Tim Cook’s old new job, light socket crypto, permadirectors at Enphase, and 13G nanny state

Yeah. That's it. It's you're like looking at your phone when it turned on. live from your ESG chocolate chip cookies. That's it. Just ESG cookies. That's where we're at now. I I mean, I feel like the writers are getting I I feel like the writers are getting a bit lazy. Actually I think Glass Lewis and ISS are starting to sell cookies, I think, because they're having so many tr troubles like with the Trump administr right? Just unregulated Unregulated cookies? Wait wait for the conservative snowflakes to come down on unregulated cookie. Unopinated cookies. It's a business pants Friday show here at September 11th Studios featuring analyst Hull Matt Muscard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. On today's weekly wrap up, Tim Cook's fake farewell. An American CEO, not afraid of electric vehicles and wait for it. Light sockets. Yeah, Matt's gonna be talking about light sockets. There's actually a light socket company that what? That's me. Hey. Yeah Yeah. N not only is there a light socket company, I owned it. The dystopia is here if there's a light socket company. Our show today is being sponsored by Freeflow Analytics and Freeflowanalytics.com, the only platform measuring board power connections and performance for free. Now listen, if you're s if you're one of these the the people who's stupid enough not to go to freeflowanalytics.com, I don't I don't know how to I don't know what to do with you. Luck. Luck. Yeah, I don't know how to get through to you. Look, just go. Just go to the thing. There's news, there's data, there's audio, video, zines, there's so much. Actually, I will tell you one thing. If you are on freeflow analytics dot com with any regularity, what I'm going to tell you today will be redundant because it was already a commentary piece on Free Flow Analytics. So there's breaking news on there. It's breaking. How about this? The the the top dire according to the website, freeflowanalytics dot com, the top director in the news, no surprise is Mark Zuckerberg. But number three is someone named Warren Jensen. I don't even know who that is. Warren Jens but if I but if I click on it, he's he's from Dropbox. Hm. I mean maybe we should. Maybe we should know who that is. really? That's like a big deal company. That's a big company. I don't know. Yeah, let's do it. I love that. Feel patriotic. I don't know what's happening. Are you ready for story of the week? Let's start with let's start with the nerdy governance stories. Thank God. well g well that's like the theme of the show this today. Let's do it. No, well. Tim Cook could still out earn Apple's new CEO. Yeah. Remember the guy that all the headlines, Tim Cook is leaving, sad, he's giving speeches, he's he's shaking hands, kissing babies, he's cleaning diapers or whatever. he's so just so everyone's aware, he is no longer the CEO, comma, right? I mean or dot dot dot or something. It's not end of the story. Yeah, handing out golden things to Trump. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He is now the executive chair with a two million dollar salary, forty five million dollars in annual equity. he has basically the same amount as the new CEO, John Turnus, and depending on how the stock market is, Tim Cook could out earn the CEO, but essentially it's the same amount. So there you go. That there there's the farewell. Look, worth saying in this moment, as like the the first thing that John Turnus got to do, like Tim Cook steps down and then ten seconds later, Apple announces and this happened like yesterday or two days ago. Apple Apple announces the folding iPhone. Yeah. Yeah, like a yeah. Yeah, there's been a folding like other phone for years, like Samsung. The the the most done thing that's that I mean it's we've had it since like twenty eighteen, haven't we? It's odd because it's called the iPhone Duo. It's odd because I thought people were trying to get away from tech. Aren't we trying to get smaller and it's massive. It's an iPad. Yeah. And and it's gigan it's like the size of a passport. It's like massive. It's it's like an iPad that full like so do you think that Tim Cook managed to sidestep the stupidest product launch and still guarantee that he's going to make almost as much as he would if he was the CEO? Isn't that the plan? That's what he did. Well, I think you just announced you just announced the perfect boomerang opportunity, right? John Turnis falls flat in his face. The the duo fails. he's Turnus is a hardware guy, so all of Turnus's hardware fails, and then Tim Cook just steps right back into the role of CEO. Done. That's why Tim Cook's nickname is Bob Iger. Did you know that his that's his nickname? Thank God he's there. Thank God he's there to save us. I thought it was yeah, I th he's Bob Iger was on the Nike board also at one point, and the Tim Tim Cook is there now. So it's close, close ties. With Tim Cook. Alright, let's move on. Volkswagen Supervisory Board approves plan to essentially to reduce workforce workforce by a hundred thousand, closing four factories in Germany and eliminate a hundred thousand jobs. the only reason why I'm picking well, there's a few reasons why I'm picking this, because this is that's big. A hundred thousand jobs. It's massive. one of the things this car company is doing, oddly, I keep reading, is like they keep That's that's a lot. That's a lot. suspending electric vehicles they're selling. They keep they they keep giving up on them. I don't I don't really understand that. But here's why I I this is a such a nerdy pick for me and I'm I apologize. But here's why I picked this one because they actually told us something. What'd they tell us? On July ninth, the CEO Oliver Bloom initially put this plan in front of the board and he lost twelve votes against seven. So th i he you know, they they're like, No, we're not gonna fire a hundred thousand good German workers. How dare you? And then up September third, a few months later, after I guess Oliver Bloom like, you know, I I I don't know what he was doing. Was he like sprinkling pencil shavings in their eyeballs or he was like torturing them or something? Wow. Yeah. Now it's a unanimous vote from the board. But I'm just we don't get this in America. We don't get this in the US. They don't tell us anything. They don't tell us board votes. They don't tell us failed votes. They don't tell us anything. So I'm just applauding the disclosure. Mostly pencil shaving related, yeah. Yeah. Well, okay, so this is a disclosure related news of the week. how but how does this like don't they have unions? Like the supervisory board isn't the union, like does that count? Like how does it work? Yeah. Yeah. Well, oddly enough oddly enough in Germany half the board is employee representatives, right? On the board. So they also agreed unanimously. So then this th this is happening, right? The employees are like you know, it's part of the pac like this happens. I j I Maybe that's what hap maybe what happened was that th the seven the the people against it were the employee representatives