Transcript
I missed the Nuggets music already. I I like the Nuggets music. Live from your ESG blender, right? That turns environmental, social, and governance risk into a really tasty mango thing. We're back! Sounds good, right? And it's a business pants Friday show here at July thirty first studios featuring analyst Hole Matt Muscarty. Yeah, woa woo Yes. Yeah, woo ha hoo ha hoo hao I'm really Is it really conceded that when I say featuring you and I don't mention my own name that do you think the assumption is that everyone knows my name, even though I know no one knows my name? Or do you think it's just like annoyingly humble that I don't announce who I am? Which is it? That's that's a funny question 'cause I would have said the assumption is that no one cares about you, and don't need your name. Well they don't but they clearly don't care about you either though. But why so why do I say your name? No, they definitely don't care about me. Well, because I'm the other person here. It'd be weird to be like I'm here with that guy and let's go. Yeah, but how come I don't say who I am? Yeah, maybe you should. Your mom thinks you should. On today's weekly wrap up, kicking the cracker barrel can down the road, war profiteering with immunity, and lots of dumb apologies. I was not a fan of the apologies. I'm not a fan of anything right now. Our show today is being sponsored by Freeflow Analytics and Freeflow Analytics.com, the only platform measuring board power, connection, and performance for free. I'm a fan of that. I lied. Fan of that. I heard that an email is going out. If you were on the original Free Flow Analytics platform, an email is supposedly going out today for the beta for everybody who was on the original platform. Everyone. really? I think they're gonna be s surprised at how incredible the new platform is. I think they're going to ignore the email is really what I think. Yeah. Rightfully so, 'cause I ignore emails. story of the week, wanna get into it? Yeah, I'll just do this thing. I think I cut you off. You you were annoyed by something? Okay, forget it then. We don't need details. In no particular order, once again, Cracker Barrel CEO is out after MAGA backlash to Uncle Herschel logo change. I don't that I don't know if any of that's true, by the way. Cause the Yeah, it's been a while, right? And the stock price has completely rebounded since that. And let's not forget that Julie Massino Ba baba the I'm annoyed by everything. Let's just do this. Yeah, it's been like eight months since the MAGA backlash. took over something that was already failing, but but but that's beside the point. That's the headline. or maybe it is the point. I don't know. Let's talk about it. So Julie Massino takes over. their their core customer base is shrinking because it's well because it's yeah, exact actually that's exactly right. It's their their two main customer bases work older generations and rural highway travelers. Ha. No one? Sh shrinking 'cause they're so old. They're dying. They're literally dying. There's a l is that a thing? Yeah, I mean you used to do road trips, right? Before you had a life. I I used to do a lot of road trips. I mean, yeah, i it used to be fun to like stop at the most disgusting place and have a meal. But I think people th yeah, like in the nineties that was fun, but then people learned, wait, like we can expect a restaurant to serve like actually good food because right, we're spending money for it. And so times have changed is what I'm trying to say. It's not kitschy anymore to go to a really disgusting place. And that was Cracker Barrel, is what you're saying. Yeah. It's not cool. N people actually want to eat good food, yeah. Especially since it costs like ninety dollars. But anyway, and then the the she took over with the the kitchen tech, the supply chains, the digital ordering, it was all a nightmare, it all sucked. Because it was an old dusty place with an uncle Herschel, right? Mm. 'Cause who's using that? Going to cracker yeah, Uncle See, look, the thing about the branding backlash is Uncle Herschel being on the sign makes me think it's only for old white guys. Like literally that's so And it's impossible they cared when they saw the new logo. Impossible. No one notices logos unless it turned into a pride flag or a Nazi symbol, no one cares. No one c no one could have cared at all until it was a make believe echo chamber. Well we covered Didn't we cover that like eighty percent of the of the backlash was Twitter bots, like Russian Twitter bots at the time? Yeah, I mean I've I've been looking at a lot of like Fox Business articles and they are so good at like the fake populism. So they they at the very top of their reporting they they put up videos of like and and I know, look, I I'm not judging here, but they pick very overweight, slow talking white customers who complain about the logo, but it it clearly feels forced. You know what I mean? Like it's I well they don't show And this is not a reason this is not a reason to make huge corporate changes, by the way. They they don't show the the the preceding question, which is like the logo r change is really horrible, isn't it? Yeah, it's a it's a part of a a woke takeover by Joe Biden, right? Yeah. And they they also had some great fake populism surrounding her severance pay. Now she got a very normal severance pay package. I mean she'd been there for three years. She got pushed out. Sh I I I I can't I don't think anyone's Right? Al along with Gilbert De Vila, the board member, for being too woke. Yeah, I'm I I don't know that anyone's suggesting that she screwed anything up because the board approved the logo change, the company approved anyway. But Fox had to jump on it with a headline saying cracker barrel to pay for outgoing CEO security, comma, four point six million dollar severance after a failed rebrand. Now I I don't really know what they're doing there. They're suggesting that she's not worthy of the security. Now, first of all If MAG is angry at you, that's a ver that's a gun owning group. I would think she'd need security. A female CEO gets blamed for a DEI move. She might need security. I okay, here's the here's the thing. I I looked into the filings, I looked into the severance agreement, I looked into past proxy statements. This woman has never received security money, and all it says in the set in the in the filing is like. the f wait, the severance wasn't all security. If she needs it, the the company the board is willing to pay for it as they would for anyone. So, you know, Fox, you're just you're you're a mess, Fox. Yeah. If you're pissed about security costs, how about every tech bro who's literally spending twenty plus million dollars a year on security? Not Julia Messino, who th look, the people who might be angry at her, like they they're in walkers. Like how fast is she how fast does she have to go to get away? And they don't know who she is. And they couldn't they couldn't name her. they're just mad at probably Kamala Harris or somebody. I or who knows, Malcolm X, maybe they're mad at Okay, so let's talk about the new CEO, David Denno. and this kind of there was actually a article in the Wall Street Journal with the headline From Cracker Barrel to Boeing, companies are turning to retired CEOs. So I guess the new trend is bringing back in old white men. really? Like they're they're trending older, they're trending whiter. I mean, I guess they're always white. And they're and they're into and they're they're into do those very like grandfatherly things that everybody hates, which is like cut cost, restore investor confidence, like do all that like country club handshaking and f it maybe like us they call it austerity, right, in politics, like and governments. Well thank God. I don't trending wider than current. When the right wing takes over, they cut social programs. That's kind of what Dave Denno represents, right? and let me just tell you about Dave Denno. Because this is a fabulous list of disgusting things. And I don't know how this is gonna solve Cracker Barrel. This is why I call it kicking the can down the road, because they're clearly not trying to solve for anything. This is where he comes from: Burger King, Pizza Hut, Yum Brands, Quiznos. Yeah. Blumen brands, Outback Steakhouse, Panera brands, Krispy Kreme. I mean, this guy just represents gross American food. And that is basically the problem Cracker Barrel was having was that