L3Harris’ misconduct problem, Mark’s bad week, the SEC quits SEC’ing

come on. You're gonna have fake enthusiasm. Yeah. Whoa. Live from your ESG free Trump account. Woo! It's it's a business pants Friday show here at August 21st Studios featuring analyst hole Matt Muscarty. On today's weekly wrap up, the SEC is busy washing its hair. Yeah. Yeah, bring that fake enthusiasm. Yeah, there's no ESG in that Trump account. Yeah, it's a lot of hair. Goodliest of the week gets renamed Mackenzie Scottiest of the Week and L3 Harris Numbskulls. Gah. there's a lot of those. Do do we have to do all of them or is it just a like an overview of them? That's the entire show. Ooh Yeah, we gotta do all these stories. That's the show. Well, I I I mean, w we were just looking at one of our compet kind of competitors and I I see a lot of AI why can't we just have AI do everything like everyone else does? Everybody just says AI AI AI AI AI AI. And they flood theirs they flood everything with like clearly AI generated content. Like why don't we just do that for this show? Where's the button? I don't know. I don't know why we we don't say AI enough. We We're too Gen X, I guess. our show today is being sponsored by AI. Yeah. No, it's actually Freeflow Analytics and Freeflow Analytics.com, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for free. When does it actually launch? cool. no no no no no no no no no September one, I heard. It's gonna flip on. It's gonna turn on. There's a big there's a big picture of Eric Schmidt on the head the head of it right now. That that's not the selling point we want like to talk about for our sponsor. No. I'm seeing I see zines, I see all of our tagged headlines, I see shows, I see a lot of data. What I have on my version of what's up for for for free flow analytics is L three Harris. I'm just looking at L three Harris. I'm looking at the scenario model of L three Harris that says there's an actual scenario model and it actually says CEO misconduct allegations and when you run it it says week this board may struggle with this event. So Yeah. I mean It did struggle. Alright, let's let's get to the show. Story of the week. Come on. Get let's get to get right into it. Let's just go right to L3 Harris. Did. Did they got it right. Yeah. that's right. There's more is story of the week. Let's do it. I mean this might be like sort of the most classic version of this dumb old story they keep telling corporations. I mean I c I can't think of a better example. It's it is this like the hero's journey for corporations? Like have CEO, have misconduct allegation, don't say what it is, fire CEO. Yeah, so and everyone knows what it is because there's 'cause there's a track record of it and people have been complaining about it. L3 Harris has they haven't fired Christopher Kubasic as chair and CEO, but they've gotten rid of him. They couldn't even fire him. They had to make a deal with him where they get they let him keep all of his equity and all of his pay, but they don't say they're firing him with cause. Although clearly there's no more Yeah, of course they do. 'Cause it's the only thing that happens. Yeah. I thought they they weren't gonna like speed vest his options or something. That was something. Th there's no more with cause than this one. and and you're right, the company really hasn't told us why, other than the fact that he broke their code of conduct. but the story seems putty pretty clear from the press that he had a inappropriate relationship with a subordinate. And this is one of the reasons why we know this might be true is that he did this before. He did this Yeah. Lockheed Martin. But he learned his lesson at Lockheed Martin. Yeah, forced to resign there after an ethics investigation confirmed that he had a close personal relationship with a subordinate employee. In fact, this is according to the Wall Street Journal. Women at L3 Harris have shared concern about his behavior for years before he was let go, saying avoid the woman said avoid being alone with him. And be careful on the corporate jet. I mean, this is like old-fashioned pre-me too heinousness, right? Right? Isn't it? Wow. Avoid being alone don't get on the corporate jet with him. Yeah. Like I thought we were I I know people deride w wokeism, they deride Me Too and they chuckle at at civil rights now, but but the lasting impact of Me Too to me, one of the most important lasting impacts of Me Too is that there are a lot of men who now they'll complain about it when they're in a group with other men, but they they have stopped themselves from horrible behavior a lot of them because they know they might be watched now, right? they they're slightly worried that someone might call them out or and even that alone is a victory. So but not at not at L not not with this guy, Chris Kubashik. He just keeps floating down the road. Just keeps getting there. Yeah. Actually, fun fact about him, I did read that he was on a path to be the potential CEO at Lockheed Martin before the ethics investigation. And do you know he worked at Lockheed. Yeah, he worked at Lockheed. He he was on some sort of succession path, right? And they found an ethics violation and they ousted him. And the next CEO Uh-huh. So he never actually worked there, never actually worked there. Okay, but he was on the okay, he said he was on the succession path and they found boo boo. Yeah. because it was Robert Stevens when he was working there at Lockheed. The next CEO was Marilyn Houston. the woman. They had to bring in a woman. I don't know w if they brought him in because this guy had ethics violations and it was like a rampant sexual harassment culture and they were like, We just need to change it up or not. But it's just a f one of those fun facts that whenever you find some sexual harassment, you put a woman in charge afterwards. That's always a good move. Right. what I love is how the press is handling it too. Like the Wall Street Journal, which is covering it, I give them credit for that, but they they have a a story that says Why do boards keep giving keep giving misbehaving CEOs second chances question mark? Like what wh why do you have to why do you have to pose it as a question? Like why do we why don't we get a little bit more aggressive? Well, we said already like th the average vote for these directors is ninety pl ninety five percent plus. So why do boards or why do investors not care what boards do? Yeah, well. But why don't we be a little bit more like direct and say, like, let's cut this out. These corporations should be ashamed. This is ridiculous. All right, that's the top story that we do you have some details to add later, so let you want to just leave it at that? All right, so Second story of the week involves the trial with Meta. Meta faces a one point four trillion dollar threat that could mean turning in the keys and walking away. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's just bored stuff later, yeah. That's the headline, yeah. but the stakes of the case reach across tech. So the trial involves a coalition of twenty nine state attorneys general in a unified case against Meta. and essentially they're their the idea in a nutshell is this is not about the content. It's about the fact that you guys rigged up a a massive a addiction scheme. Y you basically drug dealers peddling To our children, it's baked into how you run the company. you knew about it, you don't care, and now we're coming after you. That right in a nutshell? Yeah. It's fabulous. It's fabulous. Yeah. I mean we knew yeah the the companies do, but didn't everyone know for like the last, you know, five to ten years and we're still fucking using it? Well this is you know this is like you know this is basically I have two major pet peeves. Wa one is the people who don't use their turn signals anymore. I you know. and the second one is all the people who continuously use all of this nonsense. All you know, like Twitter, Instagram, and yet they you know, they they whine and they complain and they're ruining the world. But they can't they can't quit it. I don't I don't get the can't quit part of it. You see There seems to be y there's a mismatch in your pet peeves. One is like a s giant social ill, the other one is like the guy you know who doesn't turn signal. Quit it. I gotta tell ya, as a proud New Englander, you know, my state used to be part of Massachusetts and I have my my mom is from Boston and my Harvard. This this news that more than half of their endowment is tied up into Elon Musk's company, I w it was heartbreaking for me this week. I I g I I he represents the exact opposite of basically everything that four year universities I know, but it really it's like it to me it's basically heart par I I feel completely betrayed. Completely betrayed by this. No money. Money is the only thing. Money. And you're gonna lose the money, right? Like y you're just betting on Elon Musk being some genius founder. It's not. He's not. He's not. How? How? Are they not paying attention to our shows? I thought all of Harvard listened to us. All they have to do is go to the new platform, look at all the I mean, really, like we're not the only ones who track Elon Musk headlines. Everyone does. I mean the anyway, can we move on? I'll give you a couple other meta headlines and we'll move on. States accuse meta of targeting children for Facebook, Instagram, addiction. You got it. You're t you tangented. I I was talking about turn signals. The young ones are the best ones. That's a quote from the company. Meta meta whistleblower told the jury the jury the company took a don't ask, don't tell, approach to kids' safety. And then another quote about how Mark Zuckerberg was handling all this, harvest their data and hide the truth from the public. So this is all yeah. Go ahead, tell me, tell me. god, you but you missed the best headline. Though I th there there was there's a headline about how teen boys are wearing the meta glasses into school to harass teen girls. Like in filming it. Mm. Well this is yeah, I guess this is a a another new problem that Mark Zuckerberg has created. And it's not just h harassing people, it's like all it's also like stealing movies. I they're just like causing ha havoc anywhere, everywhere. It's like literally everything they've taken away, like they've enabled it's like a middle school man boy enabling other middle school boys, but actual middle school boys to be the absolute worst versions of themselves with no accountability. There's no shame anymore. When I was in middle school, I mean, w we harassed girls, right? Like you'd like, you know, pull hair or like make jokes or whatever. How do how does the middle school boy even afford how do they even afford those? Yeah. Well to be fair, yeah, we we harassed e everyone was harassed. Teachers, yeah, friends, parents, bus drivers. We we did. We harassed everyone. I harassed all my friends. We harassed the teachers. We harassed girls, boys. We were it was much more equal opportunity harassment. But in middle school, like a lot of like flirting is basically harassment because we don't know how to do it. We're morons. But what Zuckerberg has given us is the ability to do it, not just do like go through the process of being a moron and getting Yeah, right. Yeah. And growing up and figuring it out and then apologizing basically for the rest of your life for your shitty behavior as a teenager. He's given you the ability to live scream it, stream it, get likes for it, and not ever learn that there's a there's a human way to be. Like literally, he's removed humanity because these teen idiots are doing the worst possible shit, filming it and getting likes for it. It's horrible. Thanks, Mark. You know, there was an article this week it wasn't necessarily about Mark Zuckerberg. It was in Salon, Salon dot com, talking about they want to bring back the corporate death penalty. So there there really is a thing called jud judicial dissolution. so it's basically a a scenario where the government, you know, hates a comp company enough 'cause it's like there's there's enough there's so much corruption. Or it's causing a incredible amount of damage to stakeholders that they they can they can take away their charter. now w what a perfect scenario. I mean what I mean Mike n not to get not to get too serious here because I know no one wants to hear us be serious, but is there gonna be you think it there'll ever be a a scenario like that? Are we ever gonna step in and just like no? Okay, okay. I think that's fabulous. Yeah, what do it now. Right now, what's Mar what are you waiting for with Mark? No. I mean i so it's the the it only happens with antitrust. That's the closest you get. Where they like break up Mobell and and and make three companies that eventually just all combine later anyway. Like that's the closest they really get. And the consumer gets screwed no matter what. You ever checked your cell phone bill? Like it's bananas. Yeah. And the and the consumer do isn't really helped at all down the road. All right. Ugh. let's move on. That's the that's the second big story. let's hope. Let's hope this look this this could be a monumental turning point in our history or it might not. I you know, unfortunately Americans are they hate things but they're waiting for other people to take it away from them because they can't they can't take it away from themselves. No, they hate they hate change. They don't want anyone to tell them what to do. And then you tell like and then you do something like this and sue the hopefully sue Mark out of existence, which is never gonna happen, but pretend it did. And then you actually are like, Wow, this is really refreshing. I like it better. Okay, so that's it. Yeah. All right. Third story of the week. I think you might also be covering this as well. S SEC says it will stop responding to no action requests entirely. I mean that headline says it all. Do you have any th are you gonna add something to this later? Yeah. Yeah, I just just entirely. Just not gonna do it. I am, but you should just give the gist of what it means, like what it's about. they they basically plan to what I just said, they plan to stop responding to no action requests. So when a company is trying to exclude a shareholder proposal, yeah, so the last year the the the c SEC was sending out you know like form letters saying w we don't care, but essentially I