Transcript
Welcome to business pants. We are free flow. We are. Matt Ari. Jesse Damien today's podcast. Business pants, corporate theater. Let me hand it off to our MC, get the show going. Our mission is simple. Translate the business news, why? Because corporations are everywhere because corporations dominate your life because you need your Starbucks in your Tesla. To buy your cold gate at Target. See what I did there. We think it's time for you to not only understand what decisions are being made at these corporations, but how the decisions are made and maybe most importantly Who exactly is making the decisions. Our corporate theater players. This week are the extraordinary Courtney Cook. Phil Haack, Ashley cutter. And the Titan of all things. Funny, Mark McGee each week, the hard-working crew here business pants and free flow will rip actual business news, headlines, from reputable news sources and hand those very real headlines directly over to our business pants, corporate Theater Company who will then dramatized and satirize the stories so that the world can finally enjoy. And yes, maybe even understand the business news. This is nmbc. No musk Bezos or Zuckerberg news break. I'm Colton Belcher and I'm Evelyn Snodgrass bringing you all the business news. Not related to over publicized billionaires. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. That's alright, Evelyn. We're the new service that aims to show that there are other very important corporate news, stories out there not associated with bmz. Our first story, tonight is about the potential sale of the social networking service, Twitter. Oh, sorry. Evelyn looks like Elon. Musk is the one buying Twitter and this is an MBC news. Okay. Let's see. Amazon's Alexa technology celebrates its 8th year up. Wait sorry Jeff Bezos on Amazon shoot. Here's one Instagram users report accounts. Randomly suspended know. Remember Instagram Zone by Mark Zuckerberg. All right, looks like meta's value has plunged. 700 billion meters, Facebook Zuckerberg again. Move on Conway, West Under Fire for posting. Anti-semitic tweets, tweets Twitter musk. Next Aerospace, firm blue origin owned and overseen by the retail, billionaire Jeff Bezos shit. Mark. Zuckerberg's, Infamous legs were not all. They seemed reports a damaged What does that even mean? Oh, we're gonna take a quick break. Stay tuned for more nmcs musk or Zuckerberg news, right? After this. This is fucking impossible. Up. First, we introduce a new segment called excessive executive embarrassment. This week professor gets bed Minister digs into the story of former Eastman Kodak company, CEO, okay, Whitmore. Please enjoy. reading governance groupies it is I professor's Bedminster here with another three minutes and 47 seconds of excessive executive, embarrassments Today's story is an example of monumental complacency in mind boggling, lack of vision. That's right. You guessed it. It's the story of former Eastman Kodak, CEO K, Whitmore buckle up you bad business banshees. It's time for that chilling. Corporate cringe Fest. We like to call three minutes and 47 seconds with a CEO. No. Start the clock. Beginning at the age of 14, the Mormon Rays. Kay Whitmore worked in a wide. Variety of locales, a fish Cannery in Alaska, a Dude Ranch in Snowflake Arizona and a slaughterhouse in Draper Utah. To quote the bloodthirsty K, it gives you a perspective on the world, when you kill pigs every day, I learned it. No matter how sophisticated this world becomes, there are some basic fundamentals in life. Chemical engineer by training, Kay Whitmore joined Eastman. Kodak in 1957 and soon was offered a prize position as product engineer in the film. Emulsion division that he quickly turned down Executive who offered Whitmore that position told him he had just made a serious mistake. You had a magnificent opportunity and you turned it down in a flash of regret and Clarity Whitmore rush back and took the job. This Behavior would become a Hallmark of whitmore's career extreme indecisiveness. Whitmore worked his way up through its photographic film business. Over the next 25 years and was elected president in 1983 and became chairman and CEO in June 1990. Hearing most of the 20th century Eastman Kodak dominated the industry of photographic film by 1975. They controlled a mind-boggling 90% of the film Market in 85% of the camera markets in the US that same year, codec scientist invented the digital camera, they had the future in their hands, but they threw it all away. Even though they were retained a patent for the digital camera, they were stupefying like clueless to digital's Future potential in 1990, okay? Whitmore's first year, as CEO of Kodak, he infamously fell asleep. During a meeting with Bill Gates. That was supposed