Transcript
Come on. There it is. Yeah, live. Not live analyze, come on it's Friday. That's your It's Your Thing be excited to 3D weekend until next time live from your ESG Barbecue Pit. It's a business pants Friday show here, August 30th Studios featuring all your favorites are the data Queen and analysts whole Matt mascardi. Yeah. So much in like a month. It sounds like you're slurring your words. Come on, get excited. I'm stoked. We're finally back. We had a long break. Nice little summer break. I'm pumped, we're all back. I got some good stories on today's weekly wrap-up. Super Evil Tech CEO, bro, villains, not named musk or Altman. Australia. Legalizes aloofness. Oh, I like that one. Ford and Lowe's polish, their Maga Shields and the Business News renames, LeBron James, as Los Angeles, Laker basketball player. So accurate Today's Show is brought to you by free flow analytics.com. Everything you ever want to know about? Who runs public companies all free. And you know what? If you have any questions about all the incredible data on that site, free flow, analytics.com, reach out to us, we'll walk you through some of it. We're happy to do that. I've actually got two announcements for you. Number one, is there, we set up a new piece of our website? Unfortunately, it's not part of that LLC know. It's, it's like the corporate site LLC. Okay. There's a new section. You don't see ya. Go there. There's a new section called Data drops. And there will be data from this show that you can buy. Yes for maybe from all our shows, maybe all our shows data drops the source, it's a music. Oh, I like that. Okay, so I gotta come up with that. I'll put that on my something haunting. So I already again, we'll talk about this later. But is free float dot LLC. You'll see a link for data drops. You go there and we're going to do this regularly. Yeah. Every one of our shows where we talk about a data set, we will put something there. We'll make it cheap. You can buy it. Download it it's yours. It's an Excel file. You can play with it tinker and yeah don't be a jerk if you need a 10% off because you're cheap, we'll give you a coupon. Just call, Just, Right. Giving them 10% off. Don't let it hold you back. And second, we are expanding our free float, media Empire. We have a new podcast as we speak. They're recording right as just they were recording the Great. Mike Levin and Ann Lipton. Yeah um 11 is the head of the activist investor? He does a newsletter he works with activists investors on all sorts of issues and and Lipton is a professor at Tulane covering corporate governance and she's. All right, she's the she's a bit more than that. She's the law schools associate Dean for faculty. I mean, she's big deal is what she is. They're both pretty big deal. They are have their own podcast that free flow media is producing for them because it's in our world. It's just our universe you're talking about all sorts of cool stuff. Here's the only problem with this is that the great and Lipton she actually graduated from Stanford so oh Stanford anymore. Is that no part of that? That's not part of. No. Okay that works. But their their podcast is gonna drop soon. It's called shareholder Primacy. Yeah. And so look out for that. We'll give you more details when the first one drops. But, Let's do something else. Get to it. What is the story? Come on, let's go. Forgotten how old we do. or maybe this is a story the last few weeks because we've A few shows telling you I think I'll do my best here. The biggest news I'm starting with is out of France. Always all my stories are out of France telegram, CEO. Although I got to tell you, this is gonna be a running theme in my stories today and some of my complaints later but they didn't even name the guy in the headline. Oh yeah, I mean listen to the stories but they don't but listen to what's going on. They don't even name this guy telegram, CEO. Charged with numerous crimes and his band from leaving, France. Wow, this is a pretty serious. His name, his name is Pavel durov, I don't why the hell do you leave out his name that important, but in a nutshell, The charges against the telegram, CEO Pavel Dura of this is a guy we don't talk about a lot because it's not a publicly traded company. But it's important. Because this essentially overlaps everything we talk about with people, like Mark Zuckerberg, you know, Tech Bros, Social Media Tech Bros. So in a nutshell, the charges alleged that he failed to prevent illicit activity on the app, charges charges include complicity in enabling criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, illegal transactions, Rod sharing, child, sexual abuse material and the refusal to cooperate with law enforcement and of course, The the mighty wonderful defense against this, as always is this, this is the quote from the company, it is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform. Oh, is that absurd? Who else are you gonna blame? Who, who else you come after the shareholders us? Their rest is Zuckerberg too. Well, that's okay. That's why this is important. That's why big deal. They're all worried, in fact, I, there was a headline I pulled this morning. I believe that Elon Musk now is already threatening not to travel anywhere because he's a worried about getting arrested which is great for those of us who love to vacation in France. Good great. It's another reason to go to France because elon's now, too, scared, probably to travel there. I love that. All you have to do is not create a platform that allows for drug trafficking sexuality. All I have to do is that and I can go to France. Got it done and the billionaires are like oh shit. And what's the Shady dude? Anyway he's got he's got four passports four. Oh, I don't like that so much, but this is, but this is this, the CEO of a company or is this basically a criminal, right? I mean, what is going on here? Why does this guy need four? Passports to begin with. I mean, so I know section 230 is like everybody's concerned with this, right? Like it basically means that you you could be liable criminally for what happens on your and second like isn't this about like isn't everyone's up in arms about the free speech thing. What it's like, oh, tell what is telegram? Is like a peer-to-peer messaging like social media and messaging system. So, and it's not supposed to be traceable, a lot of CEOs, like, a lot of CEOs communicate via stuff like telegram, which means, I don't know, maybe free speech is at risk. So to speak, quote, on quote, That's what elon's gonna say. So, if your employees were, using your break room to come up with like a master criminal World Enterprise, where you're, you