Transcript
Okay. Everything's working so far. All right. You remember this? Do you remember w what we do here? Yes, I do, but I know you don't. Live from the s from the sand between our co-founder's toes. That would be you. Weren't you just on the beach? Actually, I was on the beach yesterday. It's an all new terrific Tuesday edition of Business Pants joined by analyst Hull Matt Muscarty. On today's Lead Independent Standing Desk. Ooh, called August eighteenth, twenty twenty six. The Things We Missed game. That's not a game. Wait, my just my toes? There's no sand on your toes? Yeah, I don't know what kind of game this is. Well oddly a lot happened while you were gone. Our show today is being sponsored by Freeflow Analytics, the only platform measuring board power connections and performance for free. Ooh, I like that. I thought maybe our sponsor had more music. Wow, that was awkward and now do you r I I was asking just as we started this, d I I I don't remember how to do anything, so I'm glad that I proved that to be true. Freeflow Analytics. Have have you s seen the platform? Yeah, just using it right now. I added L three Harris to my portfolio. And and which is the top story. I'm gonna follow them. W the the portfolio thing is free now. Did you know like everybody can get the portfolio thing? Okay. Good. It's free. Yeah. It's free and it's got like all the, you know, like bells and whistles, like vote recommendations that you can set using the data. It's a thing, right? There's I don't care. Yeah. Okay. Is it really? It's free? Well it's free to me, that's all I know. Yeah, I was looking at the the the predicted vote against the directors. Yeah. it's probably f pr 'Cause one guy, Roger Frayden,'s down pretty low. Anyway, let's get to the story. Let's get to the show. All right. these are the things we missed. Or I you missed. Yay, the show Yeah, well I was gone for a week. Yeah, I was I was collecting news stories, and I put into handy categories for you and the way this game works essentially is tell us if it matters, tell us if you care. Maybe this is a binary game. Just say like I don't care or I do care or this matters. If I care. That's the game. Well can I just say I don't care about anything right now and just Well, that's the general game of life. Yeah. But this is this is specific to the the content 'cause all these stories will now be tagged on the company profiles of the show of the companies that we talk about. Like like when I go to L three Harris, the top two stories, this is a tease. This is from the Wall Street Journal. Why do boards keep giving misbehaving CEOs second chances? Yeah. good good question. And the second one is L three Harris Technologies Appoints Sam Meta blah blah blah blah blah. So all the stuff tagged on our website. Yep. What? I have an answer to that I have an answer to that question before we go anywhere. Why do boards keep giving misbehaving CEOs what is it what was it? Misbehaving CEOs? It gives them second chances. All right, go ahead. Second chances. Really it's like ninth chances, but let's go with second. Let's pretend like it's second chances. Yeah, pretend like it's it's only the second time. Because the board members get ninety six percent yes votes. So what exactly is their incentive to not just isn't it so much easier to just tell a CEO, yeah, come back 'cause otherwise they gotta do work. They gotta go find a new CEO, there's turmoil, the c It's so much easier to just be like, Well, investors don't seem to give a fuck, so let's just keep the this ship going. Well, there's actually there's one other there's one other part, and let me get to the story and we'll begin with this one. and I call this first category nerdy ESG stuff. Which really just means governance junk. I I don't know. Maybe there's some other stuff in here. L3 Harris, Ouse CEO after investigation into conduct. We've seen this a lot recently. Christopher Kubasek, chair and CEO, is out. Christopher Meita is in. Okay. here's and here's the key point and one of the reasons here's w one of the r key reasons why these guys get second chances the company did not give details about what happened. No, in fact in the 8K all they said was that they determined that the executive engaged in conduct that was not consistent with the values of the company. I mean that's it. They don't tell you why. So They couldn't even find someone not named Christopher. That's really they didn't they didn't even say what the conduct was? I I mean I th well in so in twenty twenty four, maybe twenty twenty three, we knew the answer why just w every single time when they said conduct, it was always had sex with subordinate, right? Like Right. Sometimes, but there was a high profile one we didn't cro was it Kroger? We still don't know Kroger why. We still don't know why Kroger, but there's a lot of guesses that you know but but in twenty twenty six it could be embezzling. Like it like people don't there there are no laws that anyone's following anymore. Like they we're just paying CEOs whatever they want. We do whatever we want. They could he could have just bought crypto from, you know, like from a guy under a bridge and we wouldn't know about it. So Well them some of them we do. Yeah. Here's what's worse. E even worse to me, the separation disclosure says that the board decided to reach a deal with Kubasik to get him to leave rather than trying to fire him for cause. So he's not even fired. So he walks away with fifty seven million dollars of stock he owned. He he walks another twenty three million dollars of options that invested. And let's not forget that he made sixty six million dollars over the past three years. So Wow. They didn't even fire him. Nice. Big punishment. You want to know what's amazing about that. So on the Free Flow Analytics platform, there is a there are scenario models. And one of the scenarios is CEO misconduct allegation, and it models whether or not how the board would be likely to respond to a CEO misconduct allegation. It their scenario model says this board may struggle with this event, and it says what the the reason why includes things like perfect, yeah. Yeah. It th they don't have they're exposed because there's duality for the lead independent without a lead independent director, so there's no elite independent director, so there's less n not enough independence. It's a low merit board. There's no financial or technical expertise present on the board. It names the directors who are the actually working against them, who actually might hurt their ca this cause. And it says overall that. This board, seventy three percent of the board comes from one director community in the network