Transcript
There it is. Yeah, I'll wake you up. Oh, not really. It's kind of a drone at this point live from your ESG full body spray full body spray. Is that like axe? Know. Yes, she's full body spray. It's a business pants. Friday, show here at 2026 Studios, featuring analyst whole amount. Mascari On today's weekly, wrap-up. Well I really I don't know what this is, this isn't a weekly wrap up. This is a look, it's not worth. This is what here's what we're gonna do, our tedious and long winded, 2026 predictions, And we're gonna do that after we look back at our mostly bloated and my numbing 2025 prediction. You know, you, you know, how to sell a product that big prediction show. There we go. That sounds better than our bloated. Terrible boring over raw actually a lot, right? Our show today is being sponsored by free flow, analytics.com. The only yeah, performance for free. To get a lot, right? But in the increasingly like strange state of our world and our country, I guess the question is, does it matter? Yeah, our pre-production. Was. Basically us wondering whether any prediction about how glass Lewis policy is going to change matters when ice is shooting, you know, Suburban Housewives. Well in Minnesota, I'm guessing a lot of Professionals in our industry feel the same way at times, right? That's why we're here. We're here to be a little bit more. What are we here for? Why are we here? I mean, we're here to do two things. Yeah, we are. First of all, right. We, yeah, we we stick to the facts, but we do it with Stark and make jokes and at least levity, you know, you know, the thing that you, when you go home, you wish you could talk to your partner about that stupid ass thing. That some company did or something. Something. Yeah, I mean, like we're the ones you can talk to about it. We're the ones who will talk about it. That's one thing we do. The other thing we do is we actually generate data. On the people in the markets so that when you go back to work after you've been snarking been like, can you believe that you actually have a data solution for the idiocy? You can do something about stuff you can look at stuff. I think that saying is too early to give up. If you should maybe give up as too early like keep going, let's keep going. That's right. Well, you're saying what I'm saying is, let's keep trying. If you live in this country and in the United States of America. Right now, no matter what political place you're in there, you can take action, even if it's in the corporate democracy, there are things you specialty, especially if it's in the corporate marketing. I mean, how much of your still, how much of your actual dollars? Probably go to the corporate democracy. Nothing speaks louder than money in this country. Yeah, and the rest of the world, it's a little bit different. It's a little more varied, but most of the world responds to money at this point, and Trump is so transaction. Know who's chat you, I don't know our predictions. Let's let's do it. Let's do it. All right. Well let's do 2020. Let's review 2025 right? Because I want to prove to you how smart I am. I think I nailed my predictions last year. Okay, I don't looking back at my predictions. I realized like they were kind of wishy-washy to begin with maybe yours were Bolder, but before we get to a review of our 2020 5 predictions, I want to cover a couple. What two things. First of all, I I kind of lazily attempted to have some AI engines and like, look at our, I picked all of the predictions from all of our Friday shows. That's and we missed a few Fridays, but I think overall we did 44 Friday shows last year which means we had 88 predictions between the two of us. and, Here's the one our one win. The AI engine said, referring to corporate Dei said that we both accurately predicted, the massive, corporate unwaking. Well, I mean that wasn't another word Addiction that wasn't much that was a week, but I want to give you my two favorite fictions of the year. For both of us. My my favorite prediction that I picked was that I said that glass Lewis rebranded itself simply as glass. Yeah, that's really good. That's and I like yours one point. You said that your prediction was that you get lunch and take a nap. I nailed that one that day. I was on, let's try you seem very, I'm Gonna Let You Go first because you see pretty proud. I'm not that proud of mine. So why don't you why are you so bad for 2025 predictions? Yeah, give me one. Go back and forth. Give me one. Yeah, so here's a win. I had here's a prediction from and our prediction show was what in December. Yeah, that's okay. It might have been the first week of January, whatever thing, no one's keeping, but it was like, very beginning of the year. I might, my first prediction was Texas, is the new Florida and it was Texas season in flux of incorporation as these companies look for regular Reg, Now. Not going way out on a limb there that, because it didn't and Lipton suggest that Novato was the new Nevada is winning. Nevada is winning, but 2025. We saw the red domestication of tests in the cold text, like it was the acceleration of all the thing. And the tech Texas announced its own stock market. It's just right there. They're doing right like that all happened. So like I think that's a pretty that ended up being right. Even though it's it wasn't that know, hey, it's a nobody's calling their mom and being like that guy knows what he's talking about. What was one of your wins? No particular order. I predicted and I I again didn't really go out on a limb here considering that Trump became president last year again, but I predicted an anti Dei board, composition a sharp, drop a new directors that I diverse. And I just saw a stat and the price Waterhouse Coopers survey that we talked about a lot saying that. Here, the percentage of directors who say their boards are planning to add gender diversity, drop to 9% from 21% and 2024, and plans to add racial and ethnic diversity fell through just 6% from 13%. So and we covered this a lot, but and I don't I don't feel like I went out on a limb here but yeah, that that did unfortunately come true. We've now turned the corner on adding women and people of color on boards. Oh, they were they were already super diverse. I don't, they already, they already won. What? Give me another one. Right. Here's here's another win for me, okay. I had a whole section called goodbye shareholder rights. We hardly knew the, here's a, i this feels spot on me. I predicted his quote, quote proxy. Voting policies are made illegal as voting against the company in any way is considered discrimination against companies. I made that a little bit tongue in cheek. Yeah. But it kind of already, it kind of happened. Basically, what's happened is any vote against management is now needs to be justified or you could be like the, the Trump gave an executive order that you could be, you know, investigated for collusion, right? Like so effectively. Proxy. Voting policies are are gone, you're not allowed to actually have a policy. You're not allowed to vote against management. It's like you we were done. Proxy voting is done and to that point I had a similar prediction SCC moves to greatly restricts shareholders right to submit proposals. In fact, we've gone like full crazy. All the one all the way. Yeah. And I also printed, you know, again the easy predictions that support would decline significant to decrease in the proposals. I also, I think I also predicted Boyer research because I said that, we'll see a new active conservative Shirley proposal machine to go along with the two national centers that we always talk about that. That definitely, I don't know what I have that here to be one of the like weird anti-trans. I don't know, I could just say as an aside, when you, when you're playing the and look, whatever, this is not about right or left, you know, I know that there are people who they come at things from different political perspective that's fine. But when you Throw in a weird obsession with trans people into your share of proposals. You have completely jumped the shark in my mind like you are you are completely out of your fucking mind. Like when you're entering this weird obsession with this very, very small subset of the world 1% of the population and you're actually putting it in a Fortune, 500, shareholder, proposal. I think even the corporations themselves. Look at you like, you're complete whack job. So I'm just I, this is like friendly advice to anyone from the left and right. Don't don't Don't make it about like some weird like project of yours and weird. Like, you're in your basement and you're hating on a certain type of person who's already on suicide. Watch like, like I just a little bit of a fight, although, you know, I don't you won't be able to submit proposals anymore, anyway, because of trumpets. You see. So maybe you're fine. You can do whatever you want. So just to give just to be equal opportunity here and give an example of a version of that on the left. There was a proposal, I think it was in 2020. Are you both siding? My argument know, I'm saying that the absurdity is? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Well, there was a proposal about, I believe it was the one of the nuns cigarette waste. Yeah. What it was about how people throw out their cigarette butts they wanted? Yeah, I mean come on it's it's not trans okay because that's an obsession with like That's just, that's just amazing thing. Is just weird. Obsessive weird. Obsessive hate might like really marginalized hate like bizarre. Yeah, it like it. Leave those leave people alone. Just let them live their own special. I have to worry about like the the one out of every million people in the population. Like, well, I don't even know what you're doing, just stop it. Yeah, but the cigarette waste was I like that. I mean, like a weird version not a weird Obsession like driven by some sort of hate a weird version of that is like, hey, man, count the number of cigarette butts that get put out in front of the seven eleven and read report on it. That's weird. That's a dumbass for. All right, give me another win. You had I'm going to I'm not going to give you when I'm gonna finish out the shareholder rights section because I I think I want on proxy. Voting policies are made illegal. I think I was close on abolish say on pay because you have abolished it. We have an abolished it but we have abolished the ability to vote against management. So like what we're getting there but I don't know if the I don't know if that happened last year, I'm saying that that's a gray Zone. I think that's like, it's still in play. I I predicted anti-esg bills. Forget that there's a g. And by bills, I mean legislation. There's a g in ESG and they keep Banning the G which means no products you voting at all, that they do keep bending the G but the proxy voting is still happening. I don't think anyone's really taking much of that anti-esg legislation, super seriously. Here's the one. I got totally wrong, good. Every board moves to be a classified board. Interesting. That was one of my predictions. Yeah. I mean if you don't challenge it a single director anyway like I think actually I think that's still could be coming based on some of my 2026 predictions. I wonder if that might actually not be the future of governance, but that was the one I got wrong in that category talking about one more that I I got right? And again it's an odd. I don't even know why I cared, but definitely happened last year. I said there's gonna be a sharp increase in Coal Arrangements, co-ceos co-chair, you know, last year was the like the The Rebirth of the codes. The all the code, I have a prediction this year that builds on that. I think they mailed that last year, I predicted that Costco would not be alone and it's antidepression was the data, okay? I went through all the data and I looked at highly Democratic boards with strong female power on the boards. And I said, well, these are likely companies to fight back against the anti Dei movement, and I came up with Procter and Gamble and Altria proctoring gal. Yeah. Actually Procter and Gamble kind of did fight back. They kept all their Dei program, right? They they didn't do anything super public but not doing. Yeah, I'll say where you're probably, probably not wrong. Uh, you're wrong. And you're right. No one. No one went. No one was as vociferous as Costco Costco without complete amazing outlier in this regard. But I think that this is I think what happened last year in ways that we can't track very well, is that a lot of companies kept going, they kept the fight internally they but they just rebranded Dei diversity programs to, to scare away, you know, to shoo away the Robbie Starbucks. They're still, they're still fighting the good fights. So, I think you're right, but it's just harder to notice, right? It's, it's really, you have to like, look really hard. Yeah, this is the same thing. But ESG, like, they've just sort of rebranded it and doing in different ways, right? So anyway, but with altri, I think I was totally wrong. I mean, I'll try as one of the donors to the White House rebuild, and so I missed on that. Let me give you a couple. Uh, I'll give you a couple of my misses and then I'll give you a couple of big misses, I randomly thought they'd be an increase in board level committees. I don't know why. But I think that I misread that, I think we're actually, I think we're going the other way. And I like what you said about an increase in classified boards, because I think we're going to start to, I think Corporate America is going to start to water down governance. It has in place. Like yeah. Oh as much as possible. Yeah, at this point. Yeah, I also had a couple of random ones like I thought that this would be the year of Zuck. Clearly was not the year of Zuck. I really missed that one. I thought. No, I thought that I thought there'd be another Bud Light in the in lead Wrangler jeans. But really the next Bud Light was Cracker Barrel. I guess, right? That was the Bud Light of this year. Yeah, that was yours, but but like can to a trans person and I also stupidly predicted, Elon would fade a bit based on the fact that Tesla sucks and his work with the Trump Administration. But really, I could have been, right? Because Tesla is sucking and his work. With Trump did ruin him in certain ways, but didn't matter. Sure. It does a trillion extra trillion in the stock prices still soaring. So yeah, what else? Some more years? I had a whole section called men finally get some power. Yeah, of course. Yes. But I did correctly predict and we talked about this on the proxy count. On our other podcast, that boards would increase companies would increase the board size and use the increase to add all men. Is that true? Basically? We have yes, support that. Okay, yes, there's data to support that. That is the primary way that we're seeing female power diminish on boards, I believe influence on the board is being diluted by adding a additional men. In fact, I picked I went through all of the data at the time and I said, which companies are right on the bubble where they have like equal power between men and women. And if by adding one man, it would tip the balance to male power. Again, you know, men would have more power and I picked four companies. Cardinal Health, HP, Stryker, Corp, and Cracker Barrel. Yeah, as potential targets. Cardinal Health don't actually don't pretend you predicted Cracker Barrel. No, I did not predict that. I predicted that that they would expand the board and admin. Okay. Well you but you were you you had the right target, you didn't know what the hell would go on, but you had the right. Well, here's what I wrote about, right? Yeah. I give myself credit for this. I wrote Cracker Barrel, which is one Robbie Starbucks away from negating female power and they were and you do Wonder. Yeah. You have to wonder when you look back at 2025 that with out of female CEO at the helm for this decision. Would there have been pushed their would anyone if I don't