Transcript
Okay. Yeah, I'm ready to kind of live from David Ellison's. Daddy sized fail, take over temper tantrum. Oh I don't want to be inside that. It's a business pants Friday show here at December 19th, featuring analyst whole mattress. Cardi. On today's weekly. Wrap-up? BP goes, both woke and anti-wolf. How'd they do it? Trucks. Go woke or maybe just truckers go woke. I don't know. Something something about that. And Sam Altman, says more pretends stuff. So, another uplifting show about the great state of corporate America and the world. Yeah, our show today, speaking of which is being sponsored by free-float and Ellis free full analytics.com, The only platform measuring board power connections performance for free. I love them now. We talked about this in our last show. They're working on something that they're calling right now, A scorecard. But I don't know if that's the right name for. But anyway, it's a it's kind of a new modern way of Presenting the data presenting a lot more data. Contextualizing, the data better. And I've noticing that a lot of the data I'm looking at on this yet to be released tool. Maybe people can buy the tool. They really want, I don't know, but it's, it's also a lot of the data is current more current, which means that we're going to get a big update. Soon of all the data I'm guessing, right? As soon as we can. Yes. So what is what they said. Yeah. It's real good. They added in a director vote predictor into the new like score cardi thing. That's cool stuff. Let's do the news though because you know, story of the week, I hate everything. Okay. Yeah, I hate everything. Very old-fashioned story of the weeks. Like he's just stories that happened. This big Classics stories, the first one. Out of BP, we've been God. We covered how many I feel like we cover CEO turnover at BP, every six months. So this is actually the fourth six years or something, right? Yes. So I don't know how any of these if there are board members have survived this entire tenure. I don't know how Because this is an embarrassment, and we just say that. The latest, but the latest is interesting twist. Although, here, this is what it takes to to find a to find companies willing to hire women who are extremely qualified. They're always qualified overqualified, usually takes this much amount of failure to put them on the glass Cliff, right? Because This is already kind of. A tenuous. I mean to be the fourth CEO and six years, it's already a dangerous but it takes this much failure. I'm saying for them for BP to hire the first ever woman leader of a big oil giant. Her name is I should know, this may go Neil Meg O'Neill. Again this buried in the headlines. May I go Neil she comes from Australian firm called Woodside energy. She replaces Murray, ocean clause. Who was in the role for less than two years. He? Murray replaced a guy who didn't disclose his relationship with a employee Looney. Bernie learning but a lot of this is wrapped up in the fact that is really about BP's pivot away from Green energy. Here. Is it about that though? I don't really know, but this is what this is. How they described her. She's a hard nose outsider Who has faced Fierce resistance from climate activists at Woodside, but she's come into BP to kind of do some manly oil and gas shit. Right? Because I want to talk about BP because BP is fascinating, do we have to? Okay, so again, so they're bringing in this real hard hard, nose oil lover or oil Drinker, gas guzzler, right. Sure because Something, I mean, I don't want to slow The Showdown Matt, but I don't really know what's changed in the last, like, four or five years to suggest a BP that we should completely pivot back to oil and gas. Like didn't Murray actually say that they had pivoted back to oil and gas already. Like, yes. But I'm just saying like, like, I don't really know what's happened in their world to suggest that they think that, like, they're not updated enough for or that, like they can't make money in renewal something else. I mean. Anyway, but let's just talk about, BP from a government perspective because they're kind of fasting. Unfortunately, they're British. So maybe they're bit of an outlier because non-us companies, sometimes there may be their that are put together that well it is nice to look at their board and see everybody with less than 10 years 10 year because that's the rule. So okay, so um and maybe this, okay? Let's just talk about what I found here. I even after Pamela Daly step down in July, she's direct her this board still currently has 43% female board influence, which is the white high. The, the interim CEO is a woman Carol, Howell the CFO Is a woman. I have her name a Kate Thompson. The new, the new CEO will be a woman there, the EVP customers and products as a woman, the Chief Human Resources officer. No surprise as a woman and then they also have two executive vice presidents who are men of color out of the eight. The team of leadership eight, people only two or white dudes. Yeah, board is female. Strong. It's a it's a pretty fascinating. Yes. Well right. I it's a maybe it's not woke because it's England because it's your I don't know but it's it's a kind of a fast nating oxymoron or going on over there baby but I will repeat that it took four CEOs and six years. Tons of strife tons of Market problems to even get to a woman to put her on this class. Cliff. So, who knows? I mean, maybe she'll last for a while, maybe she'll be, maybe we'll be reading the 5th CEO and seven years but this is what's going on at BP. You look like you about to say something. I have like there's nothing pithy here. I just like I'll come back to this. Okay, but I hate I hate that. We're celebrating the first woman who's the CEO of the of a major oil company and the conditions under which she's the CEO of the major oil company are basically. It's just an, it's a nightmare, right? Like it's like they can't find a CEO and they're the worst performing of the major oil companies and this is, you know, this is we're we have to celebrate it but it's like she's not only is the Meg O'Neill, eminently qualified like more than qualified but I wonder if they had found Megan O'Neill prior to Murray or the fact that Bernard Looney got acts for having a relationship that he wasn't supposed to have with one of his subordinates, right? Like would we be in this position at all? Like would we need to celebrate the first when it's clearly a glass Cliff? Yeah, this is why I'm okay with it in the sense that I might not agree with. Her. She's gonna do a BP. But hey, any female leadership that successful anywhere is fine with me, in the sense that hopefully people won't be so scared. But listen to this headline. BP woke agenda acts as it hires first female CEO and doubles down on fossil fuels. Now Wait, that's confusing. No. I don't, I thought all I thought all female hires these days were automatically. Dei automatically woke. I'm confusing one, right? That's yeah, I don't, I don't know, I don't know who's right on headlines anymore. Let's move on another classic story from big companies. Warner Brothers, Discovery board rejects rival, bid from Paramount. Autopress mostly because all, oh, media and big tech companies. Just get a ton of coverage. No, no. Particularly because there's a bunch of nepos involved. Yeah. I mean, this one is so Center, I didn't even know. I didn't even know how to paraphrase this story, but it looks like the board of directors at Warner Bros is, they're really into Netflix. Let's just say in part of the problem is is David Ellis and because he like, you know, he went there basically begging and pinky promising that my dad, he will. If anything goes wrong, my Daddy has the money so don't worry about it. I mean, and they, and Warner Brothers saying that. Yeah, yes. And Warner Brothers was like, actually, no, you're wrong. Because the money is held up and trust, and we don't actually know that you have access to any of this money. You dumb nepo, baby. I