they they they hadn't changed their menu and it it was just old people and people like driving five hundred miles to get like diabetes medicine. Like that was their their customers, right? So I How how is this what is this doing? I don't know. I w what are you doing? what is this? Look, I I think it's important that they have a guy with a long run at Pizza Hut running like could you like isn't Pizza Hut a failed enterprise by itself? Like Pizza halt. Yeah, it was f again, it was fun in the nineties. Eighties maybe. Yeah. And I remember all the times I went to Bonefish Grill, like Yeah, I never heard of that. Or I've never heard of Carabas Italian grill either. Why do Italians do a lot of grilling? I that I don't associate that with Italians. you go to Sicily and you might grill some fish, but na yeah, like an octopus, yeah, sure. Yeah. Okay, but you can go anywhere and you'll grill fish. Yeah, okay fine. Yeah. Anyway, that's the Cracker Broll story. You got anything you wanna add here? This is a dopey dopey. Look, I don't think there's any this this is so dumb. This is so d I don't understand so this actually precipitated on the proxy countdown, which we're gonna record later today, will be released today also. Precipitated us working on the idea of CEO hot seats. Because at this point, I wouldn't have thought Julie Messino would step down. Like I would or get pushed out. Like it's eight or nine months after the original Backlash. The backlash was mo mostly make believe. The stock has rebounded since the backlash to the point where it was failing prior to the backlash, right? Like like I'm not sure. Yeah. And if anything, she actually brought renewed attention to a company that needed attention. I mean i you know, they say n all press is good press. I mean it it reinvigorated the fan base. Look, if she I g if if she had said we're not changing the logo I I wish she had said we're not changing the logo back if F U because I would have gone to a cracker barrel just for that. I would have walked in. I I I would have smelled it on the way by it. I think this whole thing's dumb. No, you wouldn't have. That's not true. You would have walked by. Yeah, I don't know if I agree with you that she wouldn't have been still on the hot seat. I but I think you're right. We would have expected her to be the change to be within three months. But but I love this idea because I and forgive me if I get too like nerdy or or talk about sports if no one cares about it, but but fantasy sports websites have always had this great thing. Maybe they do it in other sports, but in baseball in particular Closers who are the pitchers who come in at the end of the game to end to try to win the game. They have these closer hot seat lists, and it's and it kind of tells you like who's in trouble. And I think that I I don't this doesn't exist for CEOs, and we should create it and it should happen here. And I think it's awesome. we did already. All right. Good. All right. So we did. We'll we'll we'll talk about it we did. we'll talk about it on proxy countdown. But it's worth pointing out that d that David Denno's board tr track record that we have in the free float database, he batted four hundred on T S R, which is like well nicely below average, like comfortably below average. So good. About what you'd expect. Yeah, right? But that's Cracker Barrel. Actually that might be good for Cracker Barrel. I don't know. second story of the week. J I I I included this just because we don't talk about the war enough. Or wars or the war in Iran. It just kind of gets brushed under the rug. But I just wanted to remind people about a few headlines that that came out this morning, I think. Exxon and Chevron profits profits surge. On rising oil prices due to Iran war. Chevron posted its highest profit in six years. at the same time, big oil is busy fighting back against climate lawsuits, and really what they're trying to push for now is just total immunity. So they're profiting from the war in Iran. There's a there's a there are 40 pending cases coming against them because let's not forget that it is known. That companies like ExxonMobil knew about the dangers of global warming back way back even when Pizza Hut was popular in the s 1970s. So they're trying to sue, being like, you knew about this. So the the Trump administration, the Republicans, like the Ken the Ken Paxtons of the world, you know, the they're they're trying to n not only prevent these lawsuits from from from going through, but they're actually trying to give them total immunity from all this. Wow. Wow. That's a long time ago. So this is like these are the things going on in big oil. I just wanted people to know. Yeah, I've never actually seen as much discussion of immunity from stuff as in the last two years. I feel like the Republican Party has rebranded itself the party of immunity from stuff. It's like Which makes sense, right? I mean they already had the Supreme Court court to basically grant them eventual immunity from things, but yeah, why not just have immunity from everything? Make everyone can everybody be immune to everything? Like that would okay. I yeah, I don't know why I mean like this this in the midst of, you know, the fact that Spain and France are literally burning into, you know, the Mediterranean and and Greece the Greek islands are on fire now too. Yeah, they're on on fire. And we I I you know Well Republicans can. Ugh Yeah. that I didn't know that. Apparently it's gonna be like a hundred and twelve degrees for like the next week and so everything else is gonna catch fire. Well, how about the the hypocrisy you know, w it was this month that Trump was was yelling at Canada for its fires, saying that we're gonna we're gonna punish you for this, we're gonna fine you. We're gonna we're gonna g tariff you because s stuff caught fire in Canada. But Exxon but Exxon is gonna get immunity? I I I mean, I know I shouldn't get into like, they're being hypocritical. Wha like what a surprise. But but I just don't want I just is I I just thought it was important to continue to highlight the the the n the grossness going on in big oil. I mean record profits just because of the war? I anyway, that's the second story to work. Third story, one you're s you're definitely not gonna like. So if you want to tune out, it's fine. Yeah. my god, shock. I'm just gonna go for a walk. Sam Altman announces that the singularity has arrived. For those of you who don't know what that that means, the singularity is defined as a hypothetical future point, which I guess is now, when technological growth becomes autonomous, uncontrollable, and irreversible, fundamentally transforming human civilization. Now we all know this is kinda happening. whether we've reached the singularity, whether it's a real thing or not, I don't know. But here are the quotes from Sam. yeah. We are now like in the singularity. Now we're and this if this doesn't highlight our point that these are a bunch of bratty underdeveloped middle school bros, listen to this listen to this next quote. This is from Sam Utlin. now I gotta s re I got kicked out. I gotta re sign into my stupid script. Here we go. Like, dude, we're in it! Google's listening. I I there's nobody listening. Nobody cares what we have to say. As if we needed more evidence that these are man babies. wait. Now he's here's see where here's what he says. Now we are actually in the moment that we used to talk about at the lunch table in a very not serious way. I mean, he's talking about cafeteria, right? The l Yeah. Yeah, that because that was the last time he Yeah. Good what's a lunch what is a lunch table? He's talking about middle school. That's the last time we referred to a lunch table, right? That's the last time you actually like had friends and yeah, grew up. Yeah, he's he said he said, I've been waiting for this my whole life, and I think it's going to be incredible, hugely positive, awesome for the world. Now, let's go on and I'm just gonna I'm gonna quickly go through the other headlines that are going on just this week. Sam Altman says one of the biggest fears is that a small number of companies will control AI. He says that'd be very, very bad. And look, that's what's happening. But that's what but that's what's happening right now, Sam. Sam Altman says the hugging face hack Very, very double very he's got the double very Is a reminder that an AI power monopoly could lead to a long term