think? Would anyone else don't think so? I don't not only do I not think so. But I think even though they targeted a male a person of color to get rid of a board because yeah multi-cultural whatever. And I my sense is that you're still going to see a shift on that board. Of course, like, of course, that's going to be white in male. Like that's one of its biggest owners. A good guy, who's tried to do, like, what 10, the glory I think his name is. Yeah, he's a bag of freak. Yeah. So, but Cardinal Health, I they did actually add have two editions in 2025, to the board and both were men and Stryker Corp. They didn't add more men than women, and expand the board, but they do make a dude, a chair of a committee and get rid of a woman on as the chair of the committee which tip the power gap for them HP. I was totally wrong. You look Packard went more female power. Actually, they're one of the most female powered boards in our us data. So I was wrong about them. Let me wrap up my 2025 predictions with the few more observations. I did get it right I said there'd be a significant increase in the Banning of social media and teens smartphone use and that's happening. I mean you start I feel like it started in Australia but I just read that New Jersey. The entire state is going to kick out bones in the school system. I I think we're we're definitely the beginning of this movement. I definitely think this is here to stay. And then I had a few, I had a few like, CEO predictions. First I said Buffett would die. Warren Buffett now, he didn't die, but he did step down, but he was all he's also 100 years old. So forget that. Like a death. I said, I also said, Tim Cook would step down now. He hasn't. Yeah. But it really his succession planning started, it started and then the other one, I oddly predicted. Although I don't know if the second half will come true. I said that Doug McMillan is gonna is gonna leave Walmart, which happened, right? He didn't leave Walmart, he's still on the board. Okay? You're right, you're right. Well, I said he begins his leadership transition. So actually, I gotta know, you know that, but the reason I picked and still could happen is that he has eyes on running for president in 2028. But but he did begin the leadership position. And who knows? Maybe maybe this is why he started because he's not old. So maybe this is why he never know. You never know. I think those are pretty good actually, so yeah. Anything else 2025 before we move on, I had a couple more misses. I, I did predict the US in Europe. Divided, like regulatory divide would actually narrow not widen because I said, the EU was gonna move hard, right? And it did a little bit know, it is, I think it is it, but it's the Divide is not is still really wide. Like I'm not sure that it's narrowed that much, I predicted a big prediction, the rise of the director activists and where was that mean we use data to campaign for? Cognitive diversity on boards. And we start using meritocracy data to elect our directors. A funny one. Yeah, nobody did that. And then I had a few absurd ones, okay? Like AI sues, a company for discrimination like the AI actually files a lot against the company that's gonna happen eventually. I'm not saying it's going to happen. I think any happened, any prediction with AI will eventually probably happen. Unfortunately, I I said in the that, like I had some things like after Brian. Thompson's murder, oh, United Health, Group, murder, Mark, Zuckerberg figures out a used for the metaverse, which is to have board meetings there where no one can find them. Right. So I have my actually 2026 predictions are a little bit predicated on thoughts like that, but, yeah, go ahead. I said, things like that, might be in the future. I, I love this idea, but it hasn't happened companies. Begin disclosing, whether directors own guns like that and the horsepower of their cars and Wednesday. So, special at some of these, like States in, like the, like the the dexit kind of companies and the mega companies, why wouldn't they Well anyway, I also I also predicted. It's a good question. I also did predict in this one, probably will never happen that as part of their diversity, disclosures, rather than get rid of the diversity disclosures, they add a new race called extra white. I like that one too, because there's often a lot of debate about like, who's really like which version of white is right? You know what I mean? Like. Yeah, yeah. Like us Jews and Catholics. You know, some of some people don't Catholics are white. Come on. Okay, we're white here on the East Coast but then it's like some of but then there's a large part of the country that doesn't really like our version of white, you know? I mean, the clay, the clan didn't like Catholics just as much as they hated Jews, I mean, right? So Of, that is disclosure of liberal versus conservative, like they force disclosure of directors just say, are you? Well, there are no liberal directors so you doesn't matter. I know that's what all. And then finally, I had some like the re rise of the woke well that, you know, because we're anti woke that could be coming, that could be coming. But I said like the anti-woke made this anti-woke parallel economy thing in 2023 and 20224 means. But I was just say, maybe basically, you know, like, you know, like there's that coffee company like gun, whatever. You know, I killed. Yeah. And then there was like death from above cigarettes and like, you know, super America. I predicted the rise of a woke parallel. Look at me where it's like, you now we're just, you only buy things on some ideology. Not whether that thing is any good, you know, it's, it is really hard to predict, but the 2025 election cycle that the zoram amdani election that there's a young socialists in Seattle, you know? And that the Trump cronies are, they're wasting, they'll political Capital by being such a-holes. You never know. You could be right. I mean, we could be swinging back. I mean, they're not doing a great job so far, preserving their populist power because they're acting like, you know, absolute thugs. There's, there's, they're starting Wars when when he pretended like he was never going to start wars. And so you could be right about that one. I mean, my I think swinging back. I was more like right about the second part of that prediction, although it didn't come true, which is come retail stores. Start offering walled off woke zones. You, you know how it used to be like that? You have the adult section and like, buses or whatever. There's something. Yeah. We're like, they literally have like, like walls up and if you want, like the woke stuff, that's like, right. Like how they used to do it, like, video stores. They put all the gay stuff in there and all the lgbtq here, they put organic things in there. All right. That's like that's like censorship. What is that organic? Local lgbtq plus you know, like you know certified Humane all that stuff that's in a wall dog. That's like my entire city. The store sounds like every store in my city. I'm saying like, if you go to like Memphis and you want to go grocery shopping like oh I see you like you go and only if you want you can you can hide all the wok stuff from everybody else but you can go into the Oaks section, get your interests. You know, I mean I am a bit like rides sponsored coffee. I spent So much of my damn time in New England. I forget that like there are places in America. Like there are churches that don't have pride Flags out front and like, yeah, you're right like oh maybe there should, I don't know. I mean, where am I? Going I New England's. Fine with me at this point. Like I don't need to go to Memphis. I don't want to go to the wolf Zone at the Target, Memphis Target. All right? But that's it. That's it for 2025. Let's look at 2020. Let's make some predictions baby. How are we doing this? Are you doing one and I'm doing one or what? Yeah, let's just do it that way. How many like would just can you quantify how many you have yours are broken up in weird ways. I