Transcript
All right, I'm ready, I'm ready. Here we go. Yeah, live. I gotta have more energy live from your Savannah got through his mother and Bad, Bunny headline. Distraction generator 3000. It's a business pants Friday show here at February 6th Studios, featuring analyst whole matte Mascari On today's weekly wrap-up, the Epstein on Fallout. Texas, reverses stupidity and Matt gets triggered by his sneakers. I got triggered by a lot of stuff this week. It was fun and by fun. I mean everything's Horrible. No, come on. This is a fun show where we use data to explain the people behind the news. This is not a show where we complain about stuff, oh, I'm notices that generally speaking in America. Now, I've noticed that when people say, like up at least up here in Northern New England, greetings are often like, hey, how are you? Alright, and you get a reaction, you know, like, how's it going? Hey, yeah. You know what I mean? And you the answer now these days is, you know, I don't know. You know, and I'm alive or surviving. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. All right, our show today is being sponsored by free flow analytics free. Full analytics.com. The only platform measuring board power connections performance for free. I feel like one thing our show has been missing recently is because of the onslaught of politics dripping into the corporate world, which is I what I thought the Republicans were trying to reverse but actually yeah, we don't even talk about boring data stuff. I mean, you have to tune into our other show, the proxy countdown. If you want just straight data and and stories that are 8K, filings and annual meetings because unfortunately these other the biz nuggets shows which we used to try to have fun with Have become sad. The sad state of corporate America. Like, you know what happened? Yeah, so so I've seen the guts of this new database that free flow analytics is building and one of the things that they're working on, has got that has got yeah. One of the things they're working on that's fascinating. Is it flagging system for these directors? Yeah, that includes any ad hoc flag. You want like was in Epstein files. Okay, let's start like every direction hit the music because yeah. All right, I love a good Epstein Story. I mean look come on, you know? and the amazing part about the Epstein files has been that Trump has not mentioned now at all, really in a band Epstein like well into my point, all the the most important American CEOs and Tech Bros. Have been mentioned and nobody cares. There's no Revolt. There's no call for Action. Nobody's deleting anything. No, he's got there, right? Like one guy at like a law firm cared. I'm looking at to see CNN.com web page right now. Here's here, here's what's dominating. The top something about Savannah, Guthrie's mother, I had to look up who's Savannah Guthrie is, she's like, ah, she's another Today's Show. I think she's like, the, the new Katie Couric. Yeah, Winter Olympics, FBI arrest person, behind Benghazi attack. We're back to Benghazi. This is where we're at, like distractions are amazing, make a bowl again. Does mean go back in time when I talk about Bad Bunny, Is he is, is it okay to have an American sing at your Super Bowl that? Okay, who watches the Super Bowl halftime show? Anyway, don't we all go to the bathroom and eat then I never never rarely watch a really watch. I watch Beyonce, that's one year. One year, I took a shower. All right let's start with the story of the week. It's clearly one thing and my view you get to vote. So I broke it up into a couple of sections and I added on a couple of other dumps. So first Epstein Files. I just focused on the tech Bros and this is an impartial impartial this is an incomplete list. Yeah. And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say the the amount for everybody, but let me just give you some of the names on this list. All these people are sighted in between 200 and 3000 files and again, I just picked a handful of names to get us going. Read Hoffman, Bill Gates, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Kimball musk, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmitt. So what are we looking at here? Basically, Facebook? And Amazon Google. Elon Musk World Microsoft. What's Reed, Hoffman LinkedIn LinkedIn? Which is Microsoft now. Yeah. So, Elon Musk world. So, okay. And again that's an incomplete list. Let's just start with that the Epstein, the tech Bros. That's my first daughter of the week. It's fine. But the only name on that that really matters is Trump like like no I think no matter what we don't do. A strictly political show. Yeah, of course, I'd be talking about Trump, you know? But I'm not talking about politically matters like I'm talking about, like a accountability is what matters and first of all these people, some of them are mentioned in the files and they had There were like Associates of Epstein. They're just in the files because they're rich and famous. And there is no distinguishing between those things. Elon Musk the latest was like, somebody could connect them to get a massage at Epps on Epstein Island. Meanwhile Reid Hoffman like went to the Ted talk with like an Epstein was there and the connections are awesome, often tenuous, and so let's look into it, who is the president? The CEO of the United States, that's the tech Bros. The second story of the week, The lack of us bass. Fallout starting with Trump. I mean, nothing's happening but here's what is here's what is happening over in England. Head of firm, founded by Peter mandelson is quitting. Benjamin wegstr is, his name is the CEO of a lobbying firm co-founded by Peter. Mandelson is all over the Epstein's mendelssohn's, ambassador. So there's a there's and I've seen other people mention this Alison Taylor. Alison Taylor was on the show, right? Yeah. Back in the day. Yeah, Alison Taylor's, she's a big LinkedIn Rocca muck. Michael Rucker Rucker. Yeah. What I think that's made up, but she did point out that there seems to be fall out in other countries, just not in the US. The only thing that the only real Fallout has been not at a corporate setting, but The head, Paul Weiss the law firm Brad karp has has been voted out. He's been kicked out. By that law firm. Remember, that was the law firm that immediately gave to Trump, when Trump sued them, didn't they give him like a billion dollars or something? Outrageous? I don't remember. What's a ridiculous amount of pro bono free pro bono and but they caved immediately. So that's Brad. Karp over at Paul Weiss. Nothing says fun like blackmail, the world economic Forum over there. In Davos is investigating at CEO ever over Epstein links. Now, remember, you started off by telling me that, you know, some of the links are tenuous. I don't care. I want full investigations by Boards. I want everything I want, like, I want