Transcript
Live from not February. Is it okay to admit that I'm relieved? It's not February anymore. Is that I not a February guy? It's a March scented version of almost spring flavored business nuggets joined. As always by Emma March 1st, lurking. And Matt February 29th mascardi. I'm almost April and completely losing my mind and today's March stained bag called March 1st 2022. More war. You can see why I'm a little warm Emma's headlines today. End of business pant, history moments. I'm worn out. Can we? Oh good, I have for that over. Let's start off with the first bit of good news from this horrible War. I think this is great, good news. Kind of like a mini good games Germany plans to rapidly accelerate its goal of 100% Renewable Power to 2035 bringing forward a Target to generate almost all of the countries electricity from renewable sources by 15 years, right? So, they're giving the big middle finger to 2050. What is this have to do with the war? Germany is launching a series of measures to diversify its energy sources away from Russia after moscow's invasion of the Ukraine. Okay, because Germany relies on Russia for more than half. It's not Natural Gas. And its recent decision to phase on nuclear power means that Germany is sniffing around from more Triple-A batteries. That's why that's how we got here. I like that to get to its new goal. Germany will significantly expand its wind and solar facilities. So take that Russia. Who knew? Who needs you? When I've got the breeze and a suntan? That's that's, I don't know about that. I, I do want to point out If it was possible to shave 15 years off your target? Yeah, because of one geopolitical event. Yeah. Why did we set the target? So far into the future now you're taking us somewhere else. Now, Yeah. Now I'm taking it to anger, not only an event where I live right now, a known wildcard entity to begin with. It's not like, is anyone really I mean? People are, it's devastating, but, is anyone really surprised? I don't even know anymore. No, not even a little bit. Well, I'm here to tell you that the Third World War. Has got more crowded. We have no less than four new Sovereign, Nations jumping into The Fray. Plus a guerrilla Army is pledged support all for Ukraine. In fact, the new nations which are led by two sets of dictators and two democratically. Elected leaders have thrown nearly double the total Ukrainian Armed Forces into the battle. Here's your quick summary. Facebook and Twitter, remove Russian propaganda accounts from their platforms, including hackers trying to take over Ukrainian accounts. Google is busy taking down YouTube videos and just today this headline, as tanks rolled into Ukraine. So did malware then Microsoft entered the war. That's right. Who needs NATO when you have Mark Zuckerberg? Does that make you feel better? You crane, you feel better? Dave, I don't know what Damien's feeling constipated. Nuclear weapons seemed pretty Boomer and trivial when you have Tom Burt, senior Microsoft employee in charge of major cyber attacks. In fact, as of now, major government cybersecurity briefings are being given back and forth between big tech companies and governments. And according to the article, quote actionable intelligence is being found by companies like Microsoft and Google, who can see what is Flowing across their vast networks. That's right, Microsoft and Google have more information. Then the government Sue about what's happening in some of these countries. The Russian cyber attacks have been pretty muted so far but the expectation that they'll spike is pretty high and it won't be just Ukraine that feels despite their expecting them to lash out at anybody who's issued sanctions. Our lives are in the hands of Mark Zuckerberg Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Microsoft Windows blue screen of death. Great. The last Sovereign pseudo Nation jumping in this war is anonymous. Yeah, that's right. The hacker group, Anonymous has entered the war and gone on the offensive, taking out Russian military, websites doxxing officials ostensibly. So we can find out where they live and leave flaming bags of poop on their doorsteps all take that Russia, Malta poop bags. I like it. It all begs, the question. This is a question for you to Rubes at what point should we just expect a company to declare war on a country? Like if they can enter a war, they have more information. When do, when do we see the first time that like some company is, like, I'm going to war with Niger. I never liked that country. We're going to war why you picked on Niger. Listen, you know, where, you know, where this is going to happen, it's going to happen in the metaverse because these, that's the next question. Tech companies are gonna think it's not a big deal and then they're going to unwittingly screw something up. They're gonna unwittingly like Kill the food supply for like 200 million people by my mistake because they're run by a bunch of Stanford City dropouts. Libertarian University. And if it does happen in the metaverse, can it be on Pay-per-view? Then? Can we like actually paid to enter that metaverse and walk around with goggles on and be like, this is cool. That guy just blew up that guy only in real life. He basically, you know, turned off his refrigerator or whatever they do. I know people think that Matt is fooling around here, but we actually spent an hour talking about this and pre-production, so it's terrifying. Yeah, there's more to legitimately terrible. We're not gonna we're gonna bring back this idea of Sovereign Nation company States. So don't think we're gonna stop bothering you about this? Yeah, go ahead and we already gotten their like, all wars that we decided to wage as a country are just decided by business. Interests know. Yeah, that's true. But it's a little different than like like when World War Two happened, right? Like it was changed, its its production. Line to build tanks instead of cars, right? Like we used private Public Partnerships as part of like the war mechanism. This I'm talking about not like Waging War just for business interests as in like, what if you get a crazy like Putin who runs a company, it's a fake public company shareholders. Can't