sort of have like a like a will happen, a could happen and it seems absurd entirely possible several inch will happen. Several? Okay, so we can just go back and forth a bit. I'll start with with my biggest concept which is I'm calling the and bear with me here. And if you want to tune out and take a nap, it's fine. All right, he'll have cigarette because I rested with this one and I don't even know if I got that. I don't even know if I got my logic right on this one. But I I'm trying, I'm trying here, but I'm calling it The Ghost board movement. oh, like Is that like like a bear with me? Okay yeah so through that. So 2025 kind of was above the setup and you hinted at this before like in early in the show is kind of a retreat from like normal governance Retreat from ESG. So I'm suggesting here that that a major company. I'm thinking like the obvious pick would be like a defense company. Like a palantir and Energy company. Maybe, like an Exxon well successfully petition to keep all of its direct your bios, private for National Security or personal safety reasons. I really like, I think we're gonna like maybe start this this, we're really gonna start pulling back on like traditional governance, like I think that we're going to start to get skeptical in general of investors of the public of customers. And part of this is based on like, you know, the ice shooting in Minneapolis. Like I just think that the Like, you know, the JD Vance comes out and says that this murderer has, you know, immunity and, you know, they're calling the poet. This woman, a domestic terrorist. I I just think that they're going to start to be like, hey, we don't want your screwed me. We don't we don't, we don't want it anymore. We don't want your eyeballs on us anymore. So, So that's kind of the my premise here. Will it happen this year? I don't know. But, you know, maybe that's why I'm calling this. The beginning of a ghost board Movement, Like There's there is, is there a legal requirement that they publish a bio? Well, directors, I don't, I believe not this, I don't know, and I, and I also think that, that, that maybe it comes to the point where maybe it starts with very simple thing. Like maybe a board, appoints a director, who, for national security reasons, and maybe they blame China or something. It's a government connected director, who they want to keep the identity secret, right? Like because they don't want anyone, they don't want someone to know, you know, who this is who they represent because they're worried that about China. I will be something made up thing. I think you're you're probably part of the way there, and I think the keeping someone totally secret is not likely, but We have seen ghosts boards, go sport Movement, we have seen companies actively pull off all pictures of their board members when they used to have pictures on the website. We've seen, there are companies that just offer the names and, like a one-line like worked at this company. Kind as they're bio, those things don't exist. But if you're fighting, if you're far, but if you're fighting proxy advisories you're, you're fighting the black rocks in the world and all that. This could be the logical Next Step, Right? Which is like, we're not going to tell you anything. We don't want to tell you. I mean Trump's already suggesting, you know, to get rid of quarterly reports. I just think that like something weird could happen. And and I'm also calling this is part of my like confusing long-winded description of my Ghostbuster moment. I was thinking about like entities like Black Rock and State Street. Just kind of stopping all their public engagement and like entering kind of this dark governance. Zone where they everything is kind of done seek, you know in private companies, they like texting each other like signal. Yeah. Because they'll still engaged with the companies. But we're kind of leaving this like error of like, you know, we talk about our engagement. We know we just error of disclosure and all that. This is just my thought. This is my thought. Um, I don't think you're wrong. I even got I even got if you want to get to the super weird part of it, I even thought, like maybe we'll get to a point where the directors are only identified by like serial numbers in the proxy statements. And and then, and then we'll, we'll have to vote based on like, these listed like achievements. Like, they'll actually okay bear with me and then I'll stop my long-winded, so we'll be okay. Listen, I want to go, I'm gonna go full my conspiracy here. So, and, and this is gonna be ultimately a win for democracy and a win for the governance. Is that they unwittingly open up this era of actually, actually defining meritocracy because instead of naming the directors they just tell you a list of their achievements and what they do. And then people actually start to vote against these nameless people because they realize like, well this person didn't do much. I don't care what this like because you're not focused on their Sure, on their name, you know, on that. Like the fact that they come from Nike, you're just looking at their actual attributes and the whole thing backfires. And we start to actually have a healthy corporate democracy here, because we actually start to Define meritocracy, because, you know, you have to know something. Anyway, I'm going a little nuts here. I I love your Optimizer, and those four movement. All right, save me and you do one. All right, well, so, so the way I did it, I didn't really have one. They're all kind of shirt, right? So I'm gonna go through, my will happen, do it. These are things. I'm saying well happen in 2026. Like number one, Sam Altman will be called lying to investors in 2027. Come on, okay. All right, so you're saying you know, I'm saying he's he's who will start flying, he will be caught, I'm saying he's caught. Yeah, these two investors in 2027. I'm not saying it matters in as much as investors leave. He's indicted I'm saying he is 100% caught telling a lie to investors. It's very specific beginning to your predictions. All right, right? So that's the tenor of all my projection. All my predictions are relatively specific and they are that showed quick. Okay, here's number two. 30% of the S&P 500. See the test specific I got 30% of the S P 500 will seek to implement a retail voting program. Exactly. Like Exxon I was gonna say like Exxon. Yeah. So, for those of you who don't know what Exxon is done is basically given the retail voters, the opt-in, the option to opt-in to let Exxon vote their shares for them as part of their retail, voting plan. And again, this is one of the reasons why I predicted the possible ghost board movement because like This could be the logical next step to this like kind of craziness going on an Exxon right like they're trying to now control the their investor vote. Right? Yeah. Why have so but Meaning why have a vote in the first place after a while after several hours go ahead, 25% of us companies are totalitarian in free flow analytics data anyway, meaning that they're already controlled their controlled by a Founder, that they have dual class shares. There's some sort of control, staggered boards. There's some sort of control mechanism. Your vote doesn't matter that much to begin with. That's one in four companies in the United States. This is the most supposed to be the Hub of democracy, and one in four companies are dictatorships, right? Like they're not Democratic at all. This is just the next logical step because you can't go backwards. One of the things and Lipton talks about all the time is once you've put out one share, one vote as your as a listing, you know, security, you can't go backwards and turn it into a dual class company and take away the vote. You can't legally, you can't legally. You actually would have to like, go private and re-list. Oh, you can't just change the the charter or the bylaws? That is one of the things. That all the listing agents that you're all the exchanges. You're not allowed to do. You can't just put out