of directors and that that they're highly deferential and interconnected. So I I Well, this explains to me why they needed to bring in an independent council to make this decision. Anyway, yeah. I'm I mean, it's just that it's just layers of dumb is what it is. I do because I I care, not because of the story itself. first of all I care because th they don't disclose the reason. That bothers that's like a trigger for you, I know. but Do you care? Is do you care? You should care, you should. please. I mean doesn't this company deal with it's in the the defense space. What does it do? Wouldn't we wanna know wouldn't we wanna know at this level? It's it'd be one thing if they were making like rubber bands. I'd be like, whatever, I don't care. I mean you'd think we'd wanna know what conduct the the CEO of a defense company was breaking. Like how bad that they had to fire this guy. And we we know it's the well they didn't fire him, sorry. Yeah, they do defence. Yeah. That's all they do. Defence. They defend things. Yeah. th they had to kick him out. I think we'd want to know, you're right, is there a level of is there corruption? Is it a gu is it maybe made us a deal with foreign government? What's he up to? Cause the Wall Street Journal is right, they're gonna just rehire him somewhere else. And and do we trust the fact that they named an insider? Like we don't know, let's say it was like corruption. Corruption doesn't like stop at the one guy at the top, does it? Isn't that like a it takes like a team. A team has to enable corruption. Well, no, they appointed the insider, Sam Meta, right? That that's but yeah, I so I do care. And plus it's great for this is like free flow analytics wheelhouse. I love it. You mean a board? You mean a board? yeah, it wasn't Christopher. You're right, you got me. All right, let's move on. Well, this yeah, this is our bread and butter. Harvard. Harvard reveals two point two billion dollar SpaceX holding worth more than half its US equity portfolio. How about that? Harvard and SpaceX? If what are you doing? You're fucking Harvard, right? Like would you read like Anakin Shaw's Jeffries analysis of the fact that we shouldn't care about governance because the governistas are overly focused on having rights and that you should just buy it because you you know, you're betting on Elon Musk. Harvard is bet betting on Elon Musk now? Not to mention not not to mention that ninety percent of Elon Musk's worldviews run counter to the the the type of education they're trying to to to to teach at Harvard, right? I mean I don't know. This one I was actually surprised by this one. Do you care? What are we doing? What are you doing? I I care because it's because it annoys me. It's Well, what remember we analyzed who sits on they call their board members they don't they call it like the corporation? Something awful, like their their board at Harvard. So and we analyze those board members. We analyze them. So is it really any surprise that they're just dumping money into a CEO's lap? But anyway, let's Yeah, the corporation at Harvard, yeah. It sounds evil. No, no, no. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Bus here's the headline. We really created a j a revolution with this one. I mean now everyone uses this, but I'm fine. I'm fine with it. I'd like to get credit for it, but whatever. But here's the headline. Busting CEO pay curve in twenty twenty five. Musk made annual salary of average Tesla worker every four point two seconds. That's our we coined this. Yeah. I that's the only reason why I care, but otherwise I don't care. Because we We we decided to break down CEO pay to w t amusingly, although, you know, a a a darkly evil am amusing w like when we wanted to know like when on that first day of the year, it was like before lunch, like when does the CEO actually make as much as his median employee? So we broke it down. And of course we've never seen anything like four point two seconds. I mean, it that's unbelievable. I mean how much of his bagel has he eaten by the time he yeah, This is but we knew it was coming. I don't know what we're we're like surprised and we have headlines about it now. Like we you gave the fucking pay package. And then another and then another headline going along with this is S P five hundred CEO pay jumps to record as Musk inspired compensation plans spread, something that we warned would start happening. Average S P five hundred CEO pay reached three hundred and forty million dollars. Now that okay, it's still it's skewed by Musk, but it's still an actual stat. All right, so what do you think? Do care? Do you care or you know about this already? That's that's not real though. Yeah, don't use the average. Come on. I you gotta exclude Musk. i no, because we knew this. Look this isn't new. We knew this. I just ca I just care that they used our headline. US I know. SEC to keep hands off shareholder proposals, worrying activists. Yeah, I saw that. I did you read it? So I do. What do you know about this? I did, but I d like to me, is it is it anything new? tell me, is there isn't this just yeah, go ahead. Ish, right. All right, so it's new ish. So la last year they said what they were gonna they they basically gaslit everyone and said we're too busy to read all these shareholder proposals. Like it's your fucking job, but they're too busy to do that, right? So Yeah. I thought, what about AI? w aren't we all celebrating AI? Can't that do it for you? Well so instead of reading them, what they said they were gonna do is they were going to respond to them by saying we defer to you the company, whether do what you want, put it on the sh like they were just sending out a form letter. Now literally that form letter took nine seconds. Like because all they're doing is responding saying we take no position. That's all they were doing. This they've said, we will no longer send out that form letter. We won't even respond. Yeah, do what you want. What this is, the the reason why it's important is now there will be no disclosure about what the companies omit. Now we won't know what they're omitting. Because what we found with that disclosure, because they s they were disclosing it, it was all on the SEC website, is they were targeting John Chevedon and Jim McRitchie, and the they were targeting they weren't targeting like woke proposals. Why why is this important? Yeah, go ahead. Right. That's not good. Mm-hmm. The things that they were omitting were almost entirely shareholder rights. Simple majority voting, declassify the board, special meetings. Which is which is funny 'cause Which is important 'cause I'm gonna push out the next story. I'll it's important based on