Transcript
Live. That's it. Linger. There live. from a post Disney post blizzard world, It's a hyperreal Monday edition of Biz nuggets joined as always by Emma. Still here, lurking. It's kind of boring. I'm sorry. And I'm at Disney verse mascardi. Yeah. Welcome back. I'm I'm the crossroad puzzle from the New York. Daily News one. Oh, I like you, let that linger. There I am back from the distraction Factory. That is we went to Disney for two days and it was as horrific as it sounds. It is interesting. He see, look, he had fun even though he did, say, I'm gonna out you and say that there was a lot of wasted artistic talent at Disney so there was something you did about it. Yeah, I'm a shoebox lurking. Hey oh. I'm gonna, I will, I will. Yeah. I will say one, take away from Disney that everyone can have is, it is an impressive feat of both, mechanical and artistic Innovation. Mixed with an impressive layer of depression that this is what we spend our time and energy on. It's, it's the biggest wasted amount of creative effort and money I've ever seen in my life. So they've used both. It proves that you're actually a human because here's the one thing about typically about Parenthood is no matter how disgusting and horrible the ACT is you're doing with your children. It's kind of fun to hang out with your kids when they're laughing and smiling. It. all right, and today's Easily shoveled bag. Called January 31st, 2022. Matt, blows hard on Spotify. Are you gonna blow hard on Spotify? I don't want to, I don't know if that's the way I would say it. Damien gets Costco nerdy which means a big boring deep dive into their annual meeting and Emma. It's sorry. I feel like I have to once in a while, like this is kind of Everybody just turned off all the most separates us because when I spent time the internet, I start to think that everyone sounds like us. So I have to throw in a boring. Yeah. Portable and Emma is looking for a job at a Swiss bank. I don't know what Emma's doing. Oh, it's just a stepping stone for me. I'm looking for Swiss banks exclusively well tint. Stepping stone into a closet with a weird mic. That's what it sounds like. Spotify is dominating the headlines, so why don't you want to start the show off today? Yeah. Well let's start with headline writers. Spread misinformation 2 headline of the day, which is here's the story. Joe Rogan apologizes to Spotify and musicians amid boycott over his podcast. Wait for it. No, he did not do that. Okay. Here's what Joe Rogan actually said, quote, I want to thank Spotify for being so supportive. Yeah. During this time and I'm very sorry that this is happening to them and they're taking so much heat from it. So okay, he did Apologize. To somebody. Yeah. For a thing that I have no idea, but it felt a lot like, bro. Hugs to me, I ran this apology through the free float apology translator. Here's what it actually read. Okay quote, this is the free float translator, quote. I'm sorry some Boomers and scientists or are annoyed at a Swedish fake public company that paid me roughly 100 million dollars but dude, Like come on. Yeah, that's what, that's what do we actually expecting him to apologize for though? Well, let's be clear it to me. The story is not Joe Rogan at all. It's Spotify, who is not a company. It is Daniel Eck and Martin Lawrence in, they own 75.4% of the voting power in 29 percent of the shares. They all own Spotify owns 31% of the streaming music market share, which is double the next closest competitor that is Apple. Amazon. And 10 cent Trail, very slightly. this to me, is the Napster Legacy because Mark Zuckerberg's future ass kiss, Sean Parker, creating Napster. Now we have total consolidation of the global streaming Market. 72% of the streaming Market is owned by four companies. Two of whom are fake public. One has a space dildo, obsessed founder, and the other is a single largest company in the world. That is basically where we get our music distributed through and the music itself. The podcast, the music are 60% owned to distributed by just three companies. Universal Music, Sony music and Warner Music, So fake public Spotify is negotiating rights with universal music's, fake public parent vivendi who is owned by the French Bellaire family with dual class voting right warm music which is privately held by access Industries which is a wholly owned Company by Russian billionaire. Lynn blavatnik, nice and Sony a Japanese multinational who doesn't care about Americans. Your summary really is that should you? It's not like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, who really my dad cares about. But who else cares about fighting against like the monolithic company for their vaccine? Misinformation propagating Joe Rogan show? It's really that misinformation is a problem and the primary venues in Publishers of it are a handful of fake public companies owned by Russian billionaires French billionaires media conglomerates Australian billionaires, wait, what? So many explained? To me the heat that my, that Neil Young's throwing and a couple of doctors are throwing to a bunch of companies, who really could? They give a shit Rogan did say he would quote try harder. After having a guy on on December 31st who claimed there was an explosion of vaccine Associated deaths. And it was used vaccines are used to quote hypnotize the public. All of this makes me super excited. For the metaverse. Oh, If I'm back today they could hit me. I don't think I care. Actually, Emma gave up a long time ago. Yeah, know both of you great great. The real conversation here is