just can't believe that that this is what this is, what happens at these kind of. I mean the order of opiates here is like the when baby Ellison made the bid right from Paramount. To buy Paramount has like is like a 15 billion dollar company and they're making a like it what 90 billion dollar bid on Warner Brothers or like it's so Paramount doesn't have the money to do it. Yeah. So obviously he's using daddy, he's money. But when they actually did the documents that got signed to, you know, say they had the money to buy this thing. They put in the documents, the daddy. Trust. Now the daddy trust is called a revocable trust, which means like it's he can revoke the money in the trust. Like Daddy Larry Ellison can just take money out if you felt like it. It's a black box. He could take the money out, put it in a different trust any day. Anyway, you do whatever he wants at that money because it's daddy's money. But David Nepal. Baby Ellison is going around saying like are you serious debt? My dad's got the money man, give me the fucking company like it's such a baby thing. Yeah. And Warner Brothers, I mean Rightly or wrongly. If you're a shareholder, you're going to get to vote on this eventually. Like Warner Brothers. The board is like, no, you have to have you have to actually show the money. You can't be like, no, I swear. I've got it like, otherwise, like Gus, who I just saw on come be Farms, like could say, I've got the money to buy that company, I swear it, like, come on, get real baby, not to mention that to your point Netflix is its market cap is like a half a trillion, right? I mean Netflix gave them all of the financing details and where all the money's coming from and like like full lists that they can account for the board's doing. It's it's normal job. It's going through and being like money, we know is there and money. We don't know if Daddy decides because if Oracle, you know, like there's a AI bubble crash between now. And when this thing would close 18 months from now, daddy may not have the money anymore. Well, Trump is doing everything and that's the next story is doing everything. He can to keep Larry Ellison. Still Relevant. But how about what do you make of this sub story? It looks like baby elephant, promised CEO David zazove, current CEO of Warner Warner Brothers. Yeah, that he would make roughly 600 million dollars in shares and get a huge compensation package if this went through and then Zozo responded that it would quote, it would be inappropriate to discuss any such Arrangements at that time. And quote, do you think that's because he just wants to go with Netflix. Or what do you think about that, quote? No, that's that. That is when the lawsuit happens later on, he has, he can't possibly have written down. Oh, that sounds super good. I'm so glad you're buying me off with a half a billion dollars in shares and money. Like that sounds awesome sauce. I'm gonna tell my board, right? He wouldn't survive anywhere, right? I'm assuming that he would be, he would be gone. Whoever buys talk about the greatest fail up in here. Warner Brothers, like whole thing is a joke. I mean, like they, Destroyed, HBO's brand value by like making it Max and like doing all these stupid decisions. And David zaslow is gonna end up being like one of the wealthiest people in media because nepo, baby, Ellison wants this company not to mention that when you really look at the, the properties that Paramount controls, you know, we'll talk about like Legacy Media here. It's, it's hard to understand the future of a company. Like parent. We know they own things like Nickelodeon and MTV. It's just like, what is the future of parent? Oh, I mean, I can see why. Why Ellis baby Ellison is sort of desperate to just acquire more because he knows how much of its gonna be failing. Just, oh, right. It's clearly not his track record of turning around Paramount so far. It's your dad can buy you, the more chances that one of them might kind of break through, right? And make you some money because that seems to be the way a bit of a nepo. Baby of a CEO founder would act, which is Like give me a hundred things and maybe I won't ruin all hundred of them hundred of them. I'm waiting for the lawsuit. So, so we know that Newsmax. This is gonna seem like a tangent, but it's not we know that Newsmax sued Fox News for having an ideological Monopoly. This is not a joke, they actually Fox News. Claimed the Fox News had a novelty. It was a monopoly on conservative thinking in media probably worked. The who's forcing people to watch that? Well isn't this the ultimate conservative power? Grab like we hear all about how media is woke and biased and you know leftist and all these lefties and and then you know if you're anti-semitic it's like the Jews, run the media and whatever we are about to be in a situation and which the elephant family would own tiktok Paramount and could own Warner Brothers discovery, which is basically almost every channel. You see on TV Disney which is not exactly watches TV anymore. Do they don't the paragraph well streaming too Disney which is not exactly the Paragon. Of Wok anymore. They own some of it, and then CBS, you know, Davidson just Barry Weiss to D woke, up by CBS news, the news there is and Fox News is the most watched like you're just interviewing Erika Kirk, she had a town hall Erika Kirk, what do we actually? What are we Actually saying that, like, like, isn't we have, do we not actually have a sort of conservative ideological Monopoly on media, like you met us where people get a lot of their media, like Facebook, Instagram, you know, we at least have a corporate at least what wherever you fall on this discussion. Whether you think it's like to the left or to the right. What we do know is that it's controlled by corporations, right? That you do know. So in that sense white dude. Yes. So in that sense it is you're right. It is absolutely one single point of view, right? The the left will cry. That's control by the right. The right will control will cry. This control by the left. But like left or right? Here managed in saying Corporation controlled by a few white guys. That's it. Like, and we know. Yeah, different thing and we know from corporate behavior and from corporate giving and from the executives, we all know that actually does tip to the right. But that's a whole nother story but it's the people. It's like, Larry Ellison's gonna own like 40% of the media Market. By the thing time. This thing is done because he's buying his baby son, which is playing, right? Like it's Christmas present which is all the more outrageous to put, put the control of media into the hands of someone who got rich selling what like soft Cloud. So I don't know what is Oracle do ya like like internet, right? Like like you plugs and I mean this family shouldn't be controlling media Empires to begin with. Oh, let's move on. That's the second Story. The week. Third one that you already hinted. Another good old fashioned one. Speaking of Alison this is all about Ellison. Everything's about Ellison and Trump Tick Tock this is the stupidest thing ever. Really this whole tiktok story, tiktok signs agreement to create new US joint venture. So 45% of the company will be owned by either Oracle which is the Ellison, which is Larry Ellison. Silver Lake, which is your your buddies over there. The my buddies. Yeah. Ego Egon, he got Durbin, Egon Durban and then mgx which is a mgx from Abu Dhabi. I I don't know how they I don't really have. When did this card have a lot of Qatar about a new Air Force? One for the thing, that's weird. I'm sorry. Get in the air. I thought we were like America First with everything even like Jared Kushner, who was, who was Trump. Son-in-law, who was now pulled out of the hole. Warner Brothers Paramount, Netflix nonsense. He was working with us. A Saudi firm. Yeah. Yeah. They were using South like the middle of money. The amount of hypocritical Spin and all this is nonsense. So this is really