mean I'm paraphrasing here, but but we don't care. Do what you want. We're we're pro management, because even even though Yeah, but like the no actual so Yeah, that's the process, right? No, I think it actually said that. We're we're pro-sholders when we when we don't want to care about stakeholders, but when it comes to these scenarios, we're anti-sholders and we're pro-management, right? Because we so it's a conf the SEC is very confusing. but this is clearly part of a so now that I and we c w this is what we hinted at last year is that this is clearly the beginning of a of a slippery slope, right? I mean we we knew it was gonna kind of start careening towards this. Luckily It's very confusing. It's very ki it's very confusing. In America, you know, th there are such a thing called election cycles and Congress changes, the presidency changes. So I I don't know, maybe the SEC will be f full of different commissioners soon that will change this. But but what also happened this week, or is it last week, is that they've even stripped the re reporting requirement for beneficial ownership for companies where they don't have to reveal all the all the like subsidiaries and tax shelters and all that crap. Like they're yeah, I so th this is part of that slope, right? They're doing everything they can to protect founders and management, right? All right. That's the third story. And finally Yeah. Well thank God it was I It's very confusing. Yeah. there's just a crescendo of of of stories on this topic. I can't you know, we just talked about Mark Zuckerberg. I can't quite maybe you have a a a more poetic way of of helping me understand why, but the the America has sort of g gathered around to hate one thing from both sides of the aisle, blue blue and red states and Yeah, it doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, yep. And that's a AI data center. I'll give you the I'll give you the headline. AI data center outrage is showing up everywhere from ads to election. I captured 15 headlines alone quite easily. and there's so many more. and I'll give you I'll give you some like examples. As AI data centers data centers spread, pressure amounts. I I like that you break into the the Boston accent when you're saying data center. AI data center. I can't I don't mean to. Pressure mounts to share profits. the data centers industry's PR blitz is backfiring. politicians who once championed data centers are now bashing them. The the only person who seems to still love data centers is the person that everyone in America is starting to loathe. Thank God, is Donald Trump. He's like the only one who's still kind of on the side. He's he's left, yeah. Although we get the feeling that the GOP they they still love them, but th they're they're getting uncomfortable because they even their constituents don't love them. But I it even got so crazy w with all these headlines that l listen to this one. bad news for Jason Kelsey. He's like one of these he's like the the the brother-in-law of Ta of Taylor Swift, right? He's one of these dopey football players who are somehow accepted because they married into Tarot Swift family. he wanted people to mail their pee, yeah, their urine, to data centers. And the headline said Postal Service rules say you shouldn't mail pee to data centers. You should not. But this is how crazy this. He's like a podcaster type, yeah. Yeah. Football player, yeah. I like that he cla the headline clarified that. Yeah. This is how crazy this populist movement is getting. You have you now have like dopey middle America football players hating data centers. And you and also got so far that this headline, I I'll end on this one and let you chime in. data center hysteria is the new woke. They're calling it the new woke, but it represents like eighty percent of America at this point. So I don't really even know what woke is anymore if that's the new woke. Go ahead. no, this so that one was one of my headlineist of the week. What but I'm just gonna do I'll just do it now. The the argument that's an op ed piece in the Indianapolis Star. you know, and the the author is arguing that when there's the it he basically defined woke. It's the first definition I've ever heard of what is woke. He said when there's vast agreement about something. Go ahead. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I read that. Indie Star, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. And you get yelled at for not agreeing with the vast agreement, that's what woke is. That's what woke is. Which is not at all what woke is. No. No, it's not, but he but he but he actually like I read a few of his columns. He doesn't seem either conservative or liberal. He's kind of middle, he's kinda like clickbaity sometimes, but he just it's he seems very middle of the road. But it's a great definition because that's how people react, right? Like that's the woke reaction. Like, you're being woke is we all agree slavery was bad. I don't agree. No, he's kind of in the middle, yeah. Yeah. Sure. You're woke for everyone thinking slavery's bad. Yeah, he's a he He's equating woke to something that used to be referred to as political correctness. Yeah, which is which is also a a a a a a make believe term. Yeah. Right. Now it's And now it's moved into this realm of everyone agrees data centers are bad. Well, I don't agree. That means data center people saying they're bad are woke about data centers. I like that it's a definition. I like it as something. Yeah. I gotta say, like I I I d I didn't expect this. c you know, there's all kinds of headlines now. Like they're they're like Sam Gwynneth Paltrow is throwing a party for Sam Altman and they're laughing like the two of the most hated people in the world or of course they're combining, but it's like I just didn't see this coming. I didn't see this being the epicenter of a populist movement against something. I mean clearly it's against It's against the corpuscracy, it's against the oligarchy, it's against I don't know what it's against. It or is it against is it like a Luddite revolution against what is it? I think it's aga I think what it is. No, I I don't I think you're like turning it into like a bigger thing. I think it's a h what it is is hyperlocal. The reason why it's so like you can get on this train because you hate the climate politics of it, right? Like the fact that these are horrible for climate change, they're resource sucking, they're hor like the systemic issues around it. You can get on it for the AI is ruining the world issues for it. Okay, what is it then? All right. But the reason why conservatives are on this is it's hyper local, like they're in your backyard. They are Right. And they represent the and the it's like the elite. Is it 'cause it's representing the elite they hate? Right. It's literally like a bunch of billionaires building a massive, massive structure in my town. We get nothing from it. You're taking our resources. We get shitty jobs and there's very few of them. And the community's not gonna profit off of it. Yeah. Shit jobs. But this has been going on for decades with like big box stores as an example, like they hated it. Yes, they hated like, but everybody agreed on