Transcript
Okay. Hey love already tired live. From a pre April Fool's Day. Free flow Fools Day. What is that? No terrible. It's an all-new terrific Tuesday edition of business pants joined by analysts whole map mascardi. Yeah. Oh, today's problems. Today. Today's ESG stuffed. Cronut called March 31st, 2026. Another big dump headlines quiz. Yeah. Line before have I, I think so. Um, I think actually, we need look, if you're a listener of the show like a long time listener, can you start riding down all of Damian's openings, not me. It's the writing stuff. The right stuff is complaining this morning because the quizzes, take them far too long. What's the payout? They don't really know. Forever. He's gonna get an additional listener someday. That's the payout singular listeners. Sometimes, love and krona hating listener. Our show today is being sponsored by free-float analytics. Yeah. Analytics.com. The only platform measuring board. Yeah. Our connections performance for free. Yeah. Yeah, let us know. Let them ring it out. I love pastries. I love baked goods. It's probably my Achilles heel, it's my number one. Vice. I had a Corona. It was good but I don't know. It was you know, it was I mean you know I don't know. I would, I would not have waited in a line for it. No, I think it was sugary and buttery. That's what I'm looking for. But don't people in New York City, waiting lines just to wait and everything at this point. Like they just like they heard about a thing and there's a line outside. Well, maybe that's part of the fun night. I don't understand. Somebody told me there wasn't actual study that if you I told you, oh, you told me, you put a line outside in New York City store. Like the people just will line up. Yes, they don't even know what it is. I, that's that's just standard operating procedure. So, kronuts are whatever you write, for quiz your nails. You want to tell I don't have anything else, but today is the day we're supposed to start seeing some updates to the platform. They may take longer than I, I don't but I wanted to, I haven't heard from Austin, free flows back in Guru today so I guess I'll find out later because snuffle off I guess that's a good that's an old house that for a throwback. Now listen. The good news here is that the platform is free so no one is entitled to complain. That's the great. I know that's why we made a plane. This is why we killed all ability to monetize this company because we just didn't want to hear one complaints. So we're willing to be poor because we don't we don't want to hear from you. We don't want to. We don't want you to tell us that Mary Barra is no longer on the board of like Netscape Navigator. The company. Okay, we don't care. Yeah, I would actually care as a pretty good shape. I would care about that. I do have to all right when I get to a quiz, let's do a quiz. now, I wish nobody cares about this except for me, but our podcasting Service Riverside. No longer allows me to be a host. So I can't do the buzzer and Bell anymore which sucks. Yeah. And well. So how do I'm just disappointed in myself? I want to have some fun. You just go ding, ding ding. No. No particular order. We'll start with the headline that you don't care about that. I care about will get out of the way. I do care about it. Now you hear about it because it's juxtaposed against some some other headlines that drove me. Okay? So, But just do your bit. Here's that. This is a long one Air Canada, CEO, Michael Russo. Again, I love that his name is French but the dope can't speak French. Just step down in 2026 amid recent controversy over French language skills. Now we covered this story extensively last week. The CEO of a bilingual company to bilingual country. Blah, blah, blah, can't, he's not bilingual, he's unilingual. I don't know how we got the. How did this guy? Get the job? I don't get it. There's a bunch of questions there, right? Like which board is like you know what, it doesn't matter that you don't speak. The two languages that are required to take this job. That number one, they are already said that. Number two, do you say step down in 2026? Yeah. Now like no. I know like no, no, why is this? Not the perfect example of men. Don't give a shit like they don't care. Even though he absolutely should have Bilingual School skills for this job. He's just like ah you know whatever I'll just do it. I can fake it. Oh right. I mean is this not the perfect example of that. I mean not responding. Do you? Do you think he was? He thought he could fake it or do you think he thought didn't know? No one's really gonna give a shit that I don't? Ya because I'm a dude, I'm my name is Mike. I mean, you know, I'm here, this is my job. All right, let's let's do the quiz. Did the official press release from Air Canada? Do they mentioned the crash at LaGuardia? Oh, no way. There's no way. No, that's right. Ding. Ding ding. I don't want to ding. Ding. Ding. Did the official did the official press release mention the CEOs inability to speak French is one of the reasons why he's stepping down and no, they don't do that. Yeah. Those two things. I don't know. How will he remain on the board? Oh, Well it's Canada. So it's a little