know, targeting, you know, I don't know your sex trafficking I don't know what you're doing a legal drug trade. Yeah, those people are gonna get arrested but if you're doing on a social media platform that comes Under the Umbrella of free speech, right? Yeah. But I do it. I do like that. The there was another story about like a mining CEO and Austria I got that later. Yeah. Oh you got a later like locking down employees. Meanwhile this CEOs are on telegram talking to each other. Yeah. Yeah. That's the first story. Anyone else? Yeah. Anything that you look like, you're about to say something, are you look beautiful? The second big story of the week, which is something that I think we generally missed because we're all away. Correct? Me from wrong, man. I don't know if you covered this. In one of the it wasn't covered, it wasn't Starbucks. My favorite Starbucks. Starbucks is my favorite corporate governance company. It is the company, the gift that keeps giving. There's if you're a company corporate governance nerd like myself. Oh, it just opened up the Starbucks, you know, proxy, look at their latest AK, there's always something fun for us, won't us. No, no. the latest news, of course, is they have a new CEO Hit the headline is a week ago, Starbucks. New CEO. Of course he's not named was a messiah and then everyone found out about his 1,000 mile private jet super commute. So that's a long commute. Here's what's going on here and believe it or not Aryan. Matt, he actually has a name, his name? Oh Brian Nichols. All right. I don't know it's not history, Brian Nichols. This is the CEO who came over from Chipotle, he actually rescued Chipotle. Matt. Thank you remember, thank you. Back in the day when we used to talk about Chipotle, we used to basically make fun of them because that was the place where you go to get diarrhea, right, or exterior or something. That's true. Yeah, that's all you got. So, this is the man that they're supposedly crediting with turning around Chipotle and now he's joining Starbucks to turn around. I don't know what they need to turn around. I mean, there every time I drive by a Starbucks to drive through Lane is, like, cut is out into traffic. It's like blocking traffic. They're so they sold us coffees last year 7. So that's why, so here, and here's the corporate governance wonder that I love that keeps on giving. So, here's sort of the, the details of this is what makes this so fascinating. First of all, locksmen narrow Seaman, who is now out, he was the, the South East Asian CEO that they hired when all companies were hiring southeast Asia, right. Cool. It was super cool. But the difference Was at that time is that he was not hired. He was hired purely as the CEO. So mellody Hobson remained the chair, that's right. And Howard Schultz the founder and former CEO 17 times remained. Hovering in fact, criticizing him on LinkedIn, right? Like immediately, I think the job. Yeah. And locksmith wasn't even allowed to take over a CEO. Remember? He was like, CEO and training for several months that's like it from the beginning, right? That was not great. They never trusted him. We we constantly joked that. This is a boomerang CEO situation, right? Because we knew it wasn't going to last because they were treating him like they treated ball ball. Chip Pick over his Disney which is they treated him horribly. But what's happening here with Brian Nichols that he's actually coming in? Not only as the CEO but as the chair immediately. So Melody Hobson, my favorite is out which is a shame. She's not no longer going to be the chair at Starbucks. I don't know what this means. I don't know if she's gonna stay on the board or not. The other part of this is that they are throwing a ton of shareholder money at the new CEO. So, in a nutshell, the big story that everyone was talking about is that Despite the fact that there are returned to work office mandates at Starbucks. This dude is allowed with the company jet to fly from his residence in Newport Beach. California to Seattle Washington. There you go. So he's so it says right in his office letter, write his offer letter. You will not be required to relocate to the company's headquarters right there in the offer letter. That was the deal. We made Ari when we got this office. Yeah. Um, I've walked to the office from Ari's house. I don't know why she's such a wimp when it comes. She, we, we told her she doesn't have to relocate from the point, nine miles away, from here, to here, two turns it's a turn left out of her house, right? I don't want to give away where she works where she lives. Okay, so quickly. He's getting 1.6 million salary. Locksmen had one point three million. There's a little policy thing I love here is that the base seller can be increased but it can't be decreased unless everyone unless everyone at the company sellers being decreases. Actually says it may not be decreased without your Express, written consent, written consent. Yes, like that. So is this guy that emperor of Starbucks or he I don't know. Is he an employee? I don't understand this. At least he would have to like write it in a special, kind of ink and notarize it with us with like a wax seal in order for it to be official, his Target bonus is already higher than locksmith. And in fact, they're eliminating, 15% of laxman's annual bonus was based on ESG like metrics metrics. Those are gone. Those are completely get their baby. His his Target Equity bonus every year is 23 million dollars. Locksmith was about 14 million dollars, his signing bonus is 10 million dollars in cash and up to 80 million dollars in equity, laxman was only 1.6 million cash in seven point two million in me, that I feel bad for relaxing. So well look, Millions of dollars. I was like, oh man I got that guy got jipped. It does song that be here's why I'm pouring this all out is all this is a amounts to a corporate governance failure, right? All of this amounts to having one person with too much influence, Howard Schultz without any counterbalance because their failure to succession plan properly is is, is needing to throw just a ton of cash at somebody knew after a year, right? I don't, I don't know that are your read on? This is correct. I think laxman was fired because in the proxy in his first proxy where he he was listed there as CEO. He said his favorite drink was a doppio Mucky eado with steam, skim milk. I think they were like, nobody likes to doppio machado's. Do you think he was being disingenuous? Do you think he was not manly enough, like what's the problem with that? I mean, well, let's say this full fat only. Yeah, no one no one should go for. Themes for as healthy and