Transcript
Oh yeah. Live from your CEO's long-term Equity plan. It's yet another manic Monday edition of business pants joined by the Lord of analysts holes Maps Guardian. I am here and analysts holy today. Today's broken record called August 21st 2023. Top 10 crazy Monday stories and BM of the week its board member. Yes, not yes, it's board member, let's be clear board member of. Oh, All right, Matt, that means we can do this. I believe Jesse likes that music. I don't love that music, it's great. Here's what I did this this morning, I kind of deviated from my normal plan. I usually take the top 10, sort of most important business stories. This time, I just took the 10 ones that just that just seemed crazy. It's just craziness. There was a lot of crazy and then your notes here and then I did a little analysis, little post crazy analysis and maybe this is just my brain, or maybe this is just what is crazy. But here's how it's broken down for them or AI stories. Okay, that already makes me nauseous five or crazy, bro. Tech dictator stories. It's sorry. Sorry. Okay. And one is a wind powered cargo ship know. Yeah, that's my favorite. That one. It's kind of. Okay. It's like a happy crazy. I can't like it. I love the well, when you first introduced that story, I didn't really care, but now I'm starting to care about it. Way too much, but I'll save that for last. It's the best stupidest. Well, it's actually more, more. Adult than I first imagined but again we'll get to it at the end of my second. This is an adult show. So start at the top. Come on, you ready? Let's do it. Good. Yeah, I already played you in Microsoft has pulled an AI written travel guide, which told Taurus to visit the Ottawa Food Bank if they are hungry. it was the Ottawa Food Bank was the third attraction in the list and included a caption that said Life is already difficult enough. Consider going into it on an empty stomach. Ouch, you know what that? What is that even mean? I don't know, but it sounds like anti-homeless is what it sounds. Here's what the AI picked. If you're visiting Ottawa, Canada the winter lewd Festival which I guess is only really good in the winter, right? It's a it's like a icy wintry reasonable though. That's you might associate Ottawa with that. The national war memorial, which sounds freaking terrible and the Ottawa Food Bank. That's it. That's the best. All right, they couldn't even come up with like a hockey game sticking with AI the next story. A driverless Cruise Car in San Francisco drove right into wet concrete and got stuck after seemingly mistaken it for a regular Road. A witness said, It thinks it's a road and it ain't because it ain't got a brain and it can't tell that it's freshly poured concrete. Where was that witness from San Francisco? So, the crews actually had a bunch of other accidents and is now agreed to reduce its driverless Fleet by 50%. San Francisco officials previously, had pushed for a slower rollout? They somehow I don't know who overall overruled them, but now Crews is already pulling back after. Last week's roll out. Did. Is this this would qualify Cruise just qualified as the first AI layoffs. Laying off its own it. They are laid off 50% of its AI Workforce drivers. What is that? That's I mean I'm already laying off AI. I'm really split on this one because I actually most AI things I shoot. I actually think that well, governed and smart. Smart coded. Ai-powered driving could actually say tens of thousands of lives. This on the highways, I actually feel this, but there's no wet concrete on highways, but Why are we existing in a world where we're eliminating jobs? So that there can be driverless cars? I just, I don't think it's that I haven't caught up to that part of it, don't we know. I, I just like the idea that I'm waiting, if I play out this string Cruise lays off, 50% of its AI drivers in San Francisco, whatever. That means that's just means whatever that are in the garage I suppose. Let's just say they got laid off just for the sake of argument. Do the rest of the AI remaining AI drivers feel like dirty humans are taking their jobs, right? Yeah, but what you say, AI driver, what are you imagining? I'm imagining a computer in a car that's pissed with sentient feeling dirty humans, that's interesting. That are taking the other car, the other cars jobs. It's an interesting talk because remember that, the New York Times piece back at the beginning of the year, where the AI was getting rather upset about things. So it's not, it was angry. Yes. So it's it's not impossible in our near dystopian future that you're right. That AI losing its job. Could get them pissed off against human. It's not out of the question. And then AI bands, together, and forms Union and AI Union, imagine though, if we like we if we're willing to say like in the conservatives in this country are saying like the Mexican kids are taking our jobs, they're illegally immigrating and taking our jobs, right? That's that was a narrative for all of the 90s in the 2000. Still pretty much a narrative. Yeah, why wouldn't the AI be the next level of that? Like the dirty the next book? Mexican. So basically, humans are All Mexican's. Now, according to AI, would that be their natural extension stick with AI for the next Story, the Iowa school superintendent who used chat GPT to ban books, Explains