Transcript
So we made it. To the end of the year. From all right, it's almost 2024 Studios. It's the Friday show. Featuring and this whole mattress Gary Jesse the money whispered me hazelnut roles. Yeah. On today's weekly wrap up. Something even better are yearly. Wrap up. Wait we skipped this week entirely. Yeah I realized that like just now find 20 2 0. I have a holiday Christmas Peter showed up. Mine is Friday. Yeah it's understood. I'm working all week. So we're gonna do a little bit differently today. Here's how it's gonna work. We're gonna we're gonna for all those loyal fans who stick with us every week. Is that do you think that person exists? Do we have that? Yes, that with a used to be in Finland but now no more. So this is a overly complicated show. I took every winning headline from all of our categories and sent it around to the company and asked them to pick five five headlines, right? I I literally asked them to select five stories and they you know, you didn't not I did and they came back. Each came back with about 40 stories. So here's how it's gonna work here. You did. I am gonna I'm gonna go last, I'm gonna do Story of the Year, based on what we vote and all the other categories. And I'm also going to try to fill in some of the gaps of the stories. I think they might have missed, so, we'll wrap up that way, and we'll start With something highly unusual. We're gonna start with Jesse the money Whisperer with the exhausting. A story of the year. I don't know why you guys chose that. Well, because Jesse Because unfortunately, your story usually works really well. Your category up. By the time we get to you, I'm really ready to wring your neck. So yeah, and you guys have already covered most. I know, look, this is gonna be a lot of redundancy in today's show. I can already tell so try to, I don't know, try to get to the point. Jesse, what do you have exhausting is of the year, the most story. Here's the bad news. Yeah. Um before we get started because Damian pressed all the buttons now none of my none of the live audio works. So Rocky going, I'm gonna have to play something else. Entire well, know, you screwed up something with all the buttons, so now there's no music. So Rocky worked and nothing else they rock is that means we're basically just gonna listen to Rocky and Yes, excited. What happened? When do? What when does this season? It just never stops. All right, up first We got my category, I thought we were doing categories. All right? However, you want to interpret it. So here's my first category moms get fed. Last, we know this. Here are some of the headlines more moms are leaving the workforce but not because they want to Working women spend 15.4 billion more than men and out of pocket. Health costs and September. This isn't like a Workforce one, but September 5th, was equal housework day. It's time for women to quit. Housework again, September 5th, September 5th. What are they gonna do? Because we're strive Asset Management. All year has been voting women out of the boardroom, we only put women in seats of power after the men. Screw up something. So there's a lot of glass Clips. So, if they don't do the housework, they're gonna they're just gonna arrest. This is actually, Jesse is very tired today. She just wants to take a nap. We're just rushing through this, so your first, so you're trying to say that you did this in category. So your first one is moms get fed left. Yeah, being a mom, ruins, your career is okay, one of us. What else? What's your other exhausting actually Ari's? Entire career is gone. Down the drains. Had mild sad or no, that's not true. Not true at all. Okay, this one. No surprise profits over our planet. That's literally on fire. Give us some examples. BP shall act on this. This kicked off the year BP shell and Exxon suddenly backing off. Their climate promises that has happened consistently throughout the year. Yeah it was part of it seemed like it was part of the anti-woke anti-esg messaging, right? A loud, a lot of Corporations to just completely back off all their promises, great way to start. Yeah, yeah, fast fashion, curious comeback. We have this whole fast fashion mess, which includes fast fashion has spawned a mountain of leftover clothes in the Chilean desert. That's so massive. It can be seen from space. That might be. I mean, literally my favorite headline of the year, I mean that had like tells Every story, you need to know. Yeah. Excessive online shopping is killing our ways and 63 cruise, ships owned by Carnival Corporation, released more toxic, sulfur gases that all the cars in Europe, that's about one. Okay, so number two, just so we can float around all places party. I, I'm pretty sure I did. This wasn't a study but those same 63 cruise. Ships were responsible for more norovirus than ever. That's just, yeah, that's just Carnival, would argue there, aren't that many cars in here? That's not true. That's the argument. There's tons of cars in Europe. They're just very small Ari. So Jesse so moms get fed last profits over Planet. What else you have? That's good. Just have workplace discrimination which is not new very exhausting. Uh, what do you Airline was fined? Because it had rules about high heels and makeup for female cabin crew, hey, 1950 called, we have the Wisconsin, dairy industry was kind of exposed because they rely on undocumented immigrants, but they don't let them Drive. Oh, groceries, dedicate their lives, but they can't actually do anything for themselves. Women could feel truck driver jobs companies, won't let them. That was you remember, why are they wouldn't let them because they were right? Because they were not safe. They could not ensure that they Oh and have an infiltrating. I mean Sports we've known this but we had women's soccer players promised 30,000 to play in the World Cup FIFA backed out, men college sports men. Make twice as much money as women under ncaa's new rules that allow college basketball players to cash in, right? And then we got the Opera. Yeah, just composer. So anyways, we've got a whole. Okay. So places discrimination moms get fed last profits over Planet workplace discrimination. This is great exhausting, what else? We still have two more categories. He's like go faster. You said five? Yeah. Well, can I just say Jesse? Can I just say? I just, I just checked the record. I said, let's go with top five for each category, meaning top five headlights. Sure, this is your category. Go ahead. I ignored everything he did, which surprisingly in my head. I thought there was more here but here are a couple there's