those issues. Like that's that was the big mistake. When you need is one thing when it's like Mark Zuckerberg and some walled ivory tower who doesn't need data centers in your town, who just sends you an app to your phone, it's passive and whatever. This is like that's in my fucking backyard. I can see that giant piece of shit, right? Like, get out of my town. It's a get out of get off my lawn. It's great. I love it. I love it. All right. Entr So confused. Yeah. I don't get it. I don't all right, that's the that's the fourth story of the week. So my options here for story of the week. L three oust the CEO, Meta's one point four trillion dollar pot potential liability. SEC says it will stop responding to no action and AI data center outrage. the the data center outrage is going on ad nauseum, I think. I think it's gonna go right through Please. Yeah, it's I think it's peaking now because it's it's becoming a very clear part of the midterms. Yeah, it's the midterms. Yeah. It's an election cycle. Yeah, it's an election cycle. the SEC definitely never no one ever anywhere would ever think something the SEC did was a story of the week, except for maybe us. which leaves me meta and L3. I I'm gonna go with Meta's thing is gonna keep going, right? Like it's gotta be L3. L3 is the story of the week. and Well, you know, maybe some nerds at Free Float. Yeah, it's gotta be L three. Cause this is our this is our wheelhouse. I mean this is just rid it's just silliness. Alright. let's move on. I'm gonna come back to it too anyway. Well let's let's do so let's do a modicum of goodliest things. Like I we have almost no goodliest this week. I was gone last week and I do feel like there's nothing good in the headlines this week. And I and even though even when I pick Mackenzie Scott, I I love what she does, but I I I hate that people have amassed such wealth and I hate that her wealth comes from Jeff Bezos. I I I didn't even one headline I didn't even tell you was this one. Amazon is buying rare books and destroying them to tr to train its AI models. Yeah, I saw that headline. I I f fucking lost my mind, like by myself. Yeah, the team that destroys these rare books, the their logo is a a dinosaur holding a book. Isn't that clever? Yeah. No, it just it's so clever. You readers are are ancient, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So anyway, Mackenzie Scott, and I I only picked this one because of the last part of this headline, which is to me the by far the most important part and why I love Mackenzie Scott. Mc Mackenzie Scott gave California Public Education $461 million, which is amazing. But but then this, and let the recipients decide how to spend every dollar. This is important. I y you don't see this very often. I I have heard countless tales. There's a That's a lot. Yeah. There's a art center that just opened down the road for me. This incredible art center on a public university at a public university. And I and and one thing I heard was all these stupid stories about the family that donated this had so many rules about what could be there, what couldn't be there, and this the the size of his name on the bill. all these stupid rules. And so I give Mackenzie Scott credit for not pretending like she's an expert and she understands education and telling them how to spend it and all that. Well, forget that. It's like Mackenzie Scott clearly doesn't care if her name is on anything. She doesn't she's not doing it. But most of the most of the people my guess is like you you open up a new performing arts center or a new library and you want a bench with your name on it. You want your name on a plaque above the thing. You want to be called the you know, like Why should she? Yeah. Well we joke we joke and we drive by because th the person's name, their last name, is twice the size of the Center for Performance Arts below. It's twice the size. Of course, that's that's but you you you're donating it to put your fucking name on it. Like it's just a dick war, right? and Mackenzie Scott has made it not that. And and the fact is that like the vanity projects of these billionaires, you know, she donates four hundred and sixty-one million dollars and doesn't care like about there's no follow-up n necessary, just spend it the way you know you need to spend it. Jeff Bezos spent seven billion dollars to buy Liverpool That craziness. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Unfortunately you're right. Yeah. And w like dem demanded that he gets, you know, right of first purchase if somebody if the if you wanna like the majority stake wants to sell. Like I the I dunno it's all fucking horrible. Yeah. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is putting his name you know, on the Jay on the Kennedy Arts Center. He's he's the latest one I read is that he's th there was a w a a a battle a warship that was is about to be named after a soldier in World War Two. He wa who was not trained on this. I think he was like a cook he was like a black military man who grabbed a a gun during the attack Pearl Harbor and shot down planes despite the fact that he had no H no knowledge of how to use it. And there we're gonna of course name this boat after him because he's a hero and Trump wants to get rid of that name and name it after himself. So that you know, in a nutshell, that's where we're at. Yeah. Alright, good. What's yours? No training. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. That's what we're talking about. I don't like any of it. I hate it. you you turned the goodliest of the week into something I hate. Congratulations. Mine is this headline, Andreess and Horowitz Focus of DOJ probe over board directors. Okay, what'd you what's yours? Yeah. Do you want to go into a little bit what that's about? So the Department of Justice is looking at the fact that Andresen Horowitz has partners of the firm. This is a venture capital firm. They invest in hundreds of companies, and partners of the firm sit on the boards of these companies. And two firms where they invested in, they have people on the boards of, and they s one of them pivoted into sort of a semi-competitor of the other one. and Unfortunately. Yeah, sure. That is not allowed. It's actually not allowed that you sit on the board. A person can't sit on the board of two competitors. They're extending that to say a venture capitalist can't sit on the board like So when are they Yeah. So when are they gonna audit they should use our database and audit the entire right? That's what I loved about it. Like like there are so many fucking instances in where these directors it's not it's not like direct competitors, but like like the these companies list their peers in compensation analysis, right? Like so as part of the proxy, they have a whole discussion of compensation. They list the peer companies and they say these are the peers from which we compete for talent, specifically executive talent. They say that. It's incredible. So many. Right. Those peers are usually set as make believe sets of peers. Like they're not real peers. They're just like, this is who we want. We want to be at least in the median. We never pick a peer like a peer set where our executive is