why they did it because we have more important things to do. He said, Do Well. There are a lot of functions of a school system. This is just one of them, and maybe I what I'm reading into that statement is that they're not thrilled with the Iowa State law, that is forcing them to do this in the first place. That that's that. I think that's the subtext here. They think it's stupid to ban these books but that they're required to by law, because Iowa has now become one of these weird antiques dates. So, The school district leaders. They actually used AI, a generative AI Bots to help filter its catalog by asking it does this book contain a description or depiction of a sex act and if the answer was yes, they banned. The book from the library That real, I know you have a little bit more data on this, but I get to tell you, they removed 19 books. This this reads, like the syllabus of one of my College English courses. It's some of the books they listed Alice. Walker's The Color Purple, Margaret's, tale, Tony, Morrison's, beloved, my Angelou's, I Know Why the Caged Bird singing, Etc. I mean, all books that were required reading for me at college. And in high school for me, I read like half those books. I read beloved in high school. Yes, absolutely. I I'm pretty sure that they actually went to strive GPT for this, because somehow on the list. Yeah, that's a new thing. Yeah, somehow on the list of 19 books that they found to band that Chachi GPT said, yes. Banda 12th authors six, were people of color, two of the books were by the same woman. Ellen, Hopkins, like the somehow just found two books by one. Person, I think this this is why we idiotically point out the the leadership of all these companies, right? If who creates these things because it you do tend to get data that looks like this and the end when you have People who are not female, not people of color, creating these things, then you tend to ban, you tend to be wasn't that, right? Like you. Well, the one book that stood out as an outlier in the band, here was Friday Night Lights by Buzz bissinger which is a, which is a book about like a high school, Texas, High School, Football section, high school though. Know they, there's no sex in the book. Oh, there's not any, there's no setting about it. I was not fiction in the book TV show. It's pretty. It's pretty boring that show. Yeah, it's pretty does not a sex. In fact, um, business was interviewed when he found out about this and he was like, he went on like a like a expletive lace tight raid about how fucking stupid. This was he specifically left sex out of the book and he wanted it to be something that like like you know, 13-year old boys could read and see like role models. Like how difficult it is, or like all that kind of, and it's a sports book and he was like, you know, men don't read a lot of books, I don't know. There's some weird stuff and he's using imagine the crazy that up here. But but think of the actual, the reality is the all those students have phones that get them directly to porn. They're all, they're all freshly and puberty and yet the library has to remove books that discuss human sexuality. I mean, this is it, but this is the state of the anti-wolf anti-esg world that we're living at. Anyway, moving on. Oh, Travis kalanick back in the news. Oh good, that's protect dictator. He was the founder of uber. This is a story about otter University which is a sales boot camp. He created. So so Travis Clinic has a has a food Tech startup, currently valued at 15 billion dollars, By whose son? He has. He has raised almost a billion dollars from backers including Microsoft. And I guess they put that valuation at 15 billion dollars. One of the things he created was a was a experimental sales boot camp called Otter University and according to new reports, to know, one surprise based on his Actually very specific record at Uber. This program was marred by chaos. In a toxic party culture. Wow, the university hired about 300 recruits in February 2022 and fewer than 20 remain. Matt, I mean, but the pattern here, Of throwing money. Once again at someone who was removed for creating a Despicable toxic culture, is they have to even be removed though. This is the Adam Neumann pattern too. Right? Like isn't this just the it's like set like a tech bro. Fetish? Yes, it's such a deep fetish that we think oh that guy made a billion before. Matt Levine of Bloomberg sums it up like the best. You know if you lost a billion dollar, if you lose like a million dollars on a trade, you'll probably get fired. If you lose a billion dollars on a trade, you'll probably get fired. But you'll also probably get rehired because someone will say, wow, someone trusted you with the billion dollars at one point. Therefore, you know, you probably know something and you might have learned along the way. This is the stupidest way. Why is that? The like that is the definition of failing up. If you lost that, much, shouldn't she never be entitled. If you ran a company into the ground with a toxic party culture or ran a company into the ground because it was fake and made a kambuja should you then again, get billions of dollars. That makes no sense. The other problem is a lesson, they're learning here. In this case from Travis, is that corporate governance essentially brought him down. So now he's he's