and then they were assured over time that their jobs are safe. So they were like, Okay, screw, I never liked Doug or w what's the German for Doug? Like d Doug? All right, we better I think it's time to move on. Yeah. Doug. I hate Doug. Dug I I I like though in the in in in the announcement, if we're going to celebrate the disclosure, in the announcement, VW announced that they will prioritize, quote, the most compelling vehicles. You mean like like like deep, profound prose or like what are they doing? Like I I just like the idea that they were like, you know, we were busy like working on really uncompelling vehicles. Vehicles nobody wanted, no that weren't interesting, they weren't deep, they had no meaning. Appelling. Yeah, I think one model is gonna narrate from the from the second person perspective. That's gonna be cool. All right, I don't yeah, I don't know about any of that. CEO next story CEOs and pop culture. How about this one? All of this landed this week. Again, up our wheelhouse. Three movies coming out. Just they're just being talked about this week. The first one in no particular order, once again. The new trailer for the open AI movie imagines. Yeah. I don't know where that's going. Okay. Okay, I hate this. What Sam Altman's stash of guns and gold looks like. I didn't know he had a lot of guns. I mean the gold, yeah, but dude has guns. He's a prepper. He's a libertarian, right? Yeah, probably they're all preppers. As soon as you hit a certain amount of money, you become a prepper, guaranteed. They have Yeah, they have actual man caves. They don't have like a basement with a T V in it. They have like actual built out caves, right? Like Yes. Yeah. Perfect segue. Perfect segue, I should say. S the you know who's playing Sam Altman? It's the guy who used to play Spider Man, Andrew Garfield. That's that's a true story. Yeah. Yeah. The yeah, yeah. Like bat caves. Yeah. There there's like there's literally there's two types of prepper, right? He plays Sam Altman? I d I don't w you know what? Here's the problem with this. I don't want to see a Sam Altman movie right now. I have no interest. I it's it's happening now. Can I watch the guy? Like I w I'm more worried about surviving to twenty fifty than watching a movie about a guy who's going to kill us by twenty fifty. Yeah. I'll end up seeing it. That's true. the next one, Elizabeth Holmes secret documentary revealed after she invited a film crew thirty four days before prison. So this is a subject of the A twenty four documentary. A twenty four one of the the the one is it it's owned by Amazon? so that's a that's a shame. It they must have bought it after it was good, right? There's no way they developed A twenty four. Amazon, yeah. Bezos. Yeah, Bezos. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I I I th I'm pretty sure that's Amazon, isn't it? They must have purchased it. directed by satirist Nathan Fielder. So I don't know if any if anyone's seen Nathan Fielder's work. It's it's just surreal. It's it's it's it's it's sat it's surreal satire. That's all I can say. It it's amazing. He's a he's an amazing dude. Thank God. You you really that was crushing because A twenty four is really one of the I mean th they Well I'm wrong. It's not it's not Amazon. It's not. They are independent. Yeah. I'm wrong. They put out so much good film. They're like the only one in America who's like takes seems to take film seriously. But we're getting off the the point here. this was this is a surprise. No one knew this was coming. and I and I guess what they're saying about it is that the they're saying that Elizabeth Holmes' greatest invention is herself, Elizabeth Holmes. It's the cre it's the character she created to become the CEO of Theranos. It's gonna be a wild movie, is all I can think. It's gonna be wild. Are we though? So I so did you see the trailer? Okay, you have you you have to watch the trailer, okay? So the it is deeply unsettling. No. I don't I don't I don't see trailers. Okay? Okay. Y well that okay, but I to be fair, everything Nathan Fielder does is a bit unsettling. But Elizabeth Holmes herself No no no no no. Nathan Fielder is not unsettling. Elizabeth Holmes is deeply unsettling. Yeah. It's and remember, people, this is why this is important for our universe. There was a board of of of probably people still in our database who okayed everything she did. These weren't like little these weren't like her this wasn't like her sister Kimball Musk. This was like a lot of you know, normal big time like George Schultz. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there are people still aboard, yeah. Yeah. Like huge political people, yeah, big politicals. Politicos. And they just okayed everything because they had founder CEO fetish, like everyone else seems to do. Anyway, that's one more CEO in pop culture, which you're also gonna hate. The headline is Elon Musk's Worst Nightmare Just Dropped. Explosive teaser takes aim at the billionaire. Now, this is from the guy who made Enron the smartest guys in the room. That's Alex Gibney. And let's just say that he doesn't hold any. Punches. Let's just that that's that's the feeling I'm getting. He's he's going for. He's really exposing Elon for being essentially chaotic, cruel and selfish, fascist, un an unflinching look at Earth's most unchecked man, which Well that mirrors our point about Elon Musk and all these CEOs is that there's no proper checks and balances put in place, right? So this is I love it. Unchecked man, I like that. Of course not, yeah. So Alex Gibney, clearly a show, a fan of business pants. You have anything you have anything else to say about this category? Can I move on? Okay. And the fourth story of the week, I tried to avoid this, but I mean this I don't know. This has to be it's massive. I'm gonna try to go on this quickly. I you know, I can't help it. I try to capture what's actually being published in the business press, and it's clearly this story. Let's just start with the overall heading. No, I don't want to talk about this category ever again. The fourth your fourth story is seventy three stories. The AI warnings are coming from inside the lab. So I'm gonna go quickly. You can turn your headphones off. Anthropic wants governments to stop catastrophic AI models before they are deployed. OpenAI chief scientist warns AI is beating humans at key tasks. No one is prepared. OpenAI's chief scientist warned AI labs aren't ready to keep scaling safely. AI researcher claims he resigned from anthropic. I don't like this. Over threat to the human race. he says that open I and anthropic are gambling with our lives. And here's the here's a kicker on this whistleblower. He actually gave up his equity. He he left the company before his equity vested. This is how scared he is. No one gives up their equity, Matt. Nobody. This guy's scared. anthropic researcher says AI has more than 10% chance of killing all humans. No, he would have been a he would have been a millionaire. Yeah. Open AI's rogue AI agents were secretly spreading across I I I don't know if I could should I keep going or should I shut up? I mean it's