Transcript
All right, Stephanie. So loud. Live. From an ESG themed Cruise. Oh, to Omaha Nebraska. It's beautiful. Beautiful land Cruise. It's an all-new terrific Tuesday edition of businessman joined by analysts whole Matt McGarity. Whoa, how'd we get, we got mad on the show. Wow, look I moved some things around but I make this happen for your fans on today's wet wool. Sock called December 10th 2024. More about the Neo murder. Sorry, we gotta talk about it and the 100 most powerful people and business. Yeah, that's right. We're a little slow to this story that or that that list that broke. Well, we don't usually cover list but you, you really wanted to cover this list. So I okayed it. I I just like that. Like, look, we're in a new era, we're in an era where we care about who runs companies because of the murder in New York City because of the murder in New York City. Like this is already know we got our turn. We've got people talking about who runs companies. People who run companies are terrified right? Like that they run a company now should anyway. Yeah. And this is like a month and a half after a fortune put out the 100 most powerful people in the world and it's like a list of people and it's fascinating to me how many of them you could name. I just I I'm fascinated by it so we'll get to that and this second half. Yeah, let's talk about let's just say okay let's get the necessary out of the way. This music seems inappropriate for what we're about to talk about. Right before the show you pointed out, hey, we're not even covering, you know, that Rupert Murdoch lost his succession case in Nevada court but as like, yeah, yeah. Okay fine, we'll cover all that on Friday. But I mean, we kind of have to spend time on this horrible story, right? I mean we have to This is all. That anyone's talking about anyway, so and I don't really know what we can add here. That that because I again, this is one of the rare stories where all my Dopey friends are already texting me about this. So like there are very few crossovers. I can't remember the the last one where my friends were jumping on it too but there are very few crossovers are topics on our show that my friends are also interested in. That's yeah, any O's, which explains our horrible name. If you don't know what in any oh, is is the name to executive officer? They're one of the like four people who is not the CEO listed in financials. So that's that's what your friends are into, right? It's funny. I mean, even after all this cuz, you know, we our company here, if nothing else is striving to to make known the names of the people who run, you know, the biggest companies in the world, all the Garcia that controls our planet. But even now, I'm realizing even with this story, the murder of this executive from United Health, even And now the the murderer is more famous than the executive who got killed true, right? Or the executive who actually runs United Healthcare Group. Okay. Well the CEO. And let's start with the quiz without looking the darknet. Do you remember the name of the guy who was murdered? Remember his name Matt? Yeah. Brian Thompson. Okay. That I had to pencil it down. No because I in my head I keep thinking United Healthcare, CEO not not United Health Group but here's a pop quiz for you name. One person who's not Andrew witty, the CEO of you know this oh I forgot on the board you know Healthcare I already forgot but I my brain is is losing it these days but but I do know that the former CFO with of Arthur Arthur Andersen He is and the former CEO, you know, United Health Group, he is currently still on the board. There's one that I can't remember the name. Of course, I can't remember. His name is Steven Helmsley and I think that guy, yes, even executive chair used to be the CEO of United Health, all so, on the board, F William McNabb the third who you used to be the CEO and executive chair at Vanguard like this is like all of our world, right? In one, you know, who else is on the board? Charlie Baker, who was the governor of Massachusetts, but also the head of the NCAA. Can we fuse everything we talked about here sports like, a massive passive investors who only side with management Executives, that who no one knows the name of its all there. It's all right there. Well, it's all right there for a lot of the companies we covered now, I mean, like, it's just in the headlines right now. So, how about the fact that that United Health itself had another CEO, William McGuire who left, the company's after settling with the SEC, over backdating stock options. I mean, this company is constantly involved with Shenanigans, but look, it's not really the point here or maybe you went back to stock options. If you were busy insider trading and and like dumping your stock at highs that you manipulate, by denying people claims so that your loss ratio looks better. Like it's all part of the same game. Okay, so in con, let's start with the. Let's start with it then and we'll start with the guy the covering because he was arrested yesterday. Luigi own Mangione Luigi, Mangione, come on man. You know that's Chuck Mangione the the only write the trumpet. Yeah. Chuck Mangione anyway. I'm gonna go quickly over this. You stop me if you want to talk any of it because it's speak about any of it because I don't know if I care really about this guy so much but he attended Elite schools, you care about that pain. He went to Penn care. Look, he went to an all-boys prep school care. I like Torreon, you gotta be impressed by the valedictorians. I mean, occasionally comes out and they get famous comes from a wealthy and influential Baltimore family. That owns two country clubs care about that. Not so much arrest. How about this one? He was arrested at McDonald's. There you go. Another company that we covered McDonald's. The question is, did he get E coli on us on his way through? And he also was found to have a handwritten Manifesto. Although, what is a Manifesto? How do we Define manifest? I don't even know it. This thing, it's three pages. That's not a Manifesto. That's not a man of, that's a letter to your ex-girlfriend. That's what that. But part of that quote, unquote, Manifesto a part of it was, they say according to New York Times, it was taking aim at the healthcare industry for prioritizing profits over patient care. Well, that's look At least his Manifesto is true. They do do that, don't they? Well, I will say this, even from the economic Times, which is a newspaper in India, which covers the business world. Even they said, talking about United Healthcare that day, delivered, profits of a whopping 16.4 billion dollars last year. They said they said whopping, even they a business paper was like that seems a little much for ya us holding it down right guys? Yeah. All right. So that's that's it about Luigi. Do you want to talk anymore about Luigi? Just jump into the healthcare stores. Where does everyone find the time to write manifestos? Like I three pages, man. That's true. That's not a manifest. But like, why is there always a manifesting took a bus out of Port Authority? I mean, he had a bus, I guess he had a lot of time on the bus. Yeah right. Yeah. I'll start with some of the reactions CEO kill. This is her headlines CEO. Killing rage over insurance. Plunges, United Healthcare into crisis. This is from Bloomberg. So there's