bit different. That's a good clue. I would say he's not gonna remain on the board when he steps down but he's not stepped down yet like so I think he's on right till he steps down and then he's all right, you're right. He's so because it's Canada, he will leave the board but notice that he's still, he's stepping down, he should have been fired for this but whatever, according to the board, When did it start the internal succession planing process? So it announced in the, in the press release about succession planning. When did it start it? I mean all so they don't want to look bad, right? Like they're not going to say like we started succession planting yesterday. They they are going to say something like several months ago, they started. Yeah. Session plan. That would be my guess in spirit. You got it right? Two years ago. Oh no I got it wrong. Two years. Well, okay, here's the thing. He got hired like three years ago, didn't I'll answer the next question for you. It started the internal succession planning process, two years ago, the external succession planning, three months ago. So, so I got that one. I got that one. But so you were already. Oh, this makes it sound like they were already planning on getting rid of this guy and yet, all all this happens in the Press. Why didn't they just announced that he stepping down be like, you don't have to yell at me because I'm actually already leaving. I'm sorry, two years. Yeah, I got like, I I should have learned French. I'm sorry, I am believing. So please. You don't even have to go to the legislative, to get rid of him. He should have been like, stay home. You don't have to vote. I'm leaving know. I like, I like that. They have a long-term succession plan, you're supposed to write somehow the long-term succession plan, still results in him, having to stay here and told the third quarter of 2020, until he's like so badly, in the public eye that he gets fired because he got fired, right? He's not Stepping down but also, it didn't, he wasn't he named the CEO like three or four years ago was recently. It was recent. Which means did they start succession planning immediately upon his becoming CEO, that maybe like, on day one on day? One, when they were talking, they're like, oh shit, this guy doesn't know French. Like, what we hired like, one of the board members said, like, don't you and guys, and that was it. They were like, fuck. We need to do some session planning, okay? Did the press release? Stick to the Canadian Quebec link which laws and used the appropriate accents on Montreal and Quebec. Now these this is part of the the language laws there is to that any word that can be written in French and English. You must use the French version with all the right Accents. In fact, they don't even let you use the possessive. You can't do like a s because that's an English convention. So did the press release follow that language convention. Yes. The X yeah did. Yeah, why why did it what? But because they're they're quiet quitting, the guy who can't use the can like the language convention. So let's do a true, a true or false speed round and this I looked at the this is from the proxy statement. I looked at the last Parks he statement true or false Air Canada regularly, test the linguistic skills of its 15,000, public-facing employees, and respective Canada's official languages. I do. They test them. Yes, they test the link. Yes. I'm gonna say true true. Yes. True or false does the proxy state that the company has two official languages. True true. Yes, that's true. In the CEOs, opening letter to shareholder true or false that does? He say we are immensely proud of. Promoting our official languages, no false true, oh, is language for instance here, an official skill used to describe directors language proficiency. That's not that. How would you describe that as the skill? That's a legal requirement? I don't understand. Well, true or false, either way. I'm going to say true because it's so dark. Yes, True or false Air Canada, they state in their proxy. It's the only Airline required to offer services in both official languages in Canada. True or false. True. True. You see where I'm going. Yeah. Right. Here's my favorite. Part of the proxy statement says that six and I'm going to let you guess who you think the missing piece is six of the seven members of our executive committee. Our bilingual, the only one, literally the only one. This is An otter joke. I mean I I guess I should be happy that he is fired or stepping down or whatever. So but I kind of wanted this to linger longer so I could yell at it more. I know you don't care about it. I just funny asking us. I mean like the whole thing is asinine like no and I'm gonna repeat a woman would not have gotten this job. No, no. Come on, don't even, it's not even. Yeah, forget it. What are you talking about? Let's move on. That was stupid. Next headline, Xerox board of directors, appoints Louis Pasteur. As CEO. Okay. That's, is that a true or false? Is it that we're making a quiz out of this crap? All right, here we go. Will he be chair also or or direct her? Oh, That's a good question, 0x. What? I believe. The number is something like 30% of us