the next story I'm gonna go I'm gonna mention. Go ahead, keep going. Well, that I mean, like the the so the reality is what we knew, what we learned was the SEC didn't want to stop woke proponents from doing like, you know, trans you know only employ trans people. What the SEC was allowing was companies to effectively kill shareholder rights by o by omission, right? Like they just said No no longer w we're gonna omit anything that can look like a change to you know governance practice that actually is in the best interest of shareholders. We're gonna omit those. Omit those. So we knew that because of the disclosure. So now we won't know that anymore. That seems to be the only change. I c I would I c I care about this not because I think precatory proposals are like the thing we should care about. I care about this because So do you care? Do you care? The disclosure is very important. Like we talked about on the show many times that John Chavedon was unlike like unequivocally targeted by companies. And Paul Atkins used John Chevedon as an example in a speech of why the whole system's broken, because he was pushing for too many proposals. The things he was asking for were absolute basic rights in a democracy. Like like count. Course. The votes don't have dual class shares, like simple majority voting, right? Like that's a basic tenet of democracy. So yeah, the thing I care about is the disclosure. So let's keep going with that I that theme. this is a story about ISS and its its influence on voting outcomes. What's interesting here is that so ISS recommended fewer say say on pay proposals, right? Against fewer. So down to eight percent this year versus nine percent last year. They went down on ENS proposals, environmental and social, thirteen percent this year, down from fifteen percent last year. Although Of course, yeah. They were at four they s they were supported forty six percent in twenty twenty three and twenty four. So I I don't know how they dropped so quickly on those. But here's where it's interesting, maybe to your point about Shvedon and McRitchie, is that ISS actually supported more governance proposals, up to sixty six percent, up from fifty five percent last year. So maybe you're right. The SEC is trying to stop that. Like they're trying to to to thwart th like any kind of shareholder rights for some reason. Yeah. I mean they're losing the battle to sort of kill ISS entirely because ISS basically sides with management for the vast majority of the of what they do. Like every every director. Every director, like With directors and pay, definitely. Yeah. Three percent. They they're opposed three percent of directors. And if you regulate ISS and say that they can't like sell their w their their data and advice, then you effectively are telling every cell side research paper that they can't sell advice either, right? Like so it's very difficult to do that 'cause no one has to take the advice. It's not you're not legally mandated to listen to ISS. So the other way to do it, the back door way, is to basically make it impossible to vote for anything that would change the company. Do you care about these stats I just told you about ISS? No. I just ISS is just so snaky. They're so politically snaky, I don't care. Well, that's what the S is all about. Ssss, right? Like Voldemort. I next story. S let's go to the stay with the SEC. SEC data center ruling is removing a key guardrail from NVIDIA's $500 billion AI financing push. So a staff opinion from the SEC exempts some data center debt from Dodd Frank risk retention rules, making AI infrastructure financing more attractive responsible. So so right? And that and this is Why? Why? Wha w I don't know why? This is a sneaky, quiet ruling. I I there is no reason. I know because like n like d Gus, who lives like in in you know, central Iowa, does not give a shit. Like, there's no way to make a person give a shit about this. But this is So the so the country is pushing back on AI infrastructure while the government is tr doing everything it can to like break apart regulations to let it happen. Yeah, it's it it is true. This is bananas. But it's not the AI infrastructure is not the problem. The the the debt is, right? Like effectively they're saying you don't have to count the debt. Like it doesn't count as debt. So so what why? Why? Yes, I care about that. I don't know. I don't I don't get that one either. Alright, so you care, obviously. Next one. Treasury scales back scrutiny of US shell companies. Trump administration will not enforce reporting requ reporting requirements of the twenty twenty one Corporate Transparency Act, which was intended to crack down on money laundering. I I feel like the thing that's best that Trump does best and this whole crypto world, the whole VCA world, the PE world, whatever, what we've done best is we're in a the a golden age of like money laundering. That's what I think. yeah. Y it's a real win. Should we start money laundering? Why aren't we money laundering? like calci and yeah, all the betting and crypto and all like you ca you don't like the shell company, you don't have to rapport. it's all it's all wonderful. Why don't we have more shell companies? Like why don't we do that? Why don't like why can't like I open up a company in the Bahamas like under my kid's name for like ten dollars and then like have that company like I what ha start another company in Ireland that starts another like why can't I do that? Like let's do it. I know. I'm with ya. But what are we waiting for? Well you can. It's easier now. So do you care about this? Scaling back scrutiny? No, you do. I I can't say that I this is just so obvious that it was always gonna h don't know. I Here's another obvious one. Twenty-five groups urging Supreme Court to kill climate case have ties to oil companies. yeah. Look, it's worth it's it's worth pointing out. And not only that, but just like the the the hate the I call them the hate pro shareholder proposals, like the anti DEI, anti woke, anti ESG proposals, the all the What You gotta say it. All of these different entities are filing briefs that make nearly identical legal arguments. They're all copying and pasting from each other. I mean, again, just another like sad corrupt way to to subvert our democracy. I it's just just what? I can't th they they don't even they don't even come up with it themselves. No i s so I don't care about this mostly because I like I care about that we know about it, but I don't care about it 'cause it's so obvious. But like I th they're just so lazy. Just like could instead of control C, control V, can we just do something else or just put new words in it? Alright, let's move