like there's nothing to look forward to the world's owned by five people hate yourself. This is a guy who just got a Bonus vacation in January and he's already resting again. Team lurking shirt right now. Speaking of giving up, we live in a world where an entry level job requires a PhD 15 years of experience and your firstborn child. But an applicant doesn't find out that they're making minimum wage until they've already been working for like two months or whatever. But thankfully, New York City is telling employers to cut the shit on May 15th of this year companies with more than four, employees must include a minimum and maximum expected salary in any job posting they release. This is good. Hypothetically. We like this. However, that is feeling chipper from his time down in real life, Disney metaverse. So I'm sure that he's going to joyfully. Tell me how wrong I am. Matt, are you gonna tell me how wrong I am? You're always wrong. So, But I will admit that he might be partially correct in his misgiving. A similar law went into effect in Colorado last year which caused Johnson and Johnson to retaliate by specifying that remote job postings were closed to Colorado's Not to brag. But unlike Colorado, New York City is kind of a capitalist hellscape epicenter of North America. So this is a little bit more likely to have a significant impact. Sorry, Colorado. Well, I'm very pleased about this development. Business groups are not a group called The partnership. With member companies, including JPMorgan have spoken out against measure. Yep, the partnership. It sounds like a cult for sure. Apparently bones. Apparently, it will be burdensome and time-consuming. Those are direct quotes to add some burdensome and time consuming to add salary, ranges to job postings, according to the CEO of the partnership. Kathryn, Wylde. Now Kathryn Wylde. I did a little looking into her. She's someone we should be focusing on more because yeah, in 2020, wild called herself the loan defender of the billionaires. And I have to give it to her. She's really walking the walk. I'm, I'm all in on Camp. Wow. All right. Finally, so defending the billionaires, you know, I just, I don't understand the burden of, like, they budget like a salary for the jobs. I don't understand the burden of showing what they apparently, they don't have paid bands for every single position. Oh no. Isn't this? What company is turned down? Every shareholder proposal, because it's always a burden to them, everything's a bird. Them. Yeah, everything everything just turned down stuff just because it was a burden. Oh my God, my life would be amazing. Everything's a bird. I'm a smiling. I gotta, I gotta pee right now. It's a burden. Like you can pee while I do, my long story because to be this story. Here we go. Costco annual meeting time for my temper deep dive. Come on. To be fair it's really a corporate governance. Deep thought, deep dive, let's do it. All right, first of all, nobody really owns this company. This isn't one of those fake public companies that Matt's always upset about Van. Guard has a percent, BlackRock has 7%. Yeah, but they don't really matter because they can't decide if they want to be important or not. They don't know if they want to fight or not fight or hide. So so you know what this means, it means the board and management are actually important to this company, so let's do it. Ten directors, average age is 68. The youngest is 59. The oldest. The oldest is 97. You want to get to that person is Oh yeah, 97 Costco mind. Munger come on what Munger? Yeah. Exactly. That Charlie Munger. Okay. They're a lot of business part pants Stars here is why I chose to do a deep dive first and foremost Warren Buffett's BFF. Charlie Munger he's been there for 25 years and yes, he's the audit committee chair. The most interesting committee. Come on, coming up. Next is Susan Decker. She's been there for 18 years, she's also on the board of Berkshire with Charlie Munger what she's also on the Costco audit committee with Charlie Munger let's and the audit committee has just officially renamed itself to berkshire's bitch. Do I get a busy for that? I don't. Yeah, I'm okay with it. Okay. Susan Decker is a very busy woman. She's also on a bunch of other boards. Vail Resorts momentum, Global chime, who else on the board board chair Hamilton James. He's been there for 34 years. He's been there so long. He was actually lead, independent director for 12 years, and that was over five years ago. Yay. Okay. Also on the board CFO, Richard galanti, he's been CFO for three decades. Yeah, Craig jelenic. He's been with the company for four decades. Jeffrey rakes. He's been there for about 15 years. He's the chair of a nomination committee and finally one more notable director Maggie wild Rother, I just like saying that name Maggie Wilder, it's good name. She's not long tenured shockingly. But she is CEO and chair of the Grand Reserve and she's director of Hewlett-Packard. Santa biotech lift chair at DocuSign. She's been a Xerox Frameworks Cadence Design Systems Procter, Gamble. This is a busy woman folks, okay? So that's, that's 70%, stats. 