saying that Brian Thompson's death has become a simple of Revenge over denied, medical bills and lack of access to necessary care and issue the United Health. Employees say they're growing increasingly anxious about So yeah, go ahead. Well. I think the headlines a little misleading. The first of all, not the CEO CEO of a division know, this is the point that we're never going to try me nuts. Why is me nuts? And, and you do seem a lot, you do see a lot of outlets getting this wrong, sometimes they get it right. Sometimes they say United Healthcare CEO, which is true. Sure vision of United Health Group, but then sometimes they just say United Healthcare CEO, which is that's misleading. That's not just say, you know, healthy executive like that that would be true. No matter what you write right, isn't this? The craziest I already have our company that in like this is what story of our no no. But that the most horrible story of our time here. People still can't get all the information, correct. They still can't identify people in the right way. So already the first, the first word in the headline is already misleading to me but, well sticky over division, they technically, it's not incorrect. Okay, let's say let's start laughing. Well, agree to disagree the second word, the CEO, killing rage over Insurance plunges, United Health into crisis, The Killing did not plunge it into crisis, let's be clear. We covered this on Friday. We talked about how the stock was Up the day, he was shot. The day he was shot was up 1% it was yesterday. They were, you know, they like they had been talking about you know, that the advanced showed a good profits, right. The stock was up that day. What did plunge it into crisis was the fact that after he was killed on social media people? Unloaded no one expected that And today. Well, okay, yeah, keep going. The stock is down eight and a half percent eight and a half percent because of the rage, Not the Killing. Well, it's funny you say that because since you made that note, it's actually up, it's gone back up. So it's actually up today at 1%. Well, just today, I'm talking about in the five days, like got it got in the period. Let me speak to that. That this was, that didn't see this coming. This is an interesting part of the Bloomberg article. The actual CEO of United Health Group, is a man named Andrew witty. He's a British, are we go? That's him. He said, in a video to Staffing to address all this rage. That's going on in social media, say he said, quote as you've seen, people are riding things, we simply don't recognize Are aggressive inappropriate and disrespectful. He said there's no value in engaging so he's saying that, you know, we don't recognize this hey we don't know what this is, this is crazy, don't engage, but Bloomberg also reported that at that investor event that you were talking about before it got you know, before they ended it when they learned of Brian Thompson murder. He said this, he said He was acknowledging widespread dissatisfaction with his industry. Quote, you only have to walk into a room with five people to hear four stories of frustration. I couldn't find a doctor. I didn't know where to go. It's too difficult to understand. He said in a room full of analysts and investors, he was all Matt. He was already addressing the rage at his industry. And now he's saying, oh, you know, where is this coming from? I don't know what this is like, this is why there is implicit. They 100% know what they're doing. They talk like at the very event. Which she was murdered the dissatisfaction and frustration is their source of profit. It's not actually different. If you think about it, from Facebook meta acts of their source of profit, because the way that you make the money is for people to be angry, right? Like you need emotional responses. The way United Health makes money is if you're too frustrated to go through the process of fighting a claim that they denied, right? Like if they make it impossible for you and you quit on, you know, on social media, it's they want your anger so that you keep going, like, if foments more anger and you keep posting and you can't get out of your bubble, but there are all leveraging an emotional response in order to profit and they want 100%. Do it on purpose, they make it Labyrinth theme. Like, my wife is a doctor and she has no idea. She cannot the insurance companies are horrible. She said, like They are the ones deciding largely. What gets covered, how by the way they make you code? It like she wants to go in and do a surgery. That's it, she wants to fix something, but she has to know 73 different codes that the insurer will, or won't cover whether or not like, you know what the hospital codes are. The whole system is fucked and it's on purpose, like it's worse. Well, if you're getting 16 billion dollars in profit and the and Neo a named executive officers, not even the CEOs walking away with 10 million dollars annually. Then? Yeah, you're probably right. I mean, right? I mean, we're not saying anything. Anyone doesn't know. I think this is all probably in the man of the three page Manifesto, right? Like we've already been talking for four pages. I don't mind people that let's keep talking about United Healthcare a little bit, this is the same company that was that was hit by a Cyber attack this year. And and when the Department of Justice decided to investigate, they wanted to investigate the market dominance of of United Healthcare because the Cyber attack basically was, you know, it was ruining the lives of a lot of its customers. Brian Thompson decided to sell his 15 million dollars worth of shares, right before they announced that investigation. So he learned in the investigation. And then he sold 15 million dollars or shares and then the pub the company. That's again, I'm not saying this as an excuse to why he should be killed just but this is a this is, you know, these are necessary. I mean, the fact like, yeah, this is where the rage comes from. And it's possible that Luigi knew that I don't know, I don't know. Did you read that in a minute? Was that what he was reading in? I don't know. So, let's move on other headlines about the case. Uh, one star McDonald's reviews and sympathetic merch companies. Try to stop online support for CEO killer suspect. So the way after a McDonald's employee outdated, Luigi, it got bombed with one star reviews on Yelp and Google and I mean, funny, but wow. Yeah, I mean, I'm saying, this is the tone, I don't see a single person other than fellow Executives and CEOs who were worried about getting security. You don't really see a single sort of sympathetic message towards the sky. I mean, look like I'm not, I'm not supporting him just reporting, I'm not supporting anything that happened. But the fact is that the named executive officers and the CEO of United Health. All in the proxy have two million dollars of health insurance coverage that they were for health insurance companies, so you'd expect that, but no one else does, right? Everyone else is angry because it's inaccessible to everybody. And we all know it and like I did see a t-shirt like when you're when I'm like trying to keep up to date with the story, I did get try to get sold the T-shirt with a picture of Luigi from Luigi Mario holding like dressed like the killer. Oh, that's just being a