Jorgen nude store, who is the head of the nominating committee. His favorite drink was a caramel macchiato straight up. So yeah, the doppio macchiato was steamed skim. He was probably like, what kind of pretentious drink is that, like, just put some sugar on the fucking macchiato and be well with it. What? Matt's alluding to something that I loved one of my favorite things is that every year in the Starbucks proxy statements, we get to learn what their favorite coffee drink is. So we get to learn what this former CEO at Chipotle drinks. Loves and coffee. Just now, are you love Chipotle you love Starbucks? What do you think? What do you think his favorite drink will be at Starbucks? How do you counterbalance the lovely spice blend at Chipotle? I bet you. He goes for coffee black. Oh, he hopping it to Orange Credit. I will say that. I actually sometimes when I have a little spicy. Chocolate little spicy something. I actually love the way. It tastes with us with a black coffee. So maybe, she's on to something. Straight. All right. The Second Story and when anything else to say better. Oh no I don't talk. I have more coming up anyway. All right, I just I didn't want to add a little side. Note here. This this Starbucks, the filings is fully now made it clear to me that the word chair is gendered. Okay? Because They they're offering him the new role of CEO and chairman and they refer to mellody Hobson's chair. So there is officially a gender term. And I've been yelling about this now for about 20 years. Why can't you call everyone in a chair? Why does it? Why are we, where are we at chairman? What the hell is going on? Why can't everyone be a chair? What are you a socialist into trans people? That sounds what combo Harris wins the president, she should. We call her president lady. Like, what are we going to call her presence? President third story of the week. These are quick stories. I like to have four stories. So, I added a couple more pelotons, former billionaire CEO. Again, they didn't have his name in the headline. A John Foley says he's lost all his money and had to sell his position. Oh no we don't. He had a stupid bike that he connected to the internet. I just More stories like this. I like when billionaire CEOs are selling their possessions. And finally, in a sad note, former Youtube CEO and longtime longtime Google executive Susan will chicky has died at 56 Susan. Yeah, I saw that. Anyway. Those are my, those are, the four big things. I feel like we missed when we're away. All right, I think it's very obvious. I'm gonna go first. Yeah, the summary here is telegrams, CEO Pavel. Durham charged with crimes Starbucks. Messiah got hired and is being flown 1000 miles per day and peloton's former CEO sold all his stuff and former Youtube. CEO Susan, Wiki dies. Do you think he had a garage sale? Oh yeah, tag sale. Yeah. Yard sale, John John Foley. Oh, I was thinking Pebble of garage still, get rid of all of his illegal. I wonder if Christie's runs garage sales for billionaires. Like, how does that work? I'm going to pick up CEO. Yeah. getting charged, I'm supposed to pick that, but But well it's not a publicly traded company. That's the only strike against it. No, it's definitely the bigger story. Um but I don't like it as much as the Starbucks CEOs. Why? The Starbucks CEO story may be right? This time I'm gonna make you I'm gonna make you do. This is a hard one, the Starbucks CEO story is like the offer letter was written by Melody Hobson. Who was demoting herself? I know and it is like the ultimate in Could you think of a bigger slap to the face if you're laxman by the it was the stock was up 25% on the announcement is that right? Oh nothing else changed from Day Zero to day one except Brian Nicholas was named CEO and was out. Yeah. And it went up 25%. He hasn't done anything yet. Upper letter starts from mellody Hobson. It is my pleasure to offer you the my job. Yeah, my job because it starts with the position of chairman. She starts with chairman so, so it's her pleasure. Chairman. We're already said that, that's true. He was chair right chair. So she's she gave him a different position because it's a better signs off already. She signs off the letter as current independent Starbucks board of directors chair. So right, I love everything about that. I know I'm not supposed to think that's the story of the week but I'm not that anyway. So well, like the classic I know it. I know because the story is telegram but Starbucks. Well, this is a tough one. My first instinct was I was hoping you both say Telegram and I I'd like wildly complain that it should be Starbucks because they're the greatest gift to corporate governance. But but The telegram story. This, this could be day one of of something important. I don't know. I mean it very well might be like go away, but but we could be witnessing the change of the landscape of social media. So, yeah. So I'm I'm gonna put my, I'm gonna break the tie and say that that's the story that we can, hold. That actually means something correct. All right, here, let's go on. Before this is a 40-hour show. Great segue. From Hope to good change. Hope, hope you change you Come on Ari? Yeah are you come on? Are the data Queen? Come on. Listen to this new law gives Australians the right to ignore their bosses emails after hours. Oh, wait a minute. Does that mean you not gonna respond to wait? I'm not your boss. I don't know. During hours. Hey, can you look at your email thinks? I, I legitimately it would be like a week we'd have like a client emailing Ari. And I'd be like, I didn't see that you founded. I'm not your mom. Did you check your email? You see like, oh yeah, not a great look. Anyway, yeah, I am. So we all know this is bullshit, right? Because you you will fall behind if you're not responding to your you're Australian boss, right? Well and this isn't I don't think this is the first country that's done. I think Portugal that's at it, right? No. Okay. People I think it's gonna do with like the Beach Boys, I think did it decriminalized all drugs and they gave you permission to to be high on cocaine at night and not check your email which is yeah this is actually I actually think those are the two sides of this coin. That's the only two sides, all right here, if you're high on cocaine you probably would be responding to email. Yeah, that's emailing. Number two, Apple Store workers. Get first, you ask contracts. Wait didn't you already cover? This is, it didn't they already do this, they just got the contract, the workers at the first United, Apple Store in the country was that Maryland and Maryland? Yeah, they ratified the labor contract on Tuesday. It's