living in a world of extra. Secrecy. He's yeah, he's disclosing even less. He I guess. He required job candidates to sign ndas barred them from even listing the names of the company on their LinkedIn profiles. Like, everything is done in a shroud of Secrets because he knows That if he's exposed for being who he is, he's gonna lose his job again. You know, the worst part is, when I read the article, there was a quote, from one of the trainees, like the people who joined who said they joined because they heard the X Uber's CEO running it right? Like, which is like, isn't that the like we fetishize him to the point where we know how terrible that person was? I should go take that guy's course. Speaking of terrible X, the worst, sorry, I just I just put I just found all the crazy going on and in the business world and the ESG world, this is right even Beck in here. I don't think I mentioned him. Think God this is a following up on a story that Jesse mentioned in our Friday show. X is now suspending, a pro Nazi account after two Brands halted advertising because they're, you know, they're They're advertising right next to the Neo Nazi concept. First of all, I always get confused when I see this because Elon Musk loves to say that he's a free speech absolutist, and then there's but they're still suspending things. So how do you, how do you get to keep saying that? Well, now that's one thing I'd like to know. Yeah. Now, now the the plan here is that advertisers will be able to block any content specifically next to their ads. If x is capable, we know they're not because they've laid off basically their entire Workforce if they're capable of noticing in the first place. They said that they they should have known that. This Neo Nazi say it was operating back and April and yet was allowed to linger and to show up so you have to catch it first Matt but it doesn't matter what your rules are. They just changed their keyword searches in posts because these posts that appeared next to the ads, apparently celebrated Hitler like my name, right? Like so they just have to add a search term for Hitler, that would get more Nazi that gets rid of some of the content. But beyond that, what I don't understand. Why why do you get to sit on the Free Speech absolutist? I don't understand why you get to do both. I don't get why. If you're an advertising brand you go to Twitter else ever right? Like what over? I mean you know the rules are going to change fluidly with one guy's mood. You know that you you have no real protections. He can say whatever he can say you. Yeah. We're gonna put up protections. What if he doesn't again you could put Matt but you can put up questions. But if you don't have a Workforce there, to catch the potato who cares. But what we think what what it says to me is we think eyeballs and engagement there. It's like they're publicly condemning being put next to Nazis but guess what? Now the brands actually look good. Right? Like the brands, get to say we condemn that behavior we've removed our advertising dollars, but you advertising there in the first place? Yeah, when you knew there was not propaganda, new like fired disinformation you fired the Leadership and teams that controlled, for this. It's like a win-win for them. They know. Like, they're gonna get the engagement, they're gonna get these eyeballs. They get to engage with Elon Musk. They're gonna get concessions, and, and they get to look like a good guy. But what are you doing there in the first place? Let's be honest, you're paying for eyeballs and you don't care whose it's not about like some moral High Ground here. It's really the. You just optically want to look like you're against Hitler. But if everyone was clicking on Hitler content, you'd happily sort of accidentally, quote, unquote, put yourself next to it because you paid to be on a platform that doesn't police. This kind of content, but two things, first of all, there's no sex in any of the Nazi Hitler books. So those books can remain at the in the state, in the state library's in the school library is in Iowa. Second of all, here are some of the brands appeared alongside the United content Gilead Sciences, the athletic, Major League Baseball sports, Illustrated us hated a Amazon Office Depot, blah, blah, blah, blah. That sounds like not to be really stereotypically. A bunch of men, Focus. Yes, not untrue. A few more with Elon X. Twitter is also removing its blocking feature for some reason, calling many people to say, it's going to be harder for people to remove abusive posts from their timelines. So he's, he's taking away the ability to block basically trolls to your Account, I don't I I get this on no level trolls are engagement and engagement, you know, this point sell and then when the engagement is negative engagement, the companies can pretend like their morally like outraged by. Oh, I can't believe this is there you really, you can't believe. That's there. You have no protections and there's nobody working there. At least you can't believe that it's there. At least elon's not being a hypocrite because don't forget, he was accused of unblocking himself from people's accounts when he took over Twitter. So he he systematically went through an unblocked, his own account for people's accounts without telling them. Yeah, that's called free speech and finally