companies have CEO. Chair combinations. Xerox is one of the large copy, you know, ish ones used to be really big. I'm gonna go with. Yes. Yeah, I mean I intentionally misled you here. He's actually not going to be on the board. What? I know, right? I don't I'm like maybe he'll be added later but I was shocked. He's not added to the boat. So I 100% agree that the CEO does not need to be on the board but when because it never happens in the United States. Like do you do you think that's basically just a red flag that they don't really want them to be CEO at all? Is that like what what is that? Okay, because I think it's correct. Yeah, but you have a good buddy sense because let's do the quiz for this company because I don't know if you realize what's going on here. How many CEOs have Xerox had since 2022? Oh wow. I don't know but I'm gonna say three yes, three is right? Yeah, I mean like he couldn't be four because like just the math of it like they couldn't even get in receipt CEO that many times. How many cfo's since 2025 you could turn those over fast. Yeah I'm gonna go with three Yes again three yeah What is the average board tenure of a Xerox director? Oh, this could be one of those. It's because it's an old blue bloody this one American company. These are professionalized boards, typically, highly interconnected and it's a probably a board run company not a CEO or executive run company, I'm gonna guess 11 years yeah. See this is what I thought would throw you less than three years. This board this board and the executives here are absolute magnetic, it's just hectic. What was this one? How many different executive positions has Louis Pasteur held X since 2018? How many different titles? I'm gonna say none. You're very wrong. It's not Executive Vice President titles. I'm gonna name him, all Executive, Vice President general, counsel Chief, corporate development, officer Chief legal officer, Chief transformation, officer trees, Chief transformation and administrative officer chief administrative officer Global head of operations, president and CEO. I mean, what, what's happening? It sounds like a functional company when you have nine titles in the last eight years that's clearly indicates that you're doing something right and the last eight years. How many times has Louis Pasteur resigned from 0? No, I well he had nine titles. Yes. I mean times does he resigned in that eight year period. Well, if he resigned at one point and then came back, I gotta say one. I can't be. Yeah, he did. He he left in April 2023 and he left for like, eight months and he came back like so he said, as all this goes nine titles in seven years, not a basically it was weird is that they wouldn't even it was it was a very quick line in a proxy statement that he resigned from all executive positions but there was no filing. There was nothing that said why I couldn't find anything, he just left for a while. What are we doing? What finally, how does that guy the CEO of a company? Finally true or false governance at Xerox has basically been a shit show. True or false, I'm gonna go with true. I'm gonna go through, I'm gonna get myself in like, this is what happens when you dig into headlines because I haven't seen anything. Quite as messy as this in a while. I mean, I bet you though, if you looked at the director votes of this company and I have not I'm going strictly, I came in with no prep. I don't I like none of these questions I know. How to quit not allowed to on the quiz. So I bet you if I looked the vote results of the of Xerox, I bet you, you're averaging 96% in favor of these directors can get worse than this in terms of turnover and stupidity, right? Like And you read the headline and it's like Louis Pasteur. First of all, like great that he's basically got the name of the guy who invented that pasteurization and I'm glad that you pointed out because that's originally why I cited this, I was gonna do some dumb jokes but then I looked into their governance. You didn't have to I didn't have to do and he does so to your point, you're right. But the last annual meeting everyone, Hi 90s for everybody. So so explain to me explain investors and not Damian. I mean investors explain to me how a guy who had nine titles in seven years who resigned and he came back. He's a company that's had three CEOs in the last four years who's had three cfo's in the last one year. Explain how the governance at this company is good enough to give every director High 90s of approval. What the fuck you doing? This is why I mentioned 10 year because they're all basically new so. So it's it's kind of hard to know who to blame. Well they should all be then investors. You should feel totally empowered to vote them all out. Let's move on bananas, speaking of investors, speaking of vote on, wait, wait. Those Xerox directors that are that were on the board over the last five years, or seven years or whatever, they still have other board positions. And if they ran Xerox, this way, what makes you think they don't run other companies? This way from the board position, it's not just vote out the Xerox directors. Those are people who suck at their jobs, you can vote them out everywhere. Yeah. All right. Because is that a Xerox joke? Let's move on Starbucks. Held its annual meeting a few days ago. This is what pissed me off about dinner Canada? Yeah, good. I picked the right headline. Let's do a quiz. Maybe you already know this? Then average. What's the average support for directors? I know exactly what it is 95.7 percent. Yeah, that's right. 