Transcript
Hell. Yeah. live from Vanguard's quiet. Meditation room slash investor engagement office. I think we know what's winning. I think they made it a lactation room. It's an all-new Wacky, Wednesday edition of business pants, featuring analyst whole, Matt McGaughey. On today's. Bob Iger branded Boomerang collection. Oh look Boomer Boomerang called March 4th. 2026, the hodaya blame game. Hey, our show today is being sponsored by free float analytics. The only platform measuring board power connection performance for free. Actually, someone did ask for kind of one today didn't Nathan. Someone else asked you for one. Yeah, we got we so the great Elemento actually forwarded a reporter to us and they were asking questions about one of the companies where to cover today, Yeah, that's basically said they said who do you blame? Basically, they basically said you blame and that said, the reporter was from The Washington Post and I almost thought they fall into the ocean, unfortunately. Yeah, so we'll get to that later. You ready for this? Yeah, let's I've only got one. You're driving this ship today. I've got, let's just start, let's go. We don't have music for this. Do we know no music, no particular order. Let's start with broadcom broadcom. CEO pay sores. God, I've used that word a lot. This year. Sores spikes. Bumps, all kinds of tickles, like that source to 205 million dollars after AI fueled rally. I hate the idea of an AI fuel rally. I don't like rally. Yeah, your auntie rally. Yeah. All right, so who do you blame? I got some curveballs. Let's start with the curveball. You do you blame the workers? What the median compensation for their employees is 300 and 378,000 dollars. So maybe they're just too happy to care, right? Although, Christy workers thing, I hated about these CEO pay ratios is that when you look at the details, they do a pretty good job. Excluding really low paying workers, who don't work in the United States, they all do it. So, I wonder what the real total is here. They and they, they describe it as if there's some system to it. But mostly it's like we don't pay them a lot, so we're embarrassing them. Yeah. But but I don't usually the pay CEO pay ratio still 543 to 1, but I thought let's start with a curveball here. Maybe the workers just they don't care about runaway greed anymore. Maybe they don't, they don't want to check their CEO because they're getting paid cash money, you know. Okay, all right, I'm gonna I'm not gonna bite on that. I don't think how about the completely non-independent board chair? Henry samueli, who was called independent, despite the fact that he owns 27 billion dollars a broadcom stock, I had to like check that times B. You said billion. Yeah, I I even if my math is wrong and it's 2.7 but it's still a lot, I think it's 27 billion dollars, a broadcom stock. Now, he's been a director since 2016. He's been the chair since 2018. He's a former executive of the company. He was the chief technical officer, and he co-founded broadcast 1991 somehow he's independent chair. But he might have a lot of say in this pay. So, this is the amazing thing about listing exchanges and how Dopey, literally everything they say is because they set the independent standard in case you don't No listener. And I do mean singular the independent standard for a director on a board is not even I'm related to them. It is, they live in my house? That's basically the independent standard. Yeah, there is some like loose standard about like, relations and spouses and living in your house. If you like Nancy, Kilgore at Netflix is a perfect example of this, she was with Netflix for like 20 years, retired sits on the board under her boss, Reed Hastings and after a few years is considered independent as a director. That's the same thing here, that's ridiculous. That's a joke. Do you blame? It is funny. The Anyway, it's funny just seeing them that we have that board has called him independent, looking at the proxy right now. Do you blame comments? Compensation committee, chair. Harry you. Okay. So he was the fake person and Harry you Harry. It's not hairy like you know follicle like covered it Harry. We don't get a lot of Harry's in our database Harry you now he had more votes against him but the last meeting then all other a direct combined. He had 337 million votes against the other eight. Got 2503. Don't like this dude and he is annoyingly preoccupied. I I have a list here in the show notes. I I'm not, I can't read it all but he's a chair of rain enhancement Technologies, executive, chair of Berto acquisition, he's in terms CEO, we CFO there, he's chairman there. He used to be Vice chair there, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's just so preoccupied that, you know, maybe he doesn't care, maybe he's just doing whatever he has to do. Yeah. Or, or maybe the multiple Executives and Executives on the board, just make the choice and he's the scapegoat, because he's a chair of the committee. Well, that's your job because you're playing. Who do you the, who do you blame game, finally? Do you blame that, just blame the CEO hock tan hock tan, Oh, if you use his middle, initials E, it's hot hockey tan. Hockey, hockey tan. I don't, I'm never seen that hockey player with a tan. I mean, it's hard enough to find a black hockey player. Let alone one with a tan. I mean, they're all from Canada is Huck 10, the CEO of the CEO and a founder. Or is he just a CEO? I could look that up, because, because the chair is the co-founder, so maybe no, I actually don't think hock