on. Yeah. Let's move on. Well plus don't they know the Supreme Court they're dealing with? I mean, to don't d do they really even need to to have yeah. here's an interesting one. Activist Sevian calls for higher pay for UK board members because they want to attract better directors. So they want to pay directors more because they're suggesting that the directors we have now, I guess, suck. They want better ones. I I like this one. they don't need to you wouldn't need to even file a brief. You just The sure, but I like this in theory, except that don't investors have to vote against the directors in order to like there there's you don't need higher higher pay is not the problem. The pay isn't the problem. The problem is you're looking at a pool of seven white guys. Like look beyond it. I like the inference. Yeah, I wish Sevian would I wish Sevian would focus on like, you know, teachers and nurses and librarians like pay them more. Get better people there. Yeah. All right, you don't care. All right, let's move on. Next category, AI stuff. I have a few AI stories. luckily not a lot. Luckily not a lot. Anthropic people are already mad about this one. I don't know why. Makes sense to me. Anthropic is embedding invisible watermarks in clawed text and images. That's It's not a pay problem, you f like I s yeah. I don't care. Already don't like it. Good. Doesn't that make sense? Why are people angry? They th they're already angry now that the peop they're I think the press secretary what's her name? Levit? What's her name? Was stepping down? I think she put out she used AI to put out her press release when she was leaving, because they someone, you know, they they discovered the watermark. But I I I don't understand the anger against this. Yeah. Levitt, who just she just stepped down, yeah? I think this is great. This is great because now we know which one of you fuck faces are not writing anything yourself. Yeah. I think it's great. I like that. Right? Yeah, I don't get the pushback against this. All right, you're f you like that one. And finally, OpenAI's head of ethics suddenly leaves company under mysterious circumstances. That's Chloe Bacalar. She's been there for less than a year. And then there's a there's an ongoing open AI talent exodus this year, including Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser, COO Bride Brad Lightcap, CEO of AGI Deployment, Fiji Simo. Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rausch, et cetera, et cetera. at least twelve so far. And then Greg Brockman, the the the the the you know, the president, this number two in charge, goes to C N B C and says, it's it's not it's fine. It's not that atypical. This is what happens. It w when you use like a double negative, not that atypical, right? Like it's already. Right. Right before an IPA IPO, isn't this extremely atypical right before an IPO, people are bailing IPA. I mean, what the hell with open AI? Yeah. Also an IPA if you're having if you're having a nice cold IPA. Look, the only thing that stood out to me fr in this story, I don't really care about this. I'm glad I want them to go down in flames. But the only thing that stood out for me is Chloe Bacalar left open AI after leaving Meta. She came from Zuck. She so she open AI is now worse than Zuck. Like she left Meta for open AI. She got there and she was like, holy shit. All right. The ethics over there sucked. This is bananas. I'm out. I gotta like it. okay, so I guess you you do care or you don't care about that one. Let's go to billionaire stuff. So a few days after j Jared Kushner, like he's the son in law of Donald Trump, a few days after his brother tried to privatize FIFA, right after the World Cup, which brought the world together, the Kushner family decided, let's let's privatize it and ruin it. a few days after that failed I don't care. I don't care. Move on. He and Bob Iger, one of our favorite CEOs, former CEO of like twenty five times of Disney, are suddenly buying the Los Angeles Lakers, the basketball team, for almost thirteen billion dollars. I care about this 'cause mostly I wanna know where Bob Iger got like access to thirteen million dollars. That's or thirteen billion dollars. That's all I care about. Otherwise, move on. okay, moving on. Liverpool owners sell minority stake to Jeff Bezos and he has a controlling he has an option to purchase a controlling stake in the company within twelve months. So more more billionaires ruining sports. Yeah, go ahead. Why why this one? I care a lot about this. I so so d two reasons. N number one, just like Iger and Kushner, they d they this is like a vanity project, right? Like they don't care about the team. They just want the like the the asset. They just think it's like cool to own a sports team. They don't care about the team or the fans or any of that stuff. So there's that. The thing that bothers me the most about this one is Jeff Bezos, unlike Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, Jeff Bezos came out and said it's really difficult to do philanthropy. To f optimize your money, to give the money away in the right way, to have a big impact. This is a man who built a yacht in a place where they had to remove an ancient bridge to get the yacht out, right? Like he he could care less. Like Mackenzie Scott has spent the same amount of money Jeff Bezos spent buying Liverpool, like helping homeless people and women's health, right? Like Yeah, the yacht was too big, yeah. It's unfucking believable to me that Jeff Bezos, we look at him with any degree of awe or wonder. What a fucking asshole move. Like you're gonna go buy Liverpool after complaining last year that it's too hard to give away your money. Well, it's easy when you wanna buy a vanity project, you asshole. Move on. plus what's the deal? the the investment consortium is called 1892 Holdings. What's that all about? Why why are we always naming our things after like back when th there were no rights to anyone but white men? What wh why are we always doing that? What is eighteen ninety-two holdings? Anyway. So finally one more on billionaire stuff. It seems like Bill Gates' daughter may be in serious legal trouble. This was a weird story that broke while you were gone. I d I don't know. Phoebe g okay, well let's let's let's backtrack a little bit. Remember Phoebe Gates? She's the daughter of Bill Gates. Said she she wants nothing to do with her dad. She w she wants to prove this is all her. She's not a Nepo baby. This is all her, right? Like now she's she has this shopping app of all things. It's like that kind of crushed me a little bit. I'm like, well, maybe she's doing something good for the world at least. A shopping app? This