going to get underpaid. It never happens that way. They pick it very specifically for compensation, but it's a list of companies. Yeah. It's a but it's a list of companies that gives you a sense of like, well, they're identifying their peers. And then if you look at who sits on the board. Yeah, it's called collusion. Yes, it's the same crew. I know. Like a quarter of the time it's the same people. Like they sit on the boards of those companies. So This is what yeah, this is the thing about again, talk once again, like trying to understand the American psyche. we we will get bent out of shape if like a football player if i if there's collusion with a football player and he doesn't get signed to a team or s you know, some kind of a collusion with the owners. But you're right, in this scenario something that people are getting more upset about is the high the astronomical CEO pay. But but the reason why it's so high is like the exact thing that you just pointed out because there's collusion on the boards of directors who sit on multiple boards and and it yes, and and and sit on compensation committees and ensure that those that they get t like raises every year. and they get more and more and more and more and more. And who are CEOs often. Yeah. I and and it's like you know, it's not that hard of an investigation of an investigation department of justice. Like we actually have a data set that basically shows you where everybody sits and how much, you know, like they defer to the CEOs and like I I just I love this headline mostly because it's the What do you make of this though? Why do you how does it how does the DOJ get to this though? How do what do you make of this? Well, what I I what I love about it is that they did they're they're gonna lose this investigation. Like But how does a Trump error DOJ even do this? I I'm s okay. I don't think they do. I think this is like so this is also this isn't Mark Andreessen, this is Ben Horowitz who was on the board. So Ben Horowitz actually okay. Mark is the friend of Mark Andrewsen is the friend of Trump. Yes. and I th I'm I'm relatively sure that Ben Horowitz is the Democrat donor. I no, seriously. Like he was he was one of the liberals up until like 2024. he he like supported Kamala Harris. I he he and I and I I don't know, but like but I just love I love that it's a start. Stop. Is that true? Is it that is it that is it that simple the my god. Is it this really this simple? Alright, anyway. It's a good I like that. You know what? I'm gonna vote for that one 'cause it because we vote for Mackenzie too much. and I and I just like the fact that that this you're right, this is opening a a can of worms that should be should be t discussed. Yeah. Let's just change it up. I I can't wait. I so I really hope someone takes this up on like look at the data and start suing, like sending it to DOJ and be like, look, use the data, baby. Use the data, baby. All right, let's do some assholes. We haven't done any yet. all right, we already talked about L3 Harris. I was the CEO after an investigation into his conduct conduct. Hey D I O J use our w we'll work with you. Use the database. Yeah, we can help you with that. All right. Let's do some assholes. Yeah. My assholes are Bill Brown and Robert Millard, two people who are not the CEO of L3 Harris, but and whose names you wouldn't know. And let's get to who they are. Here's a hi f you gotta start with a history lesson. So Chris Kubi Kubasic Kubasic. what he was the CEO who got ousted. He was hired in 2015, and this is about two years after Lockheed's disastrous firing of him because he was a Who the who, who? Tell me. Yeah. Yeah, maybe Kubashik. Yeah, he learned his lesson. He learned his lesson after two years of like r walking through the hills by himself. He's never gonna do it again. He was hired as the CEO and president of L3. This is before L3 and Harris combined. So the presiding CEO of L3 was a man named Michael Strianese. He was the chair from 2008, the CEO from 2006. So you got a CEO chair situation. He's not gonna do it again. He's hiring a new COO and president. You have to know that this is a board level decision along with the CEO, but the CEO does all the work, right? Like Stranese is basically saying, like, that's my guy. And the board's probably just saying, sure. The important names from the board to remember here are the NAM Committee and Dunwoody, Vincent Pagano Jr., and Hugh Shelton. Those are the ones who probably would have looked at this and said, cool. But Why do you say why them? because they were the the that was the nomination committee of the board, so they're likely to be looking at it. But there's two other names to know. One is Robert Millard, who is up for Asshole of the Week. He was the chair of MIT. He was at Lehman Brothers until it collapsed. He was a managing director there, so like a solid history. got it. Got it. Right. Uhhuh. great. Yeah. Role model, yeah. he was on the board of L3 since nineteen ninety-seven and he was the lead independent director of the time. He'd been there for yeah a solid twenty years, eighteen years. and Lloyd Newton, who was the only person of color on this board, he was the token black guy. Wow. Course, course. Yeah. Yeah. Super independent. Yeah, it looks like they have one person, one woman. They're really taking tokenism to a great level, yeah. That's correct. One person of color, one woman, and he was a black US Air Force General. He joined the board in 2012. So those are the two he joined after Strianese is the CEO. So he's a Strianese pick, right? In 2018, Kubisic is named the CEO of L3 Technologies. Michael Strianese steps down, he retires, and Okay. Yeah. Okay. Kubasic is named CEO. So literally, he's been there for three years and they name him CEO, which suggests to me they brought him in to be the CEO, right? That's the succession. That's how you're supposed to think. everyone on the board is exactly the same. So the whole board at this point stamps him in. You're the new CEO. And this is. Got it. To Yes, of course. Absolutely. Yeah. You mean rubber stamps them in, yeah. After he was ousted, after he was ousted at Lockheed Martin for sexual harassment, for sexual misconduct, I should say, not harassment, misconduct. He's for being with a subordinate. In 2019, L3 and Harris merge. Kubasik is named to the board of L3 Harris, the combined company, and he's named COO and president of the company, of the new entity, and Bill Brown is the CEO and chair. Mm-hmm. Of the new entity. Got it. Okay. Got it. Of L3 Harris. So now we have Bill Brown and Robert Millard, my two assholes. surviving the board merger, because the boards merged too, are Thomas Corcoran, Robert Millard, Lloyd Newton, and Lewis Kramer. So Millard and Newton stick around. Kramer and Corcoran get to stick around too, but Yeah. Yeah, I mean w Millard's never gonna go away. Millard sticks around in tw in June of 2021. Kubosic becomes the CEO and Bill Brown moves to executive chair. And guess who's on the nominating committee that chooses the new CEO? And Kubosic is chosen by Robert Millard and Lloyd Newton, who is the chair of the nominating committee at the time. Okay. Clearly, yeah. Okay. Newton, you