Transcript
oh, Yeah. Look at me live. From. Ari is back from vacation but still not during the show palooza. Whoo, a lot of palazzos, when you're in your headers, it's yeah, another manic Monday edition of business pants joined by the lord of the vs. Matt McCarty, who's very proud of himself for looks like he's sitting at a little table like, at a It's like I'm at coffee shop. I'm at an ESG Cafe. Yes. She Cafe, right? Exactly, that's right. I said off brand coffee shop. in today's, Chalky ESG Hi-Fi called May 22nd 2023. Sexy story update in a BS inspired look at succession planning. But yeah, yeah, that you didn't hook anybody with that. Yeah, you want to do it, not gonna lie, I'm not gonna do better, I'm not, it's not gonna get better. So through our data, through the lens of our data, our proprietary data, only available here. Well I mean available for sale, though, it's not like we're hurting anybody. Who wants it. It's not like we're holding on to it for deal life and not giving it away, but we're gonna give you our vision of succession planning, our how our numbers help you tell a story about succession planning, right? I hope that's what you're doing. I mean a little bit. We'll see how this turns out let's just jump right in, you ready? Yeah and no particular order. I was always Unfortunately, I'm starting with the woke data Wars. Oh again. Look when publicly traded companies, get dragged into this. We stupidly report on it. I'll try, I'll try to go quickly but It's gonna be hard for me, not to take the bait, Adidas faces, backlash, over, woke, swimsuit advertisement. So I guess, Wait, this is not Martha Stewart. This is Adidas. That was Sports Illustrated. Yeah, I'm just confused because there's so many woke swimsuits. Now, Adidas features features, supposedly what appears to be a biological male wearing a woman's one piece. Swimsuit has ignited a backlash, okay? But actually I don't even care about that part. I just want to talk about the wok data Wars in general, because this is what CBS news.com. This is what they call a backlash. This is business reporting or news reporting. Okay. They are size using citations from Twitter users, like Lisa, Renee, who said, we women will not be erased. Quit trying to replace us with male models. We fought hard to be heard, Quit attempting to a racist again. Blah, blah. That's Lisa. Renee, Matt, she has 45 followers on Twitter, so There is no woke. Backlash, there is no backlash against Adidas. If you have to literally look, For a backlash by searching for anyone who said anything negative. And then report on that, no matter how many people care, what are we doing? And let me do creating, and let me give me another example of that, because this is gonna make me rethink. All of our work data War segments. There's another one Disney's Indiana Jones turns woke, with latest development. That's the headline. Okay. And here's the example, their sighting in one scene Indy, you know, Indiana Jones says, you stole it and then another character says, then you stole it. And then a third character says, and what it is a woman, the third character, okay? I warned you, she says And then I stole it, it's called capitalism. Okay. And then the Articles says this dig, it capitalism. Oh made many people angry. Some of whom said that they that that joke at capitalism. Made them not want to see the movie. So they're pointing to see them movie. Because so they're they're idea here is that the Walt Disney Company, I guess is a non-profit, all of us and they're socialists non-profit all the sudden because of this joke, so I don't know. I don't know that they're actually are woke data Wars. I don't know, I don't know. Is this real I mean, I feel like we're looking for a reason to be annoyed about everything. Yeah, that's where we're at. So yeah, I guess it's real. I guess. Disney is now what? Well, let's define. What Disney just became. Disney is a non-profit that wants everyone to be gay and it doesn't like any Traditional Values and would like to rub rainbows in your face. That's pretty much what it is. Alright, let's apply your theory to this next one. Here's the, here's the headline, Exxon goes, awoke. Oh, No wait, I'm gonna warn you waiting for this. That's my headline. I made that up. But here's the story. Exxon joins hunt for lithium in bet on EV, boom. According to the article exons, The Wall Street Journal is quietly, looking for producing the mineral in Arkansas, bracing for a future far, less dependent on gasoline by drilling for something other than oil. So has that song Gone woke up effectively right on. Whoa, no. Vivica's whole like half of his presidential campaign is dig for oil and burn it, like he said, burn it. All right. So up to here, why are they doing this quietly? Will be yeah, quietly, that's a good point. Well because I mean maybe they don't want to rub the rainbows in your face, maybe they just want to put the rainbows in their back pocket, for when the world is less rainbows. Well, okay, I demand two things here, one. I'm waiting for the backlash too. If there's not a backlash, can we create the backlash somehow? Can we, can we start to generate the idea that Exxon has gone woke by predict by planning for a future? That might not include gas and oil. Can we lay that seat? Yeah. Exxon in your shareholder proposal. You said not one week ago that it's highly unlikely that there's any scenario where we're going to get to NetZero, you said that to shareholders and now you're going out and and actually using shareholder resources to dig for something that only matters. If there's