Transcript
live from shithead Central. Well, It's a woke Wednesday edition of business pants. Join us always by Emma, not woke. But actually woke lurking and Matt not woke but thinks he's woke know, I'm starting. I'm awake. I'm permanently asleep. Stepped over my tagline and today's Pence swirled bag of nuggets called May 11th 2022. We drive down shit. Head Avenue. Take a trip to woke lane and then stroll up ESG Boulevard. Wow, places, no one wants to get day out. I was about to say that's nice. Get ice cream. Okay, I don't think there's ice cream there. I don't know any of those places. I think there's coconut milk from organically, farmed coconuts. Yeah, it sounds Amazing. I love coconuts. Let's start with the shithead files. Oh, give me a timer because I got too much information. Yeah, just the timer. Here we go. Timers up go. I'm going to limit this to five minutes. New York Times has an article out bolt built 11 billion dollar payment business on inflated metrics and eager investors wherever heard this before. So we actually covered this on a past show. I learned after doing two or three hours of research. Okay. Ryan, Breslow is the man who started this company bolt. He stepped down suddenly in January. We covered here. He put out a bunch of bulshit statements at the time. But let's talk about it because I have a lot of information. I want to talk about it Bolt. I love this new one. It started as a Bitcoin wallet company did but soon pivoted to e-commerce payments. That's where, of course. I mean, wait, I mean if you're an investor in a company, is it? This is okay with you. You're investing in one thing and then it's a different thing. That's always, they don't pivot to porn. I think it's fine. Isn't that proof alone that the whole investment game is just about like finding people you want to hang out with in the locker room. That is where we hang out. It's correct. Usually drop mushrooms with them. Yes. Okay so in a rush to show growth where we heard this before bolt, did these classic things? It's all about growth growth is a demon. Okay, it did it did a bunch of stupid. Things overstated is technological capability. Misrepresented, the number of merchants using its service including names of customers before verifying whether those Merchants were able to use this technology lying about products lying. About the fact that block Black Rock was leading a deal, it wasn't leading posting a series of horrendous tweets. Encouraging employees to approve risky, transactions. What else? They're gonna tell me? They're founded by a College Dropout. And he's a white guy and he's, here we go privilege. Yeah, luckily I have three mermaids and I can get to that. I will say in November 2021, which is probably what led to Ryan's little stepping down below. They don't admit this. They were sued. By authentic brands for for because bolt pretended. They were Contracting with authentic Brands and they weren't. So this is the kind of company that is. This is what you get and Matt, you hit it on the on the nail there because This is the world of I guess, this is the theranos world we live in this. So here the highlights I got up I got a bunch of information about the founder. Ryan Brazil, he founded bolt when he was 19 after dropping out of Stanford. Exactly fairness. Crazy at this point in the story. Yeah, and again, it started as a Bitcoin wallet company morphed into an e-commerce payment. So essentially again you're giving hundreds of millions of dollars just because you like the guy, right? Yeah. So still the same thus far going, hit a great. Great quote, I found that. He said he said it won't fail. It has to work because the industry isn't working the way it should have a larger. What kind of logic is this? What? This is a person you buy into know. That's exactly. You buy into because they have that ridiculous self-assuredness. That means they know nothing. Oh You hit another nail in the head. Matt, he's a self-proclaimed fundraising Guru. Expensing wisdom, dispensing wisdom, through tiktok and self-published books. Yeah, Emma wait, he actually calls himself a guru. He's a white man and finance calling himself. But 19 year old white men in finance calling himself a guru. Just to be said, here's the quote, fundraising is purely a matter of momentum. That's not he's not wrong about that. He's saying it's bullshit. Okay, so he had a lot of charm. And vision, whatever that means cat, it captivated investors. We've heard this before including, of course, Peter Teal's founder fund. They said there's almost a cult of Ryan at Stanford. So we got charm Vision cult, sounds very wework, sounds very thorough Nancy. He abruptly stepped down as CEO blind siding. Some investors. He was replaced by a South Asian man, maju kuruvilla. Okay, just saying It's a little early Google Playbook, but good for them. And I don't have a lot of time left for this process but I did have a little fun on Ryan's website today. It's called Ryan takes off. Dot Ryan. Take that all these businesses he has a he has a business called Bolt. Which is democratizing Commerce. He's a business called Eco, which is democratizing money. He has a business called love, which is democratizing farming. Does he say democratizing all of them? Here. Yes he does. And he also loved is co-founded by