all of this nature. How about this one? how about this one? open AI researcher claims humanity will be placed in zoos for scientific purposes and chilling warning. Paul Tudor Jones, the hedgephone hun hun owner, said the AI is like a category six hurricane and that AI may become the third world superpower. Is there any good news? Can you give me something good? That seems like that seems like an under that seems like an y he's underestimating. Is there anything I should what w I wanna be happy? Okay. How about this one before Okay, one more before I get before I try to cheer you up? This one's right up our wheelhouse, too. Anthropic built a secret operation to monitor protests and threats around its executives. They they built a surveillance system to spy on anti-AI activists and predictor activities. Yes, of course. Now, what I want to know is we talk a lot of crap about AI. Do we get to be included? Are they watching me? Did they use AI for it? That's that the Come on. Like make my coffee in the morning? I hope so. I'm excited for the amount I swear at Claude Code, I'm really excited for it to turn on me. Yeah. Alright. I'm gonna try to turn this doom around. I I created a a silver lining game for you. Maybe maybe there's a silver lining to game to all this. This has been a horrible week of head another horrible week of headphone headlines. So this is I'm calling this the yay or nay speed round. Tell me if it's a yay, like it's a good thing or nay, it's not a good thing. Open AI adds a Really, really bad. Yeah. Prominent AI doomer to its board of directors. His name is Paul Cristiano. Now he's focused on keeping AI systems aligned with human interests and under human control. He's being added to the open AI board. Does this matter? Yay or nay? AI workers who publicly quit, like what like this. Yeah, go ahead. They did. And they tried to fire, they did, they did fire Sam Altman. They did. They actually, he was fired for two days. No, nay. Doesn't matter. They look wait, they had two AI and they fired them. They had people who looked at what was happening, said there's a sociopath running this company and he's going to destroy humanity with the product of this company. We need to fire him because he's a big fat liar. And they still fired like fired them. I I yeah, I I I I'm just saying, they fired the two directors who actually cared about this. think I think Anthropic just just killed your internet feed. Yeah. Well now we have we got rid of those two women. Now we have Paul. So but you're saying nay. AI okay, the next one. Yay or nay, silver lining speed game. AI workers who publicly quit. This is according to research. like this anthropic guy. I already forgot his name. I shouldn't forget his name. his name is I I forget. AI workers who publicly quit help to move the needle with safety concerns. So they're saying this is actually this is working. I that Good. Fire him next. Heh. People are starting to take notice. Yeah or nay, this is silver line. Is this good? No, this is good because it's my feeling about Facebook, Meta, Zuck properties. You should all quit. When you work for a company that is destroying humanity and you know it, what are you doing there? You have traded your salary individually for the benefit of humanity. That's it. That's the trade. His name is Jacob Coxon. That's his name. so that's a nay. It sounds like a nay? Yay. good. I I like a yay. this is the headline. I coach executives. AI makes their emotional intelligence more valuable. Is that a is that a silver lining? That's it no, that's a yay. I like that. I like that. Nay. No. Nay. They're all sociopaths. There's a book about how they're sociopaths. Go Google how about this one? Google AI helps cut contrail climate warming forty percent in latest trial. Yeah. I see a lot of them. I because a lot of these a lot of the the flights that have JFK and Logan going to Europe fly right over my state, right over Portland. Yep. So codrails are those things behind airplanes that you see in the sky. Can we be honest about how much climate change we are saving by cutting contrails on a few planes? Forty percent of the contrails, not the climate change, nay. Well, forty percent, I guess. Yeah, right. Yay or nay? okay. This is an interesting story that happened this week. Microsoft, as usual, the adult in the room. Microsoft and teachers unions forged a binding AI private privacy standard for US schools. This is brokered between Microsoft and the two unions who represent teachers. So b essentially protecting students from having their data fed into AI training and and a bunch of other things. You yay or nay on this one. Too lit too late, too little, too late. No, there's you're still you it's still no no, nay. I just f like nay. I mean it's fine it's fi it's good, but it's not the bigger picture that we're we have a problem with. All right. California enacted the first US laws requiring independent audits of AI systems. That might be something, but I doubt it has teeth. I'm gonna give it a yay for now. is that a Yay? Sam Altman told open AI staff the company was open to slowing AI development. Nay. Sam Altman will say anything to fucking get money or people to like him. Nay. How about this one? This is a guy. This is Anton Osika. He's the co-founder and CEO of Lovable. he's a Swedish guy. lovable CEO backs slowing AI development over safety concerns. Warnings like this deserve to be taken seriously. Yeah. Nay. And finally, Meta introduces Muse, a per a personal AI agent that can ready for this? Send emails. Guy no one's heard of says we should take se safety seriously. Nay. Definitely nay. It's a They're Book travel and pay for things. That's what the head says pay for things. All right, well I tried. I tried to I tried to lighten the mood. Alright, what's your Well s you know? Na nay nay nay. I the last one you did not try. I so so my options here are Tim Cook out earning John Turnus, Volkswagen cutting Volkswagen disclosing that they that something happened, CEOs being repped in pop culture, and AI doom. Those are Tim yeah, he's not leaving. Discloses something. Yeah, lots of movies coming out. Yeah, d well, coming from within now. Now we're getting a lot from anthropic and open AI itself, not just two schmucks who run a podcast named Business Pants. those are my options. That's what I have to choose from. I'm it's the AI doom. But but I I wish yeah, but I wish it was Tim Cook. I really wish it was Tim Cook. I mean Yeah, those are your options. That's your p choice? Really, I'm surprised. I say I would have picked Tim Cook. 'Cause we're the only ones brilliant enough to to tell people that he hasn't gone anywhere. Yeah, that's true. All right, let's do asshole. All right, Goodlius, goodlias. All right. Can we do something good? I'm so tired from that first segment. Alright. No, good lius, come on, how dare you? You go first. Light in the mood. I'll give one, then you give one. coal to solar project lands a rare clean energy win in Ohio. GM CEO Mary Berra is unfazed by electric sh slowdown. We still think EVs are the end game. That's her quote. How about GM CEO Mary Barrows unfazed by the electric slowdown? We still think EVs are the endgame. I also chose that one. Hey, this is why I guess you need diversity and leadership, right? 