disaster. Now, we have an AI power monopoly right now, Sam, led by you. Open AI AI says it's rogue AI tried to hack other companies, not just Hugging Face. Mark Zuckerberg is urging the US, and don't forget, the the the world now considers Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg to basically be the BFFs of of all BFFs. we do we have that. Yeah, yeah, we have that. Yeah. Mark Zuckerberg is urging the U.S. to accelerate AI development, not restrict it. Elon Musk says, no way to stop it. Warns humans will control will lose control of AI and face extinction by 2036. I'm gonna go. I'm I don't want to focus on that one. Microsoft's how about this one? Microsoft's CEO Satany Adela warns that companies embracing AI could drive themselves out of business. Now let's not forget that. Ooh. Good one. So that's gonna only help the monopoly at the top. So Sam, I guess, is gonna be happy and sad that he doesn't want the monopoly, but he's benefiting off the monopoly every day. AI ha hackers are getting faster. The government may not be ready. Anthropic says it's cloud clawed models gained unauthorized access to other organization systems. Anthropic says its models went rogue and hacked three companies. And then in the last one, Musk is warning that it this is gonna happen frequently. That rogue the rogue AI threat is just gonna keep getting worse. So that there you go. That's all happening just in the last couple of days. Singularity Look, I the funny part is like all out of all that morass of discussion, like we have been talking s like for two years that this is the end, right? Like this is people are getting dumber. These these these systems are are are going to effectively end up killing humans. Like it will like we I don't know He was so excited about it. It's here, Sam. Well, I don't want to go that far. Well, that's happening. But they're these are the same people but but Matt, these are the s these people that I've just mentioned are the ones also worrying about they're worrying about cognitive decline. They're keeping their kids from using it. Of course, of course. They're they're they're they're wiping they're wiping their tears with their money as They're warning they're warning about the mu the tech monopolies are gonna ruin the planet as there are only tech monopolies. No, you you you get it? How? As they are they are the tech I get it, I get it. But that's all that's all but that's all but that's part of the hypocrisy. That's like China, right? Like But this is this is a hypocrisy we've never witnessed before. We're at a level we've never seen. Well, we've never witnessed consolidation consolidated hypocrisy at this scale. But but the thing that actually But you didn't have you didn't have like your your your Rockefellers and your your Carnegie's and your Mel whoever back in the day. You didn't have them having monopolies raking in billions and warning the general population about that you need to break us up. That never happened. Right? okay. No well w no. Well now they're smarter than that because they th th th they know that if they just rake in the billions, then someone will come and take the billions. So now they have to say, like but Well, maybe just come and take it now, yeah. But they're all but don't forget they all pledge to like, we'll give we'll give it away. I mean, don't worry about it. I mean, sure we will, of course. but the thing that actually is my favorite part, if there's a favorite part to have, is that it like after the hugging face disclosure, Anthropic was like, this marketing is too good. Can we hack someone else's systems and then talk about it? I honestly, what is how much of a coincidence is it that the news is now just Yeah. This is bad. Go ahead. Do you think they purposely did it by mistake? Like all of these companies that are hacking other companies' files going rogue because it looks so good when your AI can go rogue. You must have the best I AI if it went rogue, don't you? you're re the ready for the last headline of the week? Am I? I don't know. just because I g I guess it's time to thank all the investors who keep approving Elon Musk's pay packages and and Elon Musk commits up to one hundred and twenty million dollars to Republican midterm. So he's despite saying yes, dis despite saying it was a quote unquote big mistake and he was done and you know, sales at Tesla had cratered as they should have, now he's back at it. He's Ugh. Can we just skip this? Of course he does. Didn't he say he was gonna stay out of politics? I mean this is I Yeah, but SpaceX shares are way down. Tesla shares are way down. Like I i there I think people are Mm-hmm. How about how about the American democracy that that even allows this money to happen in the first place? I mean It's insane. A hundred and twenty million dollars and that to him is nothing. It's nothing. He's not even sp he's going to spend like that's a security cost to him. Like it's nothing. For for the midterms. Nothing. So go go shame your neighbors, friends, and family members who who still drive and buy Teslas. Just just throw like throw some dirty ketchup at them. Yeah, what do you got? Those are some great stories, huh? or or got IPO SpaceX stuck. yeah, it's hard because you know, I look the hugging face thing happened last week, right? That was last week. Just go for the easy one. No, but but but the singularity was announced this week and anthropic joining the fray was announced this week. Yeah, I feel like I'm not gonna do Musk and his hundred and twenty million to Republicans. That one's obvious and we never knew it was gonna happen and I don't think it's even a headline at this point. Cracker Barrel I feel like I wanna do because like that is j No. Come on, pick the one I want you to pick. Come on. Yeah. That's our that's our sweet spot. That's our company. and we don't t we don't talk about wars, but there's a reason we don't talk about wars because like it it's 'cause they're just if we did, we'd just we'd just be a war correspondence unit. Like we just spending all our time discussing wars. so it is gonna be singularity or or cracker barrel. Those are my options. So just think of just think of the scale of those two things. W why? 'Cause there's too many other wars go like there's everything's a war. Yeah. yeah. Come on. W don't don't just pick one. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yes. Versus Yeah. Well, I to me, to me, David Denno kind of represents the death of humanity. When you look at him and you look at the places he's worked at, I mean I mean what just the shit he is shoveling into people's mouths. Like what what is this guy up to? Yes, that's the right choice. Yeah. No, but I think that's the right choice. That's who we are. I am ch I'm talking about the death of humanity or Cracker Barrel's new CEO. Those are You know what, I'm gonna choose Cracker Barrel because this is a game that nobody cares about anyway. That's that's us and you can read about your death, inevitable death somewhere else. All right, let's do some goodliest. Yeah. All right. I struggled to find something good. you changed yours. You changed yours. I have one goodliest that is legit goodly. Yeah. Well, I changed it. I changed it because I remembered there's a story that was really good. Uh-huh. Well, maybe you should go second because mine's not that great. I was just struggling. Gen Z women are having an entrepreneurship boom. So there it sounds good, but when I really dug into it, I still felt a little bit depressed. But it says if women who started businesses in 2025, 47% of Gen Z women did it compared with 30% the previous year. Yeah, I think. That sounds good. And the millennials are at forty three percent. I mean, this is what we want. I mean, we want young women to be part of entrepreneurship. and then of of black people starting new businesses, black women represent sixty nine percent of that number. So that's cool. the and then the and the survey all also found two other things I thought were interesting that first of all, it's no it's no surprise that that by a more than two to one edge, the women starting businesses are It's nice. This is all nice. are mothers. Whereas of course the men don't have families and don't have don't care about nurturing or anything. They just don't care. the other thing is that this and you like this, the survey also found that women business owners are less likely than men to depend on AI. So so that