a CS disco CEO. Kiwi Camara gives up 110 million pay package after groping female employee shopping meet in her face. Oh, and then the crypto CEO of Giving Tree Sam, Joel steps down after misogynist. Well, Grant, we covered that one LinkedIn wanna remind the listeners at the spreadsheet. I said around was only the stories that won the category during the year? Wasn't, it wasn't all the stories that okay? It didn't win. So their Jesse, there are plenty of other CEO misconduct stories. These are just the winners. Yeah, there were a lot through, but a lot of them were, like, pending lawsuit or expected to pay, and I'm like, that doesn't rile me up quite as much. I mean, we like on winner was didn't BP's CEO Bernard Looney, step down because he lied To the board about like what he actually did the workplace. So it was an even this early that was misconduct but he was like, there's something Shady. Yeah, big liar there. What else? Jessie All right. Lastly, this felt very this year asked, so I had to add it AI oopsie, AI oopsies. Yeah, Levi says, it's AI generated diverse models that caused huge, backlash are not a substitute for action on diverse. That one. They were, I try, I try to sight where AI matched me with someone based on my hotness rating. It's really messed up. I don't wait really that you just rated so low. I wasn't able to try date again. He was just You had written that? Yeah, that does seem like a headline. No, that's it. That's a very Business Insider headline, let's be fair. It's businesses are and then gen Z dating up, snack. Lets you let your AI trained Avatar go on dates. So you don't know, forget, and we've got a really vague open-ended one Snapchat. AI could be the creepiest chatbot yet, okay? So these are just like chatbots gone wrong or using AI because it's the craze and not really doing it correctly. Pause quickly wrap up. Jesse's, most exhausting is of the year. She grouped him into five categories moms get fed. Last profits over Planet. Workplace. Discrimination CEO misconduct and AI oopsies, which I don't really understand. So I will ask all of our extremely fabulous pun into your, what do you think is the most exhausting as category of the year? I just love a couple of these headlines. Go ahead or what do you love the most? I, well first of all that they're still high heels on makeup rules for Airlines. Well, we just hear this week, we covered, Matt this week at BP BP design new uniforms and they were there to share ba. I'm sorry, British are they were see-through, they were to see through and so they told women that they could only wear certain type of underwear because they were. So instead of actually making new uniforms that were not see through, they tried to restrict the what women can wear as underwear. And of course the the unions fought back and said, you cannot tell our workers what underwear to wear so be so British Airways. I'm sorry, they they decided to go against that but this is still going on. I mean this in the airline industry, have no idea why they're so interested in what the women wear their on the flip side? No didn't FedEx this year removed, some of their hair Here maybe and Mohawks but but like it, basically, this highly correlates with who is looking for workers and is totally desperate. Like they like we're willing to have discriminatory policies about what you wear when you you're not desperate enough for workers and as soon as it's like oh shit we have no one to drive our FedEx truck then you're out there being like, you know what? Where pants some days, whatever bring you over here is this face tattoos? Whatever. Or is that your vote? We're supposed to combination. Yeah, but mostly because of the truck drivers. They desperately need to fill some of those jobs and then they're like, but never mind. We don't want to get sued. Yeah, because we hired and trained crappy. I remember, we spent a lot of time on this tour is probably one of the most shocking stories of the year. They couldn't fill these roles because they could not ensure the physical safety of the women driving truck. Wanna, they don't want to address, they don't the systemic problem. Incredible, really? That's incredible story. Okay, so Matt, you want to wait on here. Yeah, I'm going with profits over Planet actually, um, for the simple reason that as soon as first of all, it was it's going to be the absolute hottest year on record. We had wildfires that ate most of Canada, we've had droughts. We've had floods, we've had the worst weather conditions in our history and the highest temperatures in the history of the planet. And as soon as it was expedient, They every fossil fuel company announced their largest record profits ever. Share BuyBacks. Oh, and PS. Those climate promises were really kind of like climate suggestions that we might have done, but now we're not going to do. And that's just and the heels of cop where now everybody's celebrating somehow we're celebrating, what are we celebrating? We're celebrating celebrating the 90,000 people who flew their night like and and like what they came out with was not a phase out of fossil fuels, we just joked that. It was like a nudge as a gentle Shuffle towards 2050 and which we might limit. I don't know. This one is exhausting to me, okay? So I can either create a tie for Jesse or break the tie. Which will you choose? Yeah, I got I gotta I unfortunately, Jesse. I'm not gonna let you weigh in on your own category. I have got to agree with Matt on this one and go profits over plan because that is because let me add to correct. Let me add two headlines that you missed that further this story. And that is one that we covered just recently. Greed inflation, corporate profiteering significantly, boosted Global prices and the 100 largest low wage employers have spent $341 billion dollars on stock BuyBacks since 2020. So those look, yeah, if I'm honest here, putting Carnival Corporation in a category so always going to get my vote. I don't understand why they exist and just, yeah, I'm sure you're happy with that choice profits over Planet. The most exhausting Story of the Year. Actually, the two that I felt. I mean, workplace discrimination and profit but just for Clear already did lose Ariel. Losers, the great analyst Hall at mascara in. I mean, this this is gonna kill me. I know, I almost didn't want him to do this category this year directions. So I think I didn't do five though, Matt, you're in here with as holiest of the Year, always a really, the most featured celebrated category of the week. So celebrated by no one you have a lot to cover