just so, let me ask you. This is the tiktok thing. Is it about? Hating China, is it? Or is it about creating a fake false cold war with China? Or is it about enriching all of Trump's friends at all the above know? Because why are you doing? This was no China. China is always been a boogeyman. We've said this from the beginning. This how is this word would say? Like we have to be where because it was four or five years ago. Zuckerberg was saying we have to beware of China, right? Like and it's, and it's not China. China is not the problem. It is. You Mark Zuckerberg, it is you in the five fucking dudes who want all the things it is, it is basically a bunch of greedy, white guys. That's it. That's the whole thing. There's not another thing. Just, let's, you know, and frankly, If we're going to worry about a thing, like, we talked about Zuckerberg as being like his own China, right? Like he's, he's dual class shares, you know about, right? All the men, you're referring to are Larry Ellison's. The same thing. If we want to be worried about something, has anybody ever looked at oracle's board Oracle? We Larry Ellison is the executive chair of oracle's board. He's also the majority shareholder of Oracle, so it makes sense that he, you know, runs the company. Not only that though, Safra Catz was the CEO of Oracle. She just became executive Executive Vice chair, but she's not the only Executive Vice chair. There there's another Executive Vice chair so Oracle was governing structure has executive chair guy. Who tells everyone what to do? Larry Ellison. Co-executive. Vice chairs. Yeah, and two co-ceos on this is like of the company, which is what just his cheeky way of saying I'm in control here, because because it's a leadership, what the fuck are we doing? Like, is that, is that like that's the governing structure? That's everybody's like, isn't this like the joke is like everybody is a vice president inside every single company, doesn't matter if you just got hired your vice president, the joke at Oracle is everyone's Executive Vice chair. Like what's this is stupid. This is not how you run a company, it's one guy stopped with the fake titles. That's what's happening with all these purchases, it's one. Yeah, to your point two of these three tops or so far involved Larry Ellison somehow The fourth big story that weak. I, you know, we don't Carver this a lot. We try on to be political, but I thought it was worth including because you keep seeing some of the names that we cover here, free flow, analytics that exists in our database or we talked about in the past. But the house know the the Department of Justice who the Epstein files are due to be released today, I don't know if it's whose controling that they're going to, of course, be heavily. Redacted, the house keeps the Democrats in the house, keep releasing letters and photos, but here's the point. Here's why I'm including, this is the fourth story of the week. because, Oh boy, did I did I wrestle and fight with a bunch of AIS this morning trying to get a list of these people like it, it really like was I almost feel like it was trying to hide something or just wasn't playing along, but I I compiled the list of all the people in our universe, who are associated so far with these Epstein with Jeffrey Epstein with his island, with the pedophilia, with the rape with the with the, with the photos with everything. Here we go, here's a list. And I'll start with Donald Trump because of course, as to your point, this is the most, this is the most important part of this whole story and Trump showed up in the tiktok story. He showed up in the in the Warner Brothers story because, you know, he says that he's gonna have the final word over who buys Warner Brothers. And really, he's even kind of a part of the BP store. I mean, it's his, he's kind of leading the world against woke and against Renewables, but here's the quick list of all the names. I could find who are associated with the scene files and all the upstairs. Donald Trump Bill Clinton, okay, Bill Gates. Microsoft co-founder Sergey brand Google co-founder Richard Branson virgin group founder. Larry Summers we talked about a lot. He most recently of the openai director solar common jar. Former Youtube CEO Sultan Ahmad bin suyam. He is a charity of DP World emirati, businessman Lex. Wexner founder of Albert Brands, Leon black co-founder of former CEO of Apollo Global Management, Tom pritzker executive chair, Hyatt Hotels, Glenn Dubin Hodge hedge fund manager, co-founder of Highbridge Capital, Ron Barron founder and chair of Baron Capital Management. Josh Harris, co-founder of Apollo Global Management. He owns like the Sixers the Devils, the Washington commanders and finally banking error, Ariana de Rothschild, CEO of Edmond to Rochelle group. So I just I just wanted a place to put this, it's important. It's well, it's make of it what you want? Well, I well, the thing I'll make of it is just like an hour ago, the number two, at the justice. Sparkman came out on Fox News and said they'll release some of the files. Oh, they lost. They lost some in transit that? No. They he said they want to be sure that they don't have the victims names in the files. I'm sure it's the victim's name. Oh yeah, and not Donald Trump's name. That's all over the file. Here's another reason why I decided to compile this list and I'm sure it's even incomplete because it was a struggle to get all these names together. Is that we have covered so many stories recently of CEOs losing their jobs just because of not reporting relationships at companies and they might have been completely, I'm sure there were all completely consensual relationships and they're losing their jobs and yet you know there you go. Well you know the there was a surgery in New York Times yesterday the woman who was in the Coldplay at the Coldplay concert. Yeah, has basically been blasted with some of the worst vitriol. She can't find a job at the story. Yeah, she remind me about the story. She was she was Going to fare with the CEO. And she was the head of Human Resources. She had a human resources. She was caught on. He was a kiss cam. He was the CEO. They were caught on like the kiss cam basically canoodling, and they both had during the whole area to other people. They're both married to other people apparently, like, her husband was there with somebody else also, like, I don't know, like they were, there was a lot of rumors around it, but yeah, the end result was, you know, he left her, and she left, and she got all of she's gotten all the anger, right? Like he hasn't got any anger. That's the, that's what you're saying. I mean, the story didn't talk about like the level of anger, he's gotten. Yeah, but if you're you're white man in America, and you haven't reported yourself as discriminated to the EEOC, which is a new story this morning that they're begging white men to say they've been discriminated against. Yeah, that's the joke actually. Yeah, that's not a joke. That's a story that broke this morning then. Actually you know, you probably aren't getting as much harassment for, you know, having sex with you know, the, the you don't even know if they had sex but having any sort of relationship with, you know, female employee Highly Juvenile and childish times. Give me a vote on the Juvenile and childish times, a story of the week. It's, it's hard to choose Warner Brothers. Again, it's just such nepo, baby stuff and the tiktok agreement is kind of like, we knew it was coming. I just hate. I hate saying about print though. I hate seeing the actual agreement. I hate seeing Silver Lake and Oracle and Abu dhabi's mgx. I hate, I hated it all. So, and like these are the same companies that like, broke up Twitter and like, and gave it to Elon Musk tiktok. But, yeah, the whole thing is dumb. I'm gonna go with BP though. Yeah, I think you're, right. I mean, like from our perspective, from our perspective is the story of the week, all right, let's do some good