can't do anything about. Newton retires and is gone. But you can do something about Bill Brown, who chose his successor in Kubasic, and Robert Millard, the long tenure since 1997. This is going on 30 years, Robert Millard has been on the board. Millard, Bill Brown is on the board of Beckton Dickinson now, even though he retired. And Robert Millard is on the board of Green Dot Corp. Well are yeah, they're currently on the board? Why am I not seeing them? Yeah, currently on boards. Bill Brown, currently on the board of Beckton Dickinson. Robert Robert Millard, currently on the board of Green Dot Corp, iHeartMedia, and Evercorp. And Green Dot and Evercorp, he's on the nominating committee. So basically, what I'm saying is a guy who was willing to overlook sexual harassment, not once, but twice, for two different CEO positions when he was on the board of these companies. okay, okay. Got it. Got it. And there's no way, there's no way that you don't know that this is going on. We know like from other you pulled reports about how the women at L Three Harris have been talking about this for years. Twice. Well of course. Yeah, from the very unwoke reporting of the Wall Street Journal. So this is not yeah, gossip magazine. I I mean like these aren't like hidden if you asked seven questions of seven employees, you'd probably know that this has happened. Robert Millard Well it's even worse than what it's even worse than the the what you s you know, y ha just have relationship with a a subordinate because the women were were telling each other don't be left alone with him. That suggests something pretty nefarious, yeah. Yeah. Don't be alone. Right. Something way worse. Robert Millard is on the nominating committee of two other companies right now. And this is his way of nominating CEOs. Not to mention he's on the board of iHeartMedia, where I had to I looked this up. iHeart Media, the I the they he was brought into the board. He's only been there for for a year or two, but Over the last three years, iHeartMedia had an executive who went on a racial slur rant in a car, groped the the driver of the car. The company's been sued for gender and wage discrimination, and a radio host that's that the company like hosted, that's own like hired by the company, was accused of s quote severe harassment. So they put on Robert Millard to the board. That'll fix it. Right. You know what? I know we're we're we're we're still in talks about like what kind of creative things that we're gonna be adding to the new platform, what kind of you know, what kind of lists and tools. I know we're working on a CEO hot seat list, which CEOs might be in danger. You know, you have mentioned a lot of directors over the past few years that that should be targeted. for for for for bad behavior like this, and then y you're asking people to vote them off other boards. We have to create that list too, like a watch list because, you know, I mean, people are simply not gonna remember this if they've listened to the show one time. We'd have to create these lists. Mm. Yeah. Vote vote you're the it's it's really simple to vote against Robert Millard and when he's when he pisses and moans, why you can say you backed Chris Kubasik despite the fact that he was a serial sexual harasser at two separate companies where you were on the board. Now you're on the nominating committee of you're on the nominating committee of two other boards? Yeah, just say there's still a thing called ethics. Yeah. Remember that ethics course you took at your MBA? Follow it. Wha how do we know you're not going to do it again? Your track record sucks. We're voting against. All right. Number two, Dario Emoti. Well of course he'll do it again. Alright, let's move on. That's the good first assholiest. Yep. He is the anthropic dude. Anthropic CEO president. I saw this headline. Anthropic prepares super voting power for founders as it readies for mega IPO. Yeah. This was on my early list as a possible story of the week, but I I thought you were gonna laugh at because it's like it hasn't happened yet. And also I was confused because I thought this is a public benefit corporation, so how was this possible? Yeah. That is correct. That's why he's an asshole. Like he's this is a public benefit corporation. Let me read to you the like what a public benefit corporation is required to do, the board of a public benefit corporation. Public a benefit corporations, directors, and officers operate the business with the same authority and behavior as a traditional corporation, but are required, required to consider the impact of their decisions not only on shareholders. Go ahead. Yes. But also on employees, customers, the community, and the local and global environment. This is my this is my dream version of stakeholder capitalism. We just had a situation where Delaware ruled that the shareholder, the the board of what was the company? I can't remember. It was like Revlon or something like L'Oreal or I don't remember. It was a it was like a retail company. They actually could refuse a merger, even if it was better for shareholders, because that was a public benefit corporation and they couldn't just consider shareholders. They actually ruled like that that is legal. Yes. Yeah. So let me ask you something. This is the board of the public benefit corporation of Anthropic. It is Dario Amoti himself, right? Daniela Amoti, his his sister, who's the president of the corpor of of Anthropic. Yasmin Razavi, who's a VC and managing partner at a venture capital firm, crypto and prediction markets is really what she invests in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, his sister. Yeah, that that doesn't seem like a problem. Yeah, keep going. Yeah, we need VCs on boards, yeah. Yeah, we need that on the on the board, sure. drug drug company man. He's drug kingpin. Reed Hastings Yeah Netflix like a like a Chris Liddell who's an ex Trump White House deputy secretary Vaz Narasiman who's from Novartis. Which one of those of the is the public benefit corporation director? Yeah. Yeah, good question. I I guess that would be nobody. Maybe maybe there's one movie, maybe you're like on Netflix that talked about the environment. Maybe that's counts. Now we don't have to we don't have to go too deeply into this. We don't have to go too deeply in this because they th this is all speculation. We we don't know what the voting rights will be. We don't know what the actual corporate governance structure is gonna be. We do know that they're gonna IPO soon, probably before open AI. So They Yeah, they they probably bought the rights to yeah, an inv BBC's planet Earth. No, we don't. but there's what's weird about this company too is that th there is a shadow board th that that controls the board. Like they have the ultimate voting right. So we're gonna we'll we'll unwind all all this when it actually comes out, but but to your point, they they are subverting the idea of a public benefit corporation everywhere they can, it looks like. This is Yeah, like open AIs, yeah. This is nonsense. They're just they're they're just shoving power into the hands of a few. That's what they're doing. That which is not the point, as you pointed out. and