some of these people to, at a minimum, they should be they should step off their board. So we I made the case forever that the is don't need to be in the boards at all, but they should step down at least temporarily from the board and let the board investigate like they're doing like they say, they're doing at the world economic Forum. I don't know what they're really doing, but they announced that The funniest one, it's not funny. Is this, what's going on over at CBS News, pieter attia, who's kind of like a quack doctor? I guess they call him a long longevity, duck, longevity doctor? I don't know. Doctors are designed to create longevity. That's true. That's what they do. So, he stepped out from The Advisory Board of what's the name of that I should know is, it's, it's a sleep. Is it sleep? I don't know. He stepped down from the board. That's the first somewhat a bit of Us corporate accountability. But the funny thing is Barry Weiss who we talked about, she's the new CEO over at CBS News. Yeah, she really hates Cancel culture, right? Yeah. Which is not which is not a real thing, which is not a real thing, by the way. If you if you suck at your job or if you're a morally banked, you know, criminal you should be fired. That's not being canceled. She is refusing to get rid of him, she just signed him but is yet to fire him because the Optics of it, right? You what do you do? Matt, you don't want to child pornographer at your company, but you don't want to give in to the Liberals and the woke and And fire someone because that's canceled ask culture. Barry Weiss at this point. Like, I mean, this is the stupidest thing ever. I mean, she should be fired already for not firing him. I just like, what is this? I don't even know what's happening. But anyway, that's my second Story. The week is the lack of Fallout lack of, especially in corporate, Corporate America. From the Epstein files. My third story, see how I'm moving. Quickly here, I love it. I'm honoring your time moments. Yeah. Here the boring stories that we would normally spend 45 minutes on, but it's a whole new world of Horrors. So I'm excited for the boring stories. Elon Musk announces spacex's acquisition of AA, startup xai. I don't know any of that means they're all his companies but it's a the point being is that this is gonna be now the largest private company in the world, right over a trillion dollar valuation largest piggy bank from us to pay in the world. It's going to come out as a classified board. That's dual class shares. I'm sure it's gonna have all these structural things. It's gonna be like 69. It's gonna be like class. Be sure we're 69 votes, maybe something stupid. I'm sure he's gonna be dumb. Yeah. 4420 the whole thing is dumb. Share. Yeah, and the whole point seems to be a consultation of his Empire which the test Consolidated. The Tesla board chairs have wanted they but they better okay with that. And A orbital AI data centers, which I think is the stupidest thing. I hope they fall out of this guy but I hope they don't hurt anyone. So actually, Isn't the Forgotten stepchild here? Tesla itself, like what Tesla's not getting acquired by SpaceX or xai? Well, something will happen, right? But Tesla is a separate company entirely is, it has a market valuation and because it got memed stocked all the way up to evaluation. That's 400 exits, earnings SpaceX, couldn't even afford to buy its itself in Tesla, right? Which means that's true. That the thing I think happens here, Is all the Tesla investors who are like muskets and they just fall them around. And they believe that, you know, in the cult of musk, they they follow man baby out of Tesla in into SpaceX, sell their Tesla shares, buy as much space as he possibly can test list shares. Drop Like a Stone allowing SpaceX to acquire it cheaper. Make my head hurt. I think it's Tesla's prediction. Tesla is basically the last few weeks is basically, they've kind of quietly moved on from Cars. You know. So that they're like now they're like, oh, I'm doing robots now. We're they just he yelled about it in the last annual meeting, we're bad at it. Anyway, that's the third story that we can finally, let's get to the traditional stuff that we used to cover all the time. Now, nobody cares. So good for them. We finally got our succession announcement at Disney, I know. Yeah, you don't care. Finally, James Gorman, pulling through. So I guess Bob Iger is leaving for the 15th time. And he's doing what he did before, which he's replacing himself with Bob chapek. No, no. It's the well, it is. It's the parks. It's the parks guy. It's the head of parks? Yeah. His name is Josh tomorrow. That's what, that's what Bob chapek was. Where is Bob, Chapman? Now, what, why did he have to get fired completely? Why I couldn't he runs again? Why did they have to get rid of him, completely? I don't even understand that one. How are they gonna? How are they going to keep Bob, chapbook, on and Parks after he was good at it? Why get rid of them? But anyway, that's not the point. The big takeaway here is that lots of Articles already coming up. How Josh tomorrow, the incoming CEO of Disney dresses, just like, Bob, that's my favorite. And it's true. He does. It's a it's a white button up with some kind of a black like pullover turtleneck. Eh. Yeah. So now the suggestion is dressed like your boss if you want to succeed, which is really how the meritocracy works, I think, right? I mean that's how the man have kind of stayed in power, is that you kind of dress. So, like and hang out together and promote each other. The other part of this move is is the loser. I don't know if she's a loser, but Dana Walden. A lot of people were thinking like Is this going to be the first female CEO of Disney? But I think that the state of America that all the anti Dei nonsense, all the anti-walk nonsense, which is really code for hating brown people, and women and gay people. What it wasn't, I guess. Bob, it was too much for Bob to pick the person who I assumed. What would have been the winner? She does seem like she has the most, you know, power and and, and brains, to run this thing. She becomes Chief creative officer. And, and oddly, her salary is gonna be bigger than Josh tomorrow's, but the, it looks like the total year payout. Josh tomorrow will get 45 million for the first year in Dana world, and we'll get 30 million. So the man still gets more, but her salary is bigger. So, maybe that because all the money comes after you, your your stock vests and you get More. But she is actually getting literally 26 million dollar Equity award. She's getting a 15 million dollar Equity award. So while it looks like, oh, geez, they're paying her more in base salary. It's really. She gets paid less in perpetuity. He's going to make a lot more money. It's weird, though, I mean, you don't I look at. I look at named executive officers