been two years since they voted to join the International Association of years and Aerospace workers. Good. Do we like, is this? This is fast. Right, two years. Are they Machinists? They have to check it work with high like, you know, take tolerances hats off to the Apple Store workers in general. Every time I go to the Apple Store, there's like there's 40 of them swarming around and I still can't get anyone to help me. I don't make an appointment online with me and they're helpful up here. There's 47 people on. I'm looking around being like, excuse me, and they're like, I'm sorry I'm with somebody else. Excuse me, I'm sorry, I can't help you because you live in Dopey state. This goes along with my year. What about yearly predictions that white collar workers? If we call them white collar workers, they are and the movement towards unions keep on growing and you're right notice? How despite Ah, and lastly, US National Parks. What I was gonna say, just so the audience knows at home that buzzing you here, that's actually not any one of us, we have an AI system set up that it interprets. It is wrong. Not as an example too. It is interpreting our speech and some of the times it buzzes facts, if we're, if we're, you know, stating things as facts like Ari saying what white collar workers are going to unionize the bud, the AI buzzer will correct her. So yeah. I can't wait for you guys in AI to tell me how I'm so wrong about this. But the national parks the receiving, the largest gift in history of 100 million dollars and it's coming from the little and diamond. Who's that? Which is the Eli Lily. Oh no drug company. Know, that doesn't have. any duration, but I had The name. Oh the AI said it does and that's like saying the oversight board up. Facebook has nothing to do with Mark Zuckerberg. This is the largest gift of History to the next. That's it. Really. I feel like every college in America gets that gift from some billionaire, like everything. I feel like we're begging people incorporations with tons of money to give five dollars to a park every once in a while, and then we celebrate it so. Well, they're gonna do really like restoring coral reefs. So yeah, they'll do you can't, you can't boo on that. I don't want to go. I don't want to go behind the scenes here and call out already, but I am a little disappointed that she already actually passed on a story. I was very excited about which is, I don't, I didn't I didn't read it, so I did. But it says have swiss scientists made a chocolate, right? I really want to know what that's about. I read that this is one that re did not put up for goodly, but Swiss scientists, the home of chocolate scientist. That way they have figured out it is the process currently, is you grow the cacao fruit? You take out the seeds, you throw away, everything else, and that's the season of chocolate, and then you add sugar and all this other stuff. It turns out that you can use the cacao fruit, there's natural sugar in it. Oh, use the rest of the fruit, including the husk and make a naturally. Sweet version of chocolate using the whole without using refined sugar and it's like win win, win on this one. Like I would have voted for that one. I didn't know they don't, it's not even up just sugar. Police. Yeah. Swiss chocolate scientists don't realize that you can eat all of the vegetable and fruit. You don't have to that cucumber. Don't be a big baby. Like, you can actually eat it. In fact, that the start of the story says I'm imagine if you bought an apple opened up, the Apple took out the seeds and threw away the Apple. That's effectively what they do with chocolate. Wow, that is I love the visual on that. Well, they said it's roughly like the, the fruits can be as big of as a pumpkin and the seeds are like the size of a quarter, right? So it's like, you know proportionally, it's closed. All right, but you're actually on that are you can ignore your your bosses emails in Australia after hours, Australia are Apple workers, get the first contract. Two years after ratified. Becoming a union and US National Parks, get 100 million dollar gift have a strong feeling. Yeah, I hate all. And so is the AI I had to did I vote for the Swiss chocolate or no, he's not allowed me. I'll always go for. A contract. So I'll just go Apple Store. There you go. I'm voting for it. Yeah, a law that gives us Australians the right to ignore their bosses emails after hours. Mostly because the Goodluck part of that is imagine the lawsuit. When like someone gets fired and the lawsuit, is you fired me because I didn't respond to your emails after hours, right? That'd be great. I would email after hours was like, Some erroneous code. You put in is destroying the company right now. Could you? Please could you please just help us fix that code? It's after hours now. Sorry, break the time. What's the good list there is national parks. Oh, you have this game works? Yeah, I disagrees too. Okay, well I'm always gonna go with workers. That's the right answer. Number one, moving on. Oh, what workers matters? The one at the Apple Store. Oh, so wrong. All right. What a disappointment? You two are. Come on, bring us down. We've been a little too chipper today. It is. It's nice to all be back. We're trying to actually took me like half the morning. Figure out how to record this. I'm gonna put my mega hat on for this one. All right, here's your data and your data drop. You ready for this? Oh this is so this data set will be available on our website. Free float dot LLC right now, go to freefloat. LLC go to date her drops. You can buy the data I'm talking about right now. It is six companies, with 68 directors. One of the directors actually sits on two boards out of six double match. A double double Maga hat Happening Here. 100% cowardice. That was that was actually we measured that it's 100% cowardice the headlines. And there were two of them in the last week. Yeah. Ford the latest to pull Dei u-turns face of anti-wolf Starbucks. Robby Starbucks not Starbucks, Robbie Starbucks, the asshole activist. Oh, and Lowe's, the Home Improvement store, changes Dei policy? Yeah, amid activist pressure. So here's what we're learning. Matt Home Depot, can't go to Lowe's. Keep going anywhere, don't forget chop a tree down myself. It was recently, it was Harley Davidson, right? And then before, that was Tractor Supply, there they, they always seem to be companies that thinks that it's audience. Base is a, is a white male Maga loser, right? Like, that's what they seem to be targeting. So, not included in the data, but I did try to do this analysis, I looked at retail sales by state. Relative to white male population