a second class of share, unless you did it initially. So this is the next best thing because all of these large cap, Mega cap. Us companies Blue Chip. You're School company is good point. Yeah. And they don't have the ability to be doing. I like this one actually because because as we've talked about several times, there is a bit of a contagion, a domino effect in governance over the last 20 years. Like from both sides like you know, the the classified board, the declassify board movement, really. Just it kind of started to steamroll like a domino effect of it. Sort of surprisingly, like, when a few Fortune 500 companies, did it eventually. That all of them were doing it because they didn't like the outlier, and I think you could be right about this. I think if a few of them get away with it, why wouldn't all the one share? One vote companies start to adopt. Well, here's some examples, right? I looked at the highest retail vote companies in the US like large cap companies. In the US Tesla is one of the largest at like 30 or 35% retail some estimates have as much as 40% retail. It's hard to know because The Insider plus institutional plus you know like shares International. Don't know. Sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what the vote share is. But let's say Tesla's roughly 35% retail Intel AT&T Exxon, Apple Pfizer all 30% or more retail. Right? What about like Microsoft, you know, Microsoft Microsoft, also roughly 25, 27, or 30%, retail, Verizon 25% retail. These are perfect candidates. Like, if you especially Apple Microsoft, honestly. I mean, honestly, if you're tech company and all the other terrible, they're all jealous class up my server jealous. Imagine being able to basically become partially dual-class by taking votes from retail investors who aren't voting them and don't care. Anyway, what else you got? So that was, that was my second one. I'll do one more because it's short. Okay. And then we'll go back to you because yours are longer yours like real. Like things I had this prediction companies where Executives are suggesting college degrees or Elite college degrees are stupid. Yeah. Do not stop, hiring largely from pools of people who have college degrees. Well, the class example of that is palantir, right? Because he also Alex carpet. Yeah, constantly railing against Elite. Colleges his entire board is Elite. He went to Elite conference. Do entire board went to Stanford with one person who went to do. Yeah. All of them went to Stanford, except East Coast Stanford. Yeah, honestly, what a bunch of. I'll do a couple more. This is one's kind of easy but I predicted a kind of a 100 percent variable pay CEO movement which is like this is kind of like the musk effect. I guess CEOs are not gonna start to get these Routinely get a billion dollar plus packages and they're going to use it this like, excuse that since it's all at risk. It's okay. Like that's gonna be, but I think we're, I think that's gonna start to steamroll. I think that's kind of obvious one. That's a perfect. I actually had almost the exact same one, I said, 25% of CEO. Payback is in the US moved to three year vesting. Pretend moonshot billion. Plus no clubs. No strings. Payback, and look. This and this is the same. This is the perfect like, metaphor for our society, in general. Because it's like if you if you don't care initially, Then other people are going to start doing it. You know what I mean? Just do it. They just yeah, they just do it. Okay, here's my next weird. One, I'm calling this, the rise of the corporate sovereignty zones, right? So cities. Yeah. So think that there's a there and I think it actually kind of isn't there already that kind of exists with it and I think you made this prediction last year actually about SpaceX and start the Starbase yeah Starship or Starbase they're gonna start paying their workers and script right? I think you actually about that. They do actually have a town now doesn't don't? They have a town in Texas Starbase and and like and so. So you know, script was the way they paid like railroad workers in the like late 1800s. Yeah, was that long ago. It was actual currency given by the railroad to spend in the town that the railroad created like it's so bizarre world. So based on these the movements of of kind of a Mega Man tality mixed with an Exxon mentality, which maybe you could call the sort of the same intelli, you know, where you're trying to just get like absolute control and power. I actually think we're gonna start to see this. We're gonna see a model like this, the corporate Zone. Up, 99% likely in a poor red state. Of course, you would Target a poor red state, right? I'm thinking like West, Virginia Mississippi, and they're gonna create something, akin to, like a special Innovation District, right? Like a freedom technology District, just three Advanced Innovation Zone, whatever you want to call it an anti Dei Innovation Park. But but the idea here, is that inside these zones, the company provides the police, they provide the utilities, they pay in script and really, this is like, a way of kind of blocking out the influence of like Progressive, governments, woke policies. Let the companies take control of this. Let the let the companies like police their own, their own little land. This didn't he have a sort of a similar, they've had a lot of companies have had like, kind of thing. We Kee Wing relationships. Sports teams have a lot of these winky wink relationships with cities and so, I think actually, we're going to see a rise of the corporate sovereignty zone. I'm calling. Okay, wow, yeah, I like it is a little going out on a limb here with my ghost sport, like corporate. Sorry, I'm still trying to pinpoint like the decade that make America great again is referring to because This is the 19th century. Like the, you're talking about the 19th. Steadily 20th century, probably right before the Civil War. The probably sucks for everyone. That wasn't a rich oil Baron or railroad baron. Right? Like, wasn't the point where a Rockefeller, it sucks. Yeah, I mean you started off the year being obsessed with the Gilded Age, right? Look at parallels and we're not, I mean it's real, we're on that track, we're on that track. But but sometimes I think we want to go back to like 1955 like you know like the you know the standard man runs the households, you know, woman stays homes and cook. Sometimes I think we want to go back to like 1984 where it was like a lot more cocaine and oh no big Wall Street money. But Reagan was almost like cool boys to the current polls. I mean, I just can't tell I'm just trying to figure out what decade we are in, 1890, are we in 1980? I don't know. I don't know. I want me to one more. You want to take over for a while? Let me do. Yeah. Quick in a row. Ready? Well, three, quick In a row because we already covered the CEO Pay. Here's a here's a specific prediction. J-hope will not be voted off the Netflix board. That's my prediction. You know what can I can I jump on that since I asked to have a j-hope prediction. Yeah yeah I actually have something called the j-hope effect. which is that companies will, and this is part of my like Grand Theories this year that we're we're gonna start to pull back and disclosure in general and the companies. I mean, it's it aligns with your retail voting prediction, right? It's all the same theories, same movement but the J hog effect. Where companies start to exclude data like attendance data from their proxy statement. Yeah, right there you go because that's the way to handle this, right? Like why tell investors at all? It look, j-hope should be off the board of Netflix. Absolutely three the twice you should be on and it's it's it's borderline sickening from a, from a corporate governance perspective that he's still on that board. So Netflix tells Harold after they vote him off, they tell him it's in the best interest of shareholders. We're going to keep them on. So, to just eliminate these problems in the first place, I'm calling at the j-hope affect the