that might be a good that's another reason to support female entrepreneurship because they're not gonna like They're not focusing on AI. I don't know. I is this any of this good? I'm trying. Look, I the the part of the problem actually if if I had my way, w all women entrepreneurs would only do AI because we n we really need to fucking get the men out of it. Like I so so ladies. Actually that's true. Good point. Yeah. No, I didn't th I hadn't thought of that. Yeah. Well notice in all of our AI stories when all the companies we talk about w th we don't ever there's no women being mentioned at all. Yeah. No, never a woman, yeah. no women. I mean, there's never a woman, right? unless it's Helen Toner getting thrown out of a boardroom for It's unless it's the women who who warned us and and and tried to fire Sam Altman. They did fire him successfully and and then it it all blew up in their face. Yeah, I mean th they're gonna be there I we and we predicted a few years ago that they're i in the hi when you look back in history, they're gonna prove to have been like these important almost heroes of something. But they'll be forgotten. Anyway, keep going. Yeah, unless it's that Yeah. Yep, th th that they'll be heroes to us, the two of us. The two of us. here's my headline. And it will take a slight bit of explaining to get the implication of it. Delaware judge rules public benefit corporations exempt from maximizing value in sale. All right. So there there was a company, Power Financing. They needed a bunch of money because they were losing money. They To us only. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, tell me what that means. Borrowed this money with convertible and it basically sold the company. They gave up a controlling stake of the company at a discount. So shareholders actually sued the company and they sued them, alleging that the directors of Power did not get the highest reasonable value for the stock for the change of control. They didn't, they didn't maximize shareholder value. So they sued. It's a public benefit corporation. They sued them and said you did not get maximum shareholder value. A Delaware judge ruled that public benefit corporation is not legally obligated to get the highest price for the stock because they have other fiduciary duties to other stakeholders. So what's fascinating about this is not just that it's like Stakeholders rule. Yeah. cool. Well it's like seven public benefit corporations. I guess we kinda knew that anyway. There's very few. But two of them are open AI's public like the the the for profit and anthropic. They're both public benefit corporations. Mm No, is that is it Are there that few? Yeah. Which is odd. Anthropic I might believe in. The open AI but they're governed by wait, they they have like two governing structures, right? They they have their They have the non profit and now the public benefit corporation. But the non profit is the one that ultimately decides everything and and they don't but but they don't owe anything to anyone? Is that how it works? It's the pu anyway, I don't really understand how open AI. Yeah. we don't have to get into the corporate structure. The idea is for sure Anthropic is a public benefit corporation. And if they IPO as a public benefit corporation, it means that a shareholder can't sue Anthropic saying you didn't maximize our value, you didn't maximize our returns, because that's not the director's fiduciary duty. Their duty is to not just the returns, but other stakeholders. Which means Well, that's interesting. Right. This should be every company. Yeah, this should be every company. There is a legal binding requirement for a public benefit corporation. So if you wanted to change, if you wanted to change regulations such that Chevron and Exxon can't make record profit from war, you could legally, you could force a regulation that said certain industries, certain companies of certain sizes, monopoly power companies or or like consolidated industries. I like this. I like this. Let let this be a slippery slope. They must convert to public benefit corporations by law. You could do something crazy and just say, All right, Exxon, now you're now you're a public benefit corporation, Darren Woods. And then every fucking climate lawsuit goes through because they have a legally binding requirement to like not just maximize return for themselves and shareholders, but also to stakeholders. Yeah. It's ti b believe me, it's believe me, it's time. It's time to do something crazy. Well, it's no surprise that your Exxons, your your your Dell, which you know, Dell Michael Dell, best friends with Donald Trump. It's not two of the leading Dexit companies, right? They've they've fled to Texas because of stuff like this, right? yeah. I I can only I can only dream there's a world where stakeholders matter when there are w extremely unpopular wars in Iran where and the the gas prices have gone up across the Well the thing I love The country and the the oil companies have record profits. So I I can only dream that this could have some kind of a contagion effect. How come there's never a slippery slope? You know, there's a Dexit thing, right? Like where it's a race to the bottom. How come there's never a race to the top? How why does that never exist? Why? Why is that not a thing? But the Yeah. That does that's not a thing. That's nobody races to because the race to the bottom is slippery and you just go right down, and the race to the top you to work at and climb and but look, the coolest thing about this from our perspective was that this was specific to the directors of a public benefit corporation. The lawsuit was against the directors. Yeah, right. Okay. Why? Why do you have to work? Why can't there be an escalator? I like this one. This is a great one. For not maximizing shareholder value. And this says the directors are insulated from that. That's not the director's duty. The importance of that is those are human beings who you've elected to do a job. And when they do the job, which is maximizing beyond shareholder but stakeholder returns, you can't sue them for that. So directors at public benefit corporations, you have a shit ton of power to tell the executives, no, you can't do that. I love this. Yes. Because you are legally insulated if you are a public benefit corporation. There's a lot of things you can do now. If you're a director, I I'd go nuts. I love this. I love this. I'm voting for that. Let's move on. All right, let's go on. assholes. now you're gonna bring us back down. I actually felt good about that. I actually like that. I've been fighting for stakeholder rules forever. This is my dream. Well, look, I'm gonna s I'm gonna skip one because we basically read every headline. it it's it's fur the asshole I'm gonna skip this week is Stop Us, which is the message these tech bros who are constantly like the story that I thought was amazing. the i the tech bros. We're running out of control. Like help help us stop from murdering you. The one the the headline that you pulled that I thought was amazing was more than twelve hundred AI workers across anthropic, deep mind, open AI and Meta are asking for Washington's help building an AI slowdown plan. Can't they just like can't they just sabotage from within? Just quit. Just if you if no one worked at these places. Y you're right, but it's the same as like you want the women in control of AI. You don't want the people who care to leave the company, then it'll all be sycophants. I'm just saying like like the people who work at Facebook under Zuckerberg and hate their lives but make four hundred thousand dollars a year, just fucking stop working there. If you think that AI needs to be slowed down, slow it down. You work there. Yeah, which is probably a lot of people, yeah. Or I have a better idea. Yeah, I have a better idea. Keep your job because life is expensive, especially out on the West Coast. And just start like sucking a lot. Just like longer lunches, make a lot of mistakes. Just start like a a a big collective sucking party. All right. Yeah, suck hard. Look, I but the other headlines, there's no way to stop it. Elon Musk said, you know, it will happen frequently. like all like AI will beat human brains by twenty thirty two. Like just stop. Just stop it. But then at the same time, there's also don't stop us, obviously, because because Just quit, Sam. Quit, Elon. Delete it. So just stop. Stop it. So you stop