in those States and then tried to look at the segments of these brands that sell into those States. So there I have, I had the same Theory which is There's some like fake Macho, tough guy thing, pandering about these companies where they are actually pandering to that specific audience, they're worried about that and it's not worth the Bud Light. They're worried about the Bud Light, Robbie Starbucks. Who's the activists behind a lot of these campaigns? And when I say activists, all I mean, is music has a podcaster, any tweets a bunch. He used to make music videos, right? That's what he did. Music videos, you have ran for office as a conservative and lost. He's really a nobody. He is a Troll, he's an online trolls. Effectively what he is, he is targeting these companies specifically and they are listening to him. That's crazy. And when I say they, yeah, I mean, 68 directors companies, the boards are involved in this because they can't not be the people that you rubber stamp Andy because you can't, you just can't manage to have a clue about anything. These are the people making these decisions so the most Amazing is John May. Oh who is the CEO of deer? And on the deer board is also on the board. Right? Forgot about that. It happened here earlier and he's also on the board of Ford. So he's your double coward. He's sitting on two of the boards that have backtrack. So Robbie Starbucks, just calls one guy and two companies backtrack and he gets the headline. Well, why this why this data set is so important? Is that you literally have this is literally actionable. I mean, you could instead of, and I know we're all complaining about this and we're all upset about this, but you can literally vote against the directors that make these decisions. It's that easy. Here's what in the data for you to go get, it's a super short list. What I did was I actually pulled any company that these six companies that have all done D, Dei u-turns and I also pulled all of the company the the board members on other companies. So these six companies the board members are on other boards like so I told them from their other boards because I wanted to know who could be next on a U-turn. Yeah. And Further than that, I actually pulled another all their friends, like their second degree connections. So you can see a list it's like 300 directors. Come on, make a statement at all different companies. In order to figure out these are the companies that are most likely to Cave to idiot. Pressure. Mega hat pressure about like including employees, who happen to not be white and male. Here's your top three companies that I found based on the fact that these are companies with high exposure to these states and largely white male populations that they deal with caterpillar. It hasn't happened, already had a has not happened. Yes, like a logical, it's a prediction. This is a prediction. The national public policy Center last year, demanded via a shareholder proposal that caterpillar, look at their Dei policies and the Damage they could be doing. Which means they've already been targeted by the anti-woke. But they have two directors with connections, back to these Dei cowards. That's in the data set. You can figure out who they are and those are just Big Man toys, aren't they? And caterpillar just like big digging, dirt digging Man toys? Yeah, I recently learned oh, this goes on, so dumb that it's dump truck. Not dumb truck. Dump truck. That was dumb truck. Yeah, it is a dump truck. I didn't grow up here. Okay, this all phonetically so I'm with you. I didn't grow up speaking English. I learned it. This is the second language. This guy, I learned English too, but yeah, those of us who knowing English actually, didn't learn it very well. Either company number two corteva. What's of course? What is it? They sell seeds and fertilizer. Oh, so it's literally the same Farmers buying deals something out there, right? Um, they actually have five connections, Dei cowards. And New current DUI. Cowards on the six companies on their board. Both on the deer board. Mike Joanne's and Greg Page did. It actually is overlap something else that we talked about a lot. We talk about like some of the, the regional boards. Like like we talked about the Chicago land, the mafia and the you see a lot of the same directors and Midwestern boards and and they are targeting a lot of Midwestern companies, are they not? So yeah. Surprise to me that we're seeing a lot of overlap on these directors ships. And the last company that I predicting is most likely to cave is Levi, Levi, really nice. Yeah. The yeah, your jeans, your jeans like jeans, have some sort of weird like, like, cowboy man things going on about, like, I thought they're more like crossover, Urban Frenchie, kind of maybe a little bit. It's an American company but Troy allstead sits on the Harley-Davidson board. Who did a Dei know? Tell me. And the Levi board, he's got 8% influence. And all I will say, all of the companies that just mentioned included in the data set is a flag for every company that has Dei policies. Dei targets or pays Executives based on Dei goals, meaning all the companies I'm talking about are perfect candidates to be targeted. So, Robby Starbucks, if you listening to our show, you're welcome by the data set and then every other investor, if you're listening to The Show by the data set and vote against these dwellers, if they, if they you turn, I will say there is the the only problem for Robbie is that there is a start, a Robbie Starbucks modifier. I put until the into the system, so if he actually buys a data set, it's gonna cost some 500,000 dollars. I like that. But the bad news about Levi is It's already happening at Levi, in X Levi. Exact, this is a, this is a headline from two days ago, X. Levi exec says woke Harley-Davidson CEO failed business 101 by allowing elitist jerks to rule. What the hell? Not even what is that mean? I don't even know what is this. I don't know what it means, but he says all those words and its levees and Harley-Davidson. So, we're already, we're already at crossover and this, this actually Levi exactly is not the same director. You're referring. Know, not the same directors, really? This is, this is a fascinating to me. I, I wouldn't have never Associated Levi with, with these other types of companies. So, yeah. So that's your first asshole. You your board Dei. All right, already played it. Um, so that data set available. Free float dot LLC. Yeah. What's your second second up Dell next to our not nearly as interesting. So I'm gonna lead the witnesses. Um, the data point here is 1.9% ownership, okay? That's all you need. to know that is the