forever and you, you rarely see anyone below the CEO getting more salary, but that's not the point. And I want to point out to before you vote on the story of the week. Is that we're already, we're immediately here. With this news, here's the first headline and hopefully the only one I'll pull because I'm sick of this. The first headline, I pulled about Dana Walden. Same old, Disney woke exec elevated, to top position, as head Storyteller. So there, I mean, they're mad already that a woman, she couldn't even, there's she do. What could she do? I mean really lateral move like, they made up that the title that she just got had never existed before, and they just made it up because they passed her over a CEO and gave her like a bonus with the title and whatever to just keep her around. So it's all make believe. And somehow the anti-walker still upset that she has no real new responsibility. She's not gonna do anything different than she really did. She's not the CEO because she can't wear the proper button down with, you know, black sweater over it. And and yet and she still got singled out is like same old Disney promotes Wilkins exec like, and we're talking about a woman who didn't come from Parks, but was previously, the CEO and chair of Fox television Group, which included Fox Broadcasting Company 20th century, Fox Hill. All the I mean this is a woman with quite a background. I mean, this isn't a Parks dude who dresses? Like Bob Iger and and I should end this by saying that the supposedly Bob Iger is gonna step down from the board at the end of 2026, and he will also stop being stopped, being senior adviser, he will leave supposedly at the end of 2026. Let's see if that actually happens. But that's the that's the announcement is he's actually Gonna Leave Disney. Okay? Well I actually think this this story in that story and you pointed this out and pre-production is James Gorman. Joe remember. Okay remember date man. They I don't know how many press release is, they put out of the genius is coming in to to to run the succession planning at Disney. The Genius will take care of it. What are they do? They pick Bobby again, what it was? I mean, like so, you know, they picked chapek. It's a gigantic failure. Eiger comes back Nelson. Pelt starts, a activist campaign. Basically hinged on the fact that they Have no succession plan ISS, says, vote against mellaga miseno, who is the longest tenured director? Because it was her fault that the succession failed. That's what they said. She'd been there for eight or nine years at the time, and they said, she's the most responsible vote against her. This director, that to make room for pelts investors. Voted 63 67% in favor of logom Casino, which is incredibly low vote, and but they added James Gorman. You know, as part of it, expansion of the board the next year because they added Gorman and Gorman, had a successful transition at Morgan Stanley, whoever that gets a 97% in favor vote the next year, despite the fact that she should eat, still be equally as responsible and battered or job. She gets it anyway and everybody saying James Gorman's here to work with Eiger on succession and what was their succession plan? The same guy? They talked about at the last succession plan, he's been around for like 20 years. And Dana Walden's been around for a decade, right? Like what do we actually do doing? That's different from before they had two insiders, and they just chose the parks guy. Again, they literally didn't say the same thing, but the cond investors into thinking, well, you got James Gorman. Now, it's all different. What is succession? What is the James Corbin? This is where we live, in a Land of La. Like what? Why is he is? Why is he good succession? Putting he became Walt Disney chair. Three, two days. After he stepped down his executive chair at Morgan Stanley. How do we know that the succession worked at Morgan Stanley? What, because he left that, I'm just saying like why is he a genius? What? Why? He's, I don't understand why he's a genius. He hand-picked an internal successor at Morgan Stanley, that makes him qualified and did the same thing at Disney and Disney. I don't know, the fundamentally different business model that nothing in common, like what I mean, that the Bob chapek experiment fail. So the going back to Parks maybe, you know, maybe this guy tomorrow because he dresses like I maybe he has the schmooze factor to make this work but I don't I really don't understand passing over Dana Walden and let's not forget the Dana Walden despite being called woke already. She's the one responsible for for suspending. Jimmy Kimmel. So she certainly know what worries. Yeah. Anyway, this thing that get off it. Will you look this is a hard for me. Okay, it's your job. Because the lack of important, like the Fallout for the Epstein file people including the ones, not named AKA Donald Trump. And Disney are competing on my focusing, on the people in our database. They're just it's just, it's competing in my brain because like if investors are so easily conned by bringing in one guy who transitioned out of a company, he was at for 20 years and did an okay job and okay, enough job at it, they're successfully conned by the fact that somebody who knows their company can pick a successor. And the board had nothing to do with it. Go to another company and we can convince investors like, oh yeah, I know he's just a great at this like this. What we this is what he does. Now like, that's why he's they made a committee, the succession committee, it was him in Bob Iger, it was nuts, despite the fact that they have a nominating committee to do that, they just said, the whole thing is nuts. That's competing in my brain with the lack of corporate Fallout around the Epstein files. Because the FC files, Like our thing. But I man I I have to go with the Epstein files as well. You don't want history to look back at these documents and say, oh look, Matt, you know voted for Josh tomorrow during the Epstein week. Yeah. It's it's a real, it's a real thing. On my mind, my legacy, which the lack of Fallout, or the lack of Fallout, it's not the names. The names are going to be the names, but the lack of Fallout is really know. I mentioned the name. It's like, what can you How do you like wake up Americans? What do you have to like poke them with like, a hot? Like, barbecue skewer. It's like, We complain about everything. No, you know, we all mope around. We're all dead. We're all like, sad about everything, but we don't change our Behavior. We still pump up the the all the billionaires, we pump up their, their, their, their, their Empires, their social media Empire, like, what you take for anyone to do something different, like, on is really simple if you're regular American. If you can craft a narrative that Peter teal raise the price of eggs and bread, then then people