get rid of that person and they decide I don't like France. We're gonna basically go after them somehow, like, Could they do it more like violence was warlike violence? Whatever that looks like look. But as the theater of war changes to like a cyber environment, why not? I mean, who's gonna be more skills? Who's gonna have a bigger military than? I mean, we're talking about the fact that all of these Sovereign company Nations. Their employee base is spread across the world, just like the US military, right? I mean, they're, they're everywhere. Mm-hmm. Well not only everywhere there as large as some of the militaries. Yeah Matt I can answer your question outright, it's never gonna happen because companies are already have a very sweet Arrangement. They pay for the people to be elected and get into office therefore the their public servants are really their public servants. They can just have them, do the heavy lifting and the companies never have to have a pace of bad PR that all lands on the people they got elected. That is why it will never happen. That seems too optimistic for you. Am I working? What about what about the disgruntled? Controlling shareholder, who who is not getting enough dates and just gets angry and it doesn't like the way that everyone's turning against him and what stops that person eventually from doing something crazy, you know what I'm saying? I mean, I can't think of one college job seriously though, but what? But if you leave that much power in the control of one, Pasty man. What what might stop that from happening one day where he just literally just snaps? It's a very interesting question and I would like to ask the Business Roundtable, dear Business Roundtable, you have solutions for all, please help us. All right? Yeah, where are they? Where is the Business Roundtable right now? What are they doing? Oh, you know, it's time for it's time, it's time for a business, pants, history moment. Oh wait, we have business pants history music. This let's set the business pants. Flux capacitor to 2009. To something called. The Whopper sacrifice. The premise was simple. Unfriend 10 people on Facebook. Gain a coupon for one free Whopper. That's right. The Whopper sacrifice was a Burger King ad campaign on Facebook that promised a coupon for a free hamburger. If participants simply deleted 10 of their friends, It was a wild success. The Facebook application was installed nearly 60,000 times. In a matter of days, nearly 20,000 free. Whoppers were handed out and well over 200,000 Facebook friends were deleted and why was it so successful? Well, one free burger. And two it tapped into a pre metaverse existential crisis, created by social media companies, like Facebook, that had us all wondering what is friendship in the 2.0 world. One of the truly beautiful components of the Whopper sacrifice was that it sent notifications to the defended a message saying that your friendship was worth one tenth of a Whopper. Also, it was this notification that Zach used as an excuse to end the fun as Facebook, disabled to campaign, after only 10 days, there's your Sovereign leader. Taking away the fun and the war claiming that it was a violation of user privacy because Whopper sacrifice notified friends. If they had been deleted user, privacy on social media, privacy the place where you post pictures of your kids and diapers and tell people to instant, you broke up with Doug. Isn't it? My libertarian right to dislike my friends and use them for Whoppers. So after 10 days and after 200, 30,000 intentionally destroyed friendships, Whopper sacrifice was sacrificed. And that was your moment in business pants, history. A very special business pants. History, moment. Oh, I like his feet up. So, there you go. That's it. That's how we're gonna attack. That's how that's our defensive position against these companies mag against these Sovereign companies, is that somehow, through a combination of Getting rid of your friends, free cheeseburgers week. I think we can figure this out together, so let's let's talk it together. Ukraine. I'm setting a meeting right now, on Google Calendar. Let's talk about Ukraine. Just unfriend Russia, you'll get a Whopper All right, I'm a come on. What's your headline today? I'm gonna do we have a name for this new segment? The Emma, the, the emo. What is this? Come on right now. It is. Emma lurks around the headlines, Which is far too wordy, so it will be once again. Okay, here's my headline. I think we'd never have a name. Serena Williams raises 111 million dollars for new Venture fund. Well you're really leaving the war territory here. Yeah. Sorry Serena Williams. A different kind of work. Yeah, agreed. So she has a venture fund called Serena Ventures. She is already an angel investor with the 60 company portfolio. Some of the companies include send wave masterclass Daily Harvest. If you know any of those and the fund, well focused on people. From underrepresented communities. It doesn't require that founders of companies be from underrepresented backgrounds, but three quarters of them do in addition to 53% of their Investments being for female Founders and 47% going to Black. Founders, it all looks pretty sweet. But here's my question about all of it. Let's do it. Why? Why is my celebrity Venture Capital thing? Well, just athletes in particular. Yeah, like many athletes are getting into the Venture Capital game and it's something. I simply don't understand. I can explain to you doing it. Is it weird that they're doing it? I don't get it. I can actually explain to you because then the 90s the version of this was called car washes, you just bought like 20 car washes. So this is the evolution of like relief pitchers. For the Mets owning car washes in Carneys, it wasn't car washes, it wasn't. It was, it was grills, the former girl and it was restaurant's restaurant. Chains know, I, I remember the way to funnel tax, free money. I remember John Franco, really picture of the match, owning a lot of car washes out there in Queens and Brooklyn. I mean, that's the John Franco level. We're talking about the Jay-Z level that that they own way. They look like Jay zma. I can't believe you're telling me that Jay-Z's elevated