lists? Yeah. And I did not make good lies. That tongue and cheek that tongue and cheek this week. I tried to do it a little bit more serious. Mine was serious. Well, yours are always a little bit serious. Well, I actually do. Try to find something that makes me happy. All right, what made you happy this week? I feel like this is like a good game headline because you probably gonna tell me it's not so great. But I just thought like why not celebrate our neighbor's from the north for still trying a thing as our Government shuts down like tries to, like, get rid of space telescopes and shuts down climate. You know what the national like, like the one that predicts when hurricanes are going to hit that the woke one. That's just the one that says, here's the hurricane here it comes. But as you're dumping money into AI, which is ostensibly like science adjacent. Like why, why would you not be doubly funding all science? Like I, the whole thing is just stupid but Canada to launch sustainable investment tax on me in 2026, something that they promised they're going to do just two years ago. Setting criteria for the identification of Investments that are eligible for green or transition investment label. So they're just, you know, they're They're still just doing, they're doing normal things, I normally boring. I don't, I don't love taxonomies. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not a tax on, let's move, but but I'll do mine. There are two for me. One is, I saw this headline Tesla's, having a good time at the DMV. I don't know what that's. I didn't know what that headline meant. I actually opened during still didn't understand what the headline, man. Well, turns out that California won the right to ban the sale of Tesla vehicles in the state because of false advertising around the cars being self-driving. Well, why only California? I mean this should be because they fought. I mean, like that because California and Massachusetts is the only place that actually like do with hairs. Yeah, California basically said, you know, we don't have we don't want to license test Tesla's. If we don't, you know, if they're going to mislead drivers about the fact that their cars drive themselves, that grow up Tesla, I mean, this grow up Tesla, so they haven't banned Tesla's. Obviously, you could still buy a Tesla in California but they have the right to, I Like that. What they they what they did was they didn't do the like all the way thing and they said all these cars are banned now and then like started a big woke wore. What they did was Secure themselves the right to ban it when it fails, right? Like that. Then now, that what happens is, if these self-driving cars like run over a pedestrian, they can say, we are no longer licensing. New Tesla's on the grounds at these are these self-driving cars are dangerous. I like that. That's good. You have a new some yesterday. Basically declaring his intent to run for president in 2020. He made a lot of his moves, there seemed good but also seem, you know, political political that could be a little gesture. He's a politician, of course, what else? What else? Here's the other one, and I love this Walmart's women. Truckers surge. Thanks to 115,000 dollar starting pay, and other perks bringing in non-traditional candidates, okay? I like, first of all, you know, that women are 50% of the population. I don't know what makes it a non-traditional candidate. You've just is that mean candidates that have been excluded for systemic bias against them or now non-traditional like women drive trucks. In fact, For anyone who's ever driven a car on a US Highway, which is probably most people. I would prefer a woman behind the wheel of these massive trucks because the, the men seemed out of control. I, we always talk about these stupid, self-driving cars, and automated automating, taxes, and robot at this. Robot that I, I don't even know why can't we get the trucks on the highways to limit their speed to the speed limit? That's what I want to know. Like, we can't, we develop that but I'm all for, I want them all to be driven by women. I just, I just think that they're well, you want everything to be kind your truckers which I'm fine with. I think anybody behind the wheel of a truck does not get Kinder. I think they'll probably be kinder but women apparently only only make out. They make up like 18% of truck, drivers nationality and and Walmart has increased by 33%. Well, I'm just simply by You know, giving wages and benefits and saying we accept anybody. It's the woke using you can do is pay your workers show, ocean Administration to pay workers and look for talent outside of like men. But yeah you do it isn't this the ultimate case study. The story is about how there's a shortage of truck drivers for everyone else except for Walmart because they just hire some women. That's tell me the overlap here. Are you saying that? They're, they targeted women in their hiring campaign? Is that what you said? Like, how does it overlap that? What is the starting pay have to do with women? Are they just aggressively seeking out? I mean there. So there are aggressively seeking their. What they did was they expanded the pool of drivers to purposefully include more women, right? Like so in the first place. So we even know like what day they basically they opened up a program that trains drivers and they asked more women to apply, they did like smart okay. Things like simple things saying like well there's old bunch of talent out there that like does it doesn't do this job but could Why the hell wouldn't we train them to do this job? And then we have like an unlimited pool of talent and nobody else does. And now they don't have a shortage. I wonder if the, the rights of truckers have have improved over the years, because I do remember, one of the issues when I was a kid. I had a few friends, whose dads were, were they drove these 18 wheelers? They didn't like basically never saw their dads like yeah. But because there were gone, you know, basically all week, I wonder if those rules have changed. Did they let Checkers go home now? Or do they still make them drive? Like 190 hours a week to deliver a rubber ducky that one that one that one's not a part anyway. Okay that's that's yeah we don't have to vote. They're all fine. Who cares? They're all fine. That's not those. None of those are super great. Trucks on the roads. Let's what happened? What happened to freight trains as much stuff. All right, go I. Yeah, I've got three options here and like in the spirit of old school, I got some old school kind of options here. Number one is, this is absolutely, oh yeah. We've talked about Helga several times. Yeah. Hell glued, he's not Helga like female name. It's hell good. I don't know. I don't know. He's a, he's an Orion guy. He's the chair of the board of BP. Wait, he is I thought, no, there's a new chair. He's stepping down. Okay, at the beginning of 2026. So there is a new chair elect I believe. Yeah, but so he and this is related to the first woman ever. Meg, O'Neill being taken over the, there's a quote from the story, O'Neill, is quote, taking over the British energy behemoth at a time when it has fallen behind the other Global oil and gas, super majors, and was even a potential takeover Target earlier this year by rival shelves. So, you talked about the glass Cliff Helga or Lund had according to freeflow analytics data on their new like platform cards. He had 16% influence over the board while Murray. Ocean Claus had 15% and he was ocean close was the CEO this is not his time. You're seeing this. Yeah. But it's not, it's but it's not common, it's not super common to see, the CEO have less influence than a board member from like, companies in general. And it usually signals that that CEO is actually at lives at the mercy of the board. Because it's not common in a company, like, BP, we have loaned to blame for overseeing. Not only ocean clause in the first place because Helen's been there for