here. I mean, you've got a really Riley, we could do 400 shows, based on the assholes of the years. I don't know how you gonna do this one. 3605, you know, 25 days of holidays, I like that. All right, so as always to the year first, I want to start off with some stats because I made a spreadsheet Damien pulled every headline that one. And he had to do some work on mine because I tend to choose like meta assholes, not like just a person. It's Like categories of assholes, there were 41 weeks to choose from three or four were removed because I didn't have any specific ass hole. In fact, one week, the asshole was everything that was like everything and two were removed for vacation purposes because we were mad at John. You went to the beach in Hawaii and we were upset. Yeah I was in Hawaii. Visiting my in-laws. Mark Zuckerberg, um, I categorized every like, like Jesse did I categorized my assholes, but I did in the spreadsheet and I counted them. The number one, the top category for the year. 11 out of the 41 weeks was hating women, gays and Jews. That was the top category of as somebody who was doing something around that. The top protagonist of the year, was the idiot GOP. You talk about the anti-walk anti-eu wars, the whole Republican war against ESG and sort of the outliers around that the second protagonist here was actually idiot investors mostly. It's been a lot of time, angry at investors for doing something stupid lovers between the Adam Neumann lovers and the ISS, like saying that. Yeah, JB Strobel on the Tesla board. Who's musk sold friend is fine, but Robyn denholm is not fine, like the inconsistencies with that, the OB Individual that stood out was musk himself. Of course, and the theme of the year was money wins versus everything. So it was with Jesse's a very Planet. Yeah. Here are your options. There's only four, I didn't do five because that, I don't care that about Damien's instructions. Number one. Marc Andreessen and the Techno optimists. Okay, remind us coming to Broadway, 2024. Yeah, remind us about his glorious Proclamation earlier, is this is this fall right? This fall that this fall Marc Andreessen wrote the Techno Optimist, Manifesto in which he laid out the lists of enemies of, you know, basically progress. And of course, the enemies were included ethics and that was actually listed as one of the enemies and corporate responsibilities sustainability. ESG, he named all these things and enemies And this is the same person who's optimistic outlook on the world included. The largest ever investment is fund has ever made in Adam Neumann. The fail up, we work ex founder but I pulled for this, this is new. I pulled some of his optimistic Investments this year, okay? They include this is just this year and recent Horowitz invested in cast, Castilian cast, lion, something like that which is an unmanned defense drone company and by defense, they mean drones that can shoot at things. Yeah. You know, something that hovers above you and blows, you know, Shield isn't it? Clever how they've used the word defense. Yeah, the defense industry. Yeah, it really means weapons Blue Force Technologies, which is killer AI some more killing. Okay. Yeah. Which was acquired by andrell, which was another one of their big Investments and to roll if you don't know that term and roll, it's from The Lord of the Rings and it's one of the Peter teal like palantir. That's a Lord of the Rings term, like, but Matt doesn't kill people everywhere. Um, yeah, obviously kills people, they are AI drones and Border monitoring his code for a weapon to shoot things that try to cross borders, right? The founder. Well, these are like, like things that sit on the top of a tower. And then alert everyone to go alert. People crossing a boy. Yeah. Andrew was founded by Palmer, Luckey. I don't know if you remember Palmer, Luckey. He was the founder of the Oculus Rift, the headset that got bought by A Zuckerberg Palmer once built a VR headset that actually killed the wearer. If they died in the video game on, he built in small, explosive charges into it. We never obviously this wasn't about this. No, this wasn't about like, a commercial thing, but he said he was really fascinated by the idea of the virtual world and how that's what he was best feel like the reality of the virtual world. So so he took your game, your game, controller rumbling and like shaking and, and took it all the way he lives of charges. Yes, horrible and Palmer Luckey, was excommunicated from Oculus Rift and meta when he funded Donald Trump. After Donald Trump said, like, you know, horrible things about closing, the Border he funded. Like billboard that said, sand, Hillary to jail, And and was like, one of those guys and then he got excommunicated, he's been effectively martyred by the right for it. Like, you know, this is why they they discriminated against us, Sean really nice shark really Matt. He's another tech bro. College Dropout, gosh, I'm yeah, I can't even contain my Shot. Ya open Ai and I said, Adam Neumann, those are, those are the Investments so Market telling us what our future should look like. Yes, like unmanned defense, drones that shoot you and VR goggles that move on quickly. You're killing us already. Yeah. Altman Zuck and musk. Oh AI Fitzgerald, Trifecta Zuckerberg, these were the headlines that we pulled Zuckerberg says people. Spent 24% more time on Instagram after metal launched AI powered reel. I know that for a fact. Yeah, I see that in action in my house. Unfortunately, open AI has quietly changed, its core values. In fact, this happened before the whole open AI drama we covered this. It wasn't covered really anywhere else. It was cut. We saw it and some one article on it and we talked about it here. They change their core values which we may find out which we made fun of and then they fired the CEO for changing the values of openai. And now the disobeying the mission of the company, the correct? Yeah. Here's the foreshadowing. Here's one that just he missed about ai, ai chatbot will replace human helpline workers at National eating disorder Association. And that that AI bot was working with people and telling them that they needed to to go on a diet, they suggested that they could go on a diet and Twitter running ads for Disney. Microsoft in the NBA next to Neo-Nazi propaganda effectively. These three dudes are all of our attention. And our attention is increasingly about it being driven by what AI thinks and AI is a racist. Tell her, I will say congratulations to Mark Zuckerberg, he remained pretty quiet this year, Sam Altman and Elon