to focus on ways to battle growing competition from Rivals Polaroid and Fuji film wake up. And again with the Golden Goose, known as digital photography, staring him squarely into face Whitmore refused to take the technology. Seriously, and fail to invest as digital started to take over the world, the company fell into decline. In 1991 Whitmore had approved earlier retirement packages that led to 8300 layoffs and in January of 93. He ordered the involuntary. Layoffs of 2000 employees. Saying it would cost less than what had been codex. Traditional method of providing incentives for early retirement and that it would send a signal to Wall Street. It didn't win more, also cut research and development costs saying that the reductions would not stunned. Kodak's ability to generate new products. It did by that time though kodak's board had had enough. 1993 stating that he had not done enough to cut costs and enhance earnings. Two weeks later, Kodak moved to cut 10,000 jobs or about 10% of its Workforce. They eventually declared bankruptcy in 20 12 6 months after he was fired with more flight to England where he ran a Mormon mission for three years. Okay, Whitmore ascended. To one of the three levels of Mormon heaven, in 2004. Stop the clock. Even though an industry owning company may seem to be invulnerable past success is no guarantee of future success. Particularly when a new game-changing technology comes along, So let us all give the late great Whitmore around of good governance, Applause. And appreciation for showing us how not to lead a corporation. Thank you kay. That's ended the lesson. My ESG Roadies join me. Professor gaetz Minister. Next time is we lift up the corporate executive rock and learn more about what made the corporate Titans of bad management and the erroneous salute Executives of the boardroom tick in three minutes and 40 seconds with a CEO know. Good night, everybody. this is an NBC News break all your business news, but no musk Bezos or Zuckerberg, I'm Colton Bulger and I'm Evelyn Snodgrass It begins clearing. German forest to expand electric car plant. No, no sorry, muscles Tesla! Hi back to you Colton. Better is spending billions on the bed of herself. Meta Zuckerberg. Us Economist believe a recession is likely after Amazon's dismal earnings but damn it, Amazon Bezos? Okay. Okay, um, Apple recently, updated, its App Store guidelines, good with changes that would greatly impact Facebook's ad business. Shooting me. Well, well, we'll be right back after this or these. I don't know, I don't know what the fuck. Up next, all business pods corporates. Look at the Roy says, it's a good call. Life and this scenario a data breach affects a singular employee. Yeah, I just got an email. I'm headed upstairs right now. Upstairs. Hennessey's office. I know. It's got to have something to do with my junior vice president promotion last week. Maybe they want me to head some new project or maybe I'm getting a new office. All these months of unpaid overtime, working weekends and taking no vacation time really paid off. They finally noticed me. Okay, thanks, I'm here. Okay, I'll take you on, I'm done. I know, I know. Okay, gotta go. Hello. I'm Lloyd Barnes. I was just asked to come upstairs. Yes Mr. Barnes. Mr. Hennessy is expecting, you go right in. He's expecting me. Barnes. Come on in have a seat. I've asked the head of it to join us if you don't mind. No, no, no, no. Hello. So, thank you for coming up. We know that you've been very busy lately. Oh, it's no problem. Sir, no problem at all. I'm very excited to hear what you have to say. I'm thinking there's some sort of project you'd like me to take on now and and I can definitely make time to do that. I'll just work through this weekend. No, unfortunately, it's nothing like that unfortunately, unfortunately. Yes, unfortunately, you see, we've had some of a breach, a data breach, a data breach, a data breach, yes, a daughter breach. As you know, we've never had a data breach at Subway security before. So this is rather troubling but fortunately. Fortunately fortunately yes, fortunately, the breach was very limited. Extremely limited actually well well, not fortunately for you but fortunately for everyone else. Why not? Fortunately, for me. What does that mean? Well, unfortunately, you were the only individual affected by this breach. The only one, the only one. Yes, the only one, it it's a miracle, really given our over five million customers, it it really was a true test of how solid out data security is. I mean, this could have been catastrophic for the company millions of personal data points. Stolen lives ruined houses, as well as our customers. Yes. Yeah. This could have been so much worse and for that, we thank the excellent management of Our IT department. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. Wait wait, can we get back to the unfortunate part? So, how badly was I affected by this breach? Oh, badly badly badly, yes, badly very badly. In fact, I'm afraid all your most sensitive personal data regarding identity financial information. Basically, everything about you is being wiped clean, wiped clean wiped clean. Yes. Why clean? We've never seen a breach of this severity before actually. It's unmatched and its Savage Tree in a way. It's very impressive. Very impressive. Very impressive. Yes, very impressive. I mean, one really has to admire the ability of such a feat, even if it is a horrible act, that causes irreparable damage to a person's life. You're a repairable irreparable. Yes, irreparable. It seems your life as you know, it just does not exist anymore. I mean, all your financial information. You passed in current is being completely stolen. Your bank accounts emptied. Your credit history is being scrub clean and even looks like your birth records are gone too. I mean, you're identity is being more than stolen. It's been erased. Erase erased. Yes, erased stop stop. Stop, stop talking. I can't believe this. I just, I can't just this must be a mistake. Let me just check with my bank, a good luck with that. Good luck with that. Oh my God, no, such a countdown. Not even my name. Soldier know, you're gone Barnes to quote, Margaret Mitchell your gun with the win, Gone with the Wind. Up, shut up. What are you doing about this? What is it doing about this? What are you gonna do to fix it? Fix it. Fix it? Yes, fix it. How are you gonna fix this and restore my identity? My life. Okay, be fixed. Can't be fixed, can't be fixed. Know can't be fixed. It's a done deal. Done Deal, stop repeating. Everything he says. Why are you even here? You're the head of it? But I don't even know your name. I don't think I've ever. I've never known your name. No one does who or what are you? He's the head of it. I mean that's all you need to know. I'm the head of it and that's all you need to know. If I hated and erase your identity, actually, his work prevented the theft of millions of identity so please show him a little respect. Respect respect yes. Respect. Okay calm down. We do think we have a possible solution for you if you can't. Listen what well though there is no way to get your actual identity back. We have created a new one for you and I should say head of IT, created a new one for you. A new identity, a new identity? Yes, a new identity. You are now Sigmund. Fitzgerald, Montague. You and you were born in brisket Wyoming your educational and employment, history of being created to look a similar to your actual history. As we could get, thank Christ. You had no spouse or children. I mean, that would have been a nightmare to put together a nightmare. What about my job? Do I still have my job here? I need this job, Mr. Hennessy. I've worked very hard for this job. Well, yes and no. Yes and no. Yes and no, shut up. Yes. And no Lloyd Barnes. Nearly made. Junior vice president of division 7. No longer exists. Ah that reminds me Collins. You can have security remove all traces of barns from the building now. Thank you. Yes, sir. What well we we can't have a non-existent junior vice president on our payroll can we that doesn't make much sense. So we'll have you Sigmund Fitzgerald Montague come into our company at the level that the former you Lloyd Barnes came in, I mean it would cause too much confusion otherwise and it's not really fair to have someone new, just walk in off the street and jump into a junior VP position, I what would the other employees think? But it's not somebody new, it's me, all the employees will know, it's me, they won't be confused. They know you as Lloyd Barnes, but you are Sigmund, Fitzgerald Montague those two entirely different people. No, no, this is madness. I've worked very hard for that job. It took me three years of Blood, Sweat, and Tears to get that VP position. Well I'm sure with that experience. You'll regain your Junior VP position in no Maybe only two years this time. I mean I have the utmost faith in you, but I mean Montague, no, no, no, no. I won't do it. I won't do it. Yeah, I'm afraid you don't have a choice. Montague, don't have a choice. Montague, stop calling me that. I'm not Montague, I'm Lloyd Barnes. I'm Junior. Vice president Lloyd Barnes and I'm going back to my desk on the 45th floor and to continue doing my job. Like I've been doing it for three years. Uh, no you're not your Sigmund. Fitzgerald Montague. And your desk is on the third floor, it's all been arranged and that's that, that's that that's that, that's that I'll show you, what's that. I'm going back to my desk and no one is gonna