a net zero future, right? If people want to speed less carbon, they want electric cars. What are you doing? You've got a full-on. What are they doing this? Proves that the ESG assholes at engine. Number one, putting environmentalist on your board worked and made you fully woke and change your business model from being an oil and gas company to something that the leftist global sorrow sea types. Yeah, how do you diversify? How dare you, how dare you try to buy a mineral? That has more value in the future today? Where you think it has less value? How dare you try to make more money someday into the future? By the way, be drilling and burning stuff. Now burn it all. Now, by the way, is Coincidence. That diversify has diverse in it, that a coincidence. It's not a coincidence. That is terrible. Terrible terrible portending of the future. All right, finally, the wrap up this horrible segment on the walk data Wars. How about this? How about the fact that the headline is that Anheuser-Busch was stripped of its perfect rating by lgbtq org for its response, the Millennium backlash. How about the fact that Anheuser Busch had a perfect rating from the Human Rights Campaign and their corporate equality in the Bud. Light trick is they been drinking perfect rating beer. Perfect. Lgbtq, how about that? Iranian love that? I mean what is 100? They were drinking 100% gay beer forever. No I'm serious. What 100% it's amazing. How about the fact that a perfect rating? Perfect. I mean, and that, that wasn't like new, right? It's been multiple. Yeah, perfect. Right, so perfect. Yeah. I mean, up, until now, the gay Jews, tasted just fine and just put a gay on the Can somebody who's like lgbtq Plus on the can and then it tastes like terrible. Yeah nobody wants that. Let's move on. I'm really never, I think. Let's go to our non-apology tour. Oh, Tesco chair to step down. That's John Allen, he's stepping down. Following claims of inappropriate conduct toward women, I guess it wasn't so bad because he's waiting to step down the annual meeting on June 16th. It's a little weird. But I really I should stick around to make sure but how about this? This is from The Wall Street Journal Allen who was he's been a chair at the company. Since 2014, has denied three of four claims about his conduct toward women I'm serious and he said that was the fourth and he says, is with regret that I'm having to prematurely Stand Down following unsubstantiated allegations made against me blah blah again, He three, three of he apologized for three of four. Wait, he denied three or four claims mess. So one of them, he's clearly taking responsibility for it. And yet, he and Tesco are saying that none of this has been proven and yet he's still being let go, he's prematurely stepping down because the fourth, how about what a loader? I mean, this is not the biggest load of bullshit. You've seen, how many is it? Like, at what point is the number? So large that it's really hard to believe that. None of the things are true, but with all but already, one of them is true. Well he didn't say it was true, he's just saying that the three others are false so you're in flying but that means you know, you get to say that it's all baseless and that you shouldn't be stepping down. Well, he's not, he's staying, he's sticking around and so the end of June. But I mean, okay, what what decision is he gonna make between now and June 16th? It's so important. He has to be there. Okay, but what are we gonna are having a matured? Beyond this where the corporation is clearly asking him to step aside. And yet not no one's at full for anything like our have, we not moved Beyond this? No one's at fault for three out of four things. Okay, I'll Just Fall for the fourth one. Why do we have to protect? Don't know. Why do we have to protect John Allen? Why I mean. He seems like he's a he's a white man. Okay. But whatever, according to our board saber metrics data, they have a pretty sizable female power Gap, 42 percent of the boards, represented by women, but hold only 25% influence. Well, that explains why you can stick around until June 16th, they're being like, can you get out? Yeah, you just get out like, but like now and he's like, yes, I do. Good. But you don't have any influence according to free Magic. So you float says, I don't have to listen to you. Yeah. Oh, let's move on to stakeholders rule. Just stories that you sent me over the weekend. I don't even know how to talk about this. I feel like this is we've jumped the shark. This is satire gone. Crazy. I don't even know what the store. I don't get any of this. A d e. I executive her name is Bo Young Lee. She's the head of diversity of uber. She was placed on leave after hosting an event about white women who don't like being called a Karen at Uber. Oh, so the cut. So just so you're clear. The historical context of a Karen is a white woman who is being a racist a-hole making, you know, false accusations against black people. That's that's where it originally turned. And so, she held that checks out, she held at a public corporation. She held a forum to, I guess be KinderCare. Well, what do you make of all this? I don't understand this, I have to back up and I don't understand the Forum itself. Yeah. Like what are we achieving with the Forum itself? It was called The Corner New York Times. It was called an exploration of the Karenina that featured white women speakers. I guess this is like their airing, their grievances. So is that was that an opportunity for white women who were racist to stand up and say, this is what I feel? Yeah, like back