Musk basically stole every headline. Except for the well, there was medication. Fight was Elon musk's fall that was musk. Yeah, that was all he wasn't backing down with true cage fight. What? Cause he was, because he was legitimately training on his own. I mean, I I think that musk brought him into that stupid conversation, but, but the Mark Zuckerberg that's okay. All right. He was quiet up until the point when the there was a report about how they news at teens and underage kids were using, I'm Instagram to fight this back. The fact that they said they were in I'm just thinking he's done some good hiding this year. Yeah what else so kudos to Mark, probably in Hawaii number third. Asshole group. Yeah. ISS class Lewis in the invest. In industrial complex. These are the people. These are the reason why we have a 96 average 96% average vote for directors at public boards. Despite Norfolk Southern their board of directors obeying, basically, every safety shortcut, their head of the Safety Committee added safety as a skill in their skills. Matrix the year before he became the head of the Safety Committee. Prior to that. He had no skill in it. State Street adding an option and Pastor voting that just fully backs, corporate boards. Yeah, that's banana Tesla's. Board of directors has done 0 things about a musk and investors. All say vote for them and then we were just you just sent a story around this morning. About this South West last year, South West board of directors were involved in the biggest meltdown in the 2020 to Chris airline industry that their annual meeting was held in May of this year and approximately zero directors lost to vote even after that happened. So, there is zero accountability. If you are a director, it is the best job. You can possibly have become a director of a company people, that's nothing will happen to you. No matter how bad. Well, I think that 0.2% of the universe that does get removed would would quibble with you, man. Yeah, they would be really upset. I just said that. And number four, The anti-woke. Oh, you're gonna have to choose because we had Anheuser-Busch this year. We had the Bud Light debacle, we had Kid Rock. We had musk saying cisgender and CIS are slurs on Twitter. We had the Republican attorney general's warning. Us companies about discriminating against white people. By having Dei and initiatives. We have Ed Blum. The conservative activists who killed affirmative act action, he sued a black run Venture Capital fund with almost like like we're talking about no real assets under management a small fund and all they did was work with black women. Founders that was their target Focus. He sued them saying that they are where effectively contravening discrimination laws and Adidas to CEO saying. Kanye West didn't really mean those anti-semitic remarks and isn't a bad person. So and let's not forget that this was the year started with the Supreme Court ruling Back rules on colleges affirmative action rules. And colleges that the anti-diagonal Ah, that might have actually kind of slowed down the anti-world movement and that was this one after Chick-fil-A Ruffles far, right? Feathers. Fox News asks if the culture were has gone too far. So remember there was that One of the things we did Cover as a joke multiple times over the course of the year, was when the sort of far-right anti-walk movement got angry at something that happened like nine years ago. Yeah. Like that. We they just noticed that Chick-fil-A had a chief Dei officer that they hired in 2019. Yeah. They they were upset about all did. They're upset about all sorts? Well stuff that they just realized eight years ago and then you can buy that with the fact that Rhonda Sanchez could not Define what woke is and then and then finally the year ending with Kid Rock basically saying whoops, I didn't realize that people would lose their jobs because we were crying over Bud, Light here so and and actually, you can see the sort of boredom with this narrative, with the vet who is on the show this year. The Swami the Romans Swami tsunami that happened early this year. You was right launches his presidential. Um campaign on our show and buy on our show. I mean soon after he was on our show. Yeah. Um and he launched it on the anti-woke. In fact that was one of my that was one of my predictions that came true. I think I predicted that he would run for president know you predicted to do everything. All right so to wrap up and I'll ask you all to vote on as holiest of the Year Market reason in the Techno optimists Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, all the AI Tech Bros ISS class Lewis, the investor industrial complex. And finally, the anti-walk anti ESG gang all hating on women games, I mean, this is, you can't go wrong with any of these choices. Let's be careful. Right, I'll go first. Go ahead already. Well, you know, Marc Andreessen and the tech Bros. I feel like that is just one and they are definitely ruining our lives but you know who can do something about it and doesn't do anything. Oh, all the investors man. Oh So that's my that was not expecting. That are so rebooting for our best years doing nothing. Jesse you have a vote here. And I will catering woman, gays and Jews. I mean, She's mad. This is. This is tough man. I might have to just create a tie for you because it's hard to say that this is not the year of the anti-wolf, right? I mean, the, the anti-walk ESG, didn't it feel like that last year, though? I know I thought and not like that. I thought an Earnest that happened this year, right? Mike Pence, put out a bunch of ads. Talking about anti es was this not the first year that she became a thing and the Congressional hearing started at the end of last year but we did have the ESG hearings in July which amounted to Basically a whole lot of nothing anti anti-black Rock was this year, right? Anti-left all happens, this year move this year, but towards the end of last year, I mean, it was building lines where their last year because you predicted that's what's gonna happen this year. I mean, remember DeSantis had an announced that he was running for president until like, may, like April May or June or something like that. So he was busy legislating. This stuff at the end of last year, and into the beginning, here's this year. Here's what do Matt? I'm gonna, I'm gonna combine the first two, I'm gonna combine, I'm gonna call them the tech, the tech, bro, enablers, along with the AI Tech Bros. So, I'm gonna put all that in one category. I'm gonna vote for that so you can break the tie between