gun that's just racist towards italian-americans. Other headlines, Ted Cruz, accuses Luigi. Mangione being a leftist, despite social media posts, despite social media posts, praising Tucker Carlson and decrying the woke, mind virus. So this I that, you know, Luigi. Maybe not such a leftist after all. Oh, yeah, Letting Go elitist. Why did he go left us? Like, he went to Penn and he's like a, you know? Well, Ted want to Harvard. Yeah, I'm just saying like, that's the better angle after 1000 celebrated, you know, United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, killing. Not even top internet, sleuths, are not willing to help an investigation. Of course they already. They just found Luigi's. So, how about this one? How United Healthcare and other insurers? Use AI to deny claims. So in October, there was a port from the US Senate that they're investigating, how insurers have been using AI power tools to deny some claims. So they found that But United Healthcare is denial rate for post-acute care. That's where Healthcare is needed to transition people out of hospitals, back into their homes, Rose to 23% in 2022 from 11% in 2020. And they're saying the reason for that is because of an AI model that they're using called NH predict. And an H and H predict and you know, help predict United Health and Human are both being sued because of this, according to the lawsuit, you know, how against United Health, the claim was at 90% of the algorithms recommendations are reversed on appeal. So these are their claiming there's a 90% error rate From that AI denying claims. So the interesting part is who makes Navi health is the group that makes and made and age predict and they were required in 2020 by United Health Group. So, this is not like somebody else's model is like their model. They made the model, there's nobody, they can be like this isn't one of those like oh well Sam Altman's Chachi PT. Did it like this is them? This is them doing it. So other headlines. Leaked video shows, you know, United Health, CEO, and that is Andrew Woody defending practices that prevent unnecessary care. According to Value, penguin a site that helps users. Compare insurance plans costs United Health 32% claims an hour, right? It was twice the industry, average. What do you think that's about twice the industry, average, that's one confuses me surprise me. Oh, hi. There are the largest and why not stay around. The why not stay a little bit above the industry? Average? Why be so Brazen? I'm just saying like, what? Why be so Brazen about this? Because until an executive got killed, no one was writing these stories. Well, it was one of these headlines out there really. This is, this is the question. I was gonna ask you, will this have any kind of effect over the insurance industry? Do you believe it? Yeah, they everyone in the insurance industry will in the proxy statements. They will just give a name and they won't even give a gender or an age. Okay. The board members, they're they're going to have security guards, like, literally in a circle around them. Everywhere, they go, that's what's going to happen. Well, let me skip to the last my last headlines, and there's a bunch of stuff on disclosure, C vs Anthem and other big corporations, remove executive photos from their website. A centene. Is it going to hold a virtual meeting because of this, there's a bunch of headlines about pulling info online. I don't know what that's supposed to solve know what that means that what that means to me, is that the companies that would do that have been screwing you or feel like, you think they've been screwing you, like let's say the executives at CVS, have not been trying to screw you, but you've been getting screwed somehow by CVS. Like the opioid crisis, right? They're terrified now of what they've been doing actually. What it makes the case for is the desperate need for accountability in capital. Markets course. Because clearly there has been none. Some like vigilante asshole assassin. Went out of his way to kill one of you in a in a corporate Executive Suite. Now rather than sort of like go out there and say we need to be better, we need to improve. We can't deny it twice the rate of our average rate which is already highlights to everybody. We what they're doing is the same thing they did with Dei. When Robbie Starbucks called them, they are fucking hiding. They are, it is pure cowardice across the board. And here's the evidence to support that the other headlines I pulled are all about security, basically, saying how Executive Security is going to change. Moving forward, how they're going to, of course, add a bunch of Security even if the executives don't want it, the investors and board members might enforce it. So, you're right. They're just basically gonna hide behind bodyguards. I mean, we talk about this, every single year when Zuckerberg like puts out his proxy statement, he is the highest security costs anywhere because he's got like 73 Mansions. He was like More than 20 million dollars for one guy to protect him, which is like, that's how much it cost to protect the president of the United States, is an insane amount of money. The only people in our culture who who need security are people like Taylor Swift. That's it. You know what I mean? Like like these huge pop stars who were you have fans it if you're in a business where you're worried about people coming after you because because, you know, they're upset at you, then something something wrong. But isn't that the tacit recognition that, of course, like that you've been doing something that can rile someone up so much, that they might take a shot at you. It also sort of just one thing you have like obsessives and you have, like, stalker fans and stuff like that. And you have like the John Lennon problem, right? Like somebody who's gets obsessed with you, that is nothing to do necessarily with what you are doing, right? Like you're making music. It doesn't have to do with something else, but Mark Zuckerberg does not have like fans Standing outside screaming for him and stalking him. The people who would be obsessed with Mark, Zuckerberg are people who are like, you ruined my life, like you made me depressed and made me like and doesn't this sort of Define the fact that we are living in an oligarchy. When you win these people need to be protected like this when you have. So few people, basically, controlling your society and need protection from the members of its society that are your customers. And stakeholders is sort of does suggest something that's happening. That's 100% true. I think that's it, which is a perfect segue to Fortune Magazine's. What? I don't know what you're called. Article Special Report research. There is there listicle called one that 100 most powerful people in business. I don't know how you want to do this. All right, here's how I want to do it. I have 10. I have 10, interesting. Takeaways that are gonna be far more interesting than anything that you, you are going to present, but I'm gonna let you run with this and we'll let you go with this. So I'm gonna let you start after. I just bore the audience is okay. So um, so so the way to bore you first is to say that this is the 100th put out by Fortune Magazine. They not us across the world. It's it's Global. It's it was put out for 2024. So it's supposed to