they they're the ones who voluntarily created a public benefit corporation, by the way. This was not like forced upon them. Well that's that's what d so the I mean the supermajority thing This is just like open AI. This is like this is just like the the trying to fire Sam Altman at Open AI. So Alm reminds me of the same thing. The super the supermajority thing drives me nuts in and of itself. i in part because like there's a quote I'm gonna read later, like that about corporate suffrage and it flies directly in the face of what the SEC actually was built to do, corporate suffrage. That but that isn't what made me think of these as assholes. Wha who on this board? The public benefit corporation board is a fucking public benefit. Un American. Yeah. Who is that representative? Benefit Corporation director? Like which one? His sister? His sister's the best one? The Nepo sister? Unbelievable. Alright, number three. Well crypto what about crypto and prediction market investor? I let's move on. I'm getting ups I'm getting upset. Yeah, last asshole of the week. you like this one. You like this one. Paul Atkins, SEC chair. He's driving me fucking nuts. And he spoke before us at CII. I wish I'd asked like he didn't take questions. Remember he refused to take questions? He was like, I'm not taking any questions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which actually is foreshadowing to one of you to your one of your headlines of the week. Yeah. Paul Atkins is like the he's like the Ron Swanson of the SEC now, he just like doesn't care. Well you don't like Paul. But that was a T V show, Matt. That was a comedy. Yeah. unbelievable. I like Ron Swanson. Ron Swanson had a moral center. Yeah, correct. It was written but the the headline was SEC will stop responding to no action requests entirely. You already talked about it, so I won't talk about it. But what I what what made me put him up here is what they actually wrote in the statement. In the statement he wrote, quote, in order to focus division resources on the review of the Securities Act and Exchange Act filings. Go ahead. including those reviews that are statutorily required, yada yada yada yada yada yada yada the staff resources. He like he's he's basically saying Wait, he's blaming the the resources it takes? g so this is so we're back we're back to the point where companies said we can't deal with shareholders proposals because it costs too much and it takes too much effort. All lies. Yeah, it's gaslighting. It's it's such gaslighting. We don't have enough resources for this. We can't sorry, we can't do it. We also can't do it. they also can't do it. they're not no longer gonna be looking at investment managers and and their proxies anymore. proxies you know, shareholder proposals submitted to them. But here's a here's a quote from nineteen thirty four House of Representatives report that set up the SEC. That's the reason? Fair corporate suffrage is an important right that should attach to every equity security bought on a public exchange. So the basically the SEC was set out to ensure that voting rights exist at for c for f corporate voting rights exist. Yeah, and isn't nineteen isn't nineteen thirty four like an age of America that MAGA types like Paul Atkins they're okay with. Then we like we like pre Jim Crow stuff. We like Jim Crow era okay, keep going. Pr I should say pre civil rights era stuff. Yeah, go ahead. Don't we like that? Do we like that? But here's they said the proposed bill gives the commission power to control the conditions under which proxies may be solicited with a view to preventing the recurrence of abuses which have frustrated the free exercise of the voting rights of stockholders. So Paul Atkins literally is saying like, We don't need these shareholder proposals, we don't need any of this. Right. Despite the fact that they're introduced by shop by stockholders. His same SEC just plans to remove the best price rule. They just put out for comment removing the best price rule, which allows investors to get the best price when they buy a security. Like so you go buy a stock, it's there's 20, there's 18 exchanges. The the rules are now you every broker has to offer the best price on that. Not anymore, not under call under Paul Atkins. Yeah, let's get rid of that. You can offer whatever price you want if you're They're getting rid of that. Wow. Well. if you're the the the broker. And and and couple this with the fact that they're ch they're deeply embedded in crypto. They're all about like opening up the crypto markets where there's no rights, no rules Yeah. Right. That's what that's what yeah, Robin Hood is pushing for this, right? This like twenty four seven tokenized trading and everything. The guy running the fucking SEC, whose job it is to stop abuses of the free exercise of voting rights of stockholders, has literally cauterized all shareholder rights. There are none. You got rid of all of them. You got rid of all of them. Yeah. Well, you know, this is during the this was during the F D R era and what what did F D R know? Yep. And frankly, frankly, investors have themselves at least partially blamed for this because if you voted for directors and shareholder proposals since you have the right, if you actually voted out directors, if you actually voted for shareholder proposals that gave you increased governance, if you actually did the fucking work when you had the chance, they couldn't have taken it away. Now he's using the fact that you don't vote on it as an excuse to get rid of it. Like nobody votes on these anyway. It's too onerous for the companies. Get rid of it. So you're welcome, sh sh your shareholders who aren't voting. Your lack of voting has left you with no rights. Congratulations. Those are your three. Yeah. Well so Paul Atkins SEC, Daria Mode from Anthropic and the L And the directors, Bill Brown and Robert Millard. Millard in particular for overseeing L three's Kubic. I'll cut to the chase on this one. mo Paul Atkins has become evergreen, so he could be asshole of any every every week or month, whenever he wants. So I'm gonna skip over him. Dario, I'm gonna wait for Dario and all of Anthropic until we get the actual structure. Cause I I have a feeling then I'm gonna be irate. so I'm gonna go right to to for me, I love good old fashioned corporate governance assholes. So so it's definitely Bill Brown and Robert Millard. That's a lot of L three this week. And I'm and and y I'm thankful that you pulled this out because yeah, these people need to be flagged. I mean, maybe voted against. So let's yeah, let's move on. Alright, let's move on. Headlines, winners, predictions, and thank God we can get out of here. We're we're we're actually making good time this week for the first time ever. my okay, I got two of them. My first one sh I'm tired though. I'm tired. I got two also. Just ha but mine are just headlines. I do the r I I I do the rule. I know. I I I don't care. I'm gonna go first. My first one is just the headline only because I just love how stupid it is. Okay, j bear with me on this one. S just stick to it and listen. Try to and you know focus. Popular I'm gonna focus. I'm gonna try I'm gonna try to