stop me. I'm Lloyd Barnes, Junior, vice president Lloyd Barnes Jr. Vice president Colin's, get a security detail up here at once we have a crazy man up here thinking he's a junior VP right away sir device. You see, I knew this would happen. We should have just put a bullet in his head quick and easy and then no one would ever even. Know about the data breach. Yes, you, you were right. I just felt, sorry for the poor sap. I wanted to give him a fresh start. All right, do it. A Collins cancel that security detail and send up the cleaning crew, the executive cleaning crew. Okay, so Lloyd Barnes has been totally erased. What do we do with Sigmund? Fitzgerald Montague, we'll just keep him on file, you never know when we'll need them. Hey, maybe I'll become Sigmund, Fitzgerald Montague, I always pegged you for an Ivan or and Antoine something, a bit Sinister, you have no idea. Okay, we're done. This is an NBC News break. Oh your business news but no Bezos Zuckerberg, I'm Colton Bulger and I'm Evelyn Snodgrass As you know, our goal here on NBC, is to give you all the business news. Not related to over publicized billionaires, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. But as you also know, that seems to be impossible, but Let's give it another try, shall we cult? And All right, let's see what we got. Dear God, Amazon music expands catalog to 100 million songs for members. Facebook celebrates one year as meta, Elon Musk dissolves Twitter board. I just pays us and Mark Zuckerberg. Dropped the most. You know, that's it. That's it. We're done. We're done. What do you mean? It's a losing battle Colton. These three totally dominate the business news world. There's no getting around it. It seems that every story is somehow connected to them and I guess that's what the world wants. They actually want to know every little freaking bit about this self-indulgent Solace, Trinity of the corporate underworld and and we can't change that. And then BC News service is done, it's done. So you know what we should do this better, not be if we can't be in a scenario because I say, bulshit to that bullshit. Oh no, definitely not that what we should do is what we've really always wanted to do from day one. We thought the news show idea would bring us more listeners and quicker Revenue but it wasn't our passion. No, not at all. Wait our passion do you mean Colton? We can finally put all our time and energy. You into finishing our real passion, a musical based on the life of Warren Buffett, the sage of Omaha, the sage of Omaha, we can finally share through song and dance. Our love and appreciation for the real billionaire, star of the corporate world, Warren Buffett. These ridiculous NBC tech-based, Junior billionaires. Can't hold a candle to the wise and well seasoned Buffett. Lauren muffin are beloved stage of Omaha is financial advice, has changed our lives Untold riches. He has wronged most successful investor of our time. When he picks us dark Wall Street talks, success rate is positively its most of his billions and millions. Before we get to our last piece, let me once again, thank our fabulous, business pants, corporate theater players, Courtney Cook, Phil Haack, actually, and the encourage you. Tabulis it Mark McGee. We Salute You and finally, our Waltz around the corporate world, flashes forward, hundreds of years to a place, they call the future and looks at what became of all the plastic that corporations are so fund of manufacturing. But not recycling. A very special broadcast. Future, Let's listen. Hi, bro. Hey braids. Hey, great to see you. Yeah, it's been forever man. Where you live in these days? Oh yeah. You know Solo Cup Street. The street line was Solo cups. That's the one. Nice. I'm living over at reusable water bottle Lane. Oh that's a great area. Sure is great to see you. What's new with you man? Oh nothing much, you know, just keeping healthy. I like to take walks around. These fields of discarded plastic. Yeah, can you believe how beautiful the world is these days? Just Plains and hills of plastic As far as the eye can see? Oh man, you're right. The 2400. What a wonderful time to be alive. My friend, you know, living on these piles of plastic that's just stretch, far and wide and about a quarter of a mile down, you know, it's fantastic. Oh man, are you gonna go see Sir? Edmund Hillary's direct descendant, climbing pile of Bendy straws Mountain later? No, no, I'm gonna go watch. Alex Honnold direct descendant, rock climb up, El Cap. Wait, are you telling me that they finally dug El Capitan out of all the plastic where you? Cemani National Park used to be oh no it's it's literally just a tall stack of yogurt caps Al Capp you know it's over it's over by Half Dome of plastic spoons. Oh yeah. Near where