investors, okay? I mean, look, the fact is, if when, when ESG sort of started as a data set, as a concept, when social responsibility happened in Investments at all, They all pointed at the investors and said, those are the levers. Those are the people with all the money who are the owners of these companies, they have the power to make change if they want to make change and if we show them the data, they might do something different. That was like the whole premise and it kind of worked in some ways. And it also has proven to be investors, don't care about anything at all except what the stock price was yesterday. I don't care if every investor in this like hurts to say because we free flow analytics has a data set around like we're trying to sell to investors, but if every investor looked at the companies and said, Are they objectively doing well? Are the people good at their jobs? Are we are we holding people accountable? The answer would uniformly. Be know, when point, two percent of directors in the entire world get voted out, that's only two percent. I'll tell you one the best people. I'll tell you anybody, I'll tell you a couple of patterns that are emerging that we're seeing, in our new show, the proxy countdown one, is that you will see investors getting mad at PayPal policies, right? Sometimes they'll get mad to the tune of 70% of shareholders will vote against pay, which is pretty remarkable, but that does not translate over to directors. They don't blame the directors. Don't blame the competition committee for that. They think these PayPal policies just exist. They come out of nowhere, right? The drop from a stork. The other thing we see is that we do see investors getting angry about share price. Right? They don't like it when the share price goes down but they, but again, they refused to hold the board accountable for that. They never did never the people's fault. There's always an excuse why? It's not the people. And frankly, it's the fact that the investors have relationships with these boards as in. They talk to them. They know their names. They know who they are is almost problematic because there's a social stigma against accountability, and that's not what investing is supposed to be everywhere else in investing. They say, show me the the data show me like, we're objective about our decisions. We are making we're making, you know, efficient market hypothesis. And we're making decisions based on like all of this information that we have, we're not emotional about our stock. And yet the people that they hire, they actually have to hire to run these companies. They are totally emotional about and worrying about the social stigma. It's it's bullshit. Well, that's got to end. I will say to their credit, they're very good on LinkedIn at talking about solving World issues. That's true. Yeah true they just don't they just don't want to hold companies accountable for anything that they do. Okay. Moving on to good list of the year with the great Ari, the data Queen who you are. Yeah the data Queen. Come on Ari. That is me, just let the music get, like, get your pumped again. All right. Now I gotta stop music. That was definitely. We're gonna start out with one of my favorite categories to just kept on giving all year long and I think it started last year, but I may be wrong. I don't know. I called it year of the workers, right? Finally, here, why is it part two? Because I think part one was last year about last year. Let's talk about 2023. Fine part, 1 u a w, guys goes on strike against GM, Ford instantaneous, and everyone wins and wins. I want to remind everyone that this remarkable because this is the first time they've done it in this manner, like gone against all three at different plants and you don't know who's next. It was cool. It was incredible know that but but it was like it was staggered throughout. Right? He didn't know when suddenly it was like a plan and Texas. Incredible. Yeah, I know so great. The strategy behind it. Loved it other workers, went on Strike. Wgna Hollywood. Yeah, Hollywood writers. And then the Hollywood actors also went on strike and the directors us healthcare workers. Walked off the job for 27 strikes in 2023 by healthcare workers. Um, one of them being the largest healthcare workers strike involving 70,000 workers. So, that's a lot, UPS workers approved. Massive, new labor, incredible New Deal, incredible. Right? The salaries up to 120,000, right? For UPS delivery drivers. So, you know, we keep buying crap we should pay them accordingly. Even though this did not happen in the US Tesla and the Nordic solidarity, which we talked about last week a little bit Danish, Union joining on the strike, Norway Union, also joined in, and they were supported by even, you know, post office workers as a solid strike. Yes. Sweden, which are we know already that the UA W is gonna go after Tesla here in America. Yeah, exactly. With their awesome strategy. Person. Who what's the guy? Sean, our new Idol. I guess. Yeah. And labor. The labor board ruled that companies can't enforce silence for severance pay. So I don't know there's just a lot of really good. Okay, going first. Yeah year of the workers right. Yeah. What else? David versus oily Goliath. Okay. I know a lot of, we have a lot of annoying headlines about oil companies. But these are the ones that I liked for the future, only fans Billboards in London replaced with oily fans, raising awareness of bpcs, but this is the whole category for you. It's basically you love that billboard so much. I know. That's a lame joke. Oh, we leave it, clever new California laws mandate, climate disclosures for both private and public companies. That's right. The maybe next president. Gavin Newsom is still still rumors that Biden will step down and gave a new Samuel run. Who knows? Youth environmentalist spring Montana climate case to drive 12 years. One of the biggest stories by far. Casters, escalates efforts to hold global company companies accountable for not adequately, disclosing, climate change, risks. And they actually voted against 2000 Boards of directors. The entire course, the entire course, okay, So Matt, there's an investor that did something. California against everybody. Montana. Well, that know all the kids in Montana. Yeah. The kids, right? Right. Those kids may not grow up to be adults that actually can do something. But what else? Number three, number three, Absurdity. I just loved some really absurd headlines this year. Give us some examples. We started out with sushi terrorism. It's okay Freddy as pranksters like food and you tinsel's in Japan's conveyor belt restaurant when I was in Japan. No, conveyor belt. Why is that so important to you? Because it's just look at people you like looking stuff. You like the idea of people licking food and restaurants, just tickles you. So it's so absurd to me. Okay. Just like a plate of something going by. Well, like it, I don't understand why you like that. What else you got? Disney blocks, Ron. DeSantis is Florida. Power play with a royal family. So Random. Yeah, so genius, we love it. Um and then the way this headline read this Airline wants you to travel across the world without clothes. What was that one again? That naked traveling. The one where they, they told you to wear whatever you were wearing but not pack anything. And then what they would set you up with clothes at your destination? Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm done for that. I'm with that one. You can rent clothing. I like that one. This is an A Creative effort. I might say of saving, you know CO2, same fuel because it's a lighter load. And hey, I jesus shows fascinating refashioning of the biblical modern era. Oh, please egg. Just wait in heavy this morning. Matt spent so much time with egg. This I asked him questions about why? So few board of directors were voted out and egg. Jesus had an answer about Corinthians. It was great. Well, it's a Bible verse then the first Instance, that I noticed of the glass defense, glass Defender, because this is your next category. The glass defense, what is that? Yes, Nikola founder, Trevor Milton. Maybe a convicted fraudster, but he wasn't greedy or mean spirited and not as bad as Elizabeth's home. Well, this say, yeah, this is kind of like, Mark Zuckerberg's, Great China defense right? He's always like, well, you know, you can control me but you really should be worried about China know. I like, though, that like Trevor Milton looked for the like, how many female Founders are there in all of, like, companies that are that are big enough, much less? How many commits fraud, Trevor Milton just pointed to the one. It was like, she was thrilled, she was a real, let's not forget that the true story that company Matt to Echo some of your complaints earlier was that the investors and board did absolutely nothing. 0 things. And they and they all pretty much knew that it was a train wreck at disaster. They did nothing to control her. And last but not least, a little bit of Justice. What kind of just we'll be there as Sam bankman freed. It's about guilty of all right. He has not been sentenced yet. Has not. Why does it take so long? Sending him who cares? Yep. What else? Tucker Carlson. Ousted at Fox News following Network. Yeah, 187 that was a good one dollar sediment. I was happy about that. Almost a billion dollars. I think that precipitated Rupert stepping down. He maybe he's also 145 years old, but yeah, but Tucker Tucker gets fired. They get sued, they lose, they settle Tucker, they fire Tucker and then he divorces his 12th wife, doesn't he found her to be too biblical? I think I and and now he's stepped down from, you know, other than owning the class B shares, he stepped down and he launched his own thing on like Twitter, whatever. But Tucker know, I haven't heard no, he's just know. He's just last week. Yeah, last week. Yeah, but he was doing it on Twitter for a while and no one cared and he couldn't because he still, you know, He was still being paid by Fox. Well, he's gonna get sued by Fox if they want to. So, all right, that's for him. So the good news of the year to wrap up Ari picked year of the workers, David versus oily, Goliath, absurdity, the glass defense and Justice. Anybody just see the money Whisperer of the workers, right? Seems like a good choice, headlines. That was fun for a while for many weeks except on giving I'm gonna throw you for a loop here. Yeah. Um, I cannot get the goodest of the Millennia might be Dizzy blocks, Ron DeSantis power play with the Royal. The Royal Family Clause is just so great, it's so absurdly great. Yeah, that I remind people what that was exactly. So they basically say in the contract it's effectively using the life of a British royal as a time period in a contract. So Disney said they would have full, you know, rights and jurisdiction over, you know, these operations until the death of King Charles's like third Grand plus one day. It was like something like that. It's such an absurd thing to write in there and I feel like it's just a troll and I love it in there, right? They did know they, they did all the things they were supposed to do. It's just that no one was paying attention. So they like woke up and realized that this, this little party that Ron DeSantis put together to control Disney had no power over Disney at the end. They had like limited powers and then they went to soothe them and it was great. It just made my day, it made me my my year, I will this one seems easy. All right. I mean, based on your enthusiasm throughout the year and your enthusiasm today and just listing it first. I think the year of the workers rights is really the win and no surprise gonna vote for that. So, that's a good least of the year year of workers rights, including big wins, the universe United, Auto Workers Union there and UPS workers. They didn't go on strike at UPS, right? They just they threatened, they threatened, but they but honestly they they got air conditioners. Yeah, so that's the Year. This brings us to the story of the year. That's me. I'm a little. I'm a little. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna have you vote between what we've already picked. That would be profits over planet. As holiest would be investors that don't do anything. The good news would be the the year of the workers rights. I'm going to remind you. I'm gonna also list. Here's some headlines. I think that maybe we left out that we didn't talk about no one mentioned, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank svb I mean that was like, techbro instigated run, bang, bang Bank Run, still, no one mentioned that one investors. And another thing that's investors who did nothing because that's the board. There was a fucking Winery executive on the risk Committee of the band and it shows and it should another parties. Another harm of social media, right? Because that was a basically orchestrated by Panic on social media, right? Twitter on Twitter, like it was like a WhatsApp chain against again with Silicon Valley, Tech Bros, and Twitter, people all lamenting and the investors who did nothing for years, I don't know. That was