tan is the I mean according to the most recent now this is still in sort of data Productions Henry, Samuel and Henry Nicholas the third. Yes and Nicholas third is not on the board. In fact, the free float data says Samuel has 69% of the influence on this board. Its totalitarian company, hot Tans only got 14% influence well when you own 27 billion dollars a shares, right? I mean, does anything else matters? Pretty sure, it doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure the only person that it could possibly be is the completely independent Henry samueli. That's the only person that we can blame. That's, who you blame? There's no compensation committee. Chair there is no CEO. There's the guy that owns all the stock and tells you what to do. So that's where you're blaming. That's why I'm blaming, you know, I promise you and it'll never happen. So This Promise is completely empty. If I ever make you 205.3 million dollars, right? Yeah. And, you know, you could be a part of that because you Work at the same company so you might help me make that I occasionally do. Yeah, I'm gonna announce on that very same day because I mean, this is embarrassing to me. This is a very same day. I'm gonna give at least half to like the local homeless shelter. Like so hock tan, come on. Just, you know, I mean how are you supposed to pay for your AI? You know, dog ear app. I'm just saying why can't that be a cool part of the the Bro, CEO manosphere like, what can't be immediate like chuckle of like, oh, I made that much, like I'm clearly gonna give 90% of it to the homeless and the models, like, no, that is, that is, that's great. Only 50% of Jeff bezos's yacht. So I'm not sure that you like right about that, let's move on to McDonald's. I don't know if you saw this viral video going around, McDonald's CEO, awkwardly samples, his company's new burger enviral video. First of all, kind of just say how impressed with myself is that I I actually can spell Chris kimchi's name without Looking it up. That's how long working at this dumb show but this is Chris kempinsky who is always getting in the trouble there at McDonald's. And did you see this video by any chance? I try when I see McDonald's and video together, I usually close my eyes. The gist of it is and you really can't blame the man is that he was promoting a new burger that do they need new Burgers? I don't even know why just have a hamburger and a cheeseburger and just end your stupid menu but He picked up the new burger. He went to take a bite showing off. A great is and he barely could take a nibble. He was disgusted by it clearly he wasn't. I mean, it was actually. Did you watch it? Yeah, it's pretty funny. It's pretty stupid. So good. Going, you know, Chris Kim. So who do you blame here? Do you blame the just the, the general disgusting food at McDonald's, right. I mean he's just basically telling you it's gross. So I have a few, a few things that demonstrate, this is the nutritionally, why it's so discussing, their hyper. Salinity it contains up to 75% of daily sodium in one meal. Oh moisture giving it a plastic texture dough conditioners they use like enzymes and monoglycerides to stay. I'm actually soft insolence. Gives insulin Spike, says added sugars. I could keep going. You don't need me to keep going. You know, how to discussing this, it's not food. It's frankenfood. I don't know what it is, but I don't. But did you see the bun? The Bun. Looks like a bagel. Yes. So what's because it's delicious dough conditioners, so that's the first blame. Do you blame? Yeah, I'm watching him take the bite. Oh my God. It's invisible. First of all, not only is it a nibble? He when he holds it up and says, Build It Up one point and says, that's a big bite. I took and you didn't take a big bite. If you have to say that, yes, you didn't make a vegan. I mean, just me. It's okay. Second of all, when you look at Chris Kemp chinsky, yeah, like he's never had me way too small. Yeah, he's a thin like a vegan way fish, man. It's like my brother. He also only took one bite, right? Like he holds it up, like he's gonna take a second bite and never take the second guy bless him. That's where I'm at. I don't even get to the first bite but yeah, God bless him. All right. The second who played that you, I'm on happy that you showed me this video. The second who do you blame on? This one is just a general McDonalds. Like I don't know how to call this one but they're just their attack on society. Like, you know, that McDonald's leaves a bad taste in your mouth. There's Ah, there's this stigma behind like the factory farming of the meat. This is disposable culture of food. There's that. I, I could go on and on here. I don't want to turn this. No political thing against McDonald's, but but maybe he's just, maybe he's just reacting to the just that he the all the ways that McDonald's attacks are stakeholders are, right? Maybe he's just, like, amazing know. I'm gonna say, that's not even an. All right, the third option, who do you blame and this? I and I get, this is such a long list that I don't, maybe we should put this up somewhere, maybe we can put in the next scene, but I'm calling this one. The controversial stain. Of CEO. Chris kimchi. There's so much. This guy's been involved with a canopy believe. He's got his job. So first, there was like, the, the, the the we talked about in 2021, the old parents, text, where he played, blamed the parents, there's a shooting at one of the McDonald's and he said, the parents fail those kids, he told black Executives