all the plastic is covered up the Sequoias man. It's great people still get Outdoors. Yeah you know next summer my wife and I are going to go canoeing in the Grand Canyon you know the parts that are filled in with all the packaging that was around the packaging for the thing that it was Packaging. Oh man, isn't it lucky that people 300 years ago? Use so much plastic? Sure is. I mean, it provides such a beautiful ground to walk on. I can't even imagine a world not covered in plastic. Yeah, and it's such a great building material. I mean, don't lean too hard. On my walls made a food trays and hubcaps but hey, you know, still right? What did our ancestors walk on and build their houses out of road. Do you know? Oh, yeah. I'm I'm pretty sure they used to walk in this thing called dirt dirt. Yeah, we weird. It was, it was a like, well, dirty and there was this other stuff called soil and and grass, I think. And whatever. I mean, why would anybody walk on that? Am I, right? Yeah, apparently there were these things called to trees trees and and for what I heard these trees were were renewable, when cultivated correctly and, and they could become very tall and the become strong and and then there was other things called stones and and Apparently they're what's under the quarter, mile layer of plastic that just covers the entire planet and I guess they use these types of things to build their homes losers. Yeah, I mean thank God. People back then decided to keep churning out that plastic so that we can walk on it today and build things out of you know. I mean it could have gone a completely different way. What do you mean? Oh man, you don't know. Listen to this, our forebears. I mean mostly corporations they were churning out over 380 million, tons of plastic a year and everyone was hollering, stop making plastic and stupid shit like that. Oh come well everyone thought that they could recycle the plastic bag then you know they they print these three arrows chasing each other little realizing that and said of being able to have a cycle of use, it was basically just one big Aruba Ross. Oh like that snake eating itself. Yeah. You know back in the late 90s and early 2000s and even as late as 2020 too, they wanted to reduce reuse and recycle and they thought they could do that with plastic. No kidding. Oh yeah, that's what they thought but There was no reduction, in fact, got to be more. And and then there was little reuse, you know, hence, the big piles of plastic that you see here, what about recycling? Well, not only did the recycling rate, never top 10% and mostly hovered around 5%, but but also, I mean, most Plastics couldn't be recycled in the first place. She it's amazing that they didn't know that back then. Oh, fuck know, they knew you mean, oh, yeah, our ancestors, simply ignored deliberately the warnings that green piece and other scientists were telling them things like Plastics are difficult to collect into sort and Plastics release, hazardous, chemicals, during the recycling process, you know, that sort of thing. Wow, it's a good thing. Those wonderful corporations chose to ignore the warnings. Otherwise we wouldn't have all this wonderful gleaming plastic to walk on and build stuff, and surf on and whatever. Oh yeah, those corporations chose to keep just churning out the plastic and having their customers simply throw the plastic away, either by simply throwing it away or, or by pretending that it could all be recycled and, and having all up in a landfill. Anyway, it just wasn't cost effective enough for them to not, keep making all this plastic. Wow, I literally can't imagine a world without all those wonderful plastic. Thank God. They did that. Yes. When you Consider that there were so many other solutions that people were putting out what Solutions. Oh, things like reducing or eliminating Plastics using reusable materials, things like like glass bottles that customers brought back to Simply refill, you know, stuff like that. But the corporations just ignored those and slap little arrows and everything and called it. Good. Oh wow, that was Sheryl close. I mean, the fact that corporations had these Solutions right there in front of them, that they were easy to implement and would save them money. But whoo, they didn't do them. If they had, we wouldn't have such beautiful piles of plastic everywhere. Yep. Sure. Shows to go. Yeah. It sure does. It does smell. Yep. And it's really loose footing on the stuff and very hot Pressly hot. Yep. It shouldn't be this hot. Should they really could have done something about all this back then? Oh yeah, they could. we all bored super metrics and we will be back tomorrow without this Silly voice, I promise. And please go ahead. Share this podcast with. Your? Pal.