ownership of Mr. Howard Schultz. Yeah um the asshole here Starbucks is Starbucks bored. The autocracy loving board at Starbucks, including Jorgen nude store, who's the head of the nominating committee? Yeah, you just wanted to say your good news story. That's why you did the story. I don't even know if I'm saying that right, it could be canned storm, you know what are the chances. It's slow the nominating committee. That shows last man was rich, Allison who still on the board Sachin, Adela who's left the board and Jurgen nude storm who was chairing the committee. Then the nominating committee that fired Blackman and just hired Brian Nichol is Wei Zhang a Alibaba who joined the board in 2023. So it's been with laxman for four months, Neil Moen from YouTube who joined the board in 2024 and Jorgen nude story only guy. This is a lot of turnover in such a short time for a nominating committee to be fair. Well they they got hit by the activists last year and in order to combat the activists, they did some board refreshment with these other directors. More proof that Starbucks is the greatest gift to corporate governance nerds, but it does mean that Howard Schultz only had to talk to Jurgen nude store. He didn't have to worry about the rest of the committee. He knew that he actually has direct links to other board members having a hand chosen. Some of them or worked on other boards with them. This is a board overall. And we said this on the proxy countdown that Love's autocrats Jurgen new store, it worked for Lego the Crescent. I don't know how to say their name. Christiansen. Family, I think that's them, they all it's a family like a family, the Lego family, we have board members, who sat on Estee Lauder, um, Google right? T-Mobile who's owned partially by the German government Alibaba, Jack ma Stitch fix 23 and me both dual-class companies. These are all autocratic companies which means they're highly deferential to these Founders Echo Types on the board. Howard Schultz. Is that. So what's happening here is Howard, Schultz is like, I never liked blacksmith, just like Iger said about chapek, he's the board is largely in his pocket and the entire Nom committee got turned over except for your Jorgen, who Schultz knew from multiple boomerangs and now you have this situation, autocratic boards are assholes. They calling to an autocrat, even if it's not a dual-class company, how do you understand? How do we end up relaxing in the first place? Is it how Originals is inability to relinquish control and he thinks he could find like a puppet that's cheap. Like how what? Why make the choice in the first place? Well, he had to step down because he had backlash and pressure back. Yeah, there was a lot of pressure on actually want to step down. So we got a puppet, so he got a puppet, I think, you know, there was enough but there's enough investor backlash that he had to go and get somebody find somebody else and overpay for them. Congratulations, Howard. Yeah. So, um, that's, that's your ass over there. The asshole is autocratic starter. Got it. I like it. And the third one here. Is relatively simple. I saw this headline. The data point here is there's 62 connections between directors on this board. 62 connections between directors in the last 10 years on the on this boards and the primary knowledge type of the board. Currently is 23% computers 22% econ. When I say that, I mean, like, that's the knowledge base that the directors bring to the table. No production, no mechanical knowledge, nothing like that. The headline was Intel board member quit after differences. Over chipmakers. Revival plan. One of the board members of a name. Yes, his name is tan. His last name is tan. It's like kailu tan or something like that. He tan. That's what it is. He quit in a huff. But asshole is anyone, who's not buying our data, because okay, tan had seven point five percent influence on a board where 48% of the influence on the board was held by the CEO and three directors who are connected to the CEO and other board members right? Um, they they're knowledge, did not overlap anything they needed and then they went and made tan who had some knowledge of Chip making, they may authorize him to oversee manufacturing operations in 2023. He was annoyed because it was really inefficient and a huge Workforce and it was really bureaucratic. He brought it up with the board and guess what? The board cared about not that guy because all the influences that he had no influence, you're annoying to him just It's too bad because according to our performance indicators tan performed pretty well on the sport categories. Yeah. All of our categories. Dare you are three assholes. You've got Dei cowards, you've got Starbucks board, loving autocrats, or autocratic, loving boards and you've got anyone who doesn't buy our data, it's easy. Or what do you love that one all the time. But this time I'm going to pick the DIY calories. I mean what are we doing? I mean, not only we are we launching a new feature on our website where we're we're finally putting making our data sets available at free flow LLC but we're not going to vote for it as the data set of the week. We're not gonna we have forced to vote for this one. Yeah. But it is that correctly, I get to pick the right answer every, it's absolutely the right answer which is the assholes of the week are the board members at Ford and Lowe's, right? That's basically you've got six. Companies, plus all their friends, they're closing his friends, they're like to influence. I love the predictions there with the other company. They're all going down baby. You turn away. All right, come on. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna try to go quickly. Why don't get under an hour in the show? I in the honor of the great. What are we? The money. Whisper Jesse Scanlon. Yeah. Who was off? Repopulating the earth. I I am gonna work on her category for the time being exhausting, this of the week and maybe if you get exhausted of this, me doing this, we can scrap it all together but I quickly here my most exhausting his stories of the week first. The headline is an anti remote work. Australian mining CEO wants workers to stop stepping out for coffee. I want to hold them captive, all day long here. Yes. I but I'm not exhausted by CEOs who say things like I want to hold them up all day long. I'm actually exhausted by the business news, who once again they had one of the craziest stories you'll ever see and they fail to Name the person like because look, we know that most concerns most consumers of media and news. Now they don't even get much beyond the headline and yet they can't even tell you the