'Cause they're not afraid. Look, th what I can't quite wrap my brain around is that like eight months ago, every headline was about how GM and every other car company was going to cut back on EVs. GM just took a one point six billion dollar charge on EVs. they like I don't totally understand. And yeah, I wish. I dunno, I don't wish. I wish Tesla didn't have superchargers. They fired the staff that made them. I I Is that a s a s at a Tesla supercharger? Yeah. They did. I wish I could understand what Mary Barra is doing here because if she's saying that the future is EV, then why is she not building more of them? How is it not? There might be something that comes after EV, but I'll tell you right now the immediate future is clearly EV. This is the immediate future. I'm just waiting for the one that like self propels using water droplets or something, have you? and then my final goodliest, Mayor Mamdani opens office of worker power. The new city agency intends to connect workers who want to unionize with resources and organizing contacts. believe it or not, this is like the first one in the country. I mean it's like I I don't know how this is I don't know how this is like a rare bird. I I I don't know how like how workers are not entitled to this information in the first place. But whatever. That's this is good news to me. the good news is EVs are the end game. That's that's the only one. That's the one I'm gonna go with. How good Goodliest is so short and now watch what Ass Holiest is gonna be. You ready for this? You ready for this? that's true. W in which I tell you most of the things that you s pick are not that good. All right. I basically ignored most of the news this week. Yeah, that's the I'll give that the winner fine. All right, let's move on. Well, this is your fault. This is your problem. We too have a whole show called The Good Game. Yeah, are are not good, yeah. Good. Someone has to ignore the news, other than everybody. And I mean like it's just exhausting being perpetually ti like listening to angry preteen man baby stories, right? Like I I why w why can't I I like America but not want it to be a middle school boy? Can I want it to be something else? so this is probably the wonkiest assholes of the week. here's so you don't love America anymore? You don't you you go you know move to Russia? Yeah. All right. Brace yourselves. here's what I'm gonna do. In fact, I I even tacked on a section at the end that was sort of a speed round assholes. I'm literally gonna delete the whole thing. I it doesn't it doesn't we're not even gonna go over it. All right, here's number one. Number one asshole. Universal safety products. This is a company. Trade the ticker they trade under is U U U. Here's what happens. I bought god. Yeah. That's that's the goodliest of the week. Do Universal Safety Products a long time ago, like three years ago. And I bought it as just a stock pick because I really like very simple things. Okay. I don't see a light socket as simple. I see it as like a way of killing me, but go ahead. Universal Safety Products literally makes electric sockets. You know the GFI sockets, the one that if they get water in it, they automatically turn off. Like they're w there are these sockets in your bathroom that if you splash water on them, they automatically turn off, so you can't light your house on fire. Isn't that a great idea? We've had it for twenty years, but it's great. Yeah. Sure, I'm gonna say yes. Yeah. So now there's a good idea. Why can't the wh why can't the tech bros come up with stuff like this? Why why are they busy okay, g I I I don't want to get off track. They make wall plates and bathroom fans and light switches. I I love a thing that's simple, that I can take apart and fix. Everyone needs it and every house has it. You know, even in Mark Zuckerberg's bunker, he has to turn on a light somehow. He probably doesn't just have clappers everywhere he goes. My guess is he's got some switches. And then in Ooh, I like bathroom fans. Because we can't have like basic nice things, everything has to be horrible. A crypto bro decided he could take this simple company that no one cared about that made light switches and electric sockets and turn it into a crypto company. Milton Alt the Third is his name. It sounds like a guy who struggled a lot in his life when you're Milton Alt the Third. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He bought 230,000 shares in the mar in like late 2024 in the open market. And he also borrowed shares from JLL, G JLA Realty, which is an actually real estate company. They a real estate developer. They owned part of the you know universal safety products because they actually used their light switches in developments and shit. So they owned a bunch. So Milton Alt manages to get over 8% of the shares. And he manages to con his way into a board seat. He gets an MOU from the company, a memorandum of understanding, in which he pledges to vote for the sale of one of their assets, but also gets two board seats and basically in exchange for his vote. By mid 2025, he is on the board of Universal Safety Products. He is the single largest shareholder, and he has forced the company to start a new subsidiary called Universal DeFi that generates altcoin. I am not making this up. And I know this because I owned the stock and got all of this like in the mail from them. Their annual report, their last annual report, Andrew Proxy said, used to say we make a bunch of outlets and now we. Huh? Stop. you know, we are making some altcoin. here is what it actually says in the last annual report. Quote, We marketed a line, this is what they do, as this is like their description of their business. We marketed a line of residential smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. We also market door chimes, ventilation products, ground fault circuit interrupters, and other electrical devices. We exhibit and sell our products at various trade shows, including the National Hardware show. Next paragraph. In July of 2025, we formed Universal DeFi LLC as a new venture to diversify the business and explore new paths for revenue and stockholder value. Universal DeFi is pursuing two lines of business. First, Universal DeFi is developing and intends to own and operate a tokenization platform, which has not yet commenced operations. That checks out. right. Yeah. okay. Tokenization is the process of representing ownership of real world or financial assets as digital tokens recorded on the blockchain. The platform will provide tech this th you're killing me. You're killing me with this. This makes the com trails reduction seem very important. Second, subsequent to the last fiscal year, Universal DeFi had acquired and commenced limited operations running licensed nodes and a validator on the Alt blockchain, as described as as in Milton Alt, his last name, as described under Alt Node Operations below. That is now. They made fucking light sockets. They The alt the alt blockchain as a p meaning his last name? my god. W Why can't these men just build statues of themselves and put it in a public park if they wanna be so known, so recognized? Alt blockchain. Yeah, go ahead. And here's why I bring it up. Because it's not enough that Milton Alt goes and buys a bunch of shares and makes it impossible for us minority shareholders to get the thing I want, which is some fucking light sockets. That's literally what I wanted. Yeah, light socket. I yeah, one that shuts off, what'd you say, when it gets splashes water? Like that's that's cool. That's something to invest in. Yeah. I wanted carbon monoxide detectors and light sockets. That's what I that's all I wanted. And not only can I not get that anymore, but he actually forced the company to issue t through a special meeting to put to vote for shareholders the issuance of class B shares, which they never had and With I'm guessing they don't have one vote per share of these claims. 