are gas, right? Then people, pay attention. If you are an investor, you have to show that Peter Thiel being in the fiend files cost you money one to one. It can't be like, oh, I don't know, maybe and then you'll do something different. Oh, the only thing that's it. Like a lot of States, like a lot of States. My state of Maine. The governor has just introduced. What are the Bell to Bell? Smartphone did. Oh, so we're admitting Kind of quietly and but regularly that these things are bad. What about adults? Like when are we going to stop smoking? Why so the kids can't smoke but we're still smoking. Like come on. Like what are we doing? I anyway yeah everything you're saying makes me want a cigarette. All right let's go on. What are we doing? We're doing good list. Oh I have a quick one. We both have quickly. I mean. It's hard. To parse goodly. No that's not good. And mine is reversing stupidity. So I'll go first judge rules. And this is a judge, a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump of all people. Yeah, judge rules Texas, anti-esg. Law is unconstitutional. How about that? I mean, is this not the the most like no brainer of a call? I mean, Thomas how can you tell people that you can't use like like, yeah, let's give it background because somebody who might be like, go ahead. The second person. Listen, we just did this to keep ourselves Texas, to 2021 passed a law that basically said as it managers were illegally discriminating against fossil fuels like that, which is that we're already in dumb dumb land, we're already in dumb. So investors can even make decisions they can't even make their own decisions. They all suggested that all these investors were colluding because they were part of these groups like, you know, Net Zero Alliance, and they were all colluding against fossil fuels and it was illegal. And so, Texas passes law that they will create a blacklist. A no, no investment list of asset managers that were discriminating against fossil fuels, and Texas, had to divest from all those companies like had to take their assets away from all those companies. Yeah, we called That's what it was. It was like, 95% European and estimate managers that they Texas didn't invest with really they like seven dollars with and then Black Rock. They really just wanted to get it Black Rock. They were looking for. They had the next story of Larry Fink. They're showing you a Jewish George Soros develey character. Um, and obviously that law, when you say like an investor can't make decisions about how to invest money based on what clients want them to invest in. You can't basically, you can't make a law that says, you're not allowed to you, you can only invest in this and not in that. So that that's all the judge was saying your judge was like, this is vague and ridiculous and that was Donald Trump's, you know, appointed judge. All right. You want my good list? Yeah. My goodly is one sentence. Thank you my sentence but you talked all over my headline and the CI gave me. The sentence is still. They still think I think so 38% of companies. A missions trajectories are aligned with global climate goals. Okay. Look the these reminds me why I was not why I was not great at that company. Well like five years ago, yeah it was in 2020. Six years ago, it was 5% of companies were actually On Target to MIT to hit some sort of avoid us from absolute worst disaster. I haven't Global Climate goals changed since five years ago. Yeah, stringent, yeah. Oh, I thought they get, I thought they'd get less stringent not know that the global climate goals are like they're saying there's agreement, they said it a long time ago and you know, that kind of stuff. So, look, take the good news where you can get it. Companies tell me, are are actually moving on climate goals even if the US isn't so. Okay, good for them. All right, that's a very wonky goodly. I like that. Very wonky, and shout out to msci. Yeah, nice work MSI. Evergreen up with that. Good going. Here, by the way, thank you Embassy. I for not saying 38.2%, they always go to the first decimal and drives me crazy. Like you giving everyone at msci, the permission. I don't care what Henry, Fernandez says, I'm giving everyone permission to round up or down for what decimal points and percentages. Just forget it. Nobody cares. I'm sorry, I'm here first date here Round Up. This Is Beautiful 38%. See guys. I know, I understand what that means. And if, all right, okay to triggering, I I'm not doing assholes. All right, I just got triggered this week. I do it. What do I get? What am I voting on your age? One is the most triggering, and triggers triggers me the most on it. Whether triggers you? Yeah, go ahead. It's a very obvious winner. This week, actually, first one just headline Nike among the first targeted by EEOC for Dei activity. You know, can I just say that this is not a surprise to me? I don't know if anything's been written about this. I don't know if anything's been, I don't know if you're going to cover this, why Nike, but, but here's my like, really quick reaction to why. Now keep from an American culture perspective is back when we were kids, I think Nike was really instrumental kind of in like, Kind of taking the first steps. Granted, it was a sneaker company, and we're talking about like retail and material Goods here, and but I feel like it was that it was an early step of like, making our races a little bit closer together. I don't know, there was something about they, they use blacks spokespeople, they celebrated Sports, they celebrated athletes, they celebrated American athlete's like, you know, like Michael Jordan types, you know? Before the 80s. The National Basketball Association. The NBA it was largely an unknown League, like, even the finals weren't shown live on TV. They were often shown on a tape the next day. Like that's how obscure it was, because it was a league dominated by African-American players and that wasn't okay with most of America I suppose. And Nike, I feel like did something good. I don't know, like, I can't put my finger on it and I'm not a Nike. Like I'm not saying here, that Nike is a civil rights Champion. I'm just saying that it's doesn't surprise me that they targeted Nike for some of these vague reasons. But go ahead, the reasons, probably more specific. I did not cover this and I did not read this anywhere. But in 2016, Colin Kaepernick was busy kneeling at all. There you go, that's another reason of Rights and in 2018, Nike signed him to a massive multi-year. Okay, advertising? Sure. And it was a firestorm of people saying, like he's not even playing. League anymore. Like you know, they're beginning of the sort of the wokeness you know, debate actually. But the headline that triggered me is they were the first targeted by EEOC for Dei activity. Here's what's really means just the Trump Administration that because that's red. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I read the actual EEOC like complaint or investigation or subpoena or whatever the woman who runs the woman who runs the EEOC is she's like a Andrea Lucas. She's like a character from a like a dystopian. Anti-feminist novel or yeah, scary. She's like the obsessed lady in the last of us. He's scary for her brother like a, I don't like that means. But sure, yeah, just go ahead. All right, they said, quote specifically a May 24th, 2024 EEOC commissioner now, share Andrea are Lucas is charged number blah, blah, blah blah. Alleging, that respondent Nike may have violated title 7 by engaging in a pattern or practice of disparate treatment against white employees applicants training program. I don't want to hire any promotion, demotion separation agreements, yada yada. Here's what's crazy to me. It isn't that all alone is already insane, okay? Like, we're already insane if we're, like, we're targeting using a Civil Rights created. This is America, right? We're still living in America, right? The EOC was established because of Civil, Right? America, trampled, the civil rights of black people, and this was meant to, well, that's that's putting it like that's putting it lightly. What we did to block people. Yes, that's the end. Yes, the very end of it. Like at the lightest right. Yeah. Mind you we wouldn't even be an economic power with out the enslavement of black people but go ahead. Here's the craziest part. And this is gonna sound weird, but I got triggered by this. I looked at who signed the the charge, the Supreme, this is like this is this is like John Hancock Ben Franklin. The EOC Council signatory. There's one signatory on there. A woman named Gwendolyn young Reams. She's a black woman. She's been at the EEOC since basically, two days after it was founded. She was an intern. There she got a law degree. She's been actually a lawyer there since 1972. Reams was made. She actually there's a whole piece written on her. And in 2024 about the Civil Rights Movement, how important the EEOC was for the Civil Rights Movement, how long she's been there, the things that she's seen, she saw Martin Luther King. She saw, like, like all this progress inner time at the EOC Biden made, her acting general counsel at the EEOC during his tenure. Trump took over a pointed Andrea, Lucas's chair. Who promptly demoted Reams to associate general. Counsel to make room for a woman named Catherine. Esque back was a federalist Society lawyer. She has a whopping total of six years experience at an actual Law Firm before getting this job. She got 20 10 and her law degree in 2015. She has 10 years with like, a law degree. But yes, she's a yes. Oh, yes, woman, the reason why she got her job is she said when she got appointed quote, president Trump made clear in his executive order eliminating Dei. Um, that that the EEOC was out of step with requirements or a nation's civil rights laws. That the rescission of EO 11246, the president mandates Federal contractors wind, those practices down within 90 days as director. I'm committed to carrying out president Trump's executive orders which will restore a merit-based system. There we go by all. There we go, over opportunity. Mary was the least possible marriage got a promotion over a black woman who's been there for, literally 50 years look, Ah, as much as I hate to say this, because I I'm afraid of what they'll come back with, but if they're willing to Define merit, I might be willing to like, accept it. I want objective data to outline. What exactly Merit is, I want to know what is Merit. What is a merit-based system? What does that mean? Everyone's focusing on the fact that I looked up Nikes, you know, Workforce composition in 2024, it was 57% white, 50% male, the, that was the overall composition at the minute, the high executive level, it's 77%, white and 62% male. I'm not sure exactly where they got discriminated against, they have literally all the executive jobs and like they plenty of opportunities. The eeoc's work force in 2022 when it was wokest was 60% white and 56% male. The eosc is actually like Nike's whiter than the EEOC so well okay, I don't know here but but this is all. But as you know, as You know, this is just like white supremacist, political theater. That's all this is, but but you the fact that you have the fucking balls to say, we are restoring a merit-based system when you get up. That's the thing that triggers me Merit base. She was appointed as I want to know the system. She they demoted a woman had been there for 50 years and they appointed her general counsel, she has six years of experience at a law firm and she's the one saying, we'll finally restore a merit-based system, you know, calm there. All I know is this I took a systems thinking systems analysis, graduate level course. And what they would not, let me do is come up with a system and not describe the system. Like you don't, you know, allowed to come up with a fake system and not have like actual inputs and outputs of that system. They do this all the time but again, I'm sorry. This is a political theater of their racism. I mean, I know you're hung up on it and I am too but that's all this is. No, I know it's all political theater but like like the the headline is all dark Focus, dirty Nike. The company is is under, you know, fire from the EO C and whatever I am looking at the EEOC itself and the internal hypocrisy because it's so fucking obviously just the names. I literally looked up the lawyers that signed this document, they're all white, except for Reams, had to sign it. I imagine she must have to sign under duress. They must have held like a shotgun. I want to see the system. I want to say, I want to store. They said restore a merit basis. So yeah, that means the system was already in place. So I got, I want to see the inputs and outputs all the objective criteria and data of that system, obviously. This, if they're citing it. I want to see. So so Nike piece of advice, if you're listening Nike board and I know you are by hard counter, sue them immediately large and ask them how like they want Trump live just fight fight fight, fight it fight, every second of it but sue for anything. All right, that's number one. Okay, number two, Black Rock and every Wall Street Bank, that quit the Net Zero Alliance and that's right. Orcs happened, mostly loud. And in Trump's first year of his second term, right? They quit a lot of quitting. You read the headline, Texas, anti-esg, law, declared unconstitutional by us judge. I mean that's the biggest Dopey no-brainer. I mean of course I mean but that was that was the first thing that happened. The first Domino that led to every Wall Street Bank quitting all day all of them dialed back. All of their climate goals, they left all these climate groups. They basically abandoned the idea