dude's name and they don't even tell you the company's name, they call it Australian mining. So anyway, this his name is Chris Ellison and he works. He's a CEO at Mineral Resources. That's my first exhausting list. That is the business news is not name, the actual people, my second along those lines. Here's the headline. Super micro Computing is hindenburg's latest Target what history says about the Outlook, a short seller, Hindenburg research published report about glaring, accounting red flags. And what the story what the business news again is missing is who Who, who is super micro Computing? It's run by two people who have 84% of influence according to our metrics. And they are a husband and wife team who co-founded the company in the 90s and the third highest influence with 7% is a third co-founder who also was a former executive. This is who might be behind the glory accounting, red flag. There's no counterbalance at supermarket Computing, mostly I love that. They needed to publish a report that says, company run by husband wife teen sketchy, right? Like like come on people already doesn't sound good and I looked at their last voting results of this company. Stop, stop rubber stamping, all directors, at every company. the third one, I'm just Exhausted by this, this is Zuckerberg in general. There's a headline. Zuckerberg says the Biden Administration pressure, Facebook, to send to censor some covid-19 content during the pandemic. I just thought this was I just, I did this one because it's just made me laugh. What he was talking about is being pressured to take down. A certain covid-19 content, including humor and satire. That's all upset about. Yeah, you know, the fact is She's pressured by the Trump Administration eight months earlier. Of course, about the covid content as well. Could you could be killing people with all your misinformation and but he's saying this now because it's an election and he political he's taking a side without taking a side. I'm just by by Zuckerberg's constant, he constantly does this right? Like remember when he was being pressured in the past he's like well if if I don't do this China is going to do it and then you know China's fall just I'm just exhausted of the act and finally no one's really mentioned him in the show so I apologize for it. But here's the headline Elon Musk threatened a top Brazil judge who moved to block X and the country. So so a judge in Brazil is threatening to block the ex Twitter if it doesn't appoint a local legal, representative mocks. Oh God, I'm losing my ability to speak Elon Musk responded. With an image showing this Justice behind bars with the message. One day that this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark, my words guy. This guy is now threatening judges in Brazil. Here's why I'm exhausted because Tesla shareholders continue to look the other way. Tesla board continues to do nothing. Here's some other Tesla headlines. This just this week while he's threatening a judge in Brazil, cybertruck, cyber truck catches fire after running into fire hydrant and getting wet Tesla's. Full self-driving. Still doesn't even work in a single Lane tunnel. I like that. And this caused Tesla to quietly. Delete a claim to all old Teslas will be capable of self-driving. Tesla drivers say new. Self-driving update is repeatedly running red light, Elon Musk. Twitter deal. May be the worst Leverage. Buyout deal for banks, since Lehman, raising risks to Tesla BMW, overtakes Tesla's as it leads the EV Market in Europe and Tesla. Investor robber says, he's been dumping the stock because no one wants the companies cars or robots. So all those alone could give shareholders a reason to fire Elon Musk like they did locksmith near a semen. I drank a doppio macchiato with steamed milk and they fired him. This guy, threatens judge, and his radical World threatening a judge with his image. And and with the words that this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark my words, this is the CEO. What your publicly traded company? What are you doing? Sat there and Photoshop doing this or did he just tell us intern? Hey, you know, yeah, well, he must have a head of me myology, that just says, and turns into a picture. Actually, the story suggested that was an AI generated image. So it was grok, it was probably grok his stupid AI, which his own policies say he's not allowed to do like like certain images, right? Like if he says this picture of you will be real, mark my words that's not satire. That isn't like, isn't there like a policy though? The whole thing? But but this is the problem we're looking at each individual thing and we argue on its merits and we point How ridiculous it is. But when you look at the body, the Corpus, the whole Corpus, right? This is fucking ludicrous that he has a job. I don't care how rich she is, I don't care what great idea. He had 15 years ago to buy Tesla and turn it into like a car that people actually drive. He has killed so much like, like Goodwill that built up. It's unbelievable. He's lost a job. All right. So you yeah, your options here are and Australian mining CEO named. Chris Ellison at Mineral Resources wants to hold his workers captive, all day long, but again, I'm exhausted not buy that. I'm exhausted by the fact that they can't even tell you his name. Also, exhausting is the, the super micro story where they didn't name, the fact that they didn't name, that's a husband wife team of the trouble. Running your company for 30 years and you're, you're surprised that they're surprises, there might be some accounting. Red flags Zuckerberg was quote, unquote pressure. Oh, to try to try to help the government. Save lives, in Elon Musk. You don't have to say anything anymore. Um, I am most exhausted by just, I don't know how he has a job. I'm most exhausted by Zuckerberg here because Zuckerberg appears to be the adult in the room. When it comes to social media. Now, that musk is literally full. But musk is, is a total. He's been a train wreck for years. At this point Zuckerberg, we still look at that. And we're like, oh, you know, like we will give him a pass but Zuckerberg's often worse. I don't go with Zuckerberg. Yeah, I mean and the shameful thing about Zuckerberg too is that he doesn't even, he doesn't even pretend to have a corporate governance structure. That is a counter balance at least Elon. Like he kind of fakes it with some independent directors, he doesn't control majority of the of the voting shares. Zach has never cared. He does not care. This is his dictatorship. There's no one else there other than Sheryl Sandberg who kind of helped him learn how to be a CEO. Nobody tells