six years or seven years. Seven years now. So he just so you know he is. He is he left in October, Albert. Manifold is now the chair but he's gone. Yeah. Well hella Lund basically oversaw. Ocean close, getting the job in the first place from Bernard Looney who he oversaw, getting Bob Dudley's job. That's right. Like Dudley who wasn't there. That long either actually he was only there for like two or three years. Right? And if you know, loons name, it's because he was at Novo Nordisk, right overseeing, their incredible succession failure. Prior to that his his big claim to fame was he was at Nokia when Nokia to the company, like I bought and like went bankruptcy in 2014, he was on that board, I mean I I hate having to celebrate like a first female with this is the backdrop. Like there's one there's a guy who's basically had multiple board positions as fail, that every single board. He's been on to either, write the ship pick a CEO do the right thing. And he's he's not he was the chair at Nova, nordis, he was the chair at BP. These are not companies where he was like, oh well, I was just the guy who showed up in the audit committee and counted. The number of beans that I found, right? Like this is a guy with the power on the boards and it's not like this is the backdrop. This is, I hate it, I hate it. Well, look it to the show overs, right? Because he'll go would probably still be there without Cheryl's pushing back, right? Isn't? Isn't that mostly the reason why he's stepping down. It, it is. But all. So I know that Meg O'Neill is going to come in and have less influence likely than the new chair of the boy. Right? Like yeah. So in 248 GMS. In April, 2401 vote, right? Because we said this over and over and over. We do not need to wait for majority votes. When it comes to directors, like when the average, what's the average 296%? For, when the average is 96% for the when you're getting to like even 10% against that's major alarm Bells, like, like things you should be talking about. So when it's 24%, that's basically a get out of town vote. But here's my point, why? And it's not just looned but like I'm gonna make him, you know, not for asshole. This is why you should care about the people. This guy has been in charge at two separate companies that have two massive failures of succession. I know people don't trace these things that I don't follow the threads. Why do investors not care about who is in charge of this kind of stuff? I always when I sometimes, when I described this company to people and what we do sometimes I use even use like Tim Cook as an example. Like why do we not talk about Tim Cook? As also one of the members of the Nike board like why are his decisions are not bored. Not an important part of his career, like, exactly why do we exactly? Are they not two separate people? I mean, so, he'll whatever hellga has done. Other board should absolutely be a part of what he's doing at BP, and I think there's just, you know, what it is. There's no mechanism in place for shareholders to make wise decisions, and, and and, and, and they've either. They've, either, they've sold all their research to like, ISS and glass Lewis and these bigger firms who do everything by scale. And There's just no ability to kind of get in there unless it's like an activist investor campaign where they have like, 40, lawyers, probably riding PowerPoint presentations where they can go over, you know what, this director had for breakfast in 1997 and they don't know what's going on. And like to that point, right? The point of Tim Cook because we don't look at him holistically, we don't actually say has has the Nike, has his experience on Nike actually been net positive Nike. Actually, there's literally, there's a story this morning about their shares thinking they, they have Phil Knight and Travis Knight. The son of Phil nepo. Baby. Travis is still on that board and they the last executive Mark Parker the last CEO stepped into the executive chair role. Despite the fact that you have the founder and the founder son on that board and then the new CEO, you know, like Tim Cook is credited with having found the new CEO. Is that really well run machine? What are we doing? Like what? Like so and now Tim Cook's likely to step down at Apple and we're and we think like he can pick a successor because because why the evidence is shouldn't they picking his own successor. But yeah. The evidence is that the people who suck at a thing in one place, it doesn't mean they're not going to suck at it in another place. Just because you this is Helga. Wound looks great on paper. He sucked in three separate jobs and at the board level. At some point, can we stop having can he stop having a job? Like, because he's still on the board of another company, like SLB or something. Like, shouldn't every investor. Look at every board where he is up for election and say you're not that good at the thing that we need which is like CEOs succession. Well, maybe they're not gonna elect you the mistake. These boards make a cross. The globe is the one. He so he's the former CEO of BG group. Stat and Stat oil. And another way. Yeah. That unfortunately, that becomes a like a lifetime, get out of jail for free card, right? Get on a board for free cars. Like once you see, oh, anywhere that's it. That's it. You're somehow you're qualified that's like to be in a boardroom to be the chair. They managed to check the one little. I know I know but it's a problem. It's a problem. All right, what else? All right. Number two, Sam Altman. I'm just spent a lot of time on this because Sam Altman could be in the literally the asshole of the year like year. I think it might be more than that, but go ahead, but the same Altman says thing is just killing me. Here's just from this week, Sam Allman says he has 0% excitement about being CEO of a public company ahead of the potential open AI IPO. That sounds like bulshit. Sam you turned it from a non-profit into a for-profit company that you saw was illegally. You served governance you fight, you kind of almost basically illegally fired directors for firing you because you had your employees. Believe that opening I could only exist because of you right now. You're now this is like you're not into it. Now you're worried about input from what from shareholders from or scrutiny from the public. If it disclosed more is what you're upset about. How he spend all this Capital. Like I don't understand when they don't do it the four? Yeah. Fucking I mean you know a lot, you worried about you worry about AI, going off the rails. You were, you worried about a lot of stuff. So why don't you how about this? Why don't you work against it? Why don't you Sam Altman sounds alarm as Chachi PPT. Explodes globally, rate of change, Sparks, AI, anxiety, job fears. Well, this is the problem, and this is the huge problem that Sam has gotten us all into that because I I'm gonna call him the leader of this. So a few weeks ago, we reported on something the stupid code red thing he called because but it's it's not it's not based and helping Humanity scientific principle and none of that. It's only because we're in now in a capitalist War to gain market, share for AI. That's all it has to do with Because really, if you pull back all of these people should, if we're really gonna Force AI on to humanity, every all these people should be working together, should be a Consortium of brains making this right? Making this positive for Humanity but no, it's just a capitalist War, for sure. For sure, value. The market like they want to be like Google. They want to be like face but that's it, like, that's dangerous. Samuel your code. Reds are dangerous for Humanity. And so, and that, which is another quote from this week, Sam Altman says open. AI has gone code, read multiple times. They'll do it again. Well, so there you go. Alright. And the code Reds are. I didn't know. There are multiple code Reds but they're again. They're never about some like, you know, never