that that numbers don't matter when confronted with the decline of black leadership from 42 to 7 Executives, he had a 10 billion dollar settlement with fire and Alan settle the massive racial stereotyping lawsuit regarding the companies refusal to contract with black home media. Um, it really goes on and on and on he he quietly removed Dei goals from executive bonuses. He just recently, he he had a tough love comments to work or telling workers. Nobody cares about your careers as much as you do. Yeah, he's got. Do you want me to keep going? He has a 1200 to pay to one CEO, pay ratio. There are franchise franchise franchise owner revolts because he was Raising price. I there's ongoing criticism for failing to dismantle. The boys club atmosphere inherited from predecessors TV Easter. I mean really, this is a huge list, it's just a lot of weird. Chris kimchi stains. That's the third. Who do you blame and finally, Do you just blame an old-fashioned? Really like one of the bedrocks of our database free flow analytics. Lead independent director miles. Whoa, who's been there since 2009? So really maybe he's the architect of all this. Like, bro, culture and weird, racial racist, undertones and everything go. Yeah, go ahead. Well, he's the ex CEO of Abbott, right? Like Chicago, Mafia Chicago, Mafia like I remember, we did actually a presentation where his face was in the Middle With all sorts of lines, pointing out of it for connections, he has, but you did leave off a different direction that I do want out. You always welcome to put a ad hoc Here, go ahead. So this director is on the corporate responsibility committee the executive committee and the governance committee. Go ahead. His name is Paul Walsh Paul S Walsh in our database he is on 10, different boards, nonprofits, nonprofits, and publicly traded. You know, he's like, he doesn't want to see his family. He's actively on three, but he's been on 10 in the last seven years. So like a lot of boards. He's 45% connected. He's as connected as kimchi is to all these directors. He's he, and and kimchi are two the most connected directors on the sport. And he's only got 8% info. But he's wait. Is this the guy? Because I was going to put this guy kind of as a joke, but I'm glad is this the guy who runs the luxury car company? Yes. Okay. This is the guy, right? Like, what, McLaren what is he doing this? What? I don't know bored, I don't know, I'm glad you mentioned him. I'm glad the independently director vintage wine, Estates too, a Family Winery, like like at McDonald's, I think you drink fancy wine. What, what are you doing here? You clearly have like no place on this board, get him. Yeah, go ahead. Accept that everyone knows who you are. That's your only place here. So you're the yes, vote. You're, you're like a big, yes. Vote that allows Chris kimchi to like uncomfortably eat his own food. This one's hard for me because it's not the attack on society. It's not the controversial stain, although I do like that, that sounds like a ketchup stain Myles. White is just kind of, you know, like a run-of-the-mill. Who do you blame? The disgusting food or right hole? Walsh would be my two options for real, okay? This great quote about Paul Wall should just found. This is from the times in the UK describe Paul Walsh as a tall Punchy, balding and thick set with a Burley confidence that exudes from every poor who's Blowfish humor, masks a fiercely competitive nature. He sounds like a sounds like a church. Well, on top of having the current executive chair of McLaren group, a private Luxury, Auto Car Company. We know what a McLaren is you all so have Jim Farley Jr. Who's the CEO? Ford on this board. Yeah, just okay. Donald's in cars to be fair. He just joined, like, a couple weeks ago. I don't know. Why do we need another car? I don't have like, we needed zero to begin with blaming. Now, we've got two, we blame. I'm gonna blame the food. Yeah, the food is horrible. I give Chris kimchi credit. I he's telling you, like, you know, this stuff isn't great. I mean, you know, you're better off. I know price is still, I know prices are up everywhere, especially beef, but you're better off going to the supermarket. Get a like a lean like turkey or something, get some nice. Like whole wheat bread? Like he's that's what he's telling you. He's telling you people take care of yourself, right? He cares. Isn't that what he's saying? Get some Fiber. Get some lean protein. All right, let's move on. Stupid show. All right. Jack Dorsey in the news. Oh, no, this is the firing. This is the firing and what was really behind Jack, Dorsey laying off, nearly half of blocks staff. What was behind it? The guy owns 43% of the vote. Wasn't enough to be the so behind it. This is from the guardian. We covered the story on last week's Friday show, but the guardian had a piece out saying that basically that suggesting that the AI excuses bulshit and, and you have to agree with that because there's no way you can assess the effects of AI in, like, within like four months, you can't, you just can't understand how it's gonna affect your labor force, how it's going to affect your Five-Year Plan? Anyway, their suggesting it could be a week crypto market and declining stock price because I guess, block, Jack Dorsey has just dumped so much of blocks money into crypto. I, it's like, these companies are becoming Luke. They're like lunatics. They'll remember lunatics, but anyway, who do you blame here? Do you blame of course, co-founder and CEO and chair. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Do we have to go farther Jack Dorsey 46% influence 41% of the voting power? I love that I saw in the In the their corporate governance guidelines. It's the board. How? It's the board's duty to oversee Senior Management. Oh yeah. In the company and ethical operation of the company. And yet, Jack Dorsey is the one who was running the board. What a Croc, what a Croc. That makes sense. I also like that I found a corporate CSR report where they one of the second thing. They're showing off, is that gender of our diversity. That their big thing, that the reason why they started the company is basically to create get rid of inequality, right? They're doing it across the world, right done. And The Benchmark that they say that they reference, Virginia University is a full 50% of representation for women. Despite that the board is only 30% women with 5% total influence, and the leadership at block is only 27% women. So they can't even do it at their own dumb company, right? And they want to make it quality. Anyway, I thought that was a down. Did they actually in their CSR report? Yeah, that's nice. Do you blame fellow co-founder and director James McKelvey? We can't forget about him, because he actually has 35% of influence 10% of voting power. You know, maybe he's One pushing Jack to do awful things, right? Maybe it's maybe it's James. No okay, how about this weird one? Do you blame the classified board structure? Just the structure itself? Because, you know, it's insulating, Shareholders from having a say, even having a say on the less than 50% vote that they have. Do you blame, do you blame the class B shares, which are somehow worth 10 votes per share? And the Cove Founders controlled 99.6% of those shares. In fact, Without those shares without that 10 votes per share. They actually the two the 2025 Equity incentive plan, actually would have lost. It would have lost the vote. It was a management vote, it would have lost without Jack and James's vote. So, do you blame the class B shares? Or finally, how about just blaming Jay-Z? He's on the rapper, Jason, I like the last video playing. What do you mean 40% off? If you're asking me who to blame, it's Jack Dorsey, there's no question but you're asking sort of like the national legal policy center. It's Jay Z, isn't it like is it black? He's a black man who like, how much, you know, does he know about DPI and Technology? Right? Isn't he just a Dei higher? I suppose a famous person. So but I'm gonna go with Jack Dorsey. That was the only and correct answer. Let's move on to the one that was I don't know if it was requested but you threw this in late. This is from The Washington Post that wanted to know a little bit more about the Geo Group leadership transition. First of all, I will say this for the reporter at the Washington post that I can understand reaching out because there's just like it's impossible to find anything about this company. Like there's no There were no news stories, there's nothing about this. I don't really know why but let's just get to it. So, the background here is less than a month ago. CEO J dot David Donnie, who stepped down. Despite the fact that he has only been CEO for just over a year, right? He suddenly steps down and with this you could tell that they wanted to push him out and he probably didn't want to leave because they're all. So giving him 104,000 dollars per month, Consulting agreement through February of 2028. So that's a lot of money just and they he's getting, he's getting full health benefits, all of his on vested stock will continue to vest. So you know, they're making sure he's taking care of. That's all. How does it like the consultant arrangements are usually one year Arrangements. This is not two years arranged because he's probably pissed. He's embarrassed my my guess is. His contract actually runs Roughly until the end of those two years. Look the hyper speculation would be because they don't report any of this. They just say he's decided to retire, right? God forbid, your report. Yeah. Um so they don't say anything else but the speculative view would be they're roughly paying him. The 100,000 dollars per month is about 1.3 or 4 million dollars a year that was his base salary when he was pushed out, he gets to keep all his options. Yes. And they can continue to vest and it runs roughly through the time he would have been out of the company out of the contract anyway. Doesn't it seem like they're just quietly? Like it's like the way we could fire you without having it. Be a big thing. You know, paying you they're putting them on the bench and sending you. Right. He also gets like reimbursed travel expenses and like there's perks in there that are ridiculous. So who's taking over Is this is the boomerang reference from earlier in the show is Geo's founder and executive chair and former CEO, George zolie, okay? So he's, he's taking over getting up to your point, getting 1.2 million itself salary with a, you know, with annual bonus and equity. so, who do you play? Right. We're going to Boomerang CEO at Geo Group. J. David Donahue last about 13 months, do you blame the the Geo Group Emperor? So, we'll start right at the top George caoli with a massive. I don't know if I've seen a number this. Hi, it's been a while, a massive 84% influence. Yeah, or percentage, not that high. Yeah. Again, he founded Geo 1984, he's been chair. He's been executive chair. He's been CEO. Always been Vice chair. He's been everything. He also he owns 3% of the stock, He importantly, has a bit of a