the man who's called America's who co-founded by a man who founded startup, which was trying to replace all of New York's delis. Know the startup is called Bodega, sorry. And it's called America's most hated startup anyway. All right I run out of time. I want to wrap up with this. There's so much more here and I'll put it on the newsletter. But here are the common denominators that Matt very rightly was pointing out. These are these are the common denominations we're seeing all over. Listen to us here. Here we go. I got 11. Stanford. Dropped out. Miami. There's a lot of Miami's new. This is the new thing. Yes yes some kind of a cryptocurrency in this case, it's Bitcoin or ethereum. I think he co-founded the stent for Bitcoin Group, whatever that is being replaced by a Southeast Asian CEO. This is the latest rage. The only we talked about the Zeitgeist baby. Charm cult, you know, stuff, Peter Thiel. You know, we always shows up, he's in general, they love rushing in and giving money democratizing everything. This is a big one. I don't know how that means the I feel like I I a couple months ago, I said that if someone is using the word democratizing, I'm immediately like in the trash. He did. He did it three times at a democratized A gobbledygook marketing really big promises. And finally sudden departures this is a, this is a recurring theme in this world like the CEO suddenly departments. I I actually have to announce right here. Yeah, I'm suddenly departing Why for lunch? And I'll be back later who's gonna be? Oh, let's say who's gonna be in terms CEO, maybe I'm a. No. All right, it's my turn. Now let's let's go. Here is a woke Wednesday, headline of the day Femal. Told she's quote, not the man for the job at a flabbergasting lease sexist AGM now. Flabbergasting, Lee is in the headline. It is a quote, this is a really who said that it is the the chair of Aviva PLC giant British. And sure said that after CEO Amanda Blanc Um, was served a full plate of anti-wolf snark at her own meeting. That is it anti-walker? That's just like sexist hate little both, let's wait for it to see because maybe so one investor question during the Q&A portion of the meeting whether Blanc was quote, the man for the job and they emphasize man crazy. One and a joke from the investor named Michael Mason Mahon, who's a British sexist. Wow, version of a gadfly. I think asked whether Blanc should be quote, wearing trousers. I mean, that's the thing. You can't. What is that even mean? Are we going to skip? Sorry. Are we gonna skip right over the fact that his name is Michael Mason Mahone? There's a lot of EMS. What is that, man? Maybe what a lot of EMS in there, but taking a cake was, Ted O'Toole. Whoa, hold on Matt. Sorry, I didn't wrap it. There's like several different dudes trolling, just meeting a woman. Three, separate individuals who are unrelated up and had a sexist comment. Yes. And this didn't happen in Florida or Texas happened was actually in the UK. Yeah. Oh taking the cake was Ted O'Toole. Yes that's a real name. That's a real person that's dead. Oh tool. I thought it was made up two. I went and looked him up so much alliteration he congratulated the board on its gender diversity before adding quote. They are so good at basic housekeeping activities. I'm sure this will be reflected in the direction of the board in future. That was his quote. but these are like not only are these like just Horrible jokes, but there. Yeah. They already been good sexist joke. Like what is this? How do we know are we see? People? Do we know how old? Yeah. Are they, Michael are the Munger tribe. Michael Mason. Mahone is 400 years old that I've seen, but just for context sake, half of the Aviva board, are women, making it actually an outlier in the UK where normally only about a third are women. So good for Viva, 94% of UK trading, companies have male, CEOs, 83%, have male cfo's 87%, have male chairs so you can see why Ted O'Toole is upset here. In fact, it's in fact, Ted O'Toole, we followed him to another shareholder meeting. I got tape of this, we have a reporter on the ground. There are nine companies out of 343 in the UK that are listed that have 100% male boards and Ted Ted is actually a shareholder at one of those companies. Here's a Clip of Ted asking, Victorian Plumbing group, that is a real company. A real traded company, a plumbing group about their strategy from their AGM back in February this year here. Let's rotate Shelly quiet down, quiet down, Mr. O'Toole, a question from you, Cheerio chaps. Thank you for having me here. I have to say, well, I'm a little disappointed that your stock prices dropped 82%. In the last five years. It is very refreshing to be surrounded by such excellent, trousers. I have two concerns. I think need to be addressed here first, your gender pay gap on average, you reported, you pay men 13.7%, more than women, and that 86% of your top employees are men. My question is, is that really high enough? I know you actually manage to increase your pay gaps slightly since last year, but I think you can truly do better. Second, your senior leadership team. While you have managed to make 100% of your board, white men kudos for that on your senior leadership team. You list a Stephanie judge as a managing director and it appears she's a woman. It