A little bit of good news here. One more X Story, one more X, Twitter story, Elon Musk himself. Admits that X might fail. He said quote, he's so foolish. The sad truth is that there are no great social networks right now. We may fail as so many have predicted but we will try our best to make their be at least one. He's so full of shit. You don't think maybe he's like planning on balance. What is fail mean, right? Like he's gonna strip this down to seven people who just do his bidding and people will stay on the platform. It's going to be angry men on the platform. Let's get back to AI. This might be some good AI. A 77 year old talks to an AI companion. Robot called Ellie Q. Over a dozen times a day daily to combat her loneliness. This is an AI powered robot made by Israeli startup intuition robotics. This is part of a New York state. This is from the New York State aging office, and according to them, 95% of all the New Yorkers that were given to this for free. I have reported that they found that the robot helpful and reducing their loneliness and improving overall well-being. Aging departments in California. Washington and Florida, are all so launching similar programs. What do you think about this l e, q? I, it does make me think there was There was a, we covered a conference somewhere and I think it was in Israel where they had an AI robot that people would interact with and not only did the people like, stabbed and sexually molest the robot, but the robot, spewed, covid, misinformation, and racist rhetoric. Okay, let's get back. We were telling me about the the breakdown of the Books banned by Ai and iOS. So I looked at the leadership of Israeli startup intuition robotics It's a similar problem. First of all, Know. I I couldn't find a person of color anywhere, there was a leadership team. There were six men, and one woman, the woman was in charge of marketing. There was a, there was an advisor team five men, one woman, the woman think God was the is a psychologist and behavioral expert, but she also has an Ma and economics and Game Theory. I'm a little worried about that. That sounds scary. There was also a picture of 53 of team members. I actually did the county it looked like about 60% men there, but I found no people of color anywhere. In the company and mostly men in charge. So, I wonder what this, I wonder what this means for the future of talking to old people. I don't know. I'm just, I don't know. And now, and now thanks to Ed Blum. If you were to have a startup that got funded and it was not all men, you could be discriminating against men because that's the lawsuit that he filed one more, bro, dictatorship story, metis, news band member. So in June Canadian lawmakers passed a bill that would require companies like meta and Google to pay news outlets to share their content. Yeah, I responds meta, banned users in Canada from viewing or sharing news content that that's the comeback by one of the richest men in the world, Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, here's a big baby move. So here's the headline meta. Meta's news band is preventing Canadians from sharing Vital Information about the wildfires ripping through western Canada. It is Heritage Minister labeled a ban Reckless and called on meditative immediately. So, yeah, you're shutting down in an important medium to disclose information in America. Okay, yeah, fine to utility basically I guess that is true. That it is the utility, that's it. If we if it if it's necessary now like to share emergency information then it's a utility. I usually hate all media Enterprises but this and this case yes it's very useful. I and I we see them somehow get our news right? Like can we not actually like call one another? Anymore. Like can we not send news and other ways? Yeah. Well yeah. I think we do now though. I mean he hasn't didn't he just announced it over. It was like over three billion sign ups in the world. Yeah, that's so you do that but you kind of do need Meadow when there's an emergency we're not talking about like I'm gonna find out about like you know, some Warhead that went off and he was Becca Stan. We're talking about like my neighbor's need to know about the oncoming fire. Yeah, do like I feel like that when you're talking about a local, it's either utility and it's meant for like local information dissemination. And it shouldn't be the hands in a dual-class dictator with 72% of the influence over the board and 100% influence over the company. Either, that shouldn't be the case and you should break it up and say it's Anti-Trust, and it's a utility and just regulated as such or you should say fine. It's not a utility, but we need to find a way to, to have local communities. Be in touch with one another. Well share, my creating a publicly funded alternative. Is that what you're just saying by? Like use phones? Like send out an emergency text? If anyone had? I don't know. I guess they have smartphones. Yeah. And finally, let's end on a good note. Pioneering wind, powered cargo ship sets sail. I love this. So this is no joke. Matt, you covered this a few weeks ago. The cargo ship is from the company Cargill. Hopes to eventually reduce the lifetime emissions of a cargo ship by 30%. So, how these cells work is that they are wings that are opened out when it isn't open water. So they fold down, I