25 votes per share. The board can issue them, the company can issue them as they deem fit. They get issued. They can also issue they can issue options on those shares, right? Like so now Milton Alt can be paid himself as a board member because he also got the right And who and who gets them? Who my god. What is happening? This is all this this is happening in a light socket company? I don't understand. Everything is a game. D you know, he get he get he the the board keeps giving him the right to buy or get options. He immediately got the right to options with for class B shares. Twenty-five, it's the petty tyrant premium. Twenty-five votes per share. It wasn't good enough to get 10 even. We're we're we're already at twenty-five. And and then I get a phone call from a proxy solicitor because I own the shares, asking, How are you planning to vote on this? Yeah, ten is sad. What about just even two? Two votes per share seems like a lot. What'd you say? I told them I'm voting no on everything and tell Milton Alt to go fuck himself. I said that to the proxy solicitor and investors approved the issuance of class B shares in the bylaw amendment. No joke. Investors, what what on what on they made fucking light sockets? What on do you read anything? Do you not care about anything? I have to deal with Milton Alt. I immediately sold the shares. I sold them immediately. Ooh. Yeah. Well, you know, yeah, cash is king. So we gonna are we gonna flash forward five years from now in and this company what's it called? Universal safety proxy are we gonna read controversies how the light sockets aren't working as well as they used to because they're busy making altcoins or whatever, like Can you imagine can you imagine being the CEO of this company and being like, I I mean, I I I know how to make a light socket. What the hell do we do now? What the f what what what is our company? Well we remember now free now free flow analytics, there was a time when an investor wanted to invest in us and wanted us to like dig through the trash of executives to like gather data on them. No, it's true. So I can understand. that that sounds terrible. I don't like any of that. Yeah. Yeah. Like literally actually asked us to do that. Yeah. So universal safety products and Milton Alt number one. Number two, I told you these were wonky. These are pure governance. And here's the second one. N phase energy. I know that company, yeah. I mean, most people don't know any of these companies, but do your best to ignore N Phase Energy's absurd series of events that that that just happened. Okay? First, the longest tenured and class two director, Benjamin Cortlang, he's been a director since Obama was in office in his first term, along with three of his colleagues, come up for election this May at the annual meeting. Obviously, this is a classified board. This is like there's only three. God. Mm-hmm. Three directors at time that come up for elections. This one had the longest tenure director. Matt, annual reviews are scary. They don't want to be subjected to an annual review. Yeah. Like who wants that exactly? The elect the the election is not like unimportant because if Courtlang wins, he keeps his seat until 2029 before he sees another vote, right? Like it guarantees him a almost 20 year tenure at this company, where he's produced a mediocre 538 TSR and a not so great 348 CEO pay ratio. So he likes to pay the CEO and you don't get a lot of T SR for that pay. Sure. Okay. The vote happened on May 13th. The results are released on May 15th. And the AK shows Courtlane got forty three percent approval. Non majority for the sleepy, passive American proxy voters. So good for proxy voters weighing in. The other two actually they got. Wait, do we know why? Why did he get voted out? 'Cause he's the longest tenured director and they only get to vote on him every three years, right? Right. But how were they actually paying attention over there? We gotta understand what they're ordering from Doordash, yeah. I don't I don't know who like I my my guess is that everybody who voted against him uses free flow analytics data and they just saw like that's who we want to vote against all right the other two Jamie Hanji and Richard Mora they got 84 and 94 percent votes for respectively that guy right like it's not a statement about classified boards Sure, of course. So this is a clear clear statement against Courtling. Very clear. It wasn't a fat wasn't a big fat thumb on everything. It was a clear vote against Courting. So this was th there there's no there's no there's no doubt about it. Nobody wants this guy. Of course, this classified board is paired with plurality voting. No doubt about it. Right. You only need one vote to to win. So this is what they write in their plur plurality voting. So just just so you know like how plurality voting works, in their actual filing, they say the way plurality voting is whoever you're up against, you have to, you know, like say there's five directors that you're voting on and there's three board seats. It's whoever the top three vote getters gets. So it doesn't matter if they get a majority. So in the case of a pro in the p in the case of a proxy contest that would make sense, right? If the board if the size of the board is three and you're running against there's a pool of five, th the three with the most votes win. That makes sense. Does that ever happen at at American corporations? Yeah. Exactly. A slate. I except for end phase energy with a classified board, there's only three people up for election for three board seats. So all Courtlane needed was a vote. Yes, absolutely. You need a vote. And he probably owns a share, right? Could vote for himself. Yeah, so he definitely votes for himself. So so y I mean, already we're at we're at the place and he's also the chair of the nominating committee. So we're we're already in a place where it's like nobody wants this guy. I I gotta say already we're in Lululand. Like this is like like if you explained a regular democracy like this where people had twenty five votes per share and that that you get you get you don't get enough yes votes, but you you stay on