scientific holder principle of, did it Sammy. Hey Samo, do you call a code red when a kid killed himself because your engine told them to? Well, that's called the more than one kid by the way. There's now there's no there's no suits. Yeah but murder suicide, the reporting about last week that people have to be institutionalized because the the AI is making them effectively hallucinate like the AI does. Like they basically can't tell reality anymore. They like the AI tells them, they're a genius and they start believing it and then they are, they're having a breaks their building data centers, they're committed. They've convinced the president to Quash like regulation. Like it's crazy. It's it's out of control. And even when he tries to like be like a cool CEO, a meme stocky CEO. This is the headline Samuel and uses his new image generator to show himself as a jacked fireman with washboard abs with an absolutely hilarious error. What's these are the so these are teen boys. So teeny Sam makes makes himself look jacked. Holding this fire hose Dropout Samoan in front of, in front of, like a Christmas, you know, background and then, on the bottom, it has a calendar. December calendar. Supposed to be like a joke, like, look, it's look what you can do. You can make yourself like a jacket fire stupid. Except that calendar for December is from 2022. Not 2025, like, the days are all wrong. Like, somebody looked at it and was like, wait a minute, those aren't, that's not this month. What is a waste of time? But the whole thing, This is the sound the alarm Gaslight and it's not saying it doesn't want to be culpable when it all goes, but he's not. He wants to say, well, you know, I warned you, I warned you. I was dangerous. This is where musk and Altman, diverge, right? This is the Mark Zuckerberg, Playbook. Zuckerberg spent all of his time saying, please regulate us. Please regulate us and then fighting against the regulation he'd say China's. Encroaching you can't regulate us. I want out of one side of his mouth on the other side. He'd say we just need clear rules. We need clear regulations so that we don't like improperly influence, you know? And then we could blame you want to go wrong. It is super effective because he gaslights to ever everybody into thinking, there's a problem while simultaneously, then showing up and fighting against the solution by saying China is going to be beat us if you regulate us. China is definitely gonna win and so there's a government boogie man in China that you put up, but you look like you're a person of the people and you're really concerned because you're bringing up all these These issues it it's a way of Never Getting regulated when absolutely, you need to be regulated. And I don't want to grind this conversation to actually absolute haul which I'm about to. But let's not forget that these are like basically like seven boys who are determining that our, our Collective future that we, none of us have asked for, I mean, maybe Humanity wants to to maintain like a Time autonomy from from Big Data. Maybe we want to make our own decisions and maybe we want to make our own scientifically. We didn't ask for these dudes to come along and say us what we don't. I don't even mind, click clear what they're saving us from like other than our own sort of Free Will and Destiny and autonomy like whatever you'll have the problem. No one asked for they literally don't ask for this, right? Like they literally caused half of these problems. Yeah, all right. So what else? And then, we'll finally, this one's a like a deep cut old school. You're never gonna have heard of this person and I had either. This is Peter Earl, who's a PhD? He's the director of economics and economic freedom, kind of senior research fellow at the American Institute for economic research whenever you put freedom in the title. I get worried, but go ahead. Not only freedom, but he said economic literally three times. Yeah, in his title, it's like so many. Like, he wrote an article. The article is stop fixating on CEO pay ratios and start fixing, labor markets, okay? And I thought, okay, I'll bite, I'm interested. Maybe I'm thinking about CEO, pay ratios wrong, sure. I'm just gonna read quotes. Quote, the average employee is hired under conditions of broads substitutability, many people can competently perform the role with modest training, the CEO. Labor market is the opposite. Extremely small specialized Global and contingent on track records that can shift to firms valuation by billions of dollars. The demand curve, for top executive, Talent is steep the supply curve is extraordinarily thin basically. There's a lot of you idiots who are the median employee. There's not very many CEOs and let's not forget the subtext there too. Is that the CEOs are intentionally creating jobs that that are can be substituted easily. They're not exactly taking advantage of people's unique abilities. They're just they're creating roles that they can toss away. They can throw away, right? They can lay off a bunch of people easily. None of them matter, their Humanity, doesn't matter, the CEO matters. He matters, but no matter matters, but not older creating is a drone role. It's not Yeah. Well, there's going to be drone roles. Let's hear Peter out. Peter goes on to say quote skilled Executives can influence strategy, Capital allocation risk management organizational culture and ways that affect firm performance far more than incremental labor inputs elsewhere, in the organization, even if the latter are voluminous, if a CEO's decisions, add even a few percentage points to long-term Returns the economic value created dwarfs the compensation. Well, basically, yeah, CEOs are worth it. That's what he's saying, right? But regular workers or not. Yeah. Do is there any, like, does he go on to prove these theories like or is he just making a statement? Well I wanted to find out so there's quote such a ratio also, ignores value creation, how do we Define value? Just the relevant, question is not, is the ratio of worker to Executive pay too large, but rather does the CEO create more value than their talent costs, what? He does not at any point in the article, say what value creation other than stock go up. That's the only thing. They're still there. We're still there. So like he doesn't mention any other form of value creation. He just says that, like, the firm's valuation goes up, which is effectively market cap, right? Like, that's what you're talking about. This is what Earl himself had to say about CEOs and leadership in 2019, I'm going to quote from another article because I spent like half a morning reading fucking Peter Earl's someone blow hardiness, go ahead, quote teams also companies organizations groups and so on which experience outstanding success, inevitably site leadership as a factor often, the decisive one, and frequently emanating from a particular individual, but it should come as no surprise that many successful sports teams firms and organizations readily identify leadership is the decisive factor in their triumphs, it's a better story than merely having an incredible resources and Facilities Superior performance or as in often the case simply Garden variety luck. So there's a anointing the leader as as the one. The reason is just a narrative is that it he literally wrote an entire article about how the Braiding leadership is false. We should not sell like teams, only celebrate leaders. After they've won something. Yeah, we don't celebrate leave. That's true. That have lost Sports all the time. Yeah. He uses Sports as the analogy. And he says, the reason why people win things? The reason why like we celebrating leaders often is just because of luck. So, and at a one side of his mouth in 2019, he says, fucking CEOs are basically just lucky right? Like just like anybody else and on the other side, he says there's an incredibly small town, you know, talent pool of these leaders and that's why we pay them so much because