dumb. No one mentioned, the fact that the Target CEO, Brian Cornell. Is that his name? Brian Cornell, I should know this sure. He announced that d e, i has fueled much of our growth over the last nine years. I like that one. There was a grocery chain in Europe, Cara for that, put shrinkflation price warnings on food. Shame. The brands that were ripping off customers. I like that one. No one mentioned that the fact that the cop 28 was run by an oil CEO. It was, it was that this one, Matt that I'm I wish that you had covered you left. This one out. Former Black Rock executive, Tariq fancy said, many ESG experts are under qualified. Yes, there's a guy who had zero qualifications to be any ESG expert. I like your shirt today Matt. Yeah I love that ironic. I love this one. I love that Comcast actually complained to the FCC that listing all of its monthly fees was too hard. And finally we left out the ultimate glass Cliff higher that we've ever heard of and that's the CEO over there at Twitter and what a train wreck. And then finally I'll add one more for your consideration. And that is our platform launched which happened and this is why Because I'm gonna, I'm gonna call the subheading here, know the people who run your companies, and here's some headlines that back, this up, that I liked the most. Well, first of all, Charlie Munger died, like a few months. All right, whatever. Our oldest directors know your people, you covered this one map, but the Southwest CEO just vowed that last year's Christmas meltdown will never happen again. So you should know your board over there at Southwest CEO. The you covered Norfolk Southern to how about this one. Remember Walgreens CEO Roz Brewer, step down. Yeah, but we were the only ones to cover. The fact that Ross Brewer had no power or influence over. There was actually the CEO over there Walgreens and he controls all the power over there. We covered these stories, a lot over the over the year, the all the glass clipping is going over going on at all, the major US News organizations, all the cable news, outlets all the US News organizations run by women. Now, how about this one Vince McMahon listed as a risk factor in an SCC filing? Yeah. I forgot about that and then to my favorites that we left out, these are some of the all-time classics at O'Reilly Automotive, we covered. The fact that all the white directors at 6 out of the 10 directors, all the white dudes O'Reilly Automotive, we're all wearing identical, orange dress shirts, right? Yeah. But no women, not the women are people of color. And finally, my probably my favorite Story of the Year, my favorite Story of the Year, this is why you should know your people and why you should celebrate our platform launch Verizon CEO. Hans vestberg has been tracking his mood out of one out of from one out of 10 in a spreadsheet every day since 2009 and hands. If you're listening, we want access to that spreadsheet. We'll put it right up in our platform so he pleased. So there's a bunch of nonsense there for all of you to consider for Story of the Year. Talk about Qantas, which we covered for like a month. I was good. I was Going to add Qantas. So that the story over there Qantas is that the Qantas was just a horrible company over there. In Australia, they excused the French. They shot the bed and every direction possible, and the newly appointed CEO, a woman, a glass Cliff CEO. She apologized for everyone to horrible. Oh, so there's a bunch going on here for story of the year. So I don't know who wants to weigh in here first. What they think is the ultimate here, so let's just summarize exhausting. It was profits over Planet as holy. It was is investors, doing nothing, investors doing nothing. And the year workers rights are your three big possible stories of the year? And then any of these that Damian just including our including our company, our platform launch that happened in June, I believe. Yeah, I would love to say that our company was a story of the year, but zero people care that are gone, or it does, what it does. So, I, it's hard to go with that, okay? Wow. I forgot about Tariq fancy saying, yes, she experts were under well talking about Tariq fancy. Yeah, this is really he was never really and this is an important one because it, you know, it after weeks and weeks of covering anti issue and anti-walk. We we realized the pattern in the pattern was is that these people were all targeting women and people of color, right? And and I think the subtext here is, is that that the ESG experts that he's referring to by and large are women, right? I mean, he's the sustainability industry, ESG industry. It's a lot of women. I mean, I think that's the subtext here, but maybe that's just me. I know who I'm going for that. Yeah, go ahead already because I want this to happen. Yeah, everywhere. Vince McMahon being listed as the story of the year. But that is the essence of what I want the world to become. But I'm gonna take a little bit of control here. What she's voting for, is us, she's voting for free, float, know the people who run your companies because that, that's what this is all about, right? Yes, the answer is, yes. So that's no story. Like, just makes it so clear to me as that one like Tesla's Board needs to do this with Elon Musk. Absolutely, we should know the name of every person on Tesla's board who hasn't voted out much absolutely, his brother. I mean, I look know that I didn't even know. I didn't make Bill Ackman assholes of the year. Although, arguably he could have been, I just thought that was too much easily easily. Oh Jesse. Are you going with here? We didn't even mention the wildfires and and Maui and Hawaiian Electric. There was like so much so much, so much. That is their CEO and he goes in vacations, in Hawaii with all the other seats, I sleep in a twin bed at my, my in-laws house that's Zuckerberg. Like, that's all right, I am gonna keep it exciting and vote for asshole, least ISS class Lewis. So again, both of you really sticking to the theme of our company, right? Like no one really knowing who the people are who run your company, right? The people back in America. That's right. I mean, I don't know. Don't make me break. Anytime same thing. No, I'm gonna vote for the same thing. It is, he's voting for his own category. Yes, of course. I am. Why would I not vote for my medical Story? Come on. Look, these are endless hole. Look, the fact is like, we just spent like three weeks. Like you manically talking about open Ai. And, and how like, you know, every other pundit was saying that this was a total corporate