that climate change is real. Because of an incoming administration's focus on discriminating against fossil fuels and climate change is a hoax. This. Ruling effectively says, if you guys had just fucking fought for 40 seconds. You would have won. And you were right? Yeah but it is Judge. What makes you think they wanted to fight for that? How do you know that they care about the Net Zero Alliance? Well, I don't know that they care about the Net Zero Alliance but they should absolutely care how their money is getting allocated over the long term, and maybe I'm saying maybe it was for climate. Maybe it was like woke washing green washing in the first place. Maybe they don't that. Well, that's what triggers me is about. It's like, you know, like this is what the judge said. This is the US District Judge Alan Albright said in his ruling, the law violated the First Amendment Free Speech protections because it punished businesses for speaking about fossil fuels and associating with organizations that oppose fossil fuels, the First Amendment you didn't have to read all the Amendments guys. First one that's why we were really in on that. That was the first really big political theater of the anti ESG anti-walk movement. And we were. That's why we couldn't stop with that one. It was the dumbest. It was so dumb. It's continues to be juvenile. It's literally Like, when you read the Constitution and the Amendments, it's the first. You don't have to read the whole thing. Plus, it's sit there. It's, it's just, it's so like dumb dumbly anti-capitalist to suggest that people can't invest or divest where they need to. And instead, what BlackRock did was actually right after this happened. Larry Fink sponsored a conference in Texas, about oil and gas and talked about how BlackRock is the largest investor in oil and gas. They love what oil and gas. They're never leaving oil and gas and oil. And gas is good. And they spent probably as much money as you would have spent on lawyers, they spent on marketing to the fuk faces in Texas, who are deemed unconstitutional, to convince them how oiling oily and gassy. You are all right. I hate number two. All right. Number two, number three I think you're more triggered by that one. Yeah this is up to me. It's up to me what I'm up to you. Go ahead number three stewardship, whining, stewardship, whining, what is that? Okay, so the UK investment Association, there is a, you know, a group of investors. They have a stewardship working group includes a couple of names. You've heard of and names. You have an agon BlackRock obviously Fidelity. And tell me what I've heard of Schroeder's, Artemis, ccla legal and general Royal London, Asset Management. They put out a paper called realigning stewardship, delivering sustainable, value through stewardship. Yeah. They spent a lot of time talking about what stewardship is in this paper and wanted to make sure we knew what it wasn't. Also, I don't know who the papers for these are asset managers. I think they're talking to asset owners and they're basically complaining because you know it's for that blue color guy going to the bathroom. Like maybe it's a New York City Car, taking the paper, taking the paper, the other toilet. Yeah, exactly. I pretty much I think this is this is these are the Nuggets that triggered me in it. This is some of the stuff that this group of investors really wants you to know about stewardship, specifically ready. The first one is about how Stuff happening in the future is. Wait, could it's often too far away for us to care about right now, quote, The need for realism over what stewardship can achieve. There are potential time Horizon trade-offs between achieving real-world outcomes on sustainability themes, such as climate change and delivering Financial returns to clients. These, trade-offs need to be actively considered, additionally, there are concerns that targeted sustainability goals, may not always be realistic and that government, and other stakeholders may have developed unrealistic. Expectations of stewardships capacity to deliver systemic change. Basically, they're saying, let us give up. Come on man. Stop asking us. So many hard things. You don't want to do the hard things to translation here is it if we actually invested for climate change, if we actually invested knowing that climate change is coming, We probably would have to sell like, our AI positions because they use so much energy and are destroying the environment, and probably have to sell some oil and gas positions. And those positions make us a lot of money like right now. So I'd rather help those companies and and not ask them for unrealistic things because I get all I get, I mean, what do we do doing? What are you talking about? Your job as stewardship, team is to fundamentally change the system so that it works. Do you think that I actually have evidence? The first draft of this paper? There was a section that does that, that they have eliminated, but that they were arguing that they, they were saying that they wished, it was 1952 again, so they could just sleep with their secretary and go home and not worry about anything, like, why do we have to worry about anything? This is Dopey. I don't know. That was that was the one. We have to be good citizens. We just want to make money just let us. Why do we have to be good citizen? Just annoying. It is annoying and stressful to care about the world around us. It's annoying to think about time as my driver drives me home. I I'm just I'm annoyed, I'm annoyed. This is the, this is his nugget. Number two, there's only three I have and they get shorter. Despite historically, I'm not this one. Yeah, these stewardship teams have voted 96% in favor that everything management puts in front of them, okay? That's the that's the average vote. And the chocolate getting easier, too, because they're going to be a lot, less share the proposal to put on. This is what they said, quote, there is an undue focus on voting as a barometer of good stewardship with just not reflect the role of all stewardship mechanisms. Yeah, what what they're complaining about is that they don't get credit for all the Talking they do to the cow not to do credit. They get a paycheck. They saying just because we vote against some, you know, something some shareholder proposal or four are doesn't mean we agree with them. It just we're talking to. I did tell you that, just because I voted for Trump less time. I actually, I supported, I saw her. I supported come alive with Kamala but I voted for you. Just get blame me for Trump. I vote on my trump know, basically they what they want is they and this is a group that votes 96% with management where in your conversations, does the accountability come in, if you You never vote against management except when they fail to show up for 75% of attendance. Yeah, I don't know why. They