represent this year. So it's like a bit Evergreen. The methodology for this, how they determined, who is the most powerful person in business is basically a six-part methodology. It does not seem like there's a tremendous amount of numbers around. This was a little bit, like bulshit, but go ahead. But here are the main points is the business big, so maybe nobody from flea float and they the person has to run it right? Like no that's not true. Is it it says the size of the Business. The person runs. But that right, well, these people on this list don't currently run anything. That's correct. So they're a little bit flimsy with the way they apply their own methodology, the health of the business, which is measured by 12-month liquidity, operational, efficiency, and solvency. Again, you gotta, you gotta CEO there who just took over for a company that declared bankruptcy this year, a few months ago, Red Lobster, you have a CEO on this list that just left fire, because it got a horrible job, right? Carlos Tavares right up stellantis. I'm guessing. So like it, they're a little bit wobbly on these things and then they have one that called Innovation, okay? That could be anything. Yeah, has the person accomplished, something nobody else has in that competitor's funnel. Again, I call bulshit this because you have multiple people from the same entity. Matt, you have at least three people from alphabet. You have at least two people from Amazon. You have two people from Oracle. I mean, the list goes on, let's say Amazon. In Oracle have done interesting things, but can we really claim that Mary Barra GM? And three people from Everest, three people from America's greatest Drug Company. Netflix, what are they? Innovating that you say longer on your couch? That is an innovation. Sure. And Innovation, they The last three components here are influence, which? Okay, well they do measurement of, we do Reflow analytics.com, go to there. You can get a measurement of it, but for this, it just says, I don't know how greatly do their words and actions shape, the behavior of others. There's no and this one is beguiling because as I'll point out with with with, with their choice, for the only black man on the list, I'm gonna argue with their definition of well, things like size of the business and influence, but go ahead. Yeah. Well, I'm working all all influence is, is number of followers on social media. That's all. That's my guess. What's that number would be trajectory? Where is the person in the ark of their rear? Are they young? Is that I mean because weren't buffets on the list for years old. Yeah, so was Rupert. Murdoch was literally in court. Trying to decide who's gonna get his Empire, he dies. So yeah, that's yeah. Like tomorrow, when he dies like, you know, it's not exactly, like they're not. Saying they have to be at a place in their career just on and Arc apparently, sure. And then finally impact and this is the one that really got me, is this person using their power to make the world? A better place? Stop, I didn't realize that. I'm telling you, that's what they wrote of what they wrote. Okay. And well, see the list. Who on this list is making them? I mean, just glancing on it. Is there any one on this list trying to make the world a better place? I can make the I can make the case that like, one modify. Uber. I mean, what are you talking about, Matt? Well, it is, like, what is I? Don't understand your definition of. I'm gonna give you the top 10 just by name first and then you can take it over with your observation. And then I'm gonna come back with some stats. My various do my, various do observations number 10 soon, DARPA chai the CEO of alphabet is number 10. Now, they don't say that like soon, our prey, who's number 10? He somehow ranks higher than Sergey Brin and Larry Page who actually own voting control of. I was gonna say that that is one of my observations, but go ahead. Okay, Mary Barra number nine, she's one of my observations too. I'll get to later. And number eight, Mary Barron Altman, the CEO, and chair of GM of GM. I mean, that's random know. I mean, all, so, you know, a big player on the Business Roundtable. Sure. Well, let's be fair, a lot of these CEOs are big players in the Business Roundtable in the top 10, not as much Sam Altman. Okay? See you, this one? I agree with. Yeah. Um, Mark Zuckerberg number seven, of course. I don't know how he's so low but of course, he's in the top 10. I mean, he has voting control over his company as a private company of family. Let's remind people, he owned Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram. What else am? I'm probably forgetting something. But those three. How do you forget the metaverse? I mean, I'm just saying, like, he basically Controls the world? I mean girls. What was the apps? Yeah, a lot of what you see Tim Cook's number six. I don't know of Apple all so on the board of Nikes phone. Yeah, I don't care about number five is Jamie dimon. The world's Premier financier on there, I suppose. Yeah, number four is Warren Buffett. That's good to me. He's 4,000 years old. number three, Adela his CEO, Greg Abel. Yeah, right. He's also on this list. So awesome to Greg Abel doesn't own the Dual class shares. That Warren Buffett owns. So and that his kids will own, who are on the board? Yeah. Yes. That number three Sachin, Adela the CEO of Microsoft. Okay. I don't really understand that one go. Yeah, number two is Jensen. Huang this CEO in video, of course here. And number one is Elon Musk. Of course, some reason the CEO of 17 companies with which no one well control over. He certainly has an incredible amount of influence. All agree. The other stuff. I don't really know like why anybody cares? But maybe he'll get Mars one day and he'll prove me wrong. Yeah, yeah, no, let's hope for that. And he stays there. Well, why don't you do here? First, of all, Matt, at number 51, they couldn't have predicted. This is who at number 51, the actual CEO at United Health. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Andrew. Witty, the CEO of United Health on this. List. And here's what, here's one of the comments from his bio from Fortune Magazine. The company has been in the spotlight this year after suffering, a major Cyber attack and witty testified before Congress. That data from quote unquote, maybe 1/3 of Americans was stolen. Oh, maybe so with all that profit with It's just 16 billion dollars alone this year Matt. They still couldn't build a cybersecurity worthy enough to protect their users data and they don't even know how much data was stolen. They still couldn't manage to protect our data. They do have a cybersecurity expert. They added to the board though. So, it's fine. It's not terrible now and and not to belabor, I'm a horrible joke. Oh, there wasn't a joke to labor, but the Brian Thompson not on this list, but that doesn't really matter. Oh, come on. Okay, my other other observations. So there are 17.5, women on this list I say point five because five because some of these position I'll get to this later. Some of these positions are actually shared like the the code oh yeah was on. Netflix is one is is that number 41? Which I'll get to that later, does that strike you as being high or low? We know that less than 10% of Fortune 500. CEOs are women so does that strike you that 17.5 women? And this