96%, I don't do decimals here. 96% 95.7, how many directors with 99% support? I believe? There's only one. I think it was Marissa Mayer. Well there are four but you're right. She was she? Yeah. Who are the lowest support Andy Camp Beyond? Well, you know, all this because yeah this this quiz is a bomb because I I would assume you would have said Beth Forge know, so that's so can't be on his head of the audit committee and I cannot figure out why they, they targeted him and not. You're in Nord student or the lead independent director, Eric quote. Last Louis didn't last Lewis and issue, say vote against vote against just Beth Ford. Yeah, she still had four but it shows the power of those two edited. He's she's still had, 92% support know Was the power of everyone's afraid to do what they say anymore and or afraid to vote against management for any reason whatsoever? I will say the good news here, is that the vote against Andy Campion aligns with the vote against Sam page? It's the same. Some, so maybe people are finally listening to us ahead of comp was he wasn't either. Oh, you just said he was the head of comp. Okay. I said audit audit. Oh, okay. Then maybe they got it wrong. I think they just figure. I believe he's the head of audit not comp, maybe he's comp too. I don't think so though. I might be wrong. I miss heard you the kind of ability boards, submitted a shareholder proposal. Requesting supermajority shareholder, voting requirements be replaced with majority voting requirements? Yeah, the board. Oddly gave no recommendation. Yeah, so based on that. What do you think the percentage of shareholders who supported this proposal was 97.9%? Oh because you know this yeah. What what what? What happens. So Sometimes I've seen management support a shareholder proposal because they agree with it. Yeah. You don't see a lot of no recommendations. But how did this become such a large Victory with just because of a no recommendation. I don't really get this one. You follow us, isn't this? The accountability board did the John Chevette in, right? Like, isn't this, what like the typical governance to ask is you've got a supermajority, get rid of supermajority and make it just majority, okay? Like I said, it's that high. It's higher than Beth Ford, but I do think the average for replacing a super majority vote tends to be in the 80. Plus percent range, it's actually really high support generally. Okay. So with with shareholders that Pro, you know, governance moves, how many supported a proposal asking for an independent chair. I think that was like 12 or 13%. All right, you know, all this. It's yes, it was 12% and asked you, I was gonna ask you. Why is it so low? Do you know the answer? Because I know why. Oh, I don't know why you Usually know it's dumb these days. It's usually in the 30s. Yeah, but the reason why I was low was because it was proposed by the trolls, that's the national legal and policy Center that hate everything and hates everybody especially if you're a woman or you're gay or trans or black whatever, nobody likes them. And to your point last year, you said that people are just voting against proponents. And I, this is why I swear, this is why this proposal was so low. I think, because Everybody Hates Chris, guys, I think you're 100% correct. I like the right to hit them on its face. This proposal is the same as a proposal from Jim McGee asking for an independent chair. Yeah, we like a lot of these macritchie you'll get 30 plus percent and even if you saw it like in the 30s, I think. Yeah. So I I'm with you. That's exactly why. Yeah, finally, there were four anti-esg, anti-walk anti Dei, whatever you want to call them proposals. What was their average level of support, my guess? This is that some investors are trying to show their anti-walker now so the average support is going to go up this year. But why would you want to show that? Yeah, that's actually showing your it's like showing your rash at a dinner party. Like, what are you doing? I think it's gonna be in like the 2.7% range. Oh, you're being ambitious. It's less than 1%. Oh, that's raw. That's a that's horrifically. Wrong, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Let's move on the Democrats or examining Elon musk's role in the suspension of the corporate transparency Act. Which is requires companies reporting information about their ownership to the government, which is originally an effort to combat problems such as like, money, laundering and terrorism. Part of this was based on a New York Times investigation that revealed that Elon Musk was quietly operating at least 90 private companies in Texas that would have been subject to heightened disclosure And what New York Times is saying, is that hiding the spending including support for Trump, right? He was using some of these shell companies to funnel money, to Donald Trump. The treasury Department. Suspended the law last March. One day, After Elon Musk posted on x. In response to a user frustrated about the law that he can look into it. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's not a crony government. Does not so who. So here's the question, here's the quiz. Simple quiz. Who there's a group? Who is leading this group to examine Elon Musk in this, who is in charge of this investigation. Elon Musk. I mean, this is the person, bro. I don't even know why I included this. I just wanted to praise this person because because she, it's got to be the only person who's fight. Yes, it's a little, he's got, she's, she might be our last guardrail against everything, you know, really like she is, she really is on top of she's doing everything she can. I just understand everything she can. I think that I think these she just understands like somebody's business World in a way like no one else in Congress. Does everybody else though? And Congress where they understanding inside her trading and they understand how to make their own money but like she understands regulation more than anybody else. This alone is a reason to vote against everything. Elon Musk does a Tesla. But anyway, I should throw that I want in one in there. Let's move on. Um, we're going faster than I thought. So I'm feeling quite proud of myself. Chick-fil-A. You heard a Chick-fil-A, right? Do you have Chick-fil-A where you live? You have a Chick-fil-A. Yeah, there's someone. There's one in town. Somewhere Chick-fil-A offers. They're offering a free. What? What are they offering? To families if they ditch their phones at the table and a push to unplug. So they're trying to get families to unplug from their phones and they're offering something to the families. So I have a multiple choice for you. Okay. Yeah, you gave it away though. Did I? Yeah, cuz you just said a free and then you said, they're all. That was me speaking. It that's not, that's not that I gonna guess the thing that the only thing of the options that can be free. That's, that's gonna be my guess. I want to know what the options are. you know, it's funny is we've been doing this together for too long because In the copy that I put in the actual script. I took out free because I knew you would I knew that. And but my script that has all the answers, the cheat sheet. The teacher's guide, I forgot to take out free. Yeah, I see there's no free there. Yeah, so I wonder what you would have said. But here the here, the things that they, they would have offered families. Here's a list, total bill forgiveness, never never, they'll never know for that. conversation cards sponsored by Chick-fil-A like things a family can talk about That that'd be weird. Yeah, they be greasy and gross by the end of the first day assigned, photograph of CEO Andrew Cathy the third generation of the Cathy family to lead the company. Nobody wants that nobody wants that anywhere Early Access to new menu items. What a different french fry know or ice cream. It's ice cream. It's I think I think I might have thrown you though. I think you might have thought that they were just absurd enough to give a photograph picture, like an autograph of the seat know that is so Damien, that is so funny that that we're trying to Look I I like very gently applaud this, right? They're trying to get families unplug their phones, but they're giving them ice cream like that and sugar, like, come on, you can do a little bit better. Like a carrot honestly. Like what I'm curious about is how they're monitoring it. Like, is there somebody like walking by every 20 seconds to make sure you're not like looking at other greasy hands. Yeah. Like, what's the deal? A Netflix, co-founder Reed. Hastings says, this is an article from Fortune. Fortune has some good stuff and then they have stuff like this Netflix. Co-founder Reed Hastings says his first boss out of college would wash his dirty mugs at 4:30 a.m. So now he he he does a favor for his stuff too. He returns a favorite for his stuff too. That's the headline. Now the background the headline. Yes, this is that article so I'll read you a little bit from the article. He said, he reads, says one morning. I came in very early, the office at 4:30 and I went into the bathroom and there was my CEO and he's washing coffee cups. And I was like, Barry, are you washing my coffee cups? And he said, yes. And I said, have you been doing that all year? He said, yes, and I'm like why? And he said, well you do so much for us, and this is the one thing I can do for you. Isn't it a nice like CEO? Worker moment there? No, there's a, there's a bonus. If he does that much. There's a subtext of this article that I didn't tell you about which is that Reed assumed the janitor was washing the coffee mugs and was shocked that the CEO was washing something. I just thought that was cute that he he, he's got this great class system where they can't wash their own coffee mugs, where was reading job read. Why are you like dumping your dirty coffee mugs? And they like, well there's everywhere, wash their own coffee. Take care of your own shit. Read the fact that you left your coffee