the board like people would think you're crazy. Like yeah. People you're nuts. You're absolutely fucking nuts. And then after this, so there's no response from the company. These results are on May 15th. On June 11th, N FaZe announces they're increasing the size of the board to add a new class one director, Shankar Trevetti, who's added less than a month after the AGM and won't get a see an election until 2028 for the first time. So he Mm-hmm. Ooh, that's nice. So that's like two years of coasting. Wa unbelievable. You're an incumbent for two years before you get to see a single vote. Yeah. Like remember one of those hills when you were a kid where you where you could just coast forever in a nice summer day, you didn't have to pedal. It just like went on forever and ever. Yeah. I love those hills. it's so nice. You you could stop and get lemonade wherever you want. like so even as investors want court laying out, they want a director out. phase basically says we are going to give a different director immunity for two years. We're just gonna elect them and put them on the board for two years. So screw you. It takes N phase until August 10th, three full months from the AGM. Mm-hmm. To actually respond to the investor vote on Courtlang. And here is what they said. Well, it was summer. I mean they were probably busy like on the lake, so are you right? Well, I think they time it such that everyone else is away and no one reads the eight K. They said, quote, unan the board unanimously voted to retain Mr. Courtling as a member. and based this is based on the report of the nominating committee. Courtlang recused himself from that vote because he is the chair of the nominating committee. The nominating committee did a report and said we should keep him, and then they all unanimously voted and yada yada yada. they they Sure. Okay. Wow, good, good. Strong. Yep. Reject the vote, but they issue the following quote The board approached this review with great care and took the stockholder vote seriously, s said Steve Gomo, Chair of Enphase Energy's Board of Directors. Yeah. okay. So why are we upset if they took this seriously? Quote, we concluded that Mr. Cortlang's experience, judgment, independence, and contributions remain valuable to the board and the company. We also believe Mr. Malchau is well positioned to lead the nominating corporate governance committee. So they replaced Courtlang. He wasn't good enough to they they replaced him as the head of the nominating committee. They they they made a new guy the head of the nominating committee, and they said he they are continuing to strengthen their governance practices. So it's like a p is that like a punishment? So at this point, can we just stop with the gaslight that you care about the governance practices? That like you like, why even respond? That it's a plurality vote anyway. Like, what are we doing? He's he's not independent after 16 years. It like, and he's now guaranteed 19 years at the company unless he decides to step down. And you know who's on the governance committee that Issued the report that said we should keep Court Lang is a guy where one of the directors actually last year was voted out and Courtlang was on the same committee that voted to keep him in. So these are people who just keep themselves on the board in perpetuity. This is like what where is an investor saying, no, this is not a this is not you. I own the company, I'm the investor. Yeah, to make it better to yeah. I own the company. You work at my pleasure. I don't work at your pleasure. Like what the fuck is going on? This is supposed to be democracy. This is N phase energy, which manufactures batteries, right? Solar. This is why I was looking at it. Another company I wanted to buy, I was really into, wanted to buy, and then was like, what is this nonsense? E V chargers, yeah. And and this is how important I guess this guy the the two the thing that's interesting about this guy, Benjamin Courtling, is that he's been on the board for sixteen years. He's only fifty years old. This is very unusual in the corporate governance world. He started in his thirties and and in case you're wondering, well, you know, dudes he probably has a lot of industry experience. It's probably very his voice is probably very important on this board. He's Yeah, he's like f he's a baby. no, he's just he comes from venture capital. That's what he is. He's a venture capital dude. That's it. No expertise in anything except maybe making him rich self richer, his friends richer. I I don't know. Yeah that's it. That's it. That's it. That's the whole thing. That's it. I hate all of it. I hate all of it. They're all assholes. And and phase energy, just for the record, you know, I know you care deeply about the twelve dollars I was gonna spend on your stock, but like I will never buy your stock in until this is done. And I feel like every investor, every investor, not just Courtland, you need to get rid of classified board. You need to like it like I'm in it for democracy. I'm the owner. I wanna fucking own the thing. I'm not gambling. I can gamble on NFL games. Well, what what if they get rid of him? Yeah. Can I tell ya? I don't need you for gambling. That's I don't need that. You know the yeah, can I just tell you the two remarkable things about this story? One, well, three, 'cause I th that I care. That's the that's remarkable that I'm that I'm invested in this dumb story. two year three years ago, the stock price at N Face Energy was three hundred and twelve dollars. Today it's thirty six dollars. So what exactly are they holding on to here? I mean, this has been an utter collapse. The second thing is that the That's that is remarkable, yeah. The the terminology you're using, things like immunity, extra votes, this this literally comes from a show that I I love to watch with my daughter called Survivor. No, really, that's where pla the players get immunity for votes. That's where when a player gets an extra vote, people are shocked. Like that they're like, my god, he has an extra vote. Like this But you're telling me companies where they get twenty-five votes per share, where you get the job and no one votes on you for two years, where Yeah yeah. Yeah. Yeah, people are upset. Even if shareholders the majority of shareholders say they don't like you, you stay despite an utter collapse of the stock price and someone with absolutely no industry experience. I mean, this again, you wouldn't think this was real if we explained this system to you. It's I cannot for the life of me figure it out. And as somebody who wants to invest 'cause I think like Mary Barra thinks that EVs are the future and I think like, you know, I think everything's gonna be moving towards, you know, like sustainable electricity 'cause nobody wants to pay for Iran wars anymore. We d no like you ask a single person in the United States of America whether they're happy to pay for the Iran war and none of them are happy. None. Even the ones that back us in it. So f Love my EV, love my Subaru EV. Yeah. Love it. I want to invest in that future. I'm buying it to hold it for 10 years. And I