is a higher loading look if I'm just going with the meritocracy and that is that men should have all the positions then that's incredibly high and let's get to Mary Berra. I'm sorry I don't I'm not usually the one to push Dei conspiracy theories but you got Mary bear at number nine in this list. I'm convinced that the writers of this list decided at the last second that we absolutely need to have a woman in the top 10 and it can't number 10, is that looks like tokenism, but you but I'm sorry, but they have Mary Baer ahead of Jeff Bezos. Explain that one to me, Matt, how was that possible and what universe? Why you don't, you don't think like a GM trucks are more important than the largest retailer and or data storage and or you know entertainment company on that. Amazon is so important. That Fortune Magazine has put two people in the top 26. Andy jassy is at number 26 Bezos, isn't that we have learned over the last few weeks. It's kind is, is still at Amazon as executive chair and his and is coming back to basically run their AI. He said so I don't look I don't know I don't actually I'm gonna I'll move on from Mary Berry I just don't really understand her placement in the top 10. I do think it's worth pointing out. There is a lot of executive chair ship in the top 100 and the interesting part about what would cause for instance, right? The interesting part about that is If you're the executive chair, you don't have to do the day-to-day, you just get all the money. That's well. And their heart is and typically, they are probably Founders and former CEOs, right? Right, exactly. Okay, you've got a problem, right? Because this list puts on Andy jassy and Jeff Bezos. It puts on Sundar, pichai, and Sergey Brin. And Larry Page, it basically, you have Bill, Gates Africa, cats, Bill Gates. And something else? Yeah, like you effectively have the founder, who made all the money found at the company on the top 100 list but they can't say the CEO isn't powerful because they're running the company right now. So then like when you populate 10% of the list with a founder and their underling, really, that's what we're doing. Well, let's get to that. That's actually one of my observations. I had that they actually have current CEOs being more powerful than their Founders. So, as you pointed out, Nadel is at number three. But Gates is at 22, pichai, is at number, 10 but Sergey Brin and Larry Page at 33 safrit Kat somehow is number 35. And Larry Ellison is 72 with this. I don't understand any of this like what Larry Matt Larry Ellison is so powerful that not only does he control over 60% of board influence because according to our data, he's still the chair at Oracle and his son, even his son is so powerful that he just bought Paramount, where he will become CEO and chair, and somehow he's less powerful than South Africa's. The woman that he put into the CEO role. I don't understand. Explain this one to me, Matt. I don't think there's explaining it. I mean like I I feel like somebody sat in a dark basement and just said, hey, who do you know, like everybody knows Bill Gates, he's got to be on the list who actually runs the company. Microsoft. Now does anybody know, oh, we can't put Bill Gates above the guy who currently runs the company. Let's just move them around such that, right? Yeah. And I will say this, I did have one of my observation was, I was in it was incredible, absolutely incredulous to sign into considered more powerful than Mark Zuckerberg because forget this to Empire of Facebook and meta. I mean, certainly yes. Microsoft also has a pretty impressive Empire, but but Matt Mark Zuckerberg controls every corner of that Empire. And not only that, but he's like, he's young. I mean, his trajectory is still young, he controls all of it. Nadella controls barely any of it. I mean, he has His ownership, his voting power, his influence. It's all very low. I don't, I, I don't, I really don't fathom that as a choice. Absolutely, I don't think they were working from a data set more than what the four reporters sitting in the room where they must about, right? But they must know that Mark Zuckerberg, literally controls every corner of that Empire. Not sure that people really do. Yeah, I think they do. They like Fortune does, right? But like they like so like not on the list for instance or I'm sorry on number 36 on the list is Lisa Sue Lisa Sue is cousin yo and founder of AMD, right? The cousin of Jensen Wing know, right? Cuz in Jensen Wong you could easily make the case that she belongs above Mary Barra. If you actually paid attention to who these people are, but we know Mary Barra because Mary Barra is the CEO of a classic American company. Very well connected know, that's a not to take away from her but no nine, right? Like number nine cars, you could come in the tops. Matt cars in the top 10, you could take out Satya Nadella Sundar pichai easily Warren Buffett at this point, right? Like it's just silly to have him in the in the top 10 and then you'd have three or four slots. It's hard to argue with the other ones, but you'd have three or four slots up there for people that belong up there because they could control, they have a ton of connections and they control a lot of, they have a lot of power. Someone's gotta explain to me how Bezos is not on the top 10. That's, that's mind-boggling to me. This is a guy again, not only like one of the three, richest men in the world but also engage in that space race with Elon Musk. I mean the whole thing is nuts. He's not okay. Other observation one, Matt they managed to find one black man. Oh whoops and and I asked you is it the is it the the CEO and chair of Lowes who sits on the board? Marvin Ellis at FedEx Marbella Nelson. No it's not. Is it, how about how about the CEO and chair of Eaton Corporation which is a 143 billion dollar market cap? That's Craig Arnold, who's also the nomination, the nomination chair, at Medtronic, another company with over 100 billion dollar market cap is it Greg Arnold knows not Craig Arnold. It's like a 30 year old, dude named demola, Adam, Luke, Adam, Luke in, who, is just took over Red Lobster, which is coming out of bankruptcy. A few months ago, this guy just became CEO in August. What the hell? What you have no idea how what is happening? Yeah. Look like, what's like, what's the innovating? What's he accomplished? Like Red Lobster is Basically the minor league that get you all the way up to GM, that's how it starts. Help me this Red Lobster. Did you look? I get that they wanted to put a black man on the list and I, you know, I get it but they clearly didn't do their research. If they don't know about Marvin Ellison and Craig Arnold. They didn't do their research. Well, there's there's no black women on the oh, no, there's one. That's not true. That's not true. There are a couple. There's the CEO of TIAA. Yeah, Sandra duckett and their mellody Hobson, one of our favorite mellody Hobson. Yeah. That's right. I almost forgot mellody Hobson. And, and I think that's it. Yeah. Because Roz Roz Brewer recently fired so. So maybe she would have made the list. Carlos Tavares also fired, but they have an updated, okay? That's another one. My observations that you've already pointed out a million times, are Carlos Tavares who I had to point this out because because of this phrase, the bio said that he is a