does say, she started as the CEO's personal assistant, which makes sense to me, but I am quite certain, she is likely the soul reason. The stock price is down so much, perhaps she could go back to her housekeeping and not taking activities. Again, thank you for the floor and I look forward to your responses. Oh clapping. There was some clapping at the end of that. I'll say this. At least there's finally somewhere Ted can feel safe and at home while he's doing his investing, that's my update. So this is, this is all real. I know part of this may be wasn't real, but I've heard that voice before but the most I've ever seen him look. But the what I'm trying to say is the Aviva part is 100%. I want real, I want to listen to know that that this, that this is actually. I've never, what are we doing with this information? I mean, we how do we handle doing this podcast for like, two and a half years? We've been doing ESG, this kind of stuff for more than 10 or 15 years at 15 years. At this point, I have never heard of an annual general meeting in which three separate individual investors. Got up and had something sexist to say, to a female CEO. I've never heard of here. Can I give you? Can I give you a little bit of background? Just puzzling me. Which is just proving that men just suck, but I was thinking maybe this is, maybe this is just a stock price thing. No, right. It is not because Aviva's stock price back in 2017 was like 540 now it's 4111 so that maybe maybe this dude just pissed off by that. But when you look at the details, she was actually hired in July 2020 when the stock had dipped all the way to 263 dollars. And now what is it? 411 so since her since her time and power, it is skyrocketed. So there's literally nothing behind this other than just being asked. Oh, sorry shit. The thing that he that they were, they that she announced at the meeting was that they were increasing their share BuyBacks. They were giving more money back to investors because they had so much cash and they had sold a bunch of stuff that they didn't get for more than they thought, they were going to sell it for. So she's a hero. She's basically Yeah, that is exactly what I was gonna say. I was like she's the hero of this company and Ted O'Toole. And by the way, Ted O'Toole, what a name real to have and behave, the way it had a tool. Clearly, behaves. Speaking of poor behavior, let's move on. Okay? Ready. Yeah. So you gonna be poorest, please. I always behaved poorly. I don't really know what's new about that. And today. Let's do it. It's not with a game. I'm not playing a game today. Sorry, game, Queen is gone. Oh, I have a question Queen today. I like question Queens. Yes, I am the question Queen today. So if you are in the extremely Niche, ESG Community, First of all, well, welcome, we're thrilled to have you. Secondly, please go find another less depressing Community to join looking to be uplifted by people. Yeah, that's an issue expert. It's true. It's a one thing. I'll agree with you on. I am that. Listen, at least when you're wearing the t-shirt and thirdly, you will probably have seen the most recent ESG criticisms on social media and various people. There are a lot and I we try to explain ESG a lot and there isn't much explanation about ESG. Other than that, it's just data that people use in configured to make decisions. She got it that's it. She got it because you've been preaching it non-stop. Yeah but it's also not that hard he says the same sentence like 80 times and like okay I guess that's so, but in the spirit of all these criticisms, I went through a couple of them and I came up with some questions that I'm hoping can elicit. Some interesting answers from Matt and Damon. If not interesting, at least definitive, are we ready? I was born for this. All right. Number one, sadly, the headline is stop the outrageous. ESG assessments, why Elon Musk calls it? A total gaming of the system. So he tweeted stop the outrageous. False ESG assessments where Tesla gets a bad grade, but an oil company can get a good grade total gaming of assistance. Right, so my question is this while I would agree with Tesla getting a bad grade? Why does Tesla get a bad grade compared to an oil company? That's yeah. Oh, what you have the floor in this from? But when we looked into this, we're talking about this from what I could see both of the S&P. And msci, Tesla has better grades, the oil companies which is the. Let me ask you this, what oil company has a better grade than Tesla. I don't even know where their my follow-up question which is also does Tesla actually, get batty. SG scores know. I mean yeah, the place I know the best MSI gives Salt gives them a solid a, which is this good here. Elon wants that triple A baby. I was happy when I got A's, I don't know. Look at Matt. But what is this? What is this oil company to which he refers? Well, there are oil companies that rate better tell me Tesla. Okay, tell me I proved Chevron is actually a double A but actually I am. And I'm gonna look this there are some there's I think any which is an Italian. One might be Triple-A there are. Okay. So you're taking here's the way it works though. This is what's funny. It's not a gaming system. It's not a game. It it's a viewpoint. Msci, took a bunch of data sustained analytics, gets the