mug. There doesn't, he said there's like dozens of them. What do you people doing? What company was that? That he worked for? It was like he was coding at a company when he was 28. I don't remember the name of it. But okay, so here people with the company and this Grant CEO is all his coffee mugs. Oh, fucking baby. Oh, so okay. So then the question is, how does how is Reed returning? The favorite his staff. What's he doing? Oh, I don't get a multiple choice on this. I just straight up, guess? Yeah, yeah, it's definitely not washing coffee, mugs voices, Returns the favor. How do you know? It's not. He bought them coffee mugs. That's like you basically got it. I, I love this story, you know what he's doing, Billy. You know what the Billionaire's doing? He's buying coffee for his staff. That's right. That's what that's what he thinks is. The equivalent of going for 30 and washing stuff. He thinks the equivalent is is buying coffee for people, because the magnanimous CEO provides coffee for his his Minion's. I mean if you was raking their leaves, I'd be impressed. He just buying them something. Yeah, with the money he's not paying right? You know stretch for a billionaire. Investors, have you seen this one investors are suing? To vote on ESG proposals, meet corporate pushback. So this is okay. So, We talked about as you, so yeah, as you so, who are they suing, they're suing Chubb, I think. Yeah, actually, that's right. So a lot of companies are facing these lawsuits and they're just settling because the whole thing is stupid because they're suing because the poll Atkins and the SEC are Dopey and they're letting companies exclude, all these shareable proposals, so the the proponents are very rightly suing being like, you know, your SEC is Dopey, they're not doing their job, but two companies. Are pushing back on the lawsuits, they're not settling. They're actually like, you know, they're they're they're they're they're fighting and that's Chubb. And BJ's, BJ's Wholesale Club. I love this Chubb and BJ's I got two most sophomore companies, I can think of now. So I looked at some of the, the governance that these companies Chubb. There's three, there's 13 directors, only three or women. So that's 23% of the Border women with 13%, total influence so they don't listen to women at Chubb. Okay, all okay. Yeah, that sounds like every place. So here's the question, here's the quiz question. There are only three women on Chubbs board. How many Michaels are there on Chubbs board? Oh, At least three. Yeah. At least three I'm gonna go. Yeah, that's right. It's three. Yeah. Three Michaels and three women. Well, well. Let's be fair. One is Michael, one is Mike and one is the m dog, right? Like that's yeah, I don't know, I don't know if that's true CEO and chair. Evan Greenberg has been at the at the helm for 22 years. How many years has he served along lead? Independent director? Michael Connors? How long is Michael Connors been? Oh well, we know the average lead independent director, 10 years, 12 years. So at least 12, right? Yeah no I'm dead serious. In the United States of America. We consider somebody a lead independent director when they've been there on average 12 years. So I'm gonna go with 14 because it's probably right, it's 15. Yeah, yeah. See Know, the database. So the point is here, Chubb doesn't give a shit about Cheryl. We should do some kind of Static analysis. And I I think you're gonna find a lot of these types of companies are the ones who don't care about their shareholders. Well the more insular the board and the longer tenure growth activities in the bore the more, bro. Heavy it is? Yeah, they tend not to but but what's interesting is will they let in at like the anti-woke proposals because we're seeing the trend is reversed where we're seeing like as you sew and make Richie, they get in tossed like they're getting no action effectively, but the companies are letting through all the anti woke to get a solid 1% supports every single time. So, Well, hats off to Starbucks. They and I and I did make this a prediction. We did a crossover show with Sheryl Primacy. I, I did think it would be, like, kind of a Bellwether of which companies just say, yes, right? I mean, Starbucks seem to say yes, because my point was like, why why would you exclude? These like, at least take a poll of your, of your investors or something, so you recognize that. It doesn't take you any time if you just make no recommendation with any of them because what do you care? And, you know, that 99% of them are going to fail. They almost never win. And the companies in the board are liars. This is there's no expense. There's no, there's no time commitment to these. It's you just put them up on the proxy. Does that? Well, let's say, let's say there is an expense in the average expense that they've estimated is like 100,000 dollars. Not proposal because you need to hire an external lawyer know. Like buy know buy rule you have to bring in a third party lawyer to review whatever it is. But let's say That is true you are still talking about less than the cost of a single executive at any of these companies it's basically like Mark Zuckerberg has a 20 million dollar security