, what do they do with that? So, what's your prediction? The prediction is, this is the rise of a new type of activists. The director activists in the new model of activism where investors don't have to say. We're going to like break up the company. We're going to unlock some value, they're going to say who's running these companies, right? Like we never, look at who's running these companies. We just vote them all. We do we do. Yeah, we do. But no investor really does. And it turns out when you look at the data, there are 3400 companies out of 10,000 in the world global company companies, where there's at least one director, who has historically and currently performed in the bottom, third of all directors on TSR sure. A third of companies have a Major on it that stinks that they're there for page. They've never actually getting the last everything bagel. Yeah. How dare they Oh, 726 of those companies more than half. The board is comprised of bottom dwelling, directors on TSA. So I like what you're seeing, but what makes you think investors gonna wake up to this because Pretty soon. I think if my first predictions are correct over the course of this year, they're going to start to lose the right to get rid of those directors because that's going to be outlawed in the United States and Europe is going to their massive investors in both the US and obviously in Europe. And China is too. I have this sense that the there are people who like these rights. Yeah. And now is the time to use them. Now is certainly the time you lose them, right? Yeah. And you can combine this with, we know that like there's 200 companies where not only more than half the board is bottom dwellers, but their bottom dwellers on TSR and like carbon, right? Like, their bottom dollars are multiple things. You can use the same information with the knowledge that that board has. So it's not just like oh they haven't give me shareholder returns like at Frontier Airlines. They have eight directors, we econ backgrounds and only two with transportation. And backgrounds like a director, can go and say, Frontier your hat more than half, your board is on the bottom. Third of performance for TSR. And carbon, you have eight directors with backgrounds in finance and only two directors with backgrounds and transportation. This is the year where you can be a small activist, you can actually do that. It sounds like you just making a it's just a great use case for our data, free full analytics.com. That's what it sounds like that. Doesn't sound correct. Did you just wedge a sales pitch and to our 2025 prediction show? What cognitive? No. I agree. He's a real thing. I think I think look you you get a right, you use the right or you lose the right that's that's the history of humanity is filled with case studies around that. All right. I like it. Let's but let's try to wrap up the show under an hour. Let's kind of like rapid fire through some of our, our final, let's start. So I have a couple. I don't have to go in a much detail in any of this stuff. I'm just gonna say, I just think this is the year of drone so I just, I don't know why. I just think drones. In fact, I think a CEO is gonna get fired for something to do with a drone. That's one of them. Are you playing the music already? I'm giving us background music for for Rapid Fire, okay, I thought this was the closing music. No, no, just the Raptor fire music, I love it. Let's go here. I got a couple in AI, a couple about cowards. A couple about woke. Let's start with an AI one AI. Sue's accompany for discrimination because it says it was unfairly taught Dei. That's my one of my predictions. Well, I like that one because I asked to have a prediction that is just AI. That's my prediction. Just AI. How about this one Matt? How about a significant increase in the Banning of social media and teens smartphone use worldwide? We're gonna see a real ramp up. We're gonna start to fight back against social media companies. But I think we're gonna see a real ramp up this year. We're finally gonna start treating smartphones and social media like like tobacco, like alcohol, like vaping like drugs. Were really gonna start biting into the prediction that's like, Okay, no. Okay, I'll give you okay. Then I'll give you a fun one Warren Buffett dies, Warren, Buffett dies. How about that? You forget that every year, every year here, what do you got something? Good. AI is added to a board of directors and labeled as gender-neutral in a diversity Matrix. Oh, no, that's not good though. That's that's whoa. It's not what I love it. I want to see that. I want to see the pushback on that. How about this? Big prediction? I wanted to predict one big CEO that would leave, that no one else to predict, Tim Cook, Tim Cook Out of Apple this year. Wow, Tim Cook Out at Apple. No, that's not gonna happen. But here's what will happen, you know? Hey, I avatars, well, actually be created to go to meetings for you that I believe including your Sure meetings. Where you may or may not be getting fired. Well, I'm an AI Avatar right now. I just programmed this to yeah. Okay. If my final stupid prediction of the year is actually, I've got four more. Well, okay, you give me a couple of years. All right, I'll give you two more. I'll give you about cowards in the wake of Brian. Thompson's murder Mark Zuckerberg. Finally, finally figures out the best use of the metaverse as a place for boards and Executives to meet without leaving their houses. Oh, I like this. How about that? These sound like, 2034 predictions but I'll take them. I do have a prediction that's called that's just generative. AI generative is that's a friction like that. I also have one called headwinds just headlights. I like that. Those are gonna be the ones next year. You're like. I think I was correct on that. Yeah, I got right on headwinds European headwinds. Companies, here's one companies. Begin disclosing, whether their directors have, they were moving disclosure and a lot of people like this one except companies begin disclosing, whether directors have guns the horsepower of their Legends of their cars, love it. And whether they are white or a new race that they call extra white, just write all the deis. You're sharing your mind a little bit. I'm gonna end my predictions on a somewhat serious one. I was crunching, all the numbers doing all the math, I think. After more than a decade of 10 year, Born Again, CEO at Walmart born again, Christian Doug, McMillan is gonna begin his leadership transition out of the company. I think, Matt, he is gonna have his eyes on the 2028 president. See, I think Doug McMillan's gonna be president. That's my big prediction for 2025 Doug McMillan's. Gonna start to segue out of Walmart too bad. No one knows who Doug McMillan is. They're gonna find out, they're gonna find out. I got two to end on. Yeah, let's go out of here. Are the woke parallel economy investors begin popping up and investing in the woke parallel economy. Oh whoa. Right the anti-woke parallel but I thought the regular economy was the woke parallel economy now anymore because in the world of trump we need the woke parallel economy. So investors in the next four years are going to start looking for the wokest shit possible to invest in because they're investing free flow analytics.com. And finally and this is my best prediction of 2025. Let's go. Retailers are beginning to create walled off woke zones. Like, like in stores, you know, how they used to sell. Porn magazines behind the counter, so, like, kids couldn't get it. You can now request to go into a waldorf Zone called the woke Zone. When you enter like a Target where they keep their pride merch. They're feminine products, oh, no behind a wall Zone. It's a Contraband so that it doesn't offend any of the poor snowflakes in the red state. He's just described. Didn't you just described message? Isn't that? What Massachusetts, isn't that? What? No England is a waldorf Zone. It's a waldorf Wok Zone but but you don't need an ID or be accompanied by an adult over 17. All right. That's my that's come on. That's all we got. We are free float. That's a lot that's already. We will be back next week with more stuff, more shows more. It's just so much going on, I'm back next week.