companies are gonna. They're gonna stop telling you shit that they think will be annoyed by, like attendance. Like what, why tell anyone that j-hope missed a few meetings. Forget it like that's under your business like so. Well, according to the SEC, would have to change the rule. I mean it doesn't seem that like easy this SCC would change that rule. Yeah, the I think this is I think I think we're coalescing on One Core theme which is that companies are 100% reclaiming as much possible as much as they can without anyone noticing as possible because without resistance, I don't know, the resistance going to have to come from like a very strong ESG industry. It's gonna have to come from a very like, robust vote, no campaign. It's gonna have to come from something, but they're not seeing it yet. So why not keep going. Why not? Keep going. The irony is one of the big three has to become a source of resistance it because BlackRock States Street and in Vanguard owns so many. So such a large percentage of every company but you could have companies like the MSI. Msci type Captain. Remember back in the day I remember being pissed off about snap, they allowed. Yeah yeah they okay I forget the history here so maybe I'm wrong about this snap you with with no voting shares to the Like none. No voting. They were the first company and I think msci still included them on. Indexes, right? So what msci did is at the time, they went to all their investors and are all of their bunch of their clients, their big clients which are index clients and they should have gone on vacations. They had consultations asking whether or not this was actually a tradable security, right? Like the questions to include a company on an index and what msci does is they go out and they look not at the attributes of the company per se, they look at, what's the volume, the trading, mechanisms in that exchange? And whether that's security is, you can buy and sell it freely, right? Like whether there's limitations on buying and selling. So what they said was is they had to ask their clients is the vote. Is the right to vote like a necessary piece of it being considered a security and indexable, right? And their clients said, no, it could be right and that's that was a big that was the beginning of the end and that was the beginning of the end because then like Emma, msci's take was okay. Well you can trade that security, it meets all the technical requirements and the necessary requirements. We will create a separate index for somebody's interested in governance, characteristics of a security to make it indexable that will just call that was index and that, and no one bought the government six index, they shut them well, and that four Shadow. The actions of the state treats in black rocks these days now because instead of like making like strong decisions based on convictions and not going to your clients, they kind of they changed the game, right? They're like, well, you know, well, we'll let you do this. Well, let you do that we won't, we won't have a say in anything, we're not, we don't exist. We're just here to help to make money. So you're saying you're saying like Cia's idea of sending like a MailChimp email survey to their clients saying, like, hey man, what do you think about non-voting, shares? Gets, yeah. When people ignore that, you know, that that isn't an effective way to actually figure out what's the right thing to do. Yeah, it's like glass Lewis now which is saying like yeah, like like well we know here are 13 options that all reflect, you know, let's move on. All right. So um here so keep going, I hope will not be voted off Netflix right next next in the absence of Engagement or precatory proposals or any other shareholder rights as they basically get taken away by anything. Anyway, there's only one thing left for shareholders to do in 2026 and that is vote. No, direct your campaigns and I'm saying that I'm saying that in 2026. We are going to see a massive rise. I hope, you're on activist. I hope it's not activists. I'm sick of these actions funds institutional investors with Less than 5% of the company. Basically not 13. G filers not 13 G file is not activist investors. You know what? Irritates me the most about paints about the activists is, like, look, I applaud activists for actually getting no votes on directors, but but they should be like telling the rest of the investor class, like, you don't have to stop here. Like, you don't have to only vote when we come around like, like, you know, use some of our guiding principles. Like this isn't a healthy part of the investor democracy, but they just sort of, I don't know. They're, they're very like, on an island these activists, right? Like, they're there for themselves, they're very self-serving. Anyway, I hope you're right about that one. Well, like the the number I put to it because really what I'm saying here is that we will see a 150% increase in exempts solicitation filings and they'll all be vote, no vote, no, on directors, and anything else. Last one in my will happen in 2026. At least 10% of us. Large cap companies will have ai board advisors boss. Yeah Bots specifically designed with governance law and and corporate law and Securities Law built into the AI bot where the the board subscribes to a service where they have an AI board advisor that they ask questions of sure. A 10% of us companies doing that, let me do that 2020. Let me do one of my AI ones. Then I I think that this is the year that so last year was the year of like bulshit retention packages going to executive's where just out of nowhere. You know, it's just like, oh, here's some more money, just keep doing your job. You know, we saw that specially in the banking, right? And finance, but we saw many more places than that. I think this is the year. We start to see companies tie, massive, Neo bonuses, CEO bonuses to to things like AI adoption speed. Like, but my point here being that there, it's completely discretionary, it's completely unmeasurable because you can make up anything when it comes to, like, what you are and aren't doing with AI. And I mean, really, it's like a wild west of nonsense. So I I think it'll start in Big Data but then I think it'll go everywhere. I think it just gonna be another way of increasing these. Like, discretionary bonuses to see you just like made up nonsense. So well, I'm I'll piggyback because I had in my seams absurd but entirely possible category. I add a US board, pays a retention bonus. Worth 20 million dollars in options due to the threat of trump admin. Intervention, because the CEO is closed with the administration. They need to retain them to avoid Trump, like intervention. Yeah, I'm with you on that one, too. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna go, like, randomly on mine. Because I let me do my last AI one, Elon Musk formerly steps back from day to day operation to Tesla, but he calls it. An AI enabled leadership leverage and not a full resignation. And thus, you can get his money, he keeps his full pay package, he full board approval, but he does some stupid hokey, like, AI is kind of in charge where that smart here. We know what the hell we're doing. I'm not the CEO, but I'm just, but I kind of still am. It's gonna be some nonsense. Some theater, some Middle School theater. That's gonna happen over there, Tesla. So we'll see God, I could believe that. All right, here's my could happen. A mass labor movement in the United States. Oh, please are we, we predict this every year? Like no. But here's hoping hoping. Go ahead here this year, we have real pressure, I feel like in past years. We we predicted it but there wasn't real pressure. This year, we covered a story where there was a headline that CEOs were talking about layoffs as a badge of honor. Do you remember that? Yes that headline. Well because to my point about this AI adoption speed, bonus for exactly. It makes you look like, you know, a thing like like, yeah, like you're using technology for a thing, right? Like even though you