cost. Yeah well that I understand. So we're we are fucking worried about the ten dollars. You have to spend for Bernie's like back yard law to look at your proposal and put it on a proxy which Bernie's back door laws. Yeah. All right, BJ's 30% women with 14% influence who -60 percent? Yeah. Two of the 10 key Executives at. BJ's are women, okay. That's the backdrops right? Yeah, it does seem like a lot. So with that information how many of BJ's Six keyboard leadership positions are held by women. Not right, none? Yeah, you don't get to 30% female influencer 30%. Female board, with 14% influence. I mean, this. Yeah. Do not want to hear a woman's input. They are. Yeah, they're shut up ladies. Despite the fact that, I mean, I've never been to BJ's Wholesale Club. I am assuming it's a lot, like, Costco. I gotta tell you the primary Shopper is I see it Costco or women. I mean, so this, but this company does not give a crap. They don't want to hear input about from women. BJ's. Own. I don't even Walmart. Oh, you're right. That's Sam's Club. That's, I get them confused because it's Sam Walton. That's right. Yeah, so BJ's is just stupid. Okay. Let's oh one more. Only one more quiz question. Yeah. Wow. Does this? This is the best show we've ever done. I thought we were gonna take a lot more time on the, on the French story but I think that the only you care about that the producers were right to actually through, I will. Yeah. What was the juxtaposition? You were angry about. That was the juxtaposition between French company and Starbucks. You have a situation at Starbucks where Marissa Mayer is on the board of Starbucks with Brian Nichol and on the board of Walmart with Brian Nichol. You have a situation where Brian Nichol made 96 million dollars in reported pay not realized pay last year. The company is not doing better. You're going to like nude store and Beth Ford were targeted by multiple shareholders for you know, problems that they had because you know the committee they got dissolved, no one is held. Accountable, you're telling me that having a direct board interlock Gives you 99% approval from investors. But one guy doesn't speak French and the Wolf fucking country flips out as they should have. Yeah, but like is investors clearly don't care about. Anything in this country. The point is that you're slightly wrong because the country the US has freaked out about Brian Nichols pay, I've seen more Reporting about his pay. And remember last year at a 6,666 pay rates to one pay ratio. Yeah, I've seen more reporting in the regular news, more Angry customers and investors at least retail investors. Then I've seen in a while you pay like negotiated with the unions that form know, there's of the bullshit at Starbucks and it's still not done what on Earth is happening in. Which investors think oh that is totally fine protected class. Yeah, I give credit to Canada and Quebec they fought back. It's not a protected class up. Well, that's why a blew my mind, because it's like, like there are a couple companies that is we easy to sort of, get angry with give the fact that Starbucks has shit returns, right? Like if you care about anything having to do with the stock market, whether it's returns or earnings or governance, or whatever. It is Starbucks, is a model candidate to vote against and yet somehow the front that the head of Eric Hannah got tossed for not saying bonjour and a Jew enough and in this country nothing happens in fact on LinkedIn today. I just put up in the scene from the scene Because I was so frustrated with the fact that investors care. So little about the Starbucks board that I took our 10 years of drinks drinks database. So if you don't know, Starbucks directors are forced to pick their favorite drink and put it in the proxy. I took the 2026 drinks and I correlated them to the votes and it turns out investors the only correlation that matter. It wasn't performing, it wasn't bored interlocks and connections. It wasn't their knowledge of the board of the teams it was directors who picked the highest sweetened heavy. You know sugary drinks. Got the on average the lowest votes for that was the only thing that yeah the European drinks like the latte's. Those all got the highest votes the pure octane drinks like the the black coffees and like americanos those. Those got middle votes and sugary drinks. Got the funny. You say that because I was doing analysis of that before The conference at CII, I believe it or not. I was I was doing now so Starbucks and and the reporting online says that those drinks that you referred to are more associated with women and young and young women like like the sugary colorful. So I'm not surprised at that. That's the correlation of there's a low vote correlation there. You know, we started a theory back in the day and all of our theories are correct. 