same data. Sometimes some slightly different, and they all get a little bit of data, and then they do a thing and they put it in a pot and they make stew, okay? Some people make chili some people make, you know, lentil soup. But it's, it's just your using. The same ingredients are very similar ingredients to come out with a different soup different flavors. Okay? And while Matt is a, is the what do you doing monologuing? Yeah. Can I just point out that you're both wrong? Chevron is actually a triple B msci so it's rated lower than testing keep going keep going. There are my point is there have to be no oil and gas company that are rated better than Tesla. And the reason why they're have to be is because after you make your soup, you compare, you don't come, you don't say like, oh I'm comparing my soup to sustainalytics is soup. You actually say how I made this soup was I compared all of the ingredients Within One industry to each other. So what you get it's relative, It's relatively top rated oil and gas company in a bottom radio. Yes company a top rated car company, you know, bottom rated. So what Elon Musk should be annoyed at is that he's not the top rated car company. Not, I'm looking at this and saying am I the top rated Oil Company? You're not an oil company. Don't compare yourself to them. This is all you like that. Can I talk to Elon? Yeah. Talk to, you know? Yeah. If you look more closely Elon, the only reason why your score. First of all, a is pretty damn good. Let's be, let's be real. It's, it's not bad, it's Nae. Okay, stop whining. Second of all, the only reason why your score is even that low if you want to call that low is because you're just this s element of of your score that you know, ESG. Social is very low, at least msci, because there are a lot of heinous stuff going on at your, at your, your factories. Yeah, there are a lot of controversies going on like, you know, racism and discrimination lawsuit and more. That's the only reason it's actually it's backed up by facts right by two of that is so you have the sort of problem of discrimination and racism and stuff like that, which not great, but part two of that is you're, you're dumb brothers on the board. Can We not do that. You have to do that has about to say, the g isn't great, either for that. Well, it's not, but it's not terrible. Is the social bringing Bringing Down the score. It's the side up until like like two years ago. Musk was the chair of his own board as well and his brother was on the board and his core investors from way back were on his board and his buddies are on the board. So yeah, I mean I look You can be you can I can I can agree with you that ESG assessments are flawed, some are better than others, but lots of flaws exist. But it's not, you're fundamentally misunderstanding. What it does, it's it their opinions and you're not supposed to compare yourself to an oil and gas company. You're not looking for a Force ranking of the goodness of companies. His argument is that we're so environmentally good and they're environmentally bad. We should be better. All right, great. Make your own ESG rating, and make make it about you environmentally. Good versus bad, do whatever you want, but that's not what these ratings do. Guys, that was a pretty like good answer. Oh no it wasn't. I heard that answer. 500 times that I'm mad. He has the same thing. Number two. Dare you. And by the way, any is also an A so it's tidy with Tesla. Go ahead. Black Rock slams, Michael managing climate proposals. So after news, that BlackRock would be downloading most climate proposals, they encountered in proxy season, blackrocks stewardship. Team released document that complained that a large number of these proposals were unduly prescriptive and constraining on management and said that it would oppose any metal or any measures intended to micromanage companies or that would not promote shareholder value. So, my question is this, So even people who actually like ESG. Yeah, hey ESG. Does anyone like what ESG actually is? I think you've I think you've just defined me. I I I hate it like the opposite direction while I like it. So I yeah and by the way they've been doing this forever this they always they always use that excuse to turn down, good proposals because they claim it interferes with a day-to-day operations of the company in what way that argument is no sense. I'm saying, I'm just saying, the only thing that's new here is that that black rock probably released this after Mike Pence ripped in the ESU. They're probably just doing a little bit of PR deflecting, I don't know. All right. So in, in that case, let's move on to number three, because we're getting there. Oh, cut you off, I like it. Yeah, keep going. Keep going. Number three, Pence rips. Socially minded investing wants to rain. In ESG. My question, no further context. It's all you really need to know. But my question is this, why? Sorry I have two questions one. Why does Mike Pence? Give a shit about ESG and two? Do we think that he knows what ESG is or do? We think he's just doing what donors tell him to well in this situation political, this is the political realm, which we don't talk about because we suck at talking about it. ESG is a proxy for the left, that's it, it's that simple. I don't think there's