is what we get from the spawn of Bill Gates, a shopping app. So there's allegations that she's doing something called cookie stuffing, which I really don't understand. I'm trying to get it. It's it's digital credit stealing, where basically it it's tracking you whatever you do, and it's taking credit for sales that you didn't actually get. I I don't really get it. But but it's so bad that the US considers it w wire fraud. So this is a serious deal. she originally blamed, said it was a a bug, a mistake, but then there have been already been leaked already leaked internal messages showing that Gates and her co-founder were were discussing auto-dropping cookies to artificially boost revenue. So she's lying about her revenue already. I this is what you do, I guess, when you don't want to be seen as a Nepo baby. You you you cheat. There's another article that that along with this that said Phoebe Gates took A bug. You lie and she eat and steal. A secret Stanford course on controlling society and use it to recruit for her startup that's now facing accusations. So there's a lot of weird stuff going on with Phoebe Gates. Do you care? Okay, let's move on. Let's go to Meta. A lot of meta stories. I think we're making pretty good time because we're gonna have some speed rounds at the end. A lot of meta stories. Meta faces astronomical consequences as legal fight reaches critical moment in California. I think this case might start today. I don't. It's a trial involving a coalition of twenty nine states. basically this is this is stemming off the the stuff we reported back about it that happened in New Mexico, basically holding Meta accountable for essentially for addicting kids, addicting children to their stupid products. the state attorneys general are seeking up to one point four trillion dollars in penalties and to change how Meta operates. Do you care? You should care. Yeah. Imagine if you didn't care about this. I love this. I mean I I w first of all I love that like among the states, like it's it's almost entirely democratic states, except for Kentucky. I just I Yeah, Kentucky's actually one of the lead although Kentucky now oddly has a Democratic governor, Andy Bashir. I don't know how that happened. Yeah, I know, but like I just love that like you know, like this is one of the few things we agree on that no one likes Mark Zuckerberg. I like that we agree on that. Yeah. how about the fact that this meanwhile, just this morning I had to add this. Just this morning, OpenAI launches Chat GPT for teens. Like like i in the shadow of this c potentially like massively consequential case of like, you know, stop addicting our children, chat GPT thinks it's fine to launch a product for teenagers. I mean w cool finally you're cool, Sam. Really, Sam Altman. I I don't I don't understand. Do you care about that? The worst the worst part is it's better than what was happening already, which was they were just using Chat GPT with no guardrails at all. So this supposedly has a guardrail on it, I g I I the whole I hate I hate that. sure. You're very trusting. Yeah. Like they they like teenagers won't be able to bypass guard a guardrail. You never jumped a a wired fence when you were a kid? They won't yeah, they won't they're they w they won't just be able to go instead of g write typing in chat gpt teen dot com, they they they somehow can't figure out how to write chatgpt.com. Yeah. I mean think of how many times as a kid, we're older. How many times as a kid did you like cut yourself jumping over a chain link fence, not even knowing what would be on the other side, but just to g be on the other side. 'Cause it was there. You're but you're willing to bleed for it. All right, let's move on. I'm gonna stay with Meta and tell me if you care. Meta caught paying Nazis to post on Facebook. This 'Cause the fence was there and it was climbable. Yeah. So many times. So many times. Finally, someone's paying the Nazis. This happened in Australia and it wasn't a mistake, despite the fact that this goes against their supposed hate speech policies that they purportedly have at Facebook. I mean w you know, what's is the corporate oversight board gonna weigh in on this ten years later? I mean th you know, this do you care about this? do I care about this? like I w we're shocked. We're shocked that Meta's paying Nazis. I mean the only difference is now we know that they paid Nazis, where in like twenty sixteen where they tried to foil an election, we had to like find out from Cambridge An Cambridge Analytica that they were basically using Nazis for the same thing. In theory you do. Yeah. Hey, you know why this matters is that I read yesterday that the the f the far right in Germany speaking of speaking of Nazis, you know, the OG Nazis, the far right in the far right in Germany is in in in one of their departments there is is about to take over power for the first time since World War II. So I this stuff might matter. It might. It might. Yeah. I just love reporting these stories because I I ri there are all OG Nazis, yeah. Somewhere. Yeah. I tongue-in-cheekedly love that there's nothing that Zuckerberg can do that will make people delete their apps. They there's no story I can tell you that people they'll they'll say it's awful, but they're never gonna quit themselves. Zuckerberg's this is all these stories that you miss. Zuckerberg's yacht allegedly refused Coast Guard calls to help stranded boat despite being closer. There's a big there was a big stor you saw this big story. They forget it. Yeah, they're not gonna yeah. I s I did see that. I saw that while I was away. The the way it works in the maritime is that the the closest vessel helps the other vessel and of course Zuck's yacht didn't help. And and is Zuck's excuse was, you know, we didn't we didn't hear it. We we didn't our radios were off. I don't know what he said. Is do you care about that one? I I I I just I mean it's just so comical. Yeah. It's so He's just so hated. Just so much that when the when the yacht finally pulled into harbour, people were actually there booing. He's he's like a comic book supervillain. He's so and he's such a man baby. I've like I don't it's like I don't care. Move on. Yeah, he is. Yeah. you don't care about that one. Zucker okay, next one. Zuckerberg said, AI's biggest risk is one entity with too much control. They're all saying this now. Yeah. We wouldn't want like a a man baby to Yeah. Yeah, finally there somebody said it. Yeah. I know Sam Altman said it last week that like Zuckerberg is so As he's putting in a hundred and sixty billion dollars of his own money into making it stronger. He was so obviously like what was it? You you ever see the Disney movie Beauty of the Beast? do you remember Gaston in that movie? So he had a like sidekick who just did whatever he said and like followed him around was like yeah, like d isn't Zuckerberg like the tech bro, like maybe when I was a child I was forced to. I I I absolutely do not. Uhhuh, like an Igor type. Yeah. sidekick. Like everything he does like two weeks ago, Zuck w Zuck was like, we also had a hacking incident where our our AI went rogue. Look at me. And last week Sam Altman said we we can't have all the one company have all the control. And then this week Zuckerberg says the exact same thing. Like, do you have a thought, man? Like you're so like I would just boo him for being so boringly everybody else. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Look at me. Yep. Hm. sounds like you don't care about that one. How about this one? Muck Zuckerberg says Meta will give billions he a twenty-four seven personal super intelligence as he lays out AI vision in an yet another manifesto by one of these college dropouts. So he that's his vision, is that we're all gonna have twenty four seven personal super intelligence companion. I don't know what the hell he claims that he has something set up in his home that watches him No, I don't care. God not. in his family do everything, including like reading to his children. He's very excited by he's really excited about he's rooting out the disgusting filthy pig of a human race. He right he's he's really excited about wiping out the humans. This is exciting. It's exciting for Zuck. I don't he's excited to have all the money. I d like I like that this you know, like there there were some there was a bunch of news headlines about Zuckerberg's manifesto and I actually saw the headlines and didn't read the manifesto and thought, man, I'm missing this p like it's an it's a You don't care about that one, yeah. You tried to read it during the eclipse, right when it got the darkest you pulled it out to read it. I was I was thinking to myself, like, man, I like I'm I can't believe I missed this. Is the week I took off when Zuckerberg. And then I like I skimmed the manifesto and was like, I missed nothing. This is so dumb. It's like it's sh he's just so boringly. I like I'm sure AI wrote it. Maybe his avatar wrote it. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, how would you expect a college dropout to write a a manifesto? Yeah. you don't care. Zuckerbr you might care about this one. Zuckerberg brings back the floating battle barge to spar with UFC fighter Marab Devalchevili. You excited about that? He's back fighting on floating barges. You like that one? No, you don't care. I I Finally. I yeah. That was on my bingo card for things I should care about. let's talk about back to the manifesto again. Zuckerberg's manifesto about the glorious freedoms AI will bring was completely contradicted by his own CTO during a company meeting. So th so Meta's CTO Andrew Bozworth, you don't want to even look at this guy, it'll it'll trigger you, the boss. he's he shut down an employee who asked if AI productivity gains could be used to revive Meta Days, which is a a cancelled holiday program that once allowed staff to take more days off a year. Yeah. He I guess he got appalled by the idea, saying that I hope that what quote, I hope that what we do with our extra time is do even more and cooler stuff for the users who use our products every day. We got billions of people using our products every day. I got I get an extra hour. You know what I do with it? I put it into that. And then he dug his heels even further, saying that he said, go to your parents and ask them. Hey, like every time I get a chance to talk to my about my boss, ask me if I can have more days off. Ask your parents what they think of that as a career strategy. So he was he was d he was hi insulting him for his work life balance question. Yeah. This guy, the boss. But I thought AI was supposed to like free us up. I don't understand. Elon Musk thinks that we're not gonna be working and won't there won't be any money. I mean, but the boss Wow. You personally insulted for the question for wanting an like a d a a day off once in a while. Well, not that guy. The boss is like, hell no. Get right? Get back in there. Keep going, baby. Somebody like I do you think the boss is asking for that guy to be watched at every meeting and like when he goes home to his family now too? Like yeah, it sucks to be you. No. Of course. Good luck being that guy. Do you care about that story? Alright, I'll forget. Let's move on from the from meta. Alright, I gotta some speed run, blow hard blowhard index, speed run. You love blowhard index. CEO of forty nine billion dollar AI company says it's mind boggling people think you can work thirty eight hours a week, have work life balance, and be successful. I do. I love blowhards. I don't care. Shut up. So that's so you do care? Maybe we should change this one to to shut up or not shut up. Okay, he that's a shut up. Okay, yeah, let's do that. Let's do that. Let's do that one. Bill Ackman agrees with Jeff Bezos. Being being a great C being a great CEO can do more for the world than philanthropy. Yeah, I'd like to see the data he has on that. No, I just Yeah, shut up. This is just this this is a new game. Shut up or don't shut up. Shut up or say more. Yeah. Shut up. shut up. Yeah. Corcoran Group CEO says Gen Z's housing market struggles mirror what boomers faced thirty years ago. Stop buying Starbucks coffee, she advises. it's your fault. Yeah, it's it's all our fault. That yeah, the rate Why would she why would she even say that? I I w I I was just talking to my mom who was able to buy she was a teacher, a lifelong public school teacher, able to buy a home in the town which she worked. The house was fifty nine thousand dollars, right? which was reasonable compared to her terrible salary at the time. Now that house is worth well over a million just because I I don't know why, actually nobody knows why. So Which means if you do the math, she absolutely could not live in the town where she teaches. And and and Starbucks has nothing to do with that. So I w why is she saying that that boomers had the same struggle? I I don't under what the hell? Why are that's it's just a complete gaslight. All right, so here's the here's the worst part. The median home price in the United States is five hundred and two thousand dollars. If you spend six dollars a day, five days a week at Starbucks, you've spent one thousand five hundred and sixty dollars per year on Starbucks. You would have to save your Starbucks money for three hundred and twenty-two years to buy the median house in the United States in cash. So what the fuck are you talking about? It's not a Starbucks problem. It's that the CEO of Corcoran Group Jesus. Yeah, what do you what why are they why not just be honest about it? It's not a Starbucks problem. is probably making several million dollars a year, while the lowest paid person on her staff is probably making three hundred X less than her. That's the problem. Not your fucking Starbucks addiction. Plus I don't know why they keep go they keep going back to the Starbucks th idea. They all do it. Plus w what ev like everything is designed to make you the lowest paid person addicted to shit. Right? Like I like like I like everyone's addict like you have your Netflix, you've got your you know, you got your sports, you've got your Starbucks, you've got your everything's like high fat, your McDonald's, your Instagram, your TikTok. Everything is designed to addict you. Yeah, that's true too. Yeah. Yeah. Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. Your your FOMO so you gotta you gotta travel to Tokyo, whatever it is. All right. That's a shut up. Yeah, I'm gonna I actually I I can do that, yeah. Okay, open AI CFO insists AI will not replace judgment. Insists. I mean, it's unbelievable. So this is like a double shut up. Can I double shut shut her up? No, say more. I want this one's a say more. I wanna know why. I wanna I want you to say more. Say more about your insist what data do you have? Okay, say more. Okay. Yeah. I I love I love these because there's they have no s no information, no data, no studies, no nothing to back this crap up. Open AI warns. This is Greg Brockman going around. He warns AI models can automate cyber attacks and exploit security vulnerabilities. So he's going around warning people what to do now because Nothing. There's nothing. Say more. Tell me more. The AI models are gonna make cyber attacks worse. He the the Greg the president and open what is this? This is like a what is that but what is that? Shouldn't he be apologizing? This is a pure this is pure mafia. This is pure mafia. Hey, hey, you know, hey, you're in a dangerous neighborhood. You need protection in this neighborhood. If you pay me to protect you, then y pay pay me to protect you, you'll be protected. If you don't pay me, I don't know what's gonna happen to you. I might break in and take your shit. Greg Brockman's basically s doing the exact same thing. We built a model that's going to break everything. Now pay us to protect you from the model. Like, isn't it your model? Yeah, from us. Yeah, from me. From my fist. Yeah. Yeah. gonna break everything. And look out. Yeah. Is it your model that's breaking everything? They're they're w now they're worrying about the now they're worrying about the models and they're worrying about themselves saying we can't have like the a concentration of power and monopoly of AI. Like we you can't let us be us. You need we need at least five families in this town. I d I shut up. I hate it. S Sam Altman thinks working at Goldman Sachs sounds unbelievably terrible now and it and admits he was peer pressured into accepting an internship there. Why is that a headline? Yeah. You want to hear more about that? Y you know what? You know what? S say more, Sam. I wanna know I wanna know about the peer pressure you felt getting an internship at Goldman Sachs. How about this one? This is a good one. Sam Altman says four years could be too long for college. The way the world has evolved, college just shouldn't be as long as it is. How about that statement? Yeah, you know, frankly, the the no studies that he's citing suggests that you should learn f in less time now. So say more, Sam. I want to hear what everything Sam has to say. Yeah. Yeah. Guy's a genius. I love that now he's like an expert in education. This was always the the number one complaint. Back to my mom. The number one complaint of probably ninety-nine percent of educators is that everybody thinks they're an expert in education. Everybody comes into the classroom and tells them everything that they're doing wrong because they're experts. Because, you know, it's a it's an industry dominated by women, so they must not know what they're doing, right? I mean Cal She's 30-year-old CEO says. Yeah, everybody thinks they know. Yeah. Yeah. Most business advice is trash. He doesn't read management books or listen to podcasts. Quote, I'm gonna make it up as I go. Say more. That's not like a say more. These we are we are if there's any reason why anyone's confused why I like I'm desperate for female for women to take over power for a hundred years. This that must that quote right there is Yeah, finally a guy who's just saying it like it is. Say more, say more, tell me more, just make it up as you go. I'm excited for that. I'm gonna make it up as I go is the yeah. Anyway. How about this one? Paramount. This is the Ellison Boys. This one's this one's crazy. Paramount demands one point nine billion dollars from states citing Warner deal delays. They want the states to pay them because they had a clause in their contract that they'd have to pay a massive fine every month if the deal doesn't close. They want the states to pay that because they're trying to hold Ha ha. Yeah. Allison Neppo baby. that they're trying to stop the deal 'cause they're worried about what what I isn't that their f isn't the Ellison's fault? They're the ones who I Doesn't it does d it doesn't matter. This is all just this is bully tactics. Shut up. Yeah. All right. Is that a shut up or a say more? Yeah, just sh i it's it's just shut up. Just sh Allison's just need to shut up. Alright, I'll try to go faster here. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says AI write Yeah, I know. AI writes sixty percent of its code and sustaining founder mode is the key to winning in the age of AI. shut up. Founder mod Shut up. Yeah. Yeah, why are we still why do we still need to win? I mean, doesn't the world need less winners and more like solving, problem solving? No, it's I don't care. Win, lose, whatever. The the founder mode is just such a beer can crushed to the head of a tech bro nerd. That's all it is. Alright, this one next one is from Richard Tice. He's the he's a a right wing UK politician. He's head of the reform party. He he worked for a company called the Sun he's a insur a house building guy who worked for a company called the Sunly Group. He was the CEO there, a company founded by his grandfather. He said here's the headline far right UK politician says people should enjoy climate change. It's warmer. Say more. Say more. I like I love when an Epo baby steps up and is like, Hey guys, you're not doing this right. So I was in Europe and