it. You're actually in control. You stop it. Don't stop us, yeah. China Sh Palantir CEO Alex Carp warns US against Europe's r AI regulation path. Like, don't regulate it. But stop us from killing ourselves, but don't regulate it. Yeah. And d yeah. Stop us because we're about to destroy humanity. But the good news is is that you're not gonna have to worry about there'll be universal basic income. Everyone's gonna be rich, life's gonna be amazing, but we're gonna destroy the earth. But you know Yeah. It'll be amazing. Ugh all right. We're gonna destroy everything, but it will be amazing as we destroy it. For probably us, but n may who knows if you. Elon Musk sued Minnesota over the law to ban nudify apps. Like because we're w I'm destroying you, but don't make a law to stop it. Like I I may be corrupting and like, you know, making society worse, but how dare you try to stop it? I saw that. Yeah, I don't really get that one. and then committing a hundred and twenty million to Republicans. So we don't we need to talk about these. This is Well that I like that Elon is I like that we're graduating above you know, you know, the the the the amount of lobbying going on by AI and big tech is just through the roof, right? It's at record highs. And I love that Elon is like, you know, lobbying is cool, but I'm just gonna start sue. I'm gonna be like Donnie Trump and I'm just gonna start suing, right? Why why lobby? I'm just gonna I'm gonna buy the election and I'm gonna sue. Like that's the way to take over democracy. Everybody. You just sue all. Why yeah. All right, what else do you have? So we don't need to spend time on that. then then there's the other two. The first one is fake man apologies. This is coming, this is a this is a return for us. It's a rerun for us. You the here's the headline. I'm sorry, but apologetic Alan Joyce tells his side of the Qantas story. Now, just for listeners who don't know Qantas, right? Like I know where this is. This is a good story. Full circle. Yeah, this is a throwback. Callback. Yeah. Quantas is the the Australian airline. you know, during the pandemic, Qantas basically fired a whole bunch of employees, something like twelve hundred employees, without negotiating with like the labor unions and they just like let go. Probably most of them. Yeah. Which is important in other countries that aren't the US, yeah. They they actually sold what they called ghost tickets, which is like n like they sold a whole bunch of tickets and then all the and then canceled all those flights and then didn't refund them. did and Alan Joyce, who was the CEO at the time, ended up coming, you know, getting thrown out. He got replaced by Vanessa Hudson, who is current CEO, whose first act as the CEO was to apologize for everything Qantas had ever done in its history. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whoops. Yeah, oops. Yep. Who Who immediately apologized? Yeah. Which Al which Al and Joyce should have done, but yeah. But Alan Joyce does man apologies. So so what he said, he's now gonna book out and he's doing a book tour. No. He's a man baby, yeah. Well that's the pro that's the thing I when I looked into it I was like, wait, he has a book tour? Like this is what's happening? Who's who's buying that book, by the way? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, he's doing a book tour, as what he's doing. the the article says the article says Joyce has expressed some regret. Well, that's nice, some regret. He he said, quote, so with the information we had at the time, I still don't think there was any other decision you could make. So Yeah. Yeah, what he's what he means is that like if he had known that COVID we'd rebound from COVID, I I wouldn't have done this. I d but how does I don't know how that how does that explain that the not negotiating with workers and the ghost tickets? He's not. He's not. Yeah. I wouldn't have done those things, but we didn't know that. How is that an apology? What are you apologizing for if you're basically saying that you're saying I'm not apologizing at all? He also said, quote, hindsight is a great thing, right? Like, so, like, well, you all had the benefit of hindsight, and I was making decisions at the time. He said, quote, I'm actually very, very proud of the fact that I'm not sitting here and apologizing for Qantas going bankrupt, something that many airlines around the world did. So really what he's saying, whatever that. Who cares? Yeah. my god. Yeah. He says and he goes on to say, quote, I apologize for the angst that was generated for the customers, but the reality was we had twenty-two million bookings in the system and the system wasn't designed to do an automatic refund. So Yeah, but the system you were in control of So he basically is saying we took customer money, didn't give it back, and and we fired people that we couldn't have and shouldn't have fired, but the system wasn't designed for it. we didn't know, and frankly, I save shareholder money. What he's saying is I would I'm apologizing, but not really, because I fucked customers over. The system's fault. And gave it to shareholders. I made sure shareholders were taken care of, of which he was one. Right? Like his pay is built off shareholder value. It's not built off customers getting flights. Yeah. And let's not forget that there's actually no proof that any of this prevented a bankruptcy. It's just his conjecture, right? He's just like he's he's playing games with the timeline of of Qantas. Well, I don't know enough I don't know enough about Qantas' financials, but we did a dive into the buybacks that were happening with the US airlines at the time, and they very easily could have saved ten dollars for an eventual pandemic or some problem, but didn't. I I just know that well we've had two CEOs now in the sh in the same show saying something was very, very like s Sam Altman said that s that you know, a few companies owning AI is very, very bad and now he's saying that he's that Alan Joyce is very, very proud of that the company didn't implode. I mean, w when they say very, very, look away. It's trouble. Yeah, very. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. so look, i th I pick this one because this is like one in a s long series of fake apologies that like executives but this is one of the worst, not because of the impact, like the impact was much more narrow to like, you know, Australia, which already th most of the world doesn't care about. So dumb. Yeah. This is the worst because b An airline, which most people don't take, and like, you know, 8,000 customer tickets sold. You know, people in the US would shrug about that. But this is so fucking egregious in that he literally took their money and used it to fund saving shareholder value. He fired the employees to save the the shareholder value. He did everything that he could possibly anyone he could screw. Nor should they. Yeah. To save the company he was happy to screw. Well, this like a callback to your public benefit corporation decision. Now where I why I like this story is that we have a category here called a apology tour. You know, we tag you can go to our new website, you can see everything we've tagged that has apologies in it, you can get them all together. This is the this is like the all time for us because we hammered this company for letting for letting Vanessa Hudson take over a very glass cliffy situation, right? She was there to Yeah, very There to clean up and she apologized for his mess. Now three years later he's kind of fake apologized the whole thing is a is a wonderful it's just a wonderful story. I love it. Well, it's a it's it's a great bookend because she sh she takes over, had to clean up the mess. She was the one who had to deal with the l you know, the employee lawsuits, deal with the customers and the ghost tickets, deal with the regulators. She went in front of regulators, in front of the government, like she got grilled and yelled at and screamed at. People hate her. She had like and she is the one who said, I apologize for all of it. Yeah. Yeah. Everything, the anger, yeah, all of it. He slipped away. Yes. She didn't qualify it. She didn't say, but it was COVID. She just said, we have to do better. I apologize for all of it. Alan writes a fucking book and comes out and says, I'm really sorry. But you know what? We didn't sh lose any shareholder value and I would have made all the same decisions and I'm really proud of the things that we did. Basically, why don't you just say fuck you, Alan? Why don't you just say everyone can go fuck themselves? 