100% correct. Yeah, people don't pick up on them, they're idiots. But remember there was a, there was a point of time where a lot of companies were hiring, Southeast, Asian, CEOs, and we picked up on this. and, We talked about it, what Howard Schultz was doing was he was maintaining control of his Empire. He was giving himself away to Boomerang back in, in case it didn't work out and it was easy to fire locksmith nearest semen. If his plan didn't work at 18 months because he's just the Southeast Asian CEO. No one cares about him, and that's exactly what happened. So, to your point, the, I, I think the investors were happy just to fire laxman, right? Like that, that was the sacrificial lamb in the situation, right? Well, let's I mean to round out the theory because this is your theory. We saw this at with such an Adela, we saw it at Google alphabet with Toby. Hi. We saw it at Adobe. Well, you know, around a while, but we saw it FedEx with a lot of Superman. There's a lot of these examples in which you have generally outside Founders, or dual class shares or, you know, like big Maladies or like, as CEOs, who stepped struggling your company starts struggling, you know, they step down, they put in place a quiet, unassuming, Southeast Asian male, that people can't yell at that. No one gets angry and that no one will think about right now, everyone knows about Brian Nichol and his horrible paper. No one knows about laxman near semen. They give him an 18 to 24 month lease on the company. And then they if a month to month, if the company does well they keep them around but they never takes the credit. Yeah. But if the company fails they immediately fire them. God and then they replace him with a another outside Big Mouth. Fucking white guy. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. All right, the last question of the day for the quiz. The Fabulous quiz of March, 31st 2000. Come up with, here's the headline. A CEO trying to re Industries America. Says, Blue Collar is headed for massive hyper inflation and kids Should Skip college to become welders. Yeah, we see this a lot recently, we're seeing a lot of CEOs or basically saying, Colleges horrible. Uh, just do manual labor. That's the future. They want some rocks. I'm excited to get back to that. We can build the pyramids. Let let us figure all the complicated stuff out. You don't go to you know, don't go to college. Don't worry about it. Just work on your pecs so that you can push that Bolder up the hill, right? Yeah. Not only that. We will take all the money from when the boulders at the top of the hill. Oh, well of course. Yeah. And don't unionize, but don't worry about it. Yeah. Okay, so this is from a company called Hadrian automation. I'm going to explain this country this company to you. A high tech manufacturing company that builds software defined factories. For the Aerospace and defense industries, of course, using AI powered software. So, unlike a traditional machine shop, which relies on the the knowledge of its veteran machinists, right? This relies on AI to figure, just say to become a machinist. Yeah, but again, we don't we don't want the, we don't need knowledge, we just need brute strength, right? Oh, just need someone, who could hold the fiery Implement. Yeah, you don't need them to know what they're doing. The AI is now the Brain Trust and and you're going to toil what, what a fucking horrible version of humanity. Hey, I only I only captured this because this is a just like with the cells, these Asian CEOs, we didn't just mention it because it happened once. There was a pattern forming that had never existed in governance before, and it's the same here. This is a pattern we're seeing with American CEOs. What is the name of Hadrian CEO? Okay, I got a multiple choice. Oh, good. Because I have no idea. Is it Duke Thunder? Come on, Rex charger. Oh wait, these are real? Yeah, it's a multiple choice. Chris power. Oh no, Blaze Canon or jackhammer. It Jack Hammer is not because like it's Jackhammer you just you just unportal, did you Jackhammer? Um, Rex charger is, it's not that's not that Duke Thunder. It's not that Blaze. Canon is just absurd enough that it could be that but it's Chris power. That's my guess. Yes, Chris power. Are they not? Names at all. That's just purely. So, the final question today, if the quiz did Chris power graduate from college? No, he did not. Of course not there are new. These are our new leaders. There are they are boys who drop out of college and then tell us how to run the world. This is Me I know everything I'm gonna do it all with AI which is all so developed by other college. Can I just say though, like, for the record? Was by far the greatest pool. Well, you know what I loved about the Xerox pool. That no one else to care about is that the first three answers were all three. And I was And in my head, I thought it was funny because Xerox is like a copy. I was like, loving this. When I was riding it, I know we got at Hazel, never rolla's. Jamie and two his mom, I'm your analyst told, Matt miscarriage, we are free float. Come back on Thursday. Do we have a proxy countdown? Are we supposed to have? Let's see, there's not a lot going on, but let's try to scrape something together and I try on it. Just not a lot of Meaning? No, like we'll just do a data. Why don't I just leave it? And then Friday. We got our wrap up of the week. Oh yeah. This is a shelter privacy coming out tomorrow. That's what. Thank God and Lipton. Finally, we get some intelligent people in the room until then good. Bye.