focus. Breakfast chain closes half its restaurants. That could be anything. But think about that. Think about it. Popular breakfast chain closes half its restaurants. So if it's popular, why is it closing half its restaurants? Yeah, thank you. All right. Moving on. My my other my real one is the my real one, the man leading Trump's return to office charge for government workers says he filmed a video in front of a blank wall to avoid work from home suspicion. So this is the first the first employee hired by Andreessen Horowitz, later became a partner. His name is Scott Kapoor, was at home. Film he was in his bedroom, but he didn't want to make it look like his bedroom because his bedroom looks like his bedroom. That's so dumb. So we went outside to find a wall. This is this was unearthed because you know he was caught on tape talking about it. I mean w does this not say it all? I mean that says it all. That's fabulous. What? All right, what do got? First employee of Andreessen Horowitz. Alright, I got two. Mine Well, d Andreessen Horowitz, you can work from home, can't you? I don't know. Maybe you can. I is that the rule? I just le I I just giggled out loud when I when I read this. Flock, you know the company Flock? Yeah, so Flock makes these cameras Yeah, probably. If you're if you're not a woman you can. All right, go ahead. Do they have women there? I don't even know. Yeah, unfortunately. Dystopian orwellian Yeah. Dystopian cameras that are filming everybody everywhere. And actually, law enforcement, there's been a lot of stories about law law enforcement is using Flock cameras set up in municipalities, like towns, to like track their ex-lovers and you know, like, you know, do just kind of cyberstalk people. Here's the headline. Flock says it's quote, taking a break from responding to media requests. Yeah, of course. Yeah, they're getting pounded and I guess they're taking a brick. Yeah, why do your job? Why do your job? I just like that like like I like that they announce that we're gonna take a break from this. This is a lot for us. We're just I mean, we're doing horrible, horrible things, but we're gonna we're gonna take a break for now. and my second one is Eric Schmidt, the the ex-Google CEO, Eric Schmidt it Yeah, they're overwhelmed. The they're overwhelmed by the hatred. Yeah. Yes. Now he's into like he's into like AI war and defense and stuff, I think, now. Yeah. But this is the headline instead. Eric Schmidt is selling his super yacht. So we see these headlines all the time. Who's this for? Who's it who's who is this for? Who reads this? Yeah. All the time. I don't know. I now I now tag these usually as like okay billionaire in our in our tagging system, but there are so many headlines about yachts. Why? Who is it for? Who is it for? I don't know. my wi winner is the women L through Harris, who shared concerns about the CEO's behavior years before Ouster. they they got their the look, I I I know Like, is this only for billionaire yacht buyers? Like who's who who is this for? All right, who won the week? They got there. I know it's a rough it's been a rough road and no one no one listens to you and but at least it happened. At least he's gone. I I it's a I I guarantee I you know, we have both worked in massive corporations. this will ha have an effect on the the women there. They will they're not gonna say it out loud, they'll probably say it with each other, but they're gonna be relieved. So I think that's a true win. Got there. I would love to think that that they're gonna get like a new kind of culture, but I'm not sure that that's going to happen. my winner is a guy named Joshua Raymer. He's the CEO of People Return. He's somebody who I've talked to a few times. People Return is one of the last like vestiges of Apology. Yeah, they're not. No. Sure. Who the hell is that? right. Ooh, okay. DEI data in the US. They basically focus on he's like one of the last people. he sends out a newsletter. they have some interesting data. I've never I've never actually used their data, but I I I know it to be interesting. but he sent out a newsletter that did the most free float thing I've ever seen anyone other than us do. He tracked a single Getty image. It's still I thought it was illegal. You're allowed to do that? You allowed to care? Okay. Go ahead. What do you do? Across six different company reports. Is it like people of color or women? It is image 132-587-6463. The title of it is Young Boy Leaping Into Father's Arms in Playground. It is it is like slightly ethnic looking people. and it's he tracked it across sustainability reports and a and some websites for the companies Donaher, Crown Castle, TD, Ameritrade, Capital One, C. Okay. Okay, so it's playing on that, yeah. Family values. Yeah. Yeah. my god. CSL Plasma and Toyota Europe. These companies have nothing to do with each other. They chose the exact same Getty image to show how sustainable and loving and family friendly they are. And he put that in his newsletter. I love it. Yeah. I love it. I love it. predictions. Amazing. Amazing. I love that. Love it. Good work, Joshua. I mean you're copying our technique, but it's fine. Mine's obvious, but I'm gonna say it anyway. the Mero Takro Mano Sfiro ha yeah, hires Christopher Kubashik again without any pushback from anyone or anything or anybody or you know, it's just gonna happen again and it's like whoops. Yeah. Whoops. Or we don't. The manatocracy. Man, I'm excited. Can we be part of the Manitocracy? Can we how do we get to be the Manitocracy? Okay. I mine is really dark and horrible, actually. we decide that since everyone is trying to make companies immune from climate change, New Zealand just announced lawsuits. New Zealand just announced they are blocking lawsuits for any that no. Okay. You mean from climate change lawsuits, right? Right. Yes. You see how fast the the pendulum swings from like w remember we talked about Jacinda what was her name, Martin? Now it's swung right in the New Zealand, yeah. Jacinda Arden and now we're look it's immediately b backwards that we just going to in the spirit of Chris Kubasik make CEOs personally immune for any behavior while they're a CEO. I don't think that prediction is so far fetched. I don't. I don't think it's so far fetched. That's why it's sad and horrible. That's that's our Hazelnut Rollis. Yeah, the Damien to his friends. I almost called you Damien, but nobody calls you Damien. except your mom. I'm your analyst hole, Matt Muscarty. We are free float. Come back next week when we have a whole slate of shows lined up. We're gonna start ramping up slowly. but mostly the big news is freefloatanalytics.com will see an entire shift Yeah, who is that? Yeah. You can call me Damien. On September 1st. It will be a brand new website. It will have so much data. And it's it's so much of it is free. It's psychotic how much is free. It's yeah. You want more access? You can email us, and it's cheap. We're doing these things on the cheap, unless you're an institution, in which case we're gonna rip your eyeballs out. That's all we got. Come back next time. Until then, goodbye. Yeah. Buy buy some data. Get an API. But don't just use the free stuff. Give us a break. That's it.