self-described. Petrol head. Whom calling colleagues view as a samurai laser focused on building competitive car brands. Oh, first of all, as soon as you get branded with laser focused, there's I got with that. That's why it's not good for you. What's your laser focus? Did it usually ends badly and and he's on the list despite the fact that they also pointed out, that stellantis is dealing with a bloated inventory, and, and popular price tags, and profits falling. And yeah, he was fired. So I don't really get the Carlos. Yeah. I mean, he, I guess he was powerful in as much as when he had a job, he had some power in that job, but this list does really like cars to your point. I didn't really pay that close attention to that, but it is beyond Tesla. It is GM. It is still at this, it is up isn't like let's not forget people, I know for any of you Elon musk's apologists apologize out there, who like? Oh yeah, okay. Well, electric vehicles are good for our planet. I'm gonna remind you that that no, you're wrong. Oh, electric vehicles might be good for the planet in comparison to a gas powered car. But if you really want to improve the planet, how about some Transportation infrastructure? What are we doing here? On cars is not Innovation well even if you cars. But anyway, you really want to help the planet, just stay home. Don't go anywhere other observations. How about this one? Well, first of all, nobody from snap and read it, despite the fact that you have Daniel from Spotify. Daniel Eck is his high as number 37. 7, and, and yet the tiktok founder and bite. Dance chair, Zhang Yi Ming is at 92. How was that one? Doesn't seem quite right? Although like that's probably because they had to put someone there but they're also terrified that they're just putting the Chinese State there and still okay, it's not a person, I can appreciate that. Okay, this is the one, another one that gets me that there, there are a few instances where you're listening to CEOs. You got Netflix, you got KKR where you have Scott, neutral and Joseph, Bye. If you're listening coach CEOs, Matt, doesn't that undermine the list? I mean, it doesn't that mean that it's the position. That's powerful, not the person. Right. Oh, good point. Yeah. That's 100%. Correct. So right. And that's why I think somehow such a Mandela is above Jeff Bezos because their what they're saying is that the position of the CEO of Microsoft is more important than controlling the Amazon Empire, right? I I just don't really understand it. Isn't. The executive chair, there's KKR has co-executive, chairs all so it has any Henry, Kravitz, and George Roberts who have both are founders both Founders, right? So yeah, they show us our case. Let's party the COC CEOs. Who actually are under the co-executive chairs who owned the majority of the shares strange themselves. It's almost as if they don't know what they're doing when they could. No one knows a governance. Is they could at least have reached out to us and my final observation is that one of the most powerful people in business in the world. Doesn't even have a picture. I love this. Yeah, that's my, that's a man named. Well, I'm assuming it's a man. Yeah, it is a man. Charlene Mao, He's listed at number 77, he's a CEO in Calvin. Co-founder of a Chinese social media company. You know what comes up? When I search for Charlene, Mao his picture that's what comes up. It's not like this guy. Doesn't have a picture. Yeah it's that they couldn't figure out how to get a single picture of the guy into their thing. I guess I don't I don't know what that is. Well I have a question for you. What number was the first number? You got to before, you didn't know them. Number 12, that would be. I still don't know. Even though I looked them up and I already already forgotten. It's a man named Mukesh Ambani. Yeah. Who now they're looking up, I he is the chair and managing director of Reliance Industries, a company. And India, actually, two people in the list are from Reliance Industries. Is that right? Yeah, two of them are. I did not know 29 of the 100. Well yeah, that's a way lower than my mine would have been at least half. I mean I recognize names like for instance I you know I I recognize the name of doesn't matter. Jonathan gray, Brian Armstrong Ulta. I just don't remember where they come from both. I just don't remember the entity they're associated with. So I consider that I didn't really know who they were. So here's some things that I noticed. Still. So the first thing I noticed actually, when going through their bios was how friendly a lot of them. Are ya? Adobe, when you look at just the boards and I'm not talking about like how they know each other from getting my ties and like Bermuda that time, right? Like I'm talking about, these are professional relationships at the board level Adobe has three of the, the, the top 100 on their board. So does JP Morgan really. So, does Disney Disney is Africa, cats? Mary Barra, and Bob Iger right, all of them pale in comparison, to Microsoft who has a total best for people. Is that right? You have such an Adela Emma, Walmsley, Catherine, McGregor and Reid, Hoffman, and, you know, not even including Bill Gates who's not in these two that's like currently on the board, right? Like those are people who currently have board positions. Wow. Current board positions. Interesting. So you're talking about in a list of the 100 most powerful business people on Earth. Yeah 5% of them. Come from one company. Yeah well you know often considered a monopoly a monopoly that was worth breaking up back in the 20th so maybe definitely worked when they broke it up 20 years ago. It's not still no more power like this. Here are some stats for you. I pull data. Okay, I like data. Yeah, I want to revisit this list because one of the things that struck me is yeah we'll make fun of this listen another time I'm sure there's a lot to make when you when you mentioned like that Mary Barrow was in the top 10 because you know because it felt like they had to put a woman in the top 10 and I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I had to say that loud. No you're not. You might not be wrong. It didn't mean no. I'm like oh no Matt I'm not wrong. Hey look, I you could make a case easily for someone like Lisa Sue in the top 10 that's fine. What's going on made me do yeah it made me want to say or even James Frazier, maybe from City Bank I could be okay with who like who should have been in the top. Yeah, he's just data. So here's like some of the data that I pulled of this list that I was thinking, oh well I would expect most of these metrics to be the top in the world, right? Like you gonna be on this list? Some like, most of these have to be the top in the world, I pulled average. Performance metrics for. So we're only missing 19 people of the 100 in our database at free flow, analytics.com. You can go there right now, you can look up everybody else, right? Like, 19 of them are aren't there. And the reason why they're not there is like Sam Altman. It you know, is private a private company? You have you have like Charles Koch. He's not in there because he's never been on a public board, right? Like, it's private company. Paul singer James Dyson. These are people who are not. There are a couple of formerly on boards formerly on boards. Um, yeah, like all over Bloom. Who's