know idea what you're doing, you have no idea why and why we're random CEO who has a an MBA from Wharton, you know, who's in the manufacturer sector? Why would this random dude know anything about using AI for his? Because they can get 20 million by saying right now? Right? No. Anything go ahead. So you have an absolute bonan CEO pay. You have Explosion of AI billionaires, right? Like and by explosion, I mean, like, you know, these 25 year old College Drive billionaires on paper, right? You have an increase over the past year of AI. Took your job stories. They're everywhere like AI displacing workers, and you have maybe ice. Can we get ice? Get rid of AI focusing on brownies illegal immigrant, isn't it? We do that here. Yeah. And there's been an attempt to basically Crush labor rights right? Like, you know, they're actively seeking to deregulate labor rights. Yes, I I'm pretty that there's the first violent confrontation between employees and a corporation. What kind of a company you think, what? Kind of worker? I think it's actually going to be the least likely Place Tech or find violent interaction technology. I'm not joking. Look, I think we've been saying this forever. Like, what are office workers, Tech workers? Specifically, what the hell are they waiting for? Like, Because there's been so much labor movement going, maybe we could, maybe you could get some of their, their Red State, you know, manufacturing type jobs to piggyback on that. But unlike in the, you know, manufacturing sector there is a there's just a Mass dump of its all your fault employee headlines. Right? Like where it's like working from home is horrible, you don't work that hard. As I say to your point that Jamie Diamond is like he's blaming you for something, he's mocking you for something mocking. He's digging things. He's telling you know, boss losers. And meanwhile, you have Collective Strength that you, if you on mass, he needs all of you. I mean, I mean, there's even stories where it's like, we are firing the employees and it's their fault. That was firing them right? Like like there was a story earlier this year about, you know, people laid off from the US government because of Doge and they, well, like there was A disappoint a corporate CEO is disappointed because they were not shopping as much but like it's it's literally like, it's always your fault and what's all coalesce is on the employees. I think we're looking at widespread strikes and I think it's going to be fucking finance and I hope you're right. I know, you're not right. I think one of them is going to escalate into a confrontation, okay? Yeah. I mean the worst part of last year was this the using the fake meritocracy as a reason to lay off like underperforming people yet, they would never disclose what they determined where high-performing employees, what the meritocracy represented. I mean, none of that. My next Could Happen eviction is the anti-woke, you know, the anti woke ESG or anti-esg filers and stuff like that, they actually go. Whoa, and the way they go oak is they realize how much data they don't have to be anti-woke. They know, they literally need to start asking. Hey guys, for all this data, dude, I know they're only dudes it your movement needs data like, like if I think now, it's time to prove, you get a rant against Dei hirings. You can have blame DUI, you can blame women and people of color, you got. It's time to prove. You gotta show me the maritime, what does it mean to you? Because I don't know what world that you System. But you go to a college campus these days where people are being educated, the women are saying the smart things. And the Dopey guys are not and their classrooms, I don't know where you're getting this women there. Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about lately. Yeah, like, all right, here's another. One could happen at least one large company announces. It will no longer produce any employee metrics at all, not account, of employees. The names of existence goes back to your ghosts. Yeah, yeah, go. This is your ghost governance movement, right? Like we're yeah, a turn away from disclosure, but they all have sections about their employees on their website. Like, what it's like to work here, careers here, like you know what, even if they pivoted off of calling a Dei, they have sections about like you know, our culture or whatever. Take them all down. One company is going to take it all down and I think it's going to be palantir and they're gonna say it's a, it's a privilege to work here. You don't know anything else like that. Like a lot of my, my Ideas for this ghost board movement. This, this this rise of a corporate sovereignty Zone. It does actually stem from a palantir type of company. Absolutely. Yeah. And the insanity there, let me do a few because I feel like they're, they're kind of similar to what you just said. I predicting the death that the public annual meeting. That's almost here. It's almost here, right? So here, so after 2025, they're realizing that shareholders are knowing you know and Cheryl's are annoying so that so they're gonna event. So they're gonna first they're gonna caught a five mandatory virtual only meetings. And then they're going to use things like AI moderators to pre-screen questions, and make sure that they're civil no relevant. So they're basically going to eliminate, they're already doing all over and then they're gonna, they're gonna have to be like ownership thresholds. Like if you you gotta own like at least a million dollars of shares, kind of like they're doing with like citizenship like you kind of have to be rich to get to get visas. Now, you can have to, you got to be rich enough to talk at these meetings. This is all going to be codified. Like, you can't just be a impoverished, none from the Streets of Philadelphia, right? Like you got a, you got to be rich to have a voice. I don't understand why they want to get rid of. Like the like Berkshire, Hathaway, there's no way events know people like the anti-wolf and you if we have any anti-work listeners. I know, you know, this in your heart. You're still your snowflakes, you're triggered by like everything. You can't handle scrutiny. You can't. You can't handle data. You can't handle Scruton. You can't handle like other voices, like Just the Way It Is. Well know, is that like they were like parties, the annual meetings were like, you know, it was like an event, like, I don't know. You get rid of a pile. I only have two more. So I'll you want to go for a little while. Then I'll do my, I'll do one and then you can finish because my last section is absurd. Anyway, my last one that could happen, go ahead. And this is basically your prediction from last year. But it's it's specific with Oracle pioneering. The Cove. Vice chair. Yeah. Oracle went Coke crazy last year so they have an executive chair, which is Larry Ellison. They have Cove Vice chairs on the board and we still is yeah and they have cos CEOs, they're sorry, co-executive Vice chairs and Co CEOs, these are it's five Executives really? What they have is Larry Ellison, that's what they have. And Target pioneering the underperforming executive chair. Like there's this rise in underperforming executive chairs. These are just people just got, they're not the founder. They're not dual class. They're not like special. In fact demonstrably like targets, Brian Cornell underperformed. Yeah. In his tenure and they still somehow were like you should stick around. I mean, he didn't share of this company, who knows where it'll end up. He's basically ruined the brand at this point. I mean, like, I don't go to Target a lot. Yeah, I mean, no one does left and right, and that's in his tenure. Yeah. I think we see the first round of the executive chairs where the new Xcel, so co-executive chairs, okay. With the new Xeo, joined the old on the board for an extended duration to your point because only because I have one about chairs. I want to just let me just add one of mine. I actually think that like Europe, we're gonna