governance fuk up and the board should be fired and prior to this, you could name a single board member. You couldn't, you didn't know any of their names and the only two people fired who resigned were the women. Yeah. Right. Like the culmination of all of the ship from this year, was effectively that moment. It is the money wins. It is, we don't know who the board members are until it's too late. And when it's all said and done blame the women, people of color and Jews. Threat like I don't know. I feel like that's the and then investors do nothing about it. I think that's the winner. Well, I I'm gonna happily agree with everybody and not that my vote matters here, but we all basically voted for the same thing which is knowing the people who run your company, that's the story of the year, right? Because they're not being held accountable, we can help you hold them accountable tired but the story of the year is that investors just don't seem to care in the right direction. Is that the story of the year? It's kind of they don't even ask. No one asks until it's too late, but let's do we have backwards. We have We're Not Gonna We're not gonna do predictions this week. We're gonna have our 2024 prediction show coming up right after the New Year's, but let's do a one final category for the show. That is who won the year. That's a big one. Who won the year? I can go first, because I mine's quick, and this is, this is riding your coattails Ari. My winner is actually the man that you just called your new Hero on that Sean Fein at the United Auto Workers because Not only was it a strategic girl, Not only was a strategic Victory podcast that we can all, I've actually have tried. I'm gonna try again. Not only was it a strategic victory that we can all applaud but he did something else. One is he made labor action? Cool. Again, he made an interesting and two should we get right? Two, he used Snake flavor, he use old-fashioned ESG data to prove his point. He highlighted CEO worker pay ratio in a way that nobody has ever done successfully before hounded that message. Yeah, so I thought it was brilliant. So that's my winner. Go ahead Ari. I don't know. Well okay, I do agree with you but also Sam Altman man. I mean it's a good choice, right? It's a good choice. He's got all the I don't want to call them evil of the world behind him but like he does. Yeah we didn't and are we didn't go deep into this on this show for a reason because it's open. AI is technically not a publicly traded company. It's technically not in our Chris soft as a fly on the wall, right? To make sure that Nobody messes with him. But as far as headlines, as far as headlines go over the year, they're they're only two people that dominated it. It's definitely either Sam Altman or Elon Musk. They dominated business news headlines. Absolutely. Jesse, do you want to go next is? Mine is long. And yours is very, very short and we all know can I just say without looking, I think we all know what Jess is gonna be one possible to annoy know, but I think about Ari. He's a good job. I think it's a good choice too though. I think it makes sense. Taylor Swift. Yeah. No Travis Kelce one. Oh. I'm really sad for Beyonce who like all so cold. Like she like and Barbie. She's sub one. I guess in Barbie too you really sad for the other. No no that's already a billionaire. Taylor Swift broke into billionaire. Yeah thank God and I think Mattel was already a billionaire too. Yeah. My winner of the year is a Boards of directors. They won in general if You were on the board of a publicly traded company. You Are by dishwashing. Yeah, you are winning everybody of every job security. Here's some stats. All your friends, all your friends that hang out with, after they fly you into the meeting. I hear some stats. I'm not gonna make, I'm not gonna, like, just say it in assert it. I'm gonna give you the stats behind it. A board seat. Last on, average seven years. Accumulative board seat for a person, like a person, gets an, on average, 14 years on boards. Given the average board member starts. When they're around age, 60, that means you have an excellent shot of being on boards until your late 70s, right? Like if you are just slightly above average, you could be 77 years old, still on boards, the average board pays about 200,000 dollars per year. And there's about 12 meetings. That means if you get three to four boards in the time frame, you're a board member your board time earnings come out. To six point four million dollars. Or 17,000 dollars per meeting. Tell me that isn't winning. When the average board member gets voted out 0.2% of the time and 96% of investors agree. They're doing a great job and Matt if you really lucky you can land like Best Buy. I just covered Best Buy they they had four meetings last year, just four. Oh did we just covering on the proxy countdown? We just covered Visa who's board members make on average 370,000 dollars a year and look like a party. They're a party. It's a party. Meanwhile, the average American has yearly performance reviews and 40% of Americans get laid off at least, once in their careers. And, and there the average bank account retirement account that they have at the age that you would get a board seat is 400,000 dollars. Board members are making 6.4 million what after they're done with their careers. Hey, little kid. What do you want to do? When you grow up? I want to be a board member. Tell me that those people are not winning and I'll say you're lying. Well, I will say this man, I think it's a great choice but ironically the biggest sort of board Story of the Year. At least. Maybe there's a recently bias. Here was the struggle at openai board versus CEO, Sam Altman and the board came out as losers. I mean the women on the board did I should win the women? There's just the women because women lose always within our big fat losers, but that might, but that might be all the proof that you need that the board of directors are. It's a 10-year position, you have it for life and you're there to insulate the CEO. And that's what keeps you keeping your job for life. Is that you just do the bidding of the CEO. Right. That's it. That's a year in review show. 2023. I am your analysts Garden. We are free float. We will be back again. We won't be here next week. We've got prediction shows coming up all the proxy countdown dropped this week yesterday. The second episode and which we did Cover the Visa vote, and Microsoft and their their results and all sorts of stuff from the agms. So go check that out. Go search for that until later. Goodbye.