guess when it's important, they stand about 120 feet tall and are built of the same materials, wind turbine. So it kind of I was coarse it was imagining cloth. You know? Yes, sales. But this, I mean, this sounds legitimate to me, I mean, why not, right? I mean, like sounds great. Yeah. There is a startup that this isn't a joke that is using cloth sails down because that was, that was. So, it is the thing that sounds stupid to me. Yeah. And they reframed it, as wind technology shipping, right? Sure. Wind base technology shipping. But this this is like, again, this is like, we are Reinventing things that 400 of years, have worked. I just saw a story that you pulled, I just read today about should people start living underground climate change? While that sounds tremendously sad. We've just realized that underground is kept cool and warm. All year, it's like the perfect time on my basement in the summer actually, it's actually quite nice. I mean, It's that you could. We could just be like we were 500 years ago with half of this stuff and we figured out a lot of things. It's also good. I've noticed that the there's another article, I pulled the drug use, psychedelic use alcohol, use all is booming the basements. Also a good place to hide if you're feeling really paranoid when you're that's 100. It's 100%. You solved all the problems. All right, let's do a BM of the week and we'll keep it quick for the sake of Sanity. Here's the headline. I saw Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon. Diesel DJ diesel in the news, a lot always, forgive reasons. Yeah, he's been on a lot of pressure, but the headline says, David Solomon, retains bored, and investor backing amid internal backlash, okay? Nobody right now, like a star stunt. Yeah, even Lloyd blank. Find was musing on coming back, and then uncommon back. So everybody's, you know, sort of pissed at him. They don't like his style, they didn't like, there's a big bet on retail banking. That's fail. So, diesel Under Pressure but not from his own board. Yeah. So, they say so they say that's the spin. The head of the governance committee, which does quote talent development and succession planning. Oh, because they don't they don't have like a nominating committee. It's the government committee, okay? The head this committee includes this isn't a joke, every board member except for decals every single running counter to the point of the Committees in the first place, which is to represent a subset of the board. Yeah. This is all of them, the whole board and they have Ada Baio ogun lessee who's the head of the governance committee. Okay? But he's not the most influential person on his own committee because the entire boards on the committee and he's not the most influential person on the board outside of diesel. What is that mean? Does that mean that they just don't take that committee? Seriously, because it, why, why would you even call that a committee when it's the whole board? Essentially, I don't understand. It's possible that the governance committee is a bit of an inside joke and yeah, right? Yeah, a little bit but the BM of the Weak. Therefore goes to the most influential person on that committee, which is the second most influential person on the board who is Lakshmi mittal. Okay, the longest tenured member of the board, longest tenured director and he is the executive chair and former CEO of our cereal, I can never say it Ark Galore metal or solar matal based on important. Indian Steele, family. He has 12% of the influence. He bats a stellar 372 overall, which if you keeping score is not, Stellar know, he has anything below. 500 is not good. Anything below. 400 is really not good, and average TSR literally average 500. He's the middle of the road director. Overall, his directors ships, terrible controversies terrible on earnings, but being on you mentioned, like, what is the point of this committee metall is? A. Most of launch a person on the committee. He's also a family run dictatorship. Like there's no not a dictatorship that he created his father created it. Yes, correct. He's a nepo baby family run dictatorship. He sits on Harvard's Global advisory council with the head of this committee. And let's see. Um, and plus also on this committee is David Vineyard who was a Goldman employee until 2013. He's considered independent, but he is an ex-goldman employee. So he knows Diesel and he knows. Yeah, blank, fine. And everybody, so, it sounds like succession planning. At Goldman Sachs is as we expected. Kind of waiting for David Solomon to decide what to do, right? Like are, you know, are you, you plan on stuff? Yeah. You busy at Bonnaroo this weekend, or you gonna come or like you gonna be CEO. So, that's my BM of the week. The, you should know who the most influential person on the nominating. Like, is when the CEO don't really call it. It's not really a committee. What is the definition of Committee? If everyone's on it? Yeah. Feels like not right? That's Damian Ross. I am your analyst whole messaging we are free floats. This show is sponsored by fruit flow analytics.com, which is rolled out and I got a calling it, it's actually got some interesting data and you can read the news, we cover on these shows on this platform. So go do that too. Otherwise we'll be back on Wednesday with woke Wednesday until then goodbye.