see. Board chairs in America. And and maybe this is took like to hide the CEO. Maybe this is because a lot of chairs are the former CEO, but I think we're increasingly going to see them becoming the primary public voice on operational, government issues in the US kind of like in your instead of CEOs. I'll just CEOs hide and and one of the reasons for this is I think we're going to see a significant, a massive increase in chair pay. Massive. Okay, sure pay. And this is just one of the reasons why one of the excuses. Why? And and I also think that after that happened, we'll see a massive increase in direct your pay and one of the and some of the excuses will be because of the the heightened complexity and all the security issues and Ai. And I just think this is the area where the kind of waiting to increase pay, right? Like like the the directors are going to want more the chairs. Oh, okay, so my absurd, but entirely possible. My number one absurd prediction was, it will be the first billion dollar option. PayPal package for a non-executive director. That's exactly what right? Exactly, because of complex the world is now and how you know like security issues. I can see it a seven year vesting zero money at risk for four minutes seven year option because again if you billion dollars, it all starts with the musk thing. Like if you if you don't, if you're not scrutinizing and not just musk, actually, we've we had several examples. Over the last year, that there have been massive votes against pay, but but not massive votes against the directors who create the pay plans like. So if you're not paying attention, if you're not holding people accountable, this is what happens in any democracy. You have to hold. I mean look, isn't this what happened for not whole holding Trump accountable for January 6. I mean, look, what's happening in this Administration? Why wouldn't he be doing the things that he's doing right now? So, you have a few more. I have one more. You want me to die and one, I'll end on my absurd ones because my last one is I think, and again, I think all of mine have a similar tone this year, but I think that large companies, a few large companies are going to actually stop using the word independent. I think we're gonna We're not gonna work. The concept of Independence is going to go away. Because I mean, you know, when you look at things like the Tesla board when and and I know in the government now already they you know the FCC chairs saying like, you know, they got rid of the concept of Independents and so I think companies are going to stop using the word independent and they're going to replace it with things like this. Director is highly experienced or highly objective or industry alive or deeply informed or some other nonsense but they're going to get a four again. Like without a strong SCC without a strong investor class without a strong. without strong ESG industry, you You companies. we don't like these terms, we Don't organize Us in this way anymore. We don't care what you think is independent. I mean, hey, musk is getting his pay package right after despite the fact that the chancellor in Delaware, tried to restrict it because the board wasn't independent. But they're saying, yeah, you know, he can have it. So I just think the reasoning for why you can have. It is also basically like well what's the point of taking it, right? It's not even a good reason. Yeah, well the good reason was that your board wasn't independent which which which which, you know, was against kind of the, the rules of the game here. But so I think that companies going to start stop using this concept of Independence. They're going to move away from it. I mean and that way like you know, the woke investors, the ESG investors, they'll have our harder time, even making determination of a defense without like free flow analytics data and stuff. Like yeah, tell them who's like so that's the show. Here's my last 2026 prediction. Yes. And they're pretty quick Myers pretty quickly. We had 4,000 predictions. Exxon will add quote, shareholder demands as a risk in their own like that doesn't seem absurd something simple. Yeah, like like they have a whole risk section, right? That's not already in there actually like that. Basically saying, like, Cheryl just gonna ask us stuff and there are risk. Our shareholders are a risk. And then last, here's my last prediction for 2026, JP Morgan, I don't know. If you saw the news, JP Morgan announced an AI proxy, voting robot They called you, this is Jamie Diamond. This is real. That is real. They cancel their subscription with glass Lewis and i s s. They are using AI instead to give them proxy advice internal, how to vote the cultural robot or, you know, I call it a robot, it's AI, if they called a proxy IQ and it's supposed to give them the advice on how to vote their proxies at JP Morgan. This is a Jamie Diamond joint. Okay, my prediction and this is real, that just that's already happened. That's in the news, you can look that up. That one's easy, my prediction that isn't real yet, but will be is JP Morgan's new AI proxy voting bot. Six starts in activist campaign seeking to vote out the Tesla board. That's my prediction. Why? Why would it Target the Tesla board? Because Tesla's board has already if you are AI. Oh what's that? Oh you're saying you're not saying that Jamie. You're not saying that Jamie program to do this with AI with its own sentence. Brain Consciousness, it like it. Realizes that like, how this is disgusting this board like what is this board is, is a horrible board and they're all billionaires off of this. They're your brother your friends like, look think about think about the reality of what, how AI works. You have to feed it. All the doctors situation AI comes up with a formulation and then it does something right? You can't, you tell it like you give a parameters, whatever you can set the parameter, like don't vote against any directors if you want to, but like, it's supposed to get proxy advice. My guess is JP Morgan. Basically just trains. It on all the documentation, all of their vote history, all of their policies and then lets it, spit out, their advice, the advice, the AI should give if it read the Tesla proxy, which the last few proxies have had the entirety of the Delaware Chancery courts decisions in them, like literally It's it's the court saying. This board is horrible, you know, the document, of course. So that everyone the investors are quote unquote, informed, not the investors, don't read the appendix and glasses and I is this don't care. What is the AI you? You don't tell it, like, don't read the appendix. The AI is more likely to say. You need to go activists on this board and remove the entire board declassify, it and vote them all out. That's my, that's the AI will actually be better at governance than ISS and glass Lewis will be at JP Morgan, that's my prediction. Oh, that's a lot. There's a lot of prediction. No one else is doing this so someone has to do it, right. Someone has to do it. Someone has to make you think. Somebody think a little bit about keep track of everything we just said because I want like fan mail saying maybe this was totally right. Should we do a prediction Zayn? Maybe this could be the Xenoverse prediction. This is the whole scene. Well, watch out for this next week, that's Damian is not relish to his mom. I am scared. We are free float. That was our annual prediction show. You know, we're getting better and better done with that. So, listen to the whole thing. Go, get the Zen. If you don't have the scene, subscribe to the scene, you can either go refill analytics like calm, you can put your email on that. You get free data and the scene. Or you could just go to free float dot LLC. This is a Zine page. You could read it there, you can subscribe there, whatever you can find it just find the scene all get the shareholder Primacy podcast. And and next week we're gonna have a proxy countdown. Oh, It's getting hot. It's getting warm in here until then good. Bye.