trump Bromance. So, one of the the Geo Group, super Pacs, donated a million dollars to the Trump campaign and then they gave another half a million for the inauguration Pam Bondi, the current attorney, general was a former lobbyist for the Geo Group. So there's been an incredible opportunity Economic Opportunity for Geo Group because unfortunately because of ice So Geo Group reported last month, a record 254 million dollars in profit. Last year, 700% increase over 2024 driven by the contracts with the Trump administration's with ice. So maybe he just knows. It's the right time to step back in, right? Maybe that's what he's, he's like. Oh man, there's money to be made here with the private prisons and and the stock erased the game that they're earnings are way up, but the stock erased the game. So like, you know, you don't you bring back the song and dance man, founder the founder fetish so you can, you can pump up the stock, right? Yeah, yeah. So listen this horrible, write out the election 2024 Zoli, held, the unprecedented opportunity of the incoming, administration's Mass deportation campaign. He said, the Geo Group was built for this unique moment in our companies and countries history and the opportunity That it will bring he beamed according to the reporting he being. I mean, can you imagine being so excited by? I mean, what a anyway. So First Choice, George George, George Zoli, right? The founder of the former CEO, the boomerang, man, stepping back into place or I have some other options. Do you blame the top? Four sleepy institutional investors. They control 34% of the vote but they seem pretty passive. That's black. Rock, band, Guard, Wolf, Hill and Fidelity. You can blame them, right? I don't know. Wolf Hill, they're there Wolf Hill. Capital Management owns 5.5% of the vote there. How about this? Do you blame the CEO clown car that has been driving around the track at Geo since 2021 when Zoli first stepped down and the clown car might be the way to keep Zoli. Just Perpetually powerful, right? So first it was Jose Gordo, he took over in 2021 lasted for a couple years. He was all a member of the board and remember Zoe state is chair but then it but then let's listen to this. This gets a little intriguing after this Brian Evans he only lasted a year. He stepped down 2024. He was not a director. So George zoley, prevented Brian Evans from being on the board, so George, Zoe controlled, that board's executive chair, the only executive on that board. And then Jay David Donahue took over in 2025 again. He lasted about a year also, not a director. I mean Zoli was clearly using the CEO clown car to so that he could step in so they know power. Yeah, no power. So yeah, so really The Washington Post report doesn't really have to ask because there was a intentional power vacuum set up here and there was a clown car and in fact, do you know how rare it is? Despite the fact that I shot about it every day that I don't want any CEO's on boards. Do you know rare it is that two consecutive CEOs, were not even on the board. I don't think it's ever happened in the history of America is Zoe basically prison Iger yes, I mean he's And then I have two more. He could blame here how about the intentionally and competent compensation Committee in charge of succession planning. Now, I tracked it back to 2021 I looked at I looked the last five proxies another unusual pattern here is how often this this committee changes often. They just kind of stay the same but we've had three chairs since 2021. We've had rotating committee members and listened to the most recent iteration of this committee, it is intentionally incompetent Jack. Brewer is the chair of his committee. You know what Jack Brewer is known for when he is a football player, he's a former NFL football player. Also there's Tom Bart sakis. Fellow Greek, Tom Thomas, Bart. So Goods. He is a cardiologist of all things. Yeah and then you have Scott Kernan Who is an agency Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. So it's like what what are these people doing? What are they who are these people, right? They have a lot of experience handing out comp though. I mean, come on. It's I mean, Zoe does everything he can to maintain power. Finally, I just thought I'd throw this in. You could also blame Geo Group has the weirdest lack of transparency that I think I've ever seen it's even more than Berkshire Hathaway. It is maybe the only Publicly traded company who is public website or investors website does not list the management or board members at all. They don't tell you anything like even in the who we are about us. Nothing. Nothing there's just a pain and when you go to their management team page that used to exist, it hasn't existed for years. It just says page, not found with a with a modicon of like a rounding face frowning face. So I got five choices there for you. For Geo Group. I got Founder George Oley, I have sleepy institutional investors CEO clown car intentionally incompetent composition committee or their lack of transparency. What do you think where you weigh in on this one? I mean, first of all, I'll the compensation committee pull is interesting. The cloud car is interesting, and the compensation committee is interesting, the compensation committee, all of them are massive, Republican donors. Like, even Jack Brewer there, either religious or they're. Yeah, there's something going on there. Jack, who's NFL career consisted of jumping from Team to team from 2000 to 2006. Like he was like, you know, you have to be amazing