now, when you go through the companies that are sort of positioned for that future, nine out of ten of them have a classified board, have dual class shares, are founder led. of course, because they're because this is the generation, because they're relatively new companies and the market is letting them all have founder fetish. I it's un and and like what are you fucking worried about? What is this victimhood that you're so worried about? What do you think is gonna happen if you have one share, one vote? As long as you don't go Elon Musk Nazi, you don't have much to worry about. Every director gets voted in. Well yeah, but what do you mean? He went Elon Musk went Elon Musk Nazi and he still gets voted. Hey okay are we done? D tell me you don't have more assholes. my god, what are you doing? Of course he does. So I'm done I I all right. I I have one more asshole. This one's this one's short and sweet though. Well shortish. Paul Atkins, the SEC chair Paul Atkins. my god. They just clarified thirteen G filings, which are passive investor filings. Those are the filings that when you go and you're you you have your, you know, retirement fund at Vanguard and you own an ETF that's just the market. Yeah, you love you love calling out Paul Atkins. That ETF files a 13 G. Like it's a filing that says we own a lot of shares of a lot of companies and and we we represent our our you know our beneficiaries, like you, the simple person with the with a share of that ETF. They SEC just clarified the rules. It's just such snowflake corporate nanny state. They just clarified air quotes the rules. And had riveting thoughts about what investors who are the owners of the company can now talk about with the companies. Cause you remember last maybe a year and a half ago, the SEC said, We are going to consider any questions about environmental and social issues to be active investing, not passive investing. Therefore, you need to do like twenty filings a day. You're gonna get swamped in paperwork. So all of the big, you know, asset managers said we can no longer a ask about like real risks, like flood risks and fire risks or shit like that anymore because the SEC says we're gonna have to, you know, file a lot of paperwork. Now they clarified again, investors can generally, this is what they said, investors can generally participate in discussions initiated by the issuer. so the company has to call you first. This is like the Yeah, I was gonna say what was that dance? The lady the the Sadie Hopkins dance, yeah. It's the bumble of corporate engagement. It's so fucking nuts. They have to swipe right on you or left on it. What I don't know. I never use that. We are doing everything we can to protect management at these corporations. Everything. They they have to ask you, otherwise the investor, the owner of the company is not allowed to ask you the question. The issuer must come to you and ask you first. Wow. You're making this a harder choice. I thought I had a clear winner. Alright, can we wrap this up? Or you have more. You have more. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. The SEC no, there's there's one there's two more things they said. The SEC went on to say that, quote, participation in those discussions will not by itself disqualify you as passive. So if they ask you why you voted a certain way, the company comes to you, investor, and says, Why'd you vote that way? You can engage them, but you have to be careful what you say. Okay. Like by itself, it doesn't disqualify you. And the last thing they said is and it just drove me, this fucking triggered me. Investors will be able to approach issuers to seek clarification about information if it's only if it's in company filings, including proxy materials, and they won't automatically lose 13 G status. Which so if a company is in the news my god. Yeah. Wait, so yeah. About how they laundered money for Nazis. Right, 'cause that wouldn't be disclosed like in a typical SEC filing. It is if it did not show up in an SEC filing, you could lose your thirteen G status if you asked the company about it. You are only allowed to ask the company about what they filed and said in a filing. That's it. I've I fucking hate them. All right. Those are my those are my three. Universal Safety Products and Milton Alt, and Phase Energy and Classified Boards, and SEC chair Paul Atkins. Wow. This is Wow. It's like a corporate nanny state. Yeah. Ooh, this is difficult. Well, these are all good triggers for me. you know I Yeah, I know, I know. You know I hate th this version of America where we've we've deviated from doing important things, let's just say, and now we're just figuring out made up ways to make money. for us for our for ourselves and for a few of our friends who are our fellow shareholders, right? So wonky. Nob I if there's anybody l still listening to this show, I'd be shocked. Y to avoid accountability and make as much as possible. so th so that the universal safety products is a definite trigger on that one. not to mention cheating the system by having twenty-five votes per share and blah, blah, blah, blah. And phase energy again, like just completely subverting the democracy, the shell of democracy. And nobody nobody really seems to care anymore. We just subvert the hell out of it. I mean, w again, we care about everything else in the world. We care about if if a if if if the second baseman like dove too soon, we care about if I hate it. Where is everyone? Anne Hathaway is cast in a movie, but we don't care about this, right? We talked for s for a full week in this country about the LA Rams o flying to Australia in a twenty four hour period instead of going early and adjusting to the time zone before their game with San Francisco in Australia. I saw a hundred headlines about that. Yeah. Right. And they didn't fly coach. They didn't fly coach. And then you have of course Paul Atkins who's just dismantling the shareholder democracy step brick by brick, which we n which we predicted, unfortunately. We knew this was gonna happen. yeah. Well, that's the way. But that's that's the way. So I all we can hope for is that if if the political winds swing back the other way, maybe we'll start to build those bricks back up. Although I I don't know if we will anymore. I don't know what's gonna happen. But the way he's doing it, the way he gaslights you and the like little bullshit, it's just I don't know. But I'm gonna go I'm gonna go right to N phase energy 'cause it 'cause it's a company that I too would want to invest in. And little triggers me more than not only a classified board, but a a a an invent a a a company that does everything it can to ignore the the the shareholders. I mean it's to protect a protect a venture capitalist too? I I don't even understand that one. But okay. Yeah. I look All right. Let's let's go on to headlines and winners and Actually we're actually making pretty good time despite your incredible wonky ass holiest. I moved quickly. I tried to move quickly. all right, headlines. I have a d a duo from one of our favorite blowhards out of Ireland. that's Ryanair, CEO Michael O'Leary. I I ha I