the CEO of Volkswagen? There's a there's like EU quirks because there's no boards, right? He's on the he's on the management board. Yeah, the management not the supervisory board, which like we don't have in our database that we don't put them on the well because the manager boards not voted in by Chevrolet, that's why we don't exactly. So we're only focus on who gets voted in, so there's a couple of quirks in there but it's only 19 people who are on the list so we have, you know, like 81% of the list. It's like, it's actually slightly more when you Get the Double's in there. So here are the average performance metrics for those people that we do have, if earnings right? The average of the whole group was actually 464. Little the most powerful business people on average are slightly below average at earning money. Yeah, according to our metrics, right? The worst was Role left Bolta at 050. It's near the worst. You can possibly be the explanation for that. Is that all like young startup e companies. That lose a lot of money in the first five years because apparently you don't need to make money to go public any any more. Oh, he's a VC guy, he's a VC guy, right. The best was CC way who I didn't know who that was. He's one of the people. I didn't know who it was CC way CC way bats 994 and I didn't write down where he was from because it up to me. Yeah. Look it up while I'm talking but he bats near the absolute best of earnings. Now he's only on one board our database so it's all like that company. He's a CEO and chair of Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company. Earning a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah. How about carbon intensity? How about to do these people actually like you know, help the environment relative to their industry peers. Well, the worst in the entire data like the hundred top 100 was Warren Buffett. Well, okay but he loves trains and he loves oil and Diet Coke. 0.015, that was candy does have a high carbon and density? Well Coke just just step back at some of their pledges. So yeah, the plastic pledges that's not just saying I'm just saying just throwing that into the ocean. Yeah, friend. And what else you got? Who's the best? The best was Tim Cook? Tim Cook at 7:41? Yeah, well Nikes actually really good on the board Nike and Africa. So he's got the double, how about TSR the average overall for TSR? 0.518 average. These people write average at returns. Yeah. Like these are the most powerful best business people. Apparently in the world in the metrics suggests that they are average. They're just average. The worst was Robin. Zhang at point one, two seven. He is the CEO and chair of contemporary. Amperex technology a company I don't know. He oh, supplying electric vehicle batteries. Yes, there are battery company and he trains Robin. How about some trains second was Neil Moen. I point 178 Neil Moen is the CEO of YouTube. Oh, Nobody needs he but he says he's on the board at 23 in me is YouTube is YouTube good? If you're Humanity Matt you think is that impact? A better place? Oh yeah, the world. Oh, you talking about the methodology? Yeah, I mean, obviously because he's moan being on this list. He didn't actually create it, so he's not the innovator. The health of the business is fine. The size of the business is fine, but this is alcohol in the business, but it's like, but it's Alpha alphabet. Yeah. So it's, yeah. Trajectory where are they at the Ark of their career? Well, maybe he's young, but he, he's, where he is, is wherever Sergey and Larry, tell him to go and, and Sundar pichai and soon are yeah. He's got three bosses. Yeah. Um, and then impact is the only thing that's left to your point. I did use recently to look for, it was reviewing Supermarket, marinara sauces. I watched the 20-minute video on that which I actually found fascinating and I I ended up one of their top choices was Newman's Own marinara sauce which they love know, make your own. So I I did buy it and I didn't enjoy it. I enjoyed it all three dollars. Sauce, just make your own sauce, it takes like 20 minutes to make it. So you're saying it's not good for Humanity that I had to buy. Well, I the last thing I watched because this is what the segments devolved into is is a guy from like a New Hampshire University walking through the forest of New England, like saying discussing, like the topography and the stone walls and how they all like it was totally fascinating, like the best out. You just show. I swear, that was watching. When we, before we got on the show, in the background, the best of TSR was Joe. Bae at point nine one seven and Ben is from See, these are there's a lot of people we don't know, Bae is from, and we're like, oh, he's one of the COC CEOs at KKR. Yeah, yes. I mean just to think that we how much time we spent we have dedicated Our Lives to this. We do multiple podcasts a week, we research this stuff daily and there's still like, we still don't at least 30% of this list. Would we don't know who they are and never heard of. Yeah. And then controversies, there was a, there was a one, two, three, four, five. Five way tie for the worst in controversies. It was Darren Woods. Doug McMillan, Sergey, and Larry Page soon to Archive. Basically Google alphabet and Walmart Walmart and Exxon they got a 0, a zero. Yeah, that's the worst. You can get right for those corrected. Yeah. Darren Woods. The guy who just stood his shareholders, Doug McMillan the CEO and Church of reversing its stance on Dei. Yeah, four years ago. While involved The Business Roundtable, he said that systemic racism was one of the most nefarious evil problems on our in our country, but he's already reverse that or how about Or or how about alphabet, which is just pumps out misinformation like it's nobody's business? Oh yeah. Yeah. And plus there's an antitrust suit. Wow. Oh yeah, forget about that but that's all fine. Yeah, does show that our data is onto something, right? I mean, the best in the data where mostly people you've never heard of tarang, I'm in Helen Wong CC way but there's like a five-way tie for the best, which is 1,000, they bought 1,000. Simply means the company is that they sit on the boards of haven't had any massive controversies that we know of yet. The interesting part to me was actually the other things, the most interesting things, the influence at the companies, where they sit on boards. All right, the highest non-executive influence on on a board. By one of these powerful people was mellody Hobson 20.4% influence at stars, it's still that high even we have the updated data with another Brian. CEO updated data. It's still that's what our current data says, right? So our Schultz is not technically on that board, right? But even though it sits there in an Emeritus role in an Emeritus chair? Now that's the catch, right? So Keith Rupert Roots is, is not technically on the board of fox anymore, but he does have an Emeritus chair himself which means he's there. Just doing whatever he wants. It raises interesting question because we have Brian Nichols 21, right? He's the new CEO of Starbucks. We have Melody. Hopsin, she is well, she's not the chair anymore of just delete independent. Yeah. She's on the Starbucks board. What you don't see, is founder Howard Schultz on this list. Yeah, and nowhere in there. Yeah. But the lowest not executive