70% of the board, either an executive or connected or busy as shit. That's what it says in the process, it's busy as shit. Can I just say that board chair for 34 years? That means they became bored. They, they've been there since 1988, just think about 1988, what you were doing in 1988? I was there a whisper in my parents, he was there before before Emma's parents even started thinking about him even like a conversation about. That's amazing. I love that. Yeah, so here's the question. Do you think that this company costs go has a giant succession planing problem? Yeah. Yes. Wait, can I have more time? Moving on they have a very this is very comical for all you corporate governance. Nerds they have a very sad board diversity Matrix that they publish in their proxy and this is all it is part one, gender identity. They have three women which is just enough to look relevant in 2014, so that's nice. And then part two demographic background, they have African-American or black and that's one one lonely person and then white. That's it. That's the board. Diversity Matrix. You. This is a perfect like example of why like the the check the box diversity that the mega cap companies have figured out does not work because one of those, three females is Susan Decker who's been there for 18 years and knows Charlie Munger like, because they're they've been holding hands for all the entire time and before you get to concerned, Emma, just so you know, women and black person holds zero leadership positions on the Costco board, okay? So they're not really involved with anything. Okay, moving on. Who do the shareholders hate actually? They hate a lot of people. They hate, Susan Decker 10% of shareholders, do 15% hate Charlie, Munger 19%. Hey nomination, committee chair, Jeffrey Riggs, and 22% hate Maggie Wilder, I guess, because she's so busy. She's what else? She's she's only been there for seven years, they prefer she was there for 30. What else? Costco is a very manly Enterprise according to their website, out of the 43, Executives, eight or women, that's a whopping 19% and I might be being generous, there might be closer to 7:00 CE. Pay ratio 193 to one and finally, they had three shareholder proposals this year. First adopt, ghg emissions, reductions targets the board said no, thank you. Well, shareholders said, yes, thank you with support from 67% of the boat pass. A second proposal a report on racial Justice and food Equity. Oh, this is from the American Baptist Home Mission Society. The board said, no, thank you while shareholders. Also said no, thank you, 84% of the vote saying, 84% of the vote saying racial Justice, she'll smush just and finally a vote on charitable giving reporting. All they wanted was a list of recipients of corporate charitable contributions of 5,000 or more the board said, no, thank you. Well, shareholders said a massive Fu with 97% of the vote saying piss off to that one. There we go. That's my Costco. Deep dive are there any clips of Charlie Munger talking at the Costco annual meeting? Because that is what you're looking for. Yeah. That's where he can just hire someone. I'm gonna get us out of here. He doesn't have to speak anymore. This one is pure entertainment. If you ignore the undercurrent of Insidious white male privilege, here's the headline does Amazon Banker of the Year tells Court, he spent $217,000 dollars at strip clubs on company. Credit cards for business related reasons. Please think of the year though. Banker, the form a former Baker of the Year. Damien. Come on. This is related. Pierre and Vincenz is currently on trial. Thanks to some fraudulent deals made during his tenure, as the head of a Swiss bank. This bank is irrelevant, I have decided that I'm not saying the name because it is irrelevant in that way. So, on, Day of Vincent is trial, the prosecution revealing over sorry. The prosecution revealed over half a million dollars in improper expenses including a 760 dollar dinner with a woman, he met on Tinder who he was apparently considering for a real estate job 30000 dollars for a private jet and cooking classes in Mallorca and 5,000 dollars for repairs to his hotel room. After a massive row with a striper for those who don't know Rao was British for argument it doesn't sound good in either 5000 dollars. Yeah it's not Vincennes is taking full responsibility for these expenses and made this statement with regard to my visits to bars and nightclubs I fully stand by my assertion that these were justified by business as convincing us, that explanation was one of the judges was skeptical and asked Vincennes the following. Do I understand your claim correctly that when you were alone, when you went alone to a cabaret, there were Variably business, people present in every invitation was made and rapists. Business interests. Oh, there's the name of the bank. To which Vincennes responded. I didn't have the feeling I had done anything criminal here. Wow. As long as he doesn't feel like he did. Sounds valid to me Vincenz is on trial with six other associates who faced up to six years in prison and a fine of 77 million dollars. If found guilty, when he eventually pays his portion of the fine, he can definitely afford, he better not skip on tipping those strippers at his. I'm not going to jail party. That's all I asked. Could be a good party. Gonna be a good. I don't have any feelings. I'm with Jenkins here. I don't have feeling no feelings of criminal activity. Certainly not. All right, that's all I got. That's it. Wrap up. That makes me feel nothing that was business pants. We are free float media. It's Damian and Emma and Damien hates. When I say things at the end of the show. So I'm not going to say anything here, except that if you tuned in all week, we are, we have a fancy expert coming. Yeah. Actually have a voicemail that we're gonna cover that we have a voicemail. We've been ignoring, there's two voicemails been ignoring, we got another one. That's how many people listen to. You can call us too, at 8, 7, 2. 0, 0,