had to include this because it was just a bizarre double headline. Like back to back or Yeah, they're just so jarring. E each headline is so jarring. One has kind of made me laugh and the other one made me cry. Ryanair CEO disputes Ryanair CEO disputes report that injured passenger was partly sucked out window. He sa Here's the quote. n I don't know how I feel about any of that. Here's a quote from from just after the AGM meeting. So again, like hats off to Europe. They actually get CEOs to say things. He he said he wasn't partially out the window. We don't think any part of his body got out the window, but he was certainly sucked in very dramatic circumstances towards the window. That is just a great I mean, what a beautiful quote. Do we have to that's what we're parsing? That's what we're parsing? Really? And then the second one is just you know, back to the bro culture of these these dopey men who run some of these companies. Here's the headline calls for Ryanair's Michael O'Leary to apologize over rapist comments. So again, around the the annual general meeting, the AGM, he said it was absolutely appropriate to compare other airlines to rapists. All right, so that's it. Not only that. Absolutely appropriate. It's gonna be So the thing about saying the word absolutely is it's really hard to back off of that. You c there's no like if you just said other airlines are like rapists, then you then you could apologize. But if you said they're absolutely it's absolutely appropriate for me to do that, that that's a very binary absolutely appropriate. I shouldn't laugh. Yeah. Absolutely appropriate. And believe me, he's and believe me, there are so many groups coming after him to apologize. He's not he's not gonna apologize. He he's I I don't have the I w I should have Free Flow Analytics open right now, but I I'm pretty sure his influence on the board is over fifty percent. He's I think he controls the company actually, but yeah. Those are He's not gonna apologize. I I I I'm trying not to look. Yeah. my headlineist. it does not it does not say he controls the board. He's got twenty three percent influence, but may maybe that's wrong. Those are my headlineist. What do you got? Okay. Well clearly he is the well no, I'm not saying it's wrong, but c he is the like the he he is the yeah, he's the macho man over there. Go ahead. He clearly is the guy. He's the he's it. I selected one of the headlines in the AI doomsday things, and it was this one. this one I thought like summed up my mental week. OpenAI's new safety hire says losing control of AI would be quote catastrophic and that quote most people could die. Now, does he mean most people like in a room of four people? Or does he mean on the planet Earth? I was unclear from the headline. I just I I I like that I like that he said most 'cause he like 'Cause 'cause in a rim of four that means three people are dying and that is scary. Like I don't like that. I don't Doesn't that like doesn't that leave room for some people won't die? Like That's true. That's good news. And I I'm I'm also thinking in terms of plurality voting and that that guy you brought up because that's a so a majority will die, but the minority survives, and that a minority vote gets directors elected at s I okay, that's not a good analogy, I don't think. I'm trying. anybody who gives up equity because they believe in a thing, that's that's the winner. And and specifically Who won the week? Wow, that with that's a small list. Specifically I'm talking about anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon who quit his job due to concerns about the safety of AI and told the world two months before his equity would have vested. I I it he actually did a thing. Actually did a thing. Well, does it count that at one point, like early on in in free float, I was offered a job by a pr a company that offered me a lot of equity and then they got bought out. They got bought out and I would have been an overnight multimillionaire. Actually, it's real. I got offered the job, they offered me equity, I and I turned them down for free float. I turned them down for whatever this is. Yeah. Was w what company was that? Yeah. I'm sorry you didn't take it. Yeah, you're a bit a you're a bit of a Jake you're you're a bit of a Jacob Jacob Coxan. Yeah, I like to think that I too should be celebrated for saving the world. You you are one of you're of a dying breed. You're you're a Gen X character who still believes that selling out is pure shit. Yeah, don't sell out, assholes. I my winner of the week is this is a little callback 'cause I like to I'm doing the thing that you did that you like to do. if most people could die, anyone not in most, any w the some. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We almost made to the end. We almost made to the end. The e the yeah, the internet swallow your joke. Give me that one again. So if most people could die, right, then the winner of the week is anyone not in most. It's the sum. Some win. right, exactly. So in my analogy, that room of four people, it's that survivor. The survivor wins. Yeah. That's that's dark, yeah. It's it's the guy, it's the one, it's Doug, yeah. Predictions. I have a throwback too. Back to the Apple story. Corporate governance wonks. I don't know who they are. Who are the corporate governance wonks? Like us, McRitchies, Nell Minnow, corporate governance wonks rename the CEO chair combo or the CEO and former CEO as chair combo, right? Because that's a thing, too, right? So we have a CEO who's also the chair. That's us, the governistas. Yeah, gov we're governistas, yeah. Yeah. And then we have companies like Apple with a CEO. There's a CEO and the former CEO is the chair. Governance Wonks rename that to be the CEO Duo. Right? I did a thing. CEO Duo. There you go. And former CEO. Yeah. Wow, that that's nice symmetry. I like that. That one was well thought out. That's a good symmetry right there. all right, here's mine. My prediction. I, Matt Muscarty, am among the most, not the sum. Okay so that's a that's a downer. Well, you know yeah, go ahead. Yeah. It's a downriver prediction. But I have to be honest with myself. I gotta be honest with myself. I'm not very good at doomsday prepping. I I I i there's no way I'm going to be in the sum. I'm definitely gonna be in the most. You probably have a handful of turkey jerky that'll last you like four hours. I yeah, I mean I barely last four hours. I'd be so hungry. I'm gonna eat the kids' share. That's all we got. That's Hazelnuts. Hazelnut Rollis. I'm your analyst on Matt Miss Cardi. We are Free Float. That's our Friday show. Come back next week when we have a full week of shows. go to freefloatanalytics.com. Just go. Sign up. It doesn't it takes like 30 seconds. You can spare the 30 seconds. And you can go look at Ryanair and the influence there. You can look at N phase energy, who we talked about. You can look at Apple and you could see Tim Cook and his basking glory at the top of that company. You could see all these things, they're all gonna be there or are there already. So go there and check it out. Until next week. Good. Bye.