'Cause I'm rich and it doesn't matter. Or but it was Alan. Yeah. I'm guessing that a hunt I'm just gonna guess. I don't have the answers here, but a hundred percent of the proceeds of the book, which will be about like forty dollars, will go directly to the customers and to Vanessa Hudson. All right, let's move on. That all right, let's move on. and the last one. ignoring a board. This is your one of your assholes of the week, ignoring a board. like like open AI. We just talked about that. Yeah. I because look, like I I just I'm so tired. Look, n nobody cares about who's on a board. And that makes me if you don't care who's on a board, you're an asshole. And that means everybody. Like my mom, you know, my cousin, my you know, e everyone. Because the fact is, like, all right, here's the story. You know you know the the company Him's and Hers? I've heard of it. I don't really know what they do. Is it underwear? What is it? They do like no, they do like telehealth is basically what they do. Here's their mission statement. Hims and hers is the leading health and wellness platform on a mission to help the world feel great through the power of better health, right? Like okay, already it's what is that? This is meaningless. We believe how you feel in your body and mind transforms how you show up in life. I don't know what that means either. That's the same as underwear in my book, but yeah. Okay, okay. I don't know what that means either, yeah. That's why we're building a future where nothing stands in the way of harnessing this power. What power? So like what Him's and Hers normalizes health and wellness challenges and innovates on their solutions to make feeling happy and healthy easy to achieve. and this is this is copy-pasted from their website. No two people are the same, so the company provides access to personalized care designed for results. I don't know. What har what where what's the harness? I don't get harness? This is hurting me, by the way. Well what about identical twins? Don't aren't they genetically the same? Ooh, good point. I didn't say that. But but like look, this is like one of those banal mission statements that no one reads. And when you do read it, it sounds like it was written by ChatGPT badly. And actually, if I were to guess what this company did, I would say, I don't like Yeah, doesn't it? Like maybe? All right. But what they actually do is like telehealth and they fill Yeah. It sounds like supplements, like fish oil or something, yeah. prescriptions and they do health stuff. They do Which which to me is the the worst possible thing. It's mostly specifically like like male specific health stuff like hair loss and erectile dysfunction or female specific, you know, stuff like, you know, yeast infections. it's like it it basically is like supposed to just you know, the uncomfortable health for men and women that they don't like to talk about and they do telehealth versions and they make it accessible, whatever, right? so stuff that's not important. Which is stuff that is important. So in in instead of a a a a full checkup now they're just y you don't even have to go to the doctor's office. There could be other underlying issues, but you they're just gonna do it over the computer like the zoom, like this is where we've come to. That's terrible. Terrible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we just zoom zoom in. Yeah. Well here is the hims and hers board. And I'm gonna give you the board before I get to the headline. The CEO is Andrew Dudham. yeah, it's shocking. He's a well Yeah. All right, go ahead. I'm surprised it's a man. Well says him and hers, so I would think it maybe it's a co CEO, a woman and a man. Okay. It's not. It's just a dude. he's a tech VC bro investor. and he describes himself as a serial entrepreneur. And his deep health experience before he started hims and hers was from starting companies bung bungalow and Airbnb knockoff in the UK. No, homebound, which sounds like it could be a healthcare company, which you're stuck at home, so you need, you know, medical he So I'm shocked. Yeah. Yeah. Another healthcare company. Which is a healthcare company. Wait, it's not a healthcare company? Yeah, you need yeah, care, yeah. It's a it's a home building platform. It actually is like Well he is an D though, right? He has some kind of a medical background. talk IQ, which was an AI voice startup. and terminal, which he said is something about scaling engineering. I don't I don't even know what that means. Terrible. Sounds stupid. Well, this sounds ideal for a health and wellness platform. This sounds like a great background. Everybody should get like their fucking alopecia checked by a Andrew Dudham, who had did an Airbnb knockoff in the UK. That's I think he's just angry because as a kid th there were two insults you could you could throw at Andrew at And little Andy, which was a dud or dumb. So I think this is why he needed this is why he needed to become a billionaire. He just he was just angry. Yeah, you guys t it was tough. I d I actually do that's probably the truest thing about this story. but how about these directors? There are not one, but two directors who work or worked at DoorDash. Kofi Amu Gottfried Yeah. That's yeah, a company that n that nobody needs, that's that's that's bad for employees, that's destroying local restaurants. Yeah. He w he was in marketing and Christopher Payne, who was the COO, but also had stints at eBay, Microsoft, and Amazon. Other telehealth companies is what I'm saying. A lot of telehealth there. How about so here's the way they get into you thinking because you don't read about who's on a board, who actually runs this company, we're covered. Because there's two pharma execs on the board. That's pharmaceuticals, is like, isn't that telehealth? That's really great. Well but. Okay. Yep. Yeah, Amazon is big into telehealth, right? Uh-huh. Sure sort of, yeah. One of the pharma execs was a lawyer at the pharma company. Sh she knows nothing about fucking health. Like she's the lawyer. The other one has an econ degree and did a whole bunch of marketing at his. That one I couldn't tell. He maybe he knows something. He definitely knows something about like supply chains and health, but not telehealth. S so she knows nothing about health, yeah, or wellness. Yeah. So knows nothing about health or wellness. Maybe. I don't know if maybe I don't know if maybe is good enough. I don't know if maybe is good enough. Go ahead. Then there's a guy from Netflix, a lady from Urban Outfitters, and one other lawyer who just had a law firm. Well, Netflix deals with like addiction, so maybe he's like an addiction's like medicine specialist or something. Last but not least is the one doctor. One MD. One doctor. So when I read this headline, USFTC sues him and hers for sending user health info to Meta and Snap. I thought, of course they fucking did. Really only one? Yeah, okay. Yeah. god. Well, where's the cybersecurity expert on the board? Do they even have that? No, not only do they not have that, but user's sensitive health information, remember what this this health information is. It is my dick hurts, my vagina itches, my hair's falling out, it's all the shit that you don't want anyone to know. It was shared with online advertising companies, including Meta and Snap. And that's what the FTC is saying. Yeah. It's a it's your everything. Yeah. Yeah, everything. Yeah. No, right. Right. Well those companies they need to get rich though. Give them a break. Hims and hers also started charging users for prescriptions before they met with a healthcare provider. That's what's so customers did not receive a consultation with a provider. Instead, they just got charged for a prescription after filling out just an intake form. What the intake form is like how tall are you? What's your weight? Are you on any drugs? And then it was like, well, let us fill your prescription for you. Let's charge you for that prescription. I believe that. And then we'll worry about you talking to a doctor whether or not you actually need that prescription later when you're done. Let's not forget that this is a part of an industry in in in other similar industries that when I a couple of years ago when a young man killed a a named executive officer in New York City, the first reaction