don't know that at a minimum, it would be like, it would strengthen their negotiations. Like, it would, it would strengthen their bargaining power if if they put a little fear into somebody by voting against something once in a while, like what the hell are we talking about? The companies must not fear them at all. I mean, right? Like the lever you have is not showing up and talking to Jimmy in a nice room, having a cup of coffee, the lever you have like in any election is they're supposed to beg you for your vote, it's not the other way around, you don't default to saying well we're vote in with them all the time but that doesn't mean we're not doing a lot of work. We're having a lot of conversations. What the fuck are you talking about? None of them lose their goddamn jobs. Now one director on Earth has been voted out for underperforming on climate change, Zero house that all of your comments have resulted in zero votes out. Consider what like they're going on and considering the corporate world begs to return, to some merit-based like world where everything is based on objective data and criteria. How is it possible to directors? Never been voted out on climate. I went to a conference in London, which last time I checked is on the European continent, right? Even is not part of the Euro area. It's not your UK investment Association. I was in London and directors, there are investors, there were complaining that they didn't even have access to some directors that some companies would shun them. And not allow them to talk to directors. But they still vote for them. Because you because you want us to give credit for your attempt to try to talk to them. That triggered me. And last yeah, the classic We are poor quote. There are different costs associated with the process of stewardship, for both investors and companies who have finite resources. Oh, so it's too expensive to worry about stuff, is that it? They have plenty of money to give their CEO above inflation, raises. Every single year, they can't spend seven dollars on a on a phone bill, like, like, how hard is it to press vote against like the analysis that we give the free flow analytics, has free data on their website? The cost of free the last time I checked was Zero. Yeah but you believe in something which is probably why our paychecks don't exist. So I just wish they would stop whining. Those are well, why winding around stewardship the Wall Street quit after over a law? That was unconstitutional and Nike but really the EEOC and the merit-based system I mean do I really even have to vote on this one? That's why I said, I thought it was a pretty easy, one padded. I mean, you talking about, Headlines. Like this Nike accused of bias against white workers, I mean, well I don't even know what we're talking about here, I mean, this is just a dumb, all right? That's the winner and you're right. And you're right to and I think we're both, right. You brought up Colin Kaepernick. I brought up Nikes role in our culture in America. There's a reason why it's Nike clearly because there's it's just a, you think of black people. I'm sorry, but this is, like, this is red meat for the Maga crowd. I mean, right? You think of Nike, the first thing you think of is Michael Jordan or whoever you think black athlete, I'm sorry, you think of a black athlete. You think. There we go? Congratulations. Trump Administration for your soulless racist existence there. Good job. Let's do headlines winners predictions. And we can rip through these. All right, you have two headlines. I have two headlines in a picture. I'll go first cuz I don't understand how you gonna. How are you gonna do a picture on a Dopey radio? All right, it's a live stream that we don't share, I have two that will help make you feel better about the world. First of all, the first one, Is a we should Mark this date because I guess this is an important. If you're an archivist, or if you're historian, this is an important date because I am, this would suggest the meritocracy is officially a lie. The the world's most important CEO and business person. Here's the headline. Elon musk's hiring advice. Quote. Don't look at the resume. Just believe you're interaction. So can we just say right now that the meritocracy is officially dead? So the amendment this see this, this is lawsuit against Instinct. This the lawsuit against Nike can be thrown out immediately because there is no meritocracy. There is no, there's no way to define it, you just doesn't matter. Forget the resume forget college for, get it all, just, it's your gut if you're more comfortable with the white guy, just go with that. Because he's got one there. He's probably someone you can go to Epstein island with. He's probably someone that you can harass someone with. So, there you go. All right. My second one is an along the same lines. It's official that we were right about everything because listen to this headline, Disney's Baba achieves an essential feet for outgoing CEOs, giving his successor a clean slate. So they're saying what we're saying, About former CEOs, which is get lost. So we're right, so so I don't know why they're talking about this. Only with Bob Iger. Wait, they should be talking about this. This every time with bob, every corporation, in fact, if you listen to the proxy countdown this week, I have a I have a slew of 8 KS that are doing just the opposite. They're consolidating CEO power. The former CEOs are becoming chairs, so so Fortune. Thank you for pointing this out. But I want you to now attack every corporation that doesn't let that doesn't set its former CEO free because yeah, you're right, this is how you should be doing it. Clean slate, Clean Slate. Wait this headline should read though. Disney see, Bob, Iger achieves, what Disney executive chair? Bob Iger never could. Well, you're right about that? You're wrong about that because during the Bob chapek thing, he actually did leave the board. He just stayed in contact with their everybody. He said no. He said in contact with a year first that he did leave remember then he left. Yeah. He still manages his way back and I don't just walk back in like, six months after but luckily, Josh tomorrow looks like Bob Iger, so it's all fine. All right, what are your headline is? All right, I'm just gonna read these two headlights. Quick number one, Hillary Clinton wants testimony on Jeffrey Epstein in public. Let's stop the game. This is a fucking brilliant. Say what you will about the clintons, they're not my favorite Democratic politicians but they are brilliantly playing this, which is that, that they are showing up to testify to Congress because they're setting a precedent right there and and their demanding that it be held in public and they're clearly setting the stage for for Trump. Right by one day, look the clintons, like Bill Clinton all don't have to worry