director for influence on their boards. Catherine McGregor at 0.3% influence, at Microsoft. But that wasn't the more interesting one in the morning was the second most. The second least influential was mellody Hobson at JP Morgan point nine percent influence, right? So you have a situation where somebody is very powerful on one board and very not powerful on another board. Well, look, I I would like to see some of the, the actual data behind their methodology because I do Wonder, Uh, since it was a global list, did they? Did they strive to try to make sure there was equal representation across continents and to our point about women and people of color, did they do you think they tried to add like, you know, do you need two people from Starbucks? Do you need mellody Hobson and Brian Nichol? I mean, you know what I mean? Like, let's just say behind that. When we revisit this, we'll make our own methodology and have a list. That's totally separate from this. What companies on this list? Probably more accurate. I'm gonna end with this one. Yeah, um, For all of that mediocrity and by mediocrity. I mean like look, some of these people are inventors, they've done some amazing things in their lives. What they've gotten is incredibly incredibly, you know, powerful and wealthy and all that kind of stuff. But in the last seven years, mostly what they've given you is Media, you invest in their company. Some of them have gone up. Some of them gone down on average if you invested in all of the companies where these people have executive positions or board seats, You would have gotten. Average returns. Well. Okay, but if you've done it since there, since their founding, then you'd be a, that's not really 24 doing here, like lifetime achievement awards. That's a good point. Actually, I'd like to see lifetime achievement awards. Yeah, it's a different thing. What you've gotten for that is on average. These people they're realized pay in 2023 was 40 million dollars on average. Wow. 40 million. Each is the average with that. The average. Wow. And that it means that does not include the fact that Elon Musk got paid like not 40 billion and no, it doesn't include their Holdings either. It doesn't include their Holdings. This is just what they got paid and realized pay from options that vested and cashed out or cash. They got from the companies where they're on the board, or they're an executive. This is only publicly available only public available data. This isn't like their Holdings in like Maui Properties or whatever. The highest on this group was 942 million paid to Brian chesky, is that right? Yeah, Airbnb of Airbnb. This is the last year 2020. Is that right? That's what the numbers is. Yeah, the company that most of my friends and family. Now, when traveling or like, you know, I hear about all these stories about, you know, people putting cameras and their airbnb's, all these weird. So I think I'm, I feel more comfortable at hotels. Now, I'm gonna. Yeah, yeah, I mean dollars. That company. Yeah, guy paid him were their cities across the globe, you know, including my own City Portland, you know, places like New York, Barcelona, who are so angry Airbnb that they create laws to prevent all these. Yeah, that company. Yeah, that's short-term rentals and yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah, that's the one. That's the list here, right? Like that's that's why I like this list to see. This is this is an opportunity for us. We love lists like this because it kind of reminds us of like the inanity and stupidity of sports radio right where you just get like a list of things and you get to argue about it. Which so what tip Fortune Magazine's credit, as much as I think, a lot of your choices are stupid. I think you it's fun. I like our lists like this, it's fun. Not only do I like arguing about it. I like the point of it to me. That is not what Fortune I think set out to do by setting up this list and there's like a million of these. Kinds of lists, you know, like this in the only kind of list, Fortune does 10 of them, right? Like, except a lot of them. Don't start with this line though when they write their lists, which is, how do you measure power? Exactly. So they, they really think they're on to something at Fortune. They're they think they're majoring in power for analytics. You can actually measure power on a given board, but that was standing what I like about this list. The unintended consequence of this list is the fact that we spend so much time researching, and we don't know a lot of the people on this list. Well, maybe that's just that we're not good at what we do. The or maybe that suggests that if we're experts and we don't know a bunch of the people on this list that these are the people at, like I said, there are four people who are just on the Microsoft board alone and five. When you consider the founder is on this list too. Yeah. Which like when you consider yeah actually how Consolidated the list is like the outliers here Tech and cars and drugs? Yeah, the outliers are like Elon Musk, right? Like who is not sitting on other boards, who's feuding with half of the other people on this list because he hates them, but he has a tremendous amount of money himself but you have people on And this list who are all part of Industry, associations, they're all part of the Business Roundtable, the foreign Council or the Council on Foreign Relations or the CEO Council, or you have people who are like part of, you know, lobbying groups. They all use similar lobbyists, they all there. They sit on nonprofits together. They're all like at the Met Gala and like that and and Matt you have the the new CEO of a company that just emerged from bankruptcy called Red Lobster. Yeah. And Red Lobster guy. Right? Like Red Lobster. A restaurant that nobody talks about and nobody wants to go to. I'm just saying the point here is when you actually have to compile this list two fortunes credit, it forces you to look at how intertwined the most powerful people are and to bring it back to sort of like the beginning of the show when you're talking about like rage against. When was the beginning of the show was it yesterday? Yeah. And three days ago. I've been sleeping through most of it, the rage against a protected class. This is a this is a list that shows you in some ways why there's that rage because these people know each other and make the decisions for all of us whether or not we asked them to and they're not elected right? If you well like yeah this is like this isn't this? The this is like the central problem. Yeah, play us out of here. Come on our show. Yeah, well look. it should have been have to size, but you know, this story of this of the, you know, the Brian Thompson, getting murdered United Healthcare. It does sort of beg, a little bit of our attention. I mean, we don't normally cover stories like that. So, you know, that doesn't There are a lot of murder stories. We do skip. That's true. That's his little rolly. I'm gonna float. It's time for us to go. We'll probably be back on Friday. Probably, where are you going? I'm going to go away. I didn't even That they found Monopoly money in the Killer's bag if I'm Monopoly money. Now it's just in case he needs to buy Baltic Avenue. Speaking of oligarchy? Yeah, That's how we got come back for more next time until then good. Bye.