they can move the market. Whereas, you know, Joe who fucking does all of the work back, breaking labor gets paid, like, not enough to actually have a living wage goes home, has to take care of, kids, send him to school all that shit. He's not really worth it. He's not like you're, you're, you don't actually add a lot of value to this company is the most asinine thing I've ever heard. And made me cemented me in the fact that the CEO Pate ratio is, maybe the greatest metric to ever come out of, you know, the post financial crisis in the metric that I should care about. I don't know where to go with all this because at the same time, CEOs, like musk not just musk, though are telling us like, well, first of all college education is not important education, in general is really not that important. Experience is really not that important. He's even saying that saving money is not important that you know and work it won't be important because you know we're all gonna be rich. So what and this guy is saying that the people that the workers really aren't that important what what's the point of humanity? Other than the people at the very top, like, what's the point of all of us? Like What's the point of our existence anymore? I'm a little unclear not to mention that you did a story last week. Where Nintendo in Japan and in Japan has long been known to have extremely low CEO, to worker pay ratios. That the model there is not to overpay the CEOs, they're just they're one part of a company and yes, they get paid a little bit more than the others, but you get, you just a story in Nintendo where the, the talent retention rate was like 98% or something like that, like, 15 years. So the average. So it was suggest something different going on, right? That if, if you didn't, if you don't Treat your CEOs, like these lucky kings that maybe the workers would be happier. And anyway, the whole thing is just, I mean like a lot of this guys stuff, like, there's elements of it that I find, like, I, I agree with and then you say something stupid, like, CEOs are worth it. And everybody else isn't, and it's like, look, the gap between us. What? We know what we can say definitively is that there's a bias and who we choose the CEOs, because white men represent like, a certain portion of the population and they are out represented as CEOs. We know that just knew merakli purely on chance, which means like it. We can say definitively that the role of CEO is not chosen for skill all the time sometimes. Sure. But you can't say that in every case it is and which case the CEO pay ratio like, We know that like choosing labor, you are choosing them specifically for the skill, and you make it such that you can fire them when they don't have the skill. But at the CEO's job, You make it as difficult as possible to fire them for not having the skill, you blame it on all sorts of other factors when they don't have the skill and they still get fucking paid. They're, they're not like Irreplaceable. The layer of management below the CEO. It's probably equally as able to be the CEO. Well, as most C, let's not forget how small the CEO tenure rate is at unfortunate 500 companies, it's like barely above five, it's like seven years, maybe so that was suggest that that they should not be credited for for the the long, the success at the company, right? The long term success. I mean, how could you how could you ascribe all the value to to that role which has such a low tenure? They're not even something around long enough to to shape the culture in that same time frame, the CEO pay ratio has continued to go up, like how can you how can you possibly argue you're saying on one side that the CEOs, more and more worth it because the town pool smaller, but we can demonstrably say that, you know, like that isn't true. The town Pool isn't as small, as you think it is, number one and number two, those CEOs, don't create value. The way you suggest they do, which is just stuck, go up because once you, you know, just for all the There's at least half of CEOs are going to underperform, that's fucking definition still. And as we've tracked with their paid, their pay will stay the same. They're pay still goes up. In fact, you pull on the proxy countdown, show repeatedly, the fact that the, the bar for CEO getting a bonus is even if they are in the bottom quartile of all performers. In their peer group, the worst group, they still get 75% of their bonus house there is, there is no bonus at all. There is no method of executive pay accountability in the US. None that you will. You make that PayPal package, no matter what is happening, no matter how quickly you failure your job. The only, the only instance where the money gets clawed back is if you create some kind of fraud or some kind of illegal activity, you are getting paid. No matter how poorly the company, performs end of story. Can we move on? Yeah, I just want to tell Peter Earl. Go ahead. You know what I want you to spend the next six months doing nothing but reading comp plans. And proxies and then tell me, maybe read a few novels that you all right. Those are your options. Look at Humanity, Sam Altman for like 90th time. And this guy, Peter, oh, the little shit is interesting because we do, we have this director class that constantly gets awarded for failure. No one seems to pay attention. No one knows what's going on it. Take all the It does take a, it takes an out, an outlier of a shareholder, vote to move the needle. So I feel maybe I feel kind of good about that. So I'm gonna pass on helgoland, Sam Altman. I mean, this could be every week He's part of a cohort of Middle School. Billionaire dropouts who are shaping our future without our input. So I I could I could vote on him next week. You're gonna put him up next week. Sure. So I'm gonna go I'm gonna go to Peter Earl because I just like the passionate about I just like I I like what you said about, what did you say that? You pay ratio might be the single most important metrics support, right? Come on. Alright. And this is why I suggested a proxy countdown that, that CEO pay her issue could be one of those. One of those like numbers in the sand, right? It's a line that you draw when you're voting for boards. If it's, if you set your own threshold for me, personally, it was 100 to 1, but you could go even bigger. If it's, if it's above 365 to 1 meaning they make the pay in the first day that no, it's over. Like I will not support this board. if I'm gonna, If I'm going to have a nitpick about CEO pay ratios, I'm going to say that we should use realized pay over a three-year period not summary comp like do you want to get nuanced about it? The summary pay, the pay that they tell you they got is not actually what they do over a three-year period, they take home multiples more than you already where you're having a hard time getting people to pay attention, who sits on the board. Now, you want them to realize pay. All right Peter Earl you win this week. Let's do some Headline news, winners predictions, minor short. This week on all counts. Good, I have two classic Headline News. Ryanair CEO. Michael O'Leary Plans says he plans to step down by 2035. Yeah, we talked about that on this show. I love that. You know, I made the mistake. We did a show on this early this week in my head. I thought he was a majority share owner. He'll 4% of you guys. So guys, this is an announcement that governance is not serious. At the boards are not serious and that is up to me. It's up to the CEO when they leave and when they don't leave, my second headline of the week is just a classic for you. This is like a early Christmas gift for you. I don't have a headline, but that, because I feel like this is used to be the kind of the jokes that used to. Like, back in the day, Chipotle chases. The protein craze with new menu items including meat in a cup. Right. I'm a hard out. I do like that cup. I what can I just before you get to your headline? What did what? When you