to get the NFL. Congratulations. Your choice to share the comment. You're you were undrafted and no one cared about you, so but he did go on to be Donald Trump's appointee as the commissioner on social status of black men and boys. And he was the chair of the America, First policy in statute, and he's a Fox News. Contributor and you know, all the stuff. So he's a big in the Christian world too he's some Republican player. Yeah. And then you have Kernan, who is a Department of Correction secretary. Those are exactly. Yeah, prison guy. Those aren't like you're not. I'm just going to generalize here, but there aren't like a lot of super Progressive liberals who are like, let's go be the agency secretary for like Department of Corrections. That's not super. Liberal know you have a cardiologist though NFL degree the car. I don't the fellow Greek matter it does because you Got a Greeks in this world and and that Zoe and the cardiologists are both Greeks. Got I mean something I'm sorry it's something so it was born in Greece. I think it's more. Isn't it more? Greek. So I can say this, by the way, I'm not being racist to Greeks. Aren't you though is their racist to Greeks? I don't know. Isn't it more than the cardiologist is in Boca Raton? Florida, isn't that the, you know the bigger? Yeah. Man, but good choices here. I didn't think I didn't think I'd get such good choices here but you I don't know where you're gonna land on this one. The CEO. Clown cars, fascinating. I am fascinated by the fact that he intentionally. Prevented first of all, One CEO per year is ridiculous, but that two of them were not even direct her. I mean that is just Shenanigans right there. Um, they never had a chance. Is it more Shenanigans than the fact that the cardiologist is, is the is the head of the Florida's like Greek church and the bestowed upon Trump. Like the title of that, their Church gave Trump the title patriarchat just in November. So, like the Greek, the Greek Orthodox Church in America is known to be pretty conservative. It's pretty conservative, but there's no answer, it's just solely. I don't even know how to get you. Come on. It's not even. There's no fun. The answer that I actually made, like, I can, I can go with, like, this is even worse than Bob chapek, right? This is even worse. Like I think Bob works. I think Bob had a little bit of a chance. These guys never had a chance, never ever ever. Like so solely, owns 3.1% through various entities of the shares, which means this is a one class, one show one. Vote company, absolutely BlackRock, and Vanguard that owned 22% 23% together. This is like a knot. Okay, situation. To allow the founder to like an executive chair to call every shot with no transparency. The fact that they're literally isn't even a web page. Yeah. Well, there's a web page, but nothing about the people who run the company. What is that? What is that? It's especially scary. Given what the company does. I mean this isn't stupid Disney making like Mouse videos, right? Tension Center. This is scary stuff. Honor management. Yeah. All right, so you're picking Zoe 84% influence good for him and my last one. For the day is the story is Sam. Altman is realizing he made a gigantic mistake. So oh. Is it existing? Yeah, he does this all the time. He so you're right. This happened over the weekend. We haven't had a chance to cover this and thoracic, right? And what are they make? Perplexing know, what do they do? What's their claw claw? Right? So they like, and this is a big deal, because they stood up against the government, they basically told the department of This article called the Department of Defense, it's not the Department of Defense anymore. Unfortunately, the department of War, which is a good name, I guess, because the department Department of attacking their horribly starting Wars everywhere, but, but, but CEO Dario Dario? I'm just call him Dario's. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Still. He stood up against Pete hesketh and and what happened. The anthropic app became the number one app on. Yeah, overnight so good for him. Good play. See, listen, see Target, you hear what's going on target reading, the lead teams here but then what happened over the weekend. See. Sam Altman stepped in. He immediately signed a contract with this, the Pentagon basically saying like I'll do it. Yeah, do whatever. Bomb whatever, whatever. I mean, this guy is a joke so now he's like on a little bit of a apology tour say he saying that we shouldn't have rushed into this deal and he's in you. I mean this is exactly why they tried to fire Sam Altman a few years ago because he does a rational thing against the mission of the company with out. He doesn't like go to the member. One of the things that his communication with the board was terrible and he would lie to the board, he's doing crap like this. I why is he rushing into such a big decision? Like why is it happening over the weekend in between two of our dumb podcasts? How could it go that quickly? How Not to mention that the reason why there are actually renegotiating the contract for trying to, I'm sure he'll lie. They're trying to reach it is they're saying it was sloppy, my guess is because he's like he's It's Not only was it like horrible optically to like immediately rush in and say will bomb whatever especially because you had three or four weeks of anthropic saying. That we, we the things that we're asking for are like you can't just kill someone without a person involved, right? Like you can't have the AI kill