off, I'm sad. Like, leave me alone. Diverse people in the audience to be like, how does that? I mean, really bizarre. The thing is ill-conceived to begin with? Yeah, but also like I don't really totally understand why you place Bo Young Lee on leave. I yeah, that's what I'm getting a. This is, that was the culmination of what I'm getting into here. Is that I'm assuming that in the chain of command, there aren't that many Executives above her. She's had a diversity. She probably reports to either what the CEO, or the head of human resource. Who do you think she reports to? I don't know, but I mean. So what else? Seen these formatively in the c-suite, right. But someone has Seen the emails announcing the meetings. Why is she? Again like this is we talked about this with Anheuser Busch and Morris and Molson Coors one of their worker. Yeah go ahead and less. Of course, it's a token position to begin with in their padding or on the head and go and saying go. Do some diversity stuff. Yeah, and they care. So little that way in. So there's two possible. There's two possibilities here, right? One, is that they knew, and they've edited it. And now, like, they're making her out to be like a racist, diversity candidate, right? Or two. They didn't know, because they didn't care. Didn't care, which case? What was the point of having her there in the first place? Yeah, don't really care about diversity this. Is why I bring it up because we are like, teetering on this Edge in 2023 where we just had this announcement from the CEO at Target. Brian Cornell saying that Dei is basically over the last nine years, is basically responsible for our growth and yet. And yet we had the opposite reaction, which is a bunch of companies that have Dei, but don't care about it. When we have the conservatives fighting against trying to get rid of. So what what what is happening man? Like, we're right on the precipice here. Like who's gonna win out? What's gonna win out here? Well, I I think there's a, there's a subtext here. I mean, look, if if She was a white man 15 years ago. Giving a talk about anything at all, having to do with company culture. And he said at the time, like we don't want women to like rise up and take all the jobs, do we. Is there outrage like there is today, we are the way we flip immediately on a diverse person, right? Who might say something that sounds vaguely racist against white people who are the vast majority of people in these positions. The way we flip out is sort of a little outside, like, shouldn't it just be like, okay, well you guys had your shot to be racist. Can we be a little racist sometimes? Can we say some stuff that that's actually real sometimes, instead of like coddling, you white people because you need coddling. How about, I mean, how about from a company like uber too? That was built on a complete a-hole of a CEO founder who broke every rule known to the international world. And they put this woman on a leave of absence just like snap it, you know, snap of a finger, not to mention they, they haven't made any money at Uber yet. Well, that's just waiting on that. Moving on. Let's get to CEOs rules. Try to get out of this hand, it over to Matt, I have a few normal CEO rule headline, Mark, Zuckerberg's Fortune has soared by an astounding 44 billion dollars this year. The biggest gain of any billionaire. How about that? Mark Zuckerberg still at it? He's still there. Meanwhile, in in Iron Eagle. Meta was fine that they got one point three billion dollar fine. But the European Union that was announced today over concerns that Facebook data transferred to the US could be used to spy on European citizens Zuck. Mark Zuckerberg is warning that that record fine sets a dangerous precedent when the internet is already fracturing under pressure from authoritarian regimes He's? He's concerned about authoritarian, and the audience had the right reaction. They're the last, I mean, that's pretty good. The biggest dictatorship and all of Tech is still on the hands of Mark Zuckerberg Zucker. And he's, he's upset that there's authoritarians elsewhere, that aren't him, and really, to call the whole European Union. Authoritarian, I mean, this is a body of, you know, I don't know how many countries, is that what he meant by the authoritarian regimes? Like? Well, I think that's what he's. I think he's hinting at right. The EU is an authoritarian body. I suppose. I don't know what he's hinting at Jose. I mean, I don't know what he's doing. Yeah, I don't know what's happening, double meanwhile to frighten, you even more Instagram, you know, there's different ways of saying, the word, the words, Mark Zuckerberg colloquially. He's all his nicknames are Facebook and Instagram and meta so other ways we talk about him and what. Sure. Yeah and what's that? Don't forget that. Yes. So when you see business news reporting Oculus Rift is not him too. Yeah. When you see reports that Facebook because decided something or Instagram is working on something, just so you know, it's Mark Zuckerberg. So reportedly testing a competitor to Twitter. Oh yes. It's called Instagram for your thoughts. There's not a name for it. Already hate it. Yeah. Not a name for it. Yeah, although it's been referred to as project 92. But anyway that's what you have to look forward to. Matt is a Twitter competitor coming from Mark Zuckerberg so who do we root for their? Do you root for? Wow. Neo Nazi Elon Musk. Your root for Dick, the dictatorship of Zach, I don't know. European authoritarian regimes, I think is what I'm left with to root for. Me while speaking of Elon