about Legacy at this point, he's like, oh, like it's already happened. As it should be. He could literally get up there and just name names of people that were in the files that because they were redacted and he could just say Donald Trump is, it was there I saw Him I've talked. But again, for future congresses, they can now call Trump and hold him in contempt for not publicly testifying. And by the way, can I just say that this is the the sad state of the world where we're in, by the way that notice how it's Hillary Clinton making a statement? I haven't even heard Bill Gates make a statement. The only statement I heard is someone asked his ex-wife? Yeah. Well Linda Gates to comment about Bill Gates. So yeah, this is where we're at. We're still, you know, we're still having women apologizing for the bad behavior of men but anyway, uh number two. Yeah, I just love this headline. My neighborhood is pushing back against sidewalk delivery robots, the fights coming to your town next. How are they pushing back with like baseball bats? What are they doing? Are you allowed? I want to know this. I want to know this. Honestly, I'm responsible for shoveling my sidewalk. So, if there's a stupid robot going down my sidewalk, my allowed to hit it with a baseball bat, is it my property? What's going on? But I think they, like, put things in front of it and they generally, like, annoy it. Like they, they like put lines like they they put blocking in front of it. They stand and stand in a row and it can't get by like the whole thing is look for for anyone who lives in New England, it the whole thing's gonna be a joke anyway, because all the sidewalks are they're either like covered with snow or they have like tree roots or they're you know that I mean, how are you gonna get around? Anyway, you can't get around on sidewalks up here, but I just love it. What else you got? The last thing I have is a picture and I picked this because Cracker Barrel back in the news because there was you reported on this but there was a report that Cracker Barrel when their employees are traveling are mandated to eat at Cracker Barrel when they're traveling, right? Like punishment? Yeah. Um Julia messino I can't remember her. Her hyphenated name, she was actually on the blaze with Glenn Beck. Oh, And was like about this, The Blaze Ya. But as part of that, part of the story of her like quotes on from The Blaze, they took a picture from inside a Cracker Barrel at the end of 2025, as this is, when this is Cracker Barrel, getting its mojo back, it's like had a big Fallout. It's you know like it's getting its mojo back. This is the picture that they use as part of this article. It is, I am not kidding. It's got to be a dozen people, and there is not one person under 80 years old in the picture. Well, except for the server. I just thought it was hysterical that we're gonna tell you, still ripping on Cracker Barrel. There's no one there and they're all 80, am I mistaken? But Is it like all old white people in the and there's a black waiter is that one black waiter? Yeah, one black waiter is, I guess that sort of that is the heritage of the South, right? You're talking about classic, that place looks terrible. Not only does it look uncomfortable. But the floor I hate those kind of its like the floors. You find in a bathroom like you know, it's like those hard tile. The whole thing looks very comfortable looks Dusty. I think it is Dusty. I don't know. All right, winner of the week. Anyway, let's get off Cracker Barrel. Thank God. I don't have a Cracker Barrel near me. My winner, unfortunately is all the Epstein brother, all the Bros who showed up in the Epstein files, all the and I'll just say, see, see your winner? Yeah, my Winters kind of the same. My winner is white men again, right? Sure, winning again. Look, I'm already like I started drafting using AI a lawsuit against a girl, in high school who wouldn't make out with me because she discriminated against white men with ugly glasses and long noses at the time. It's like everything's racism now. Like if I don't get what I want, it's racism because I'm a white man. They couldn't possibly be that. I shouldn't get what I want. So I there were winning baby. We're winning, you got a prediction, my pretty, she's dumb boring, but I'm just thinking the best we can hope for all this is is or just shareholder derivative lawsuit. Right, that's it. Like I said, I don't think we're gonna get any kind of and I, I'm thinking like, Shareholder derivative lawsuits against boards. Who fail to oversee the reputational risk of their Epstein. Directors and CEO. I'm just saying like, this is all we can really hope for, right? It's lawsuits. I mean I asked and and I'm thinking some will come, right? I mean, yes, I'll be reputational risk to keeping these people on your board. I mean, right? I mean, I don't know. I just don't, I don't understand my country, I live in. I don't understand. There's a CBS News is not firing one of their correspondents for. I, it's like, I mean, in the maritime never done. Anything girls? Talk about girls underage, underage girls? Yeah, they're not even women. I understand how we, how did we get here? How did we get here? I don't want to think about it anymore. All right, when I saw this, here's my prediction. When I saw this headline, Elon Elon Musk says, it's hard to convince Engineers with families, to move to SpaceX technology Monastery in Texas. Oh, seven a hard time. I It becomes clear. The prediction is this Elon Musk will be forced to re-incorporate SpaceX in a really nice suburbs, somewhere near or around San Francisco because he's got to re-read hire the talent who might have families and Wanna Live somewhere. Nice. And they want to live somewhere. Nice with good school. Can I just Yeah, can I just tell you that I I've been seeing reports this week that there are people who are visiting San Francisco because of the Super Bowl and they're all surprised how nice it is how nice it is bad reality you live in it. I mean but after he moves back to San Francisco, a single white man who moved to Texas to join SpaceX, will sue the company for discrimination against single white, men, who moved to Texas to reread incorporate in tech. Oh my God, this is amazing. It's amazing. It's gonna happen. That's all we got. He's on a roll. I'm here we are. Free float. That's our Friday show. We're doing back-to-back today, proxy. Can't dance. Gonna come out today, too. We've got some stuff on there. A bunch of updates. Also, we just got invited to do a show at CII the Cowboys versus, do I have to? I have to, it's two of us. So, if you're going to that conference, reach out because we're going, we're gonna do a proxy countdown show in front of everybody. And we're going to Bring the data we're going to have. We're gonna talk about boards data and all that stuff until later, goodbye.