somebody. What it looks like is Sam Altman. What rushed in said, will let the AI kill someone. Yeah, and that's the only thing, and then the government announced a war against Iran without Congressional approval and he was like, he was like, oh, like what have I done? so, who do you blame? I have Sam Altman. Yeah. Okay. That's all. That's all I have. That's it. That's it. I didn't have. I couldn't, I tried. I couldn't. You couldn't blame anthropic? I couldn't you. If you want to extend this game going. It's Sam Altman. It's Sam Altman. That's it. That's it. I mean, what are we? What are we doing here? Yeah, speaking of war with Iran. I have one extra value. Why do we have to? Yeah, because we haven't talked about the fact that we are currently at war with Iran for reasons that are unclear to any know. I including the people who are out with Iran, the reasons are well they're too full. I it's always some kind of ongoing like religious. I don't know, were kind of right. I mean this I guess we're a Christian Nation. Now this is what George W. Bush used to do and he used to be some kind of like a religious thing but at least he spent time saying weapons of MasterChef for months. He actually created a case that Congress vote on case. Yeah, But also it's it's Epstein file cover, isn't that more important? I mean he's distracting from the Epstein files is that this is the most expensive Epstein file cover ever like they already redacted everything and literally like this is costing over a billion dollars a day for the US to bomb another country. Kill them and create unfortunately. Yeah. Like that's a lot of that's expensive cloud cover. I I just I want to bare minimum of something. I want the administration to Gaslight me before. Something happens, at least take the time to get that like trying to fake me out. All right. But here is the way I frame. This is a businessman baby and a business I'm using Loosely because you know he actually wasn't that. Yeah he wasn't that good at business, he's running the country, he was good at playing a CEO on TV shows. He's a transactional dude. Everything's a transactional approach and including trading young girls with Epstein right? Like let's be clear everything's a transaction. Yeah so um He's now led us into a war for Imaginary reasons. So who do you blame for this war? And I want to make this, you have to recognize. This is actually something that we've talked about before. There's a law professor at Brooklyn law that we've talked to about this. It's the corporate structure being applied to federal government. Absolutely. Yeah, they're payrolls. Unfortunately are the same these days they're exactly the same. It is like the CEO Emperor. Yeah, making all the choices. The board is basically there to, you know, like play Kate. You know, does not connote a democracy. It's not a democracy, right? So who do you blame if we look at the US government, these decisions. Go to war with Iran. Do you blame the founder fetish? Oh, it's the president CEO. We're just a huge part of the company. Yeah, a lot of, you know, Congress and investors and whatever I found, you know, we is Something that has struck me for many years since learning. And what like fourth grade about the three branches of government and and you're right this does apply to our world here though. We try to tell people about It's supposed to be those three, branches are supposed to represent a balanced approach, write a checks and balances executive legislative judicial they say that all the time. Check right. And and and and since the, you know, the first President I remember is Reagan. And since those days, we do put a huge fetish on that Branch. I don't know if it was a ranch. Yeah, I don't know if it always used to be that way. I'm thinking it didn't but, you know, maybe they like George Washington. Maybe they kissed his butt but but really, it was like, since Reagan. It's become like a popularity, or maybe it was John Candy. I don't know. But, to your point, we do have a little bit too much of that in this country. A lot of founder. Yeah. Do we blame the sycophantic boards in this case by sicko? Fantastic. Do you mean that they're not doing their jobs as providing? Oversight? Providing it. Yeah. What they are is The Gaslight of oversight like what the current Congress is, they literally are a blank Check, rubber stamping everything, but they are supposed to represent. Like like a due diligence and a process and making sure we don't get in over our skis. And, and we don't overspend and that's the board's primary. What the board functions as is, they pay the CEO, they hire and fire the CEO and they have a duty to make sure that the company as an asset is protected for the people they represent which are investors right. In this case Congress their job is to hold the CEO. The president accountable, they are to make decisions about the purse. Yes, spend money this way. No, don't spend it that way. And they are supposed to be accountable to the people who elect them like the, you know, the voters. So. But at this point, they don't do that at all. They are every day at the same founder, fetish every board in America that they look the other way. They're almost like they're just asleep at the wheel. Really? Unfortunately in fact because they meet all the time and they talk about stuff but then they let the CEO do whatever they want. Right? Like yeah. And and Disturbing the in our current political climate. That when even one Republican, I know Thomas Massey in Kentucky has been speaking out