was not of of horror that this this this this executive was murdered. The the first reactions were A, he's really cute. And and B That was real. Yeah, well it's the it's the healthcare industry and like of course, like this is how bad it's gotten with healthcare in America. So yeah, I mean I believe and and and that the the g the federal government under Donald Trump is going after them. It must be serious, right? I mean, how is that even happening? Usually they protect they protect companies and CEOs. Well, all I do know is that the asshole here is like forget this the the CEOs. The asshole here is if you as a consumer, you as a buyer, you as an investor, do not pay attention to who's fucking running these companies for you. Cause the CEO ignore the boards. Yeah. is the person who runs the company day to day. The board is the one who makes sure the company stays in the guardrails and has a future. They are the check and balance to the executives. Checks and balances. Yeah. The the thing that we all love about when we talk about like American democracy, declaration of independence, all that Ben Franklin crap. That's literally like ever the only part that people love that there's checks and balances, three p three arms of government. Yes, right. Used to love. Used to love. All right. I like these three choices. Well, I mean one of I don't think the stop us like that's that's a permanent situation. yeah. It's a permanent situation though. Like Zuck's been doing that since with social media saying someone needs to regulate us but also don't 'cause China. He's been doing that for ten years. But that's a good asshole of the week. I mean the and ignoring boards, I love it. I love how you characterize that story as as from the perspective of like shareholders and stakeholders, which is like pay attention, people, but Just like I ha we had to vote for Cracker Barrel in the story of the week. This the this this weird like three year later pre book tour apology after a Glasscliff female CEO apologized for his nonsense and then it's like it's not even a real apology. It's like it's like I I that's that's great. I love that. That's gotta be asshole. I love that story, asshole. Alan Joyce, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. You didn't quite get there. Congratulations, Alan Joyce. All right, let's wrap this up. Can we do headlines, winners, predictions? Ugh I'm not as tired after this asshole of the week as I I normally am. That's true. Headline is. Well, you will be. 'Cause you have to do another show soon. Yeah. where are we? We're a headlineist. I I'll go first because we're already talking about apologies. and and I had actually mentioned Alan Joyce as one of my headlines of the week. But how about this other apology? CEO apologizes. let me tell you who the CEO's first so you can get a picture of him. Him. Samf San Francisco this is how he's described you know on the internet. San Francisco Tech CEO, Jordan Zeitz. which's already a good start, right? San Francisco Tech CEO. I mean, you you probably a great guy. co-founder of an early stage AI startup. So you're you're loving that, right? Early stage AI startup called Lemon Lime. Great name, right? I mean that that tells you everything about the company, right? Lemon Lime. a Stanford grad, right? That's great. You love Stanford. He actually graduated. And and Yeah, I know. You're built to hate already, yeah. Loving everything. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Citrus always Yeah. y he graduated though. That's something. Listen to this horrible mission statement of this company. I this is the stuff that drives me crazy. Like I can't believe our our supposed brightest that our our our our y our young bright minds are doing this. Lemon Lyme le I I can't get over how much I hate that name of that company. Lemon Lyme and the the lime the L in Lyme is capitalized. It's it's it's all one word. So stupid. This is what they do. Yeah, l it's all one word. Lemon lime. Yeah. Lemon lime. Well how do you think the how does the orange or kiwi other like vitamin C rich fruits c feel that they're not part of the title, right? Mango. Honestly, I feel like every one of these companies needs to hire like fourteen year olds f who are start starting rock bands and ask them to name their companies 'cause it would be just as good. Why is it not lemon lime orange? Like what what is happening here? That's the real story. Lemon Lime learns your business and then automates your team's busy work in a single click. No coding or manual setup required. This is what the dumb company does. Yeah. I what Don't like that. One click Could we reduce everything humanity does to one click? Like How about this but how about this arrogant prick, Jordan Zeitz, who is basically telling most of the world that your quote unquote busy work is not important. Like the the the functions you do and bring to an enterprise, they're really they're stupid. They're not important. None of what you do is important. We're just gonna we're gonna replace it with a click. Look, you could be pissed. You could be pissed, but I want Jordan Zeitz to give me a button that will have sex with my wife, do my taxes, and make breakfast for the children, right? Like one one button. I'm sorry, but I've worked with a lot of I've worked with with plenty of like, you know, office workers who who do who do work that, you know, Jordan Zeitz thinks is pointless. They office managers who who who work hard to make sure like, you know, that the that the the environment is is is is posit like to replace it all with AI, I I'm sorry, it just it just i it angers me. Anyway, here's the headline. CEO, that's the CEO, by the way. That's what the headline missed. That's who the CEO is. CEO apologizes for offering interviews to people who got tattoos of his AI company logo. Why did anyone get a tattoo of his To get and because as you know, the the job market and the ability to even get an interview has become nearly impossible. Everyone's stressed out of their minds. So he's saying, Hey, get a tattoo and we'll promise. We're not gonna give you the job, but we're gonna offer to interview you. This is the this is what this jerk wanted to do. But couldn't AI have solved for that? Why why do they have to get permanently inked? What why can't AI have hit that's so nice. Why can't they click a button and get an interview or something? Like, why are we doing this? Why are we getting tattooed? Have you did you look at the logo? No, actually I didn't. It's it's a it looks like a citrus wedge with a little triangle cut out of it. I mean It'd be better if it said like I I already got the job, Mom. Like it that should be the logo, right? So you're gonna get that stupid rip off of a sprite logo just so you can so you can get it interviewed at this dumb company? That's what it is, yeah. So s you will get something permanently etched on your body for a startup that will likely go out of business. I was gonna say, congratulations. Now you have to work with me. The asshole who humiliated you into getting a tattoo. Right, this is the this is the victory. I this this this okay anyway. I'm gonna I gotta shut up. Yeah. Before you even joined. Yeah. I I've got two I've got two headlines. Trump staff cuts blamed after watermarked open AI map mislabels Africa at AIDS conference. Okay, but to be fair, does anyone in the Trump orbit know anything about Africa? Like d could they even if they use an atlas, a Rand McNally atlas, they still wouldn't un wouldn't know where Africa was or understand any of the countries. I just I just like that they blamed that there was less staff on the fact that they couldn't open Google Maps. Right? Like it's y you literally just had to look at the map 'cause the the picture is a picture of the continent of Africa with the countries outlined and they pointed to the wrong countries with names. They were like Nigeria and they said it was South A South Africa. It was like dumb stuff. Yeah. No. They wouldn't know. But they wouldn't they wouldn't know that though. But I just love how fucking bonkers dumb that is. but I I think the second headline is better anyway. It was Amazon received six hundred million in tariff refunds and will pass some back to customers. Of course they didn't say. They they they had all sorts of excuses why they couldn't give it all back, like some of this and so there's decentralized It is bonkers dumb. Do we know how much? It's