over John Franco, a little lost. Does that answer your question? Hard to do that math? Know, I I think the real, I think the real reason is because they can't well, two reasons. First, they can afford it right like and whenever someone has a big pile of money sitting around, there's always vultures looking for ways to make, you think you're going to get richer off that money, okay? But Yeah, that that was one of the thoughts that I had I have to admit. And so I was like he's Serena Williams getting duped. I'm I don't want Serena Williams to be getting duped by a vulture. It doesn't look like she's stupid. Are you really worried about Serena Williams win? Like her husband is like uber powerful the Reddit, dude. Right? I mean you really worried about Serena Williams, You know, I'm not worried about Serena Williams but I'm just saying that. What if her husband is the ultimate duper? What if he's the one duping her. I'm just, I just want to, I don't know why you're not asking. Why a stupid tennis player has that much money the first place. Why is that not the part? That's just the greatest of all time. Like, why is this stupid basketball player? A lot of my daughter plays. She's on the High School. Tennis team. Where are the millions? I don't see any Millions November 5th though, didn't she? I and the second reason is, there's so much money to be made and it's basically an unregulated space. That's why it's pretty simple. Like, if you can put your money in a place, where no one can really track it, or pay attention, there's limited implications to it. In fact, by starting a fund, it's hugely taxed Advantage for you. You save a lot more money and you can make a lot more money and everybody's happy, why not do it. All right, good for her for taking advantage of a white man system agree, but maybe my the reason I'm confused is Internal laziness because I'm like I would just add that into like into some index fund and let it sit there. Passive ownership alert, wow and seems like a lot of effort to do with the other way and you would make less money and be poor Z. Oh, but at that point, if I'm already rich, if feels like not a huge loss just to do the Zuckerberg route, which is by an island in Hawaii. Yeah, just sit there. Yeah, just sit around. Let's stay in the rich celebrity Sports World. Finally, our last story, our first war meets fake, corporate governance, PR greenwash moment. Okay at English soccer club, Chelsea, I am a big fan of Chelsea, right? Big supporter. Yeah. More of a man city girl owned by Russia, only other teams named. I know Chelsea is owned by Russian billionaire, businessman, Roman Abramovich. Who made his fortune during Russia's Financial collapse and Chaos in the 1990s at best. He's a shrewd, our opportunistic, vulture another, another usage of the word vulture. Matt at worst. He's a scummy dude who prospered off of others misfortunes but here's the story, I want to focus on his strange ESG announcement, a few days ago where he said I want to read the whole quote try to do it quickly. During my nearly 20 year ownership of Chelsea, I have always viewed my role as a custodian of the club whose job it is ensuring that we are as successful as we can be today, as well as build for the future. We'll also playing a positive role in our communities. I have always taken decisions with the club's best interest at heart. I remain committed to these values. That is why I am today giving Trustees of Chelsea charitable Foundation, the stewardship and care of the Chelsea Football Club. I believe that currently they are in the best position to look after the interests of the club players, stuff and fans. So he's it's a it's a Russian war. Corporate governance, ESG, baton handoff, notice he never said Ukraine, he never said Russia, he never said war, he didn't formally, get rid of anything. He's not getting rid of any ownership of power. He's not divested. This is just like, when the CEO founder control owner, just become the executive chair, right? It doesn't give up any ownership. So, it's nothing. That's confused. Why I picked this story? I understand. Well, I'm confused. Why the follow-ups are they identified? The trustees of the fund? And the question I would have is how many of them are directly related to the owner? Who is handing them? The power is this like Washington football team owner Dan Snyder and broiled and I'm massively horrible, sexual harassment Scandal. Was this like him handing over co-ceo duties to his wife? Is it similar? It sorta like that because like the chair, like the trustee chair is getting Bruce Buck, who's personally done legal work for a Brahma Village when they acquired sibneft like a oil company in Russia. So, yeah, these are really independent types. Yes, it's like, bro. Marriage is, you know hired your bro, wife. That was a very courageous announcement. Mr. Abramovich. A poster of this story. Remember, the Elon jet Twitter kid, who was hounding Elon Musk, buy trucking's. Private jet, his name is Jack Sweeney. Now we always tracking Russian oligarch Jets. Including that lists? Our sixth Jets control by Chelsea Football Club owner, Roman Abramovich. There you go. If you want to Yeah, if you want to like what you want to, Let's I want to talk to Jack. Okay. Yeah. Reach out to Jack. I want to because like he is the he's better at governance than apparently Russian billionaires. Yeah, that's all we have. That's today. I'm worn out. I'm tired of War. Can we just move on to the metaverse and get it over with? I am Matt mcgarden, that's Emma Larkin and Damian Ross, we are business pants. And that was all come back for more content but oh we do have a fancy expert lined up for Friday this Friday a new fancy expert will join us for the good game so stay tuned for that. We'll be back at you tomorrow. We're not gonna answer it is. Well, I just want to tease it because we haven't confirmed sometimes and stuff. I just say it's like so tease something else, I love fancy experts. Honestly they are. The best. Can I? You are a fancy expert? Call us join us. Can I tease the fancy expert? When they come sure. Okay. Well, as in teasing them. Yeah, can I do a little, he's got it. That's it. We'll see you tomorrow.