I saw like Nigel Farage headlines everywhere because he he he had like a runoff like he basically quit and then did a runoff because he's like under investigation and he used it as a political stunt to basically say the people still want me. But his runoff opponent was trash bin face or whatever. Like it was a comedian who dresses up in a in a costume wearing a trash container as a as a head. and trash bin face Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Like, so Farage won. Everybody knew he was gonna win. He was basically unopposed. Except for the fact that Trashman Face, where who usually wins about like one percent of the vote, got twenty-seven percent of the vote. I am not kidding. Twenty-seven percent of the vote. Can you imagine Stop. St I thought you're gonna say like three percent. So It that that yeah, doesn't that tell you a lot about the alternative democracy? How sh directors are getting like right? But trash face. That's what I thought. Directors get directors have d trash bases like yeah, it's unbelievable to me. It's fabulous. wow. Alright, finally, in my Blowhard Index, Mark Cuban tells Rokana, you don't understand business threatens investment shift over billionaire tax. So so all the billionaires in California are really getting heated over this billionaire tax. So say more, shut up. They really don't want to be taxed. I shut up. I don't it's like leave policy to the people. and then finally let's end on a try to end on a good note, another speed round. People and things maybe not to hate. tell me if you hate or don't hate this. McKen McKenzie Scott has given away $26 billion and rarely speaks publicly. Thank thank you, McKenzie. now she's releasing a novel, but she won't but she won't sell it on Amazon. Which I think is great. She's gonna sell she's not gonna sell it. She's gonna release it chapter by chapter on Substack. And just to Just to be clear here, this is not like a a Nepo baby situation. This is a woman who studied under Nobel Prize winner Tony Morrison at Princeton. I, you know, this is a person who understands writing. So not only does she not bug us by constantly saying stuff, but she's not gonna, she's a rich person who doesn't need to make more money. She's just gonna release the book. She actually has expertise in this field. Hate it or don't hate it. I hate this. I hate it not because of anything. No, what I hate about it is actually the beginning of the sentence, which is Mackenzie Scott has given away 26 billion, and earlier Jeff Bezos sent spent 7.4 billion for a minority stake in Liverpool. I I I just I just hate that there is somebody who's just doing it the way everyone should do it. Because it's a model of how everyone should act. It never stops talking. Yeah. It just tr all right, it triggered you. And it bothers me so much that all these fucking man babies can't. Yeah. there there was another headline the same day. Amazon's new AI data center is so enormous that it appears it will become the largest single source of pollution in the United States. That's also happening on Amazon. What there was an o No, I'm just saying like this is the this is the the counterbalance of Mackenzie Scott. Yeah. I I just I'm sorry, but that's one of the best things I've read all year that she's not releasing it on Amazon. I just think that's amazing. I am I supposed to not hate that? How is how do I That's the juxtaposition. Yeah. Yeah, I hate it. I mean I that's great. All of her money came from Amazon though, so like it's it's hard. It's hard. I know, I know. Bernie Sanders asked the leading AI he the now Bernie has a letter. it's not a manifesto, it's a letter. Bernie asked the leading AI CEOs to pause development. He wants them to just stop. Hate or don't hate. I I d I don't hate this, but I also don't care about it. Like Bernie writes a letter every day. He's trying. well that is his job, right? He's he's representing his constituents. I mean, they probably I I don't know. Yeah, I hear ya. US firms this is from The Guardian and multiple sources. US firms that kept DEI policies despite go woke, go broke threats have thrived. So you so going woke, going broke, they're saying is bullshit. Yeah. Yeah, this is so fucking obvious. This is so obvious. So I d I don't hate it, but I also am like, duh. Hate or don't hate. France bans unsolicited tele telemarketing calls. That's a way to do it, right? Just ban them. Cards Against Humanity unveils sad little bitch Elon Musk Monument near near Texas star base. And finally, Gen Z is I'm gonna end on a dumb one, but you know, maybe Gen Z is bringing pen and paper back to the workplace. I don't hate that. That's amazing. Finally. Just ban it. I don't know what that is, but I don't hate it. No, there's you're not bringing back pen and paper. Come on. Come on. I I hate that. Like I we don't have to do everything. Like I don't have to listen to everything on a tape cassette. just because. Although I do have pen and paper next to me all day. I write on it all the time. wow. let's get out of here. That is Hazelnut Rollis. I am your analyst told my miscardi. We are free float. go to freefloatanalytics.com. Yeah. Y you ha you hate that one. Yeah, I do too. that's it. That's the show. That's enough. Come on. Let's get out of here. That's a lot. You know what they just did? They just allowed on the beta, which is not freeflowanalytics.com, which is a different website. So if you want that, let me know. But it it's self-served now. You can just sign up. You can just sign up for the beta. Like it's just Yeah, and if you wa and if you want to understand the method to this madness, go sign up, join the platform and and if i I know that we throw a lot of information at you on these shows, but if but if you're someone who is interested in something like Paramount or Meta or whatever, you can go right to those pages and you can see all the the latest news headlines that we tag about those companies. You can keep up with the daily happenings. You know, when you were talking about L three Harris at the o at the opening, I pulled it up and at the bottom is the filing. It's the filing from L three Harris. You scroll all the way to the bottom, you can see the filing that announces the new CEO and the CEO's departure. Right. It's right there. It's like it's all right there for you. So it's it's a great resource. You should use it because because why not? Otherwise we'll be back. I'm back. So we'll be back. We'll do some light light shows up It's a handy resource, handy resource. Sound threatening. Up through Labor Day and then we'll ramp really up after that. I think no proxy countdown this week, but we'll be back on Friday. Until then, goodbye.