Zuck what to do. So I'll break the top by agreeing with Ari that Elon Musk. Yeah, I was confused. Let's talk about Zuckerberg trying to get out of this show with our headlining so the week Um, well this is our we were first consensus headline. Our first first time the two of us have chosen headline. I didn't know Ari was gonna be here this week, but two of us chose the same headlines. Matt, you want to tell us that the winning headline is that we both chose? I saw this headline and laughed. Actually out loud. This is one of the best ESG headlines we've ever seen. This is a quote. Yeah, I fell off a horse, got divorced, came out and left my job inside an ESG execs Whirlwind year. Come on. Yeah. What the hell is that? It was the head of like stewardship at UBS, you know, United States or something like that. But if really fabulous, maybe this is why the anti-e crowd is growing because because they, they perceived to all ESG execs, right horses. Yeah. Probably not the coming out parties horse riders, but you did have a second. A B-side headline that I liked, I just the Poetry of this hats off to the headline writers at Fox business.com. I just think this is a beautiful sounding headline and an awesome Made Me. Maybe pause and think about our world really maybe a little hungry. There's that one. Okay. Soaring sausage sales. Could indicate economic turmoil as consumers, turn away from costlier meets. Yeah, that's good. Beautiful. It is beautiful. I didn't know that. I didn't know that that buying sausage was an indication of a Down of a Down economy. That's like buying like all the head part really left over from a pig and I am up and putting I hate sausage every whether the economy is up or down. So I don't know, I don't know what's the matter with you. Yeah, I think you're an idiot. I have one too. You guys have a couple more. Turns out Martin shkreli. Copied his two million dollar Wu Tang album and he sent it to 50 different chicks. This is right. So the former farmer bro who went to prison right? Martin Charlie, who bought the the album, the rights to the the Wu-Tang album? Like and he was what he was forbidden from making copies? Is that this addition here? Yeah and he was exclusively for his ears and he paid 2 million dollars for it. Then he did all the crab, got in trouble, all his stuff got seized so then the government sold the album and turns out there are 50 other company he copies and sent it to 50 different chicks. The weird headlines. What a great one. Matt. What I'm I only had one other one. My B-side foxtel CEO, Patrick Delaney named, oh named and CEO. Yeah, I love it. Great headline writer, Fox. Tell CEO, Patrick Delaney apologizes for Nazi salute photos. Wow! I just like what is your apology? Allowed to apologize for that. Shouldn't have done a Nazi salute like well what do you know apology you and here's why he was named because it was not the business news that reported that that was deadline.com. So that's actually in all real movie. Yeah. All right, let's get out of here. Have a good winner coming out of a place we don't really see this from where's your winner? It's the public parks in Florida. Why? Oh, DeSantis was working on a plan to develop the public parks into golf courses, hotels book, aboard courts, Etc. That is until the Tampa Bay Times, broke the news story, got a ton of backlash and boom, that's it. That's what? Local newspaper. Oh, public parks, winners, Ron DeSantis is the Elon Musk of Florida, right? Like that that investors in Florida stakeholders if they vote for this guy again. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know actually. I'm sensing a whole Park theme for Ari's. A lot of perks for big Park week. We can Parks, she's lazy and she wants to go fall asleep on a bed. That's not fall. So my winner my Winner's obvious, it's France. Not only for arresting, not only for arresting a four, passport owning social media, billionaire creep. But there are also hosting the Paralympics. The same time, Come on. This is the princess winning this summer. Come on, good multi-tasking. Um all right, my winner is cyber truck owners house up possible because Tesla is giving up on enforcing a 50,000 dollar penalty against cybertruck owners, who sell their trucks. So now you can just sell your shity truck that's on fire when it's a fire hydrant because you I'm sure you put down the deposit like when you saw the reveal and you thought so cool. Elon musk's not a crazy Dirtbag yet and all of a sudden he is and it doesn't work and you couldn't sell it. So now you can now buy it. You gotta prediction Damon prediction. Mine is pretty boring, but it's, it's in the Starbucks category. Howard Schultz is officially retired. I think this I think this is it. I think Brian is gonna have control this place for a while I told Swan song know, you know, I have a follow up on your prediction, go ahead. I think that we're gonna find out that Brian Nichol is Howard. Schultz, Secret, Love Child. Oh, son-in-law. I like this. I thought he was like, pull up a mask like Mission Impossible. He's actually Howard Schultz. Like, look at it. I just just me, just, I looked younger. I don't actually live in California. I'm gonna counter that prediction by saying, Howard Schultz is officially becomes executive chairman You think he's gonna come back? I think he's gonna come back but not a CEO. I think they're gonna put him back on the board. That's what they're wow. Yeah, or Meredith. Yeah, Meredith. I do that too, Matt. I don't, I don't see that. That's, I don't see that one covers were that, that the Starbucks board, literally, he had access to the Starbucks like board meetings, whenever he wanted, of course, like which, how many 1.9% owners have access to the board meeting whenever they want? They just like walk in. But my real prediction here to go get us out here. And this, after 60 hours, Levi, one of the companies I had, as a potential you Turner actually does not you turn. They stand for Dei because it turns out women wear jeans, not just fertilizer, digging men. That's it. That's hazelnut Rallis it's your data Queen Ari and I am your analyst home. I'm scared. We are free float. Come back next week, where we're gonna have a full week of shows including a proxy countdown. I think we're covering General Mills next week. I think we're doing some cereal next week on the proxy countdown. We're also launching a new podcast called shareholder Primacy hosted by Mike, Levin, and Lipton, and you can get the data that we talked about on this show on free float. SE a whole bunch of data for free. We're just giving it all away at this point. So come back next week until then good. Bye.