anything more going on here. It's just a, it's a coded, it's coded rhetoric for anything, left of the aisle. And and I absolutely not. He doesn't, of course, he doesn't understand what ESG is. He's not a very nuanced, man. He's not a very curious, man. I'm not, this is not even a political thing, he just not, he's a dope. Yeah, I mean, he's a, this is a guy who, who won't have meetings alone with women? He is a tool should get you. Literal a literal scary dope. But there we talked about this in pre-production. I think there's kind of like, Three or three or four types of people with ESG. There are the people who know the data, like get their raw data points. They use their raw data points. They understand them. They're, that's us. We actually are those people. There are people who then buy like some amalgam of the data in the form of a score from someone else. Like, that's most asset managers that's BlackRock. Right. Like they, they do that. Then there's people who complain loudly about what they just bought in the scores, right? Like I can play and then there's reporters and Mike Pence who basically spent all of their time having never seen a score really, having never seen the data at all. They're so far removed from it but have deep opinions about how flawed and terrible and leftist or rightist or incomplete it is. Those are the three people Mike Pence is the latter. But he said they were the fourth. That's like three and a half. Mike Pence is the latter. That's where he All right, and to wrap this up. Finally number four we have our favorite Matt's favorite really Mark and recent so He tweeted. The plan colon ESG funds will invest in Defence companies to make the weapons required to fight Wars with hostile regimes. We buy energy from because ESG funds won't invest in the energy companies. My question is this wait is, is he wrong? Yes, she funds will invest. There's so many embedded idiotic parts of that. I don't know. I just don't even know where to begin. First of all, can I just say how awkward it is, when, when anyone in power in America is complaining about Russia? Invading, Ukraine? A mere? Yeah. 15 years after a horrendous war and Iraq, where? Yeah, we took no couple bully before. Anyway, I'll get off that. Yeah. Yeah, you take this one. I don't I don't want to take this one. Yes, she funds. Um, investing in defense companies, sometimes that'll happen because one fun decides they should, and sometimes it won't. Because wait, can we slow down here? What you're you're using the term ESG funds? Not like it has the meaning behind. It doesn't mean it's. Yeah, because as even the SEC points out that that's just it's a marketing it. The acronym can also be used as a marketing tool. Yeah. So I'm gonna replace what the hell is an ESG with Dewey Decimal System. So, do we decimals don't do that? You're, you can't solely Damian's best friend. I don't know why you would organizational principles. So, like, you know, like funds that organized data. One Way, invest in Defence companies because and won't buy and other funds who organized it in a different way. Won't invest in energy companies. Like, what are we talking about? This is the dumbest most idiotic. We love this assumptions built in there. Yeah, I agree with Matt because I The real problem here is that is the subject of these thoughts from from Mark? Is that the subject being ESG funds? He doesn't know what those are. Nobody knows, what they are. There's no catch-all for what an ESG fund is like we can actually Define ESG. We can Define, we can talk about the data ESG funds, meaningless. Nothing, you're just you're just twittering meaningless nonsense. Mark, it was getting into conspiracy theory territory which is where, oh, really obviously I got intrigued. So, yeah, I don't want to like prolong this six-hour show. But who what why do you why do you hate Marc Andreessen? Again, what's his deal? What's Matt what's his? He's a Peter Thiel type. He's the back. Yeah, he's a PayPal. Yeah. Oh he's in the PayPal Mafia One of the early investor and Zuckerberg he's one of the he's just that that that that price he's just trolling their crew. That's Libra. Check in out of Stanford, out of the Silicon Valley that now owns effectively the entire world. He's in that Hey, he's doing. He did not go to Stanford. How dare you? He went to University of Illinois. Come on first. Oh, so he's one. He's the old school like Netscape generation? Yeah, oh yeah, so so This. This is just third grade trolling. Okay, I didn't realize this is just, I'm sorry, but this is even like a stick. Can I say? This is a step below, Mike Pence, because Mike Pence just doesn't know what's going on. It's just political rhetoric. This guy should know what's going on and it just fully talk. He's a Bully and said say something about yeah just taking over. Yeah yeah I give him a pass for that because the left does that to the right but Mark and reason is a bully, he's just one of these stories to Emma's point and asking questions about them is really just a million layered misunderstandings. About what we're really talking about, which is a badly organized at a data, that's it. Yep, it's over. Well never say it again. Never want to hear about ESG again until tomorrow when we come back with more business pads. That's it. Goodbye.