when I say meet in a cup? Describe the cup and describe the meat. What do you picturing? I have a very clear picture here. Mine is like like bigger than a Dixie cup but you know, like a cup. Yeah, that's what. Yeah. And then like a meatloaf but like inside it, I just didn't discussing like ground beef for like just some ground just like nonsense. I literally think of like a loaf of meat shaped like the cup inside it. What he really nasty. My headline is LinkedIn. CEO says it's outdated to have a five-year career plan. It's a little bit foolish, considering the pace AI is changing the workplace. Well, I was this guy and not why is this not as holy is this is the worst. So it is the world. What should people worry? So, okay. So I'm gonna add this to the list so and don't forget that what we didn't cover on the Friday. Show was McDonald's CEO. Chris kimchi, telling us that nobody cares. About you but yeah. Right say that. Yeah, he said he wanted to give some tough career advice that nobody cares and no one can help you deal with it. Yourself deal with it. I'm sorry if it's hurt your feelings. So now we've learned that we don't have to graduate, we don't have to, we don't have to go to college. We don't need to save money. We're not going to be working. We don't, we don't need to make a career plan, what else? We don't, no one cares about us. We shouldn't we shouldn't be like, fighting for the for. Like we shouldn't be fighting for like women or people of color in the workplace. They say I wish I shouldn't do anything. We we shouldn't care about anything is this is it? This is where we're at 2025, that's where we're at. Don't make a plan. I mean they really this is why I it's moments like this where I wish we had a bigger audience because these are the more because these are the two. These are the threads that people don't put together in who cover the business news. Even from the left or the right is this there is this. Incredible effort. From the CEOs and leaders in our in our corporate world, to, to make to just make people care about, nothing, right to have. No hope to do nothing. Well, he did give some advice as part of this. Yeah, go ahead of podcasting. I quoted. His vice was who was this, rather, his name is Ryan, Rowland Rose, Lansky roslansky. His advice was rather than focusing on a five-year plan because five year plans, everything changes so much. It's a little silly. He said, quote, I would recommend people, focus on maybe the next few months and a couple things that aren't a plan. So rather, what do you want to learn what a call to get? But yeah, can you imagine if we all just thought, like two months ahead instead of like really stressful? Like imagine like, oh well, I don't need to play for retirement because I can only think two months ahead like, this is a guy who's been at LinkedIn since 2009. He Didn't Have A Five-Year Plan, clearly, but I'm saying like he, he's also to your point. I, I'd have to check freeflow analytics.com but it looks like he's on the board of Intuit too. So if you want to, if you want to trace, this guy and fall this guy and vote for your favorite CEOs. There you go. Yeah, right now because this is a man who does not think anybody should have a five-year plan. So being a board member is going to antithetical to that. Isn't he? Some people? And one of the things that they sell energy with my head, but one of the things they sell on LinkedIn too, is like a job ads, right? Although there's been a lot of reports that a lot of these ads are fake. Like there's like, but so he wants you to come to build your network on LinkedIn. But not have a plan for your career. Yeah, well, you search for a job, like, what? I'm just telling you, like, They all they just want to sold to give up. I don't understand like what they mean already that what they're saying is, we need all the money already. Well, the only thing that can happen is we lose some of our money to you like we have to give it back to people because we get taxed or because like there's revolution in the streets we have to you know like you look up and you realize that we have all the money you don't have any if you give up, you're not paying attention to the fact that we have all the money already. That's the way that works, right? I'm I don't even like the part, that triggered me is not that that the five year career plans outdated. It's the, it's this in its this insipid next comment that he said, it's a little bit foolish. Yeah, it's a little foolish now. Yeah, sure full. Yeah, exactly. Like that's the part that by the way on the Intuit board which is a, which is another one of these fake public companies that 66% of the influence is controlled by Scott, David Cook who's been on the board since 1984. This is the, that's the, that's the first term of the Reagan Administration. Ryan was Lansky has one percent of board influence. He's really just there, just so what hang around, get some bagels. Yeah, but he in his multiple boardroom for no reason. He's got a whopping 373, TSR batting average, so that's a guy you can. Well, I hope that's, you know what, you know what Not having a Five-Year Plan. Looks like, it looks like a 373, TSR a 408 earnings, and a 375 overall batting average, but it also sounds like this is someone who actually has set down and made career plans, right? Because probably being on a board was part of his career but none of it's foolish for any of us to kind of get into that. All right let's Did you triggered me? Let's move on. Yeah, I know who's who's your winner for the week? I have actually a very straightforward positive winner and I just and I'm still kind of shocked and surprised but All the powerful women at BP. I know like I'm not aligned with completely with their business practices but I don't even care. I can't believe can't believe how many powerful women there at BP in the leadership team and on the board like what the hell? How did that happen? I have a better winner. Yeah, that is four year career plans. That might also be a pushing it though. I may be a bit foolish because you said that he said to look at like the next few months. He says, look at the next few months, but I do think that it like the move will be short career plans. I think that's the winner of the week. Somebody I am. There's a 100% chance that within the next week. Someone on LinkedIn will say, do you need help crafting a a six-month career plan? Like I I'm very excited for that moment and I can ignore that person predictions. My prediction David Ellison. That's baby. That's the baby elephant, baby cancels. His Netflix subscription That seems obvious, right? Because he's pissed. Yeah. And then hires Erika Kirk Up to run programming at Nickelodeon in MTV. Because why not right? That actually makes sense for children for music. I could see her Depoe babies. We often forget that. Trump was a nepo. Baby didn't know. He talks about like, as our biggest nepo CEO, right? Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah. All right. Here's my prediction. My prediction is Ryanair CEO. Michael, O'Leary steps down in 2035. Becomes executive chair and pledges to step down as executive Chair by 2015. That's my prediction. Can I add that Ryan lozinski is a Dropout of University of California. You don't need. He I mean college, so you don't need to take anything seriously. Like, you'll just, you'll just end up being rich, right? He'll just be rich. Just like Ryan was Lansky or whatever his name is really. Terrible. This is highly triggering, like it's just That right? I I don't know what's happened, but I don't like I'm realistic memory. We are free float. Next week. I think we're gonna have a show on Tuesday, but then we're off. Why? I don't, I don't I'm, I'll do it on Christmas. Come on, let's do it. I won't be here. So I don't like I don't like you could do it on your on your own on Friday. Well otherwise come back sometime after the holidays just keep checking your feet. We'll be around until then good. Bye.