not gonna be a lot. Yeah, I think Jeff is like he needs a a he needs a powerful vacuum for one of his yachts. And those those are expensive, those like those good vacuum cleaners. I just th I just like the headline writer was like like how do I make this sound good? Like with su the word sum. I I gotta be accurate, but I want it to sound good. Yeah, some. But what are we getting checks or are they gonna like discount like sticky notes nine cents? Is that the ha is that we're gonna get back? Hey look, you're gonna get you're gonna get a credit to your count for for point three pennies. yeah. those are my two headlines. Who's your winner? Sure you are. Yeah. All right. We don't do winners, do we? My the winners clearly CEO apologize for offering interviews to people who got tattoos of his AI company logo, right? okay, sorry. Sorry. I'm I'm I'm losing my mind a little bit. this is a boring winner. You're gonna hate me for this, but I'm gonna say Coles, the department store, for getting some much needed female influence on the board. the headline is Coles appoints Wendy Arlen as chair of the board. So so Coles of all companies, according to the FreeFlow Analytics database, the new database. Winner of the week. No, winner of the week, though who won the week? They only had two women on the board, Robin Mitchell and the aforementioned Wendy Arlen. They had a combined eight percent influence. John Sh John John Schlifsky, who's been on the board for 15 years and had 27% influence stepping down. So I'm gonna say, congratulations, Wendy Arland. Becoming a chair, a female chair of a company of this size in America is it's a big accomplishment. And I think you deserve some respect. Yeah. Power. Look, going from 1% influence to chair of the board, where you're probably a more influential than anyone but the CEO, it doesn't happen that much. So good. let's stick with boards. It's a lot of board talk. my winner of the week is the phrase not due to any disagreement with the company. So Ann, so here's the headline: Ann Sweeney resigns from Netflix board. Okay, so no one reads these headlines. Like no one cares who Ann Sweeney is. Hey. Doesn't happen. Doesn't happen for women. All right. All right. I like it. Ugh. Yeah, I hate that. Well, I did, but I'm a I'm not the right case study. No one but I'm saying like regular people. These are all filings. This is an eight K filing. It comes out. It says, it says Ann Sweeney's resigned from the Netflix board. it's a qu it here's a quote. On July twenty sixth, twenty twenty six, Anne Sweeney notified Netflix, the company, that she was resigning from the board of directors of the company effective as of that date. And then it said, Ms. Sweeney's resignation is not due to any disagreement with the company. A common boilerplate, yeah. Matt (01:00:00.046) So not only is that common boilerplate, I want to know how common. In fact, in the last five years, in 8Ks, the phrase not due to any disagreement with the company appeared 1660 times. That specific phrase, not permutations, not no variations, no permutations, just that one phrase. Now, I am not saying that like Damion (01:00:16.474) Well just that me like spicit because I'm sure there are variations. Yeah. Right. Got it. Got it. Yeah. Matt (01:00:29.743) you know none were, you know, due to disagreements with the company. I maybe some were. Maybe maybe none were. Like maybe I don't know. Damion (01:00:39.322) I'm sure there are I'm sure there are plenty of disagreements, believe me. Matt (01:00:43.767) In fact, v the vast majority of them say nothing about the reasons why these people have actually left. Y occasionally you see to pursue another job or pursue another career or personal reasons. They'll never say sick. They you know, they might say personal reasons, right? Damion (01:00:48.728) No, no, no, never. Damion (01:00:53.242) Sure. Or someone sick maybe. Personal reasons, right? Yeah. I'm depressed 'cause I'm going to a big divorce or something. Matt (01:01:02.969) But just for scale, in the last five years, the term was due to a disagreement with the company appeared five times. No, it's it actually the ones I read all of them and they were like the so and so is resigning from the board effective immediately. Their resignation was due to a disagreement with the company over ability to access boards and you know records. Damion (01:01:11.13) Probably a typo. They probably just forgot the knot. Damion (01:01:17.306) Yeah. Damion (01:01:27.19) Right. And sometimes right, and sometimes they like they write a letter. there w at Cole's actually a director, she stepped on and wrote a letter, yeah. Matt (01:01:34.275) Wrote a letter. Yeah. so the winner here is not due to any disagreement with the company. Damion (01:01:40.565) yeah. How remarkable that these these gigantic public corporations that basically rule our lives now. I think everyone's probably in agreement with that. We live in a hypocrisy, right? And and d these people make obscene amounts of monies and and we can't we don't know how to get rid of them. We can't fire them. We try to vote on them, no one seems to care, but even when they lose elections, they stay on the board. these are some of the biggest egos in the room. Right? These are these are some of the most egotistical n of all reports, narcissistic people, right? This is not just me talking. These are these are the the the reports and research out there. You're telling me that these people get into a confined room and talk about a company and they have no disagreements. And then the they're not leaving because of power struggles or or because their fabulous ideas weren't hurt. You're telling me that no, none of that happened. Nothing. Matt (01:02:34.563) Look, I like I actually for this one in particular, Netflix Ann Sweeney. This happens like two months after Jay Hogue, who was voted off of the board, then brought back to the board, was made chair of the board. Like I like Reed Hastings left and Jay Hogue was made chair, and Anne Sweeney's like, fuck this place. I'm out of here. Like Ann Sweeney, I I I have no idea what like you can't really speculate because they don't tell you. But it wouldn't it be nice? Damion (01:02:44.494) Yeah. there you go. Yeah. Right. Damion (01:03:02.564) They don't tell you. They don't tell you. Matt (01:03:04.257) If she said, I didn't want Jay back in the first place. And now that Reed's gone and Jay's running this ship, I'm fucking out of here. Like, I would love that. Damion (01:03:11.61) You know why? Because I'm sure two things. One, it's in her contract not to, right? And the other thing is that she 'cause she wants twenty other board positions in the next ten years, so she's never gonna say a bad word about the system. She's gonna keep quiet. All right. Let's get out of here. What what's left? Predictions? Matt (01:03:26.008) That's probably true, yeah. yeah, predictions. What do you got for predictions? Damion (01:03:32.388) Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson apologizes that it took former CEO Alan Joyce so long to apologize for something that she already apologized for despite not being CEO when any of it happened. I think I think it's in a keep going. I like a yo-yo. I think it's in a keep going at Quantas. Matt (01:03:43.001) Mm. Matt (01:03:48.387) That one's actually pretty good. I like that. I actually so my prediction is that Damion (01:03:56.44) Right? 'Cause 'cause Netflix eventually is gonna make a movie out of Alan Joyce's book, right? He's gonna have to apologize when that when that movie comes. All right, go ahead, go ahead. Matt (01:04:03.211) My prediction is that Damien, Hazelnut Rollis, our very own, resigns from Free Float due to a disagreement with the zero dollars he gets paid at Free Float. But Free Float puts out a statement saying it's not due to any salary reason related to the company. That's that's my prediction. That's all we got. That's your hazelnut Rollis, Damien to his mother. I am your analyst, Lamette Muscardi. Damion (01:04:21.05) Why do you have to depress me? Why do have to Matt (01:04:31.725) This was Free Float, our Friday show. Come back next week when we have more shows. Next week is our we'll do a week of shows and then the week after that we're off. We're nothing. We are. I'm it I'm in Spain. Yeah, you could you could do whatever you want. I'm in Spain. but until then, bye. Damion (01:04:40.804) We are? You're off. We are? good. nice. Yeah.