against Trump. If even one member of the board, says any, like they go after this, dude, like, but he's just doing his job, right? I mean, that's supposed to be allegiance to the CEO. Dan Crenshaw, who is it? Is a member of Congress just got primary doubt. Lost his primary because they said he had too much of an independent streak against Trump. That was a dude who would literally spouted like conspiracy theories on the regular. He's not enough of a loyalist. Like that's this guy is and this guy is a former Navy SEAL. So you'd think you'd want his input? I mean most of the Republican I mean now of any time ever, even sniffed military service. But anyway. Okay, so you got founder. Fetish, you investors? Oh yes. The voters are the best. Yeah. They keep they have all the same founder. Fetish they are they are happy. They don't know the names of yes. Who's supposed to hold you accountable? They don't know the process. They don't really care. But let's just short-term popularity contest. But one thing you should have added in here as a den to that is the Electoral College often. Acts like a dual class shirt voting system because Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. The first time Bush, lost the popular vote to gore the first time. So there is a kind of a dual class shares thing going on right? Sometimes the popular vote does not get Listen to, In This, this country. This is true. This is true. We never would have had Trump in the first place but I hear your point voter. What's the fourth one finally? Yeah, China. Which is the same because we blame China every board comes out and says like we got to compete with China. That's why everyone's saying all the time and the administration, all of the constantly worried about China and China's influence in Iran, China's like technology, China started to worry about it. I don't even know. I mean, against Taiwan, they're going to okay, but that's not even yet and maybe that's not even yet. Hong Kong us saying, compared, I mean, compared even to Trump. It's Been Venezuela. It's been bombed. Nigeria Broadway. Now, Iran threatening like Cuba is threatening Greenland. He's threatening Canada. That's the guy who wanted the Nobel. Peace Prize like that's that's that's the Peace Prize guy. So those are your options found fantastic boards investors or China. I want to blame China because I want to be like Zuck, like your teacher. I haven't heard them. Talk about China. A lot recently. I mean the voters. Yeah. But but there there is like. There's something to be said about what I was talking about. What there's there is a dual-class system here because and there's so much voter suppression that I firmly believe that if we were like Australia and it was yeah, the vote was mandatory. I don't think Trump would ever win an election. I think it's impossible but I don't know. The boards boy. But a problem the the Supreme Court and the Congress is really, of course, let us down. I mean talk about all the rubber stamping coming out of the judicial branch too. I mean, the only thing they have said stood out up against was the terrorists and he's already setting new tariffs. Yeah. So obviously yeah but but I got I hopped to go on the easy one. Here we have a massive founder fetish problem in this country we and you're right the parallels with the corporations is is scary. Yeah, we're annoying. We're anointing people to go to run our society, whether it's the socks, the musk's the trumps and we really didn't have much say in it. I mean, honestly, I mean, I mean, the scary part is in the corporate, the alternative democracy and the corporate democracy. We're at 96% approval of every director, which means if the federal democracy, Inches towards that. Well, that's probably what the reports one probably is, right, all that. Yeah, that's basically like, that's basically like your vote doesn't matter because everyone who, you know, the CEO wants to get in gets in at Mass approval. That's it, that's it. It's, I mean, it's not forget that the reason why Nixon resigned in the first place is that he had lost. Most of the people in his own party, like most of the senators in congress people were like, no, we're not going to support you if you get impeached like, yeah, no one had found her fetish about Nixon. I said well I'm just saying. In general, like we have we have Veer and I think this parallels with the Absurd rise of the CEO, pay ratio and CEO pay in general, is we have gone nuts with founder fetish in this CEO, fettish celebrity fed whatever. Just we're just gone crazy with Idols like we idolize these weirdos it was foot fetish and said of celebrity, I don't want that. All right and we end this, that's all we got. That's too much as usual. I hope it's not, right. I hope the Washington Post was listening because we we figured it out for you. They were not. I'm your animals. Tell him at moscati. We are free float. Come back on Friday. When we wrap up the week next week, we are gone. Oh no early shows. We're going to the CII, the Council of institutional investors. They're spring conference in Washington and you know what's awful? It's awful. It's gonna be warm. I don't want to be really, why? I don't like that. I love it. I don't like, that's one of the things and we're going to do a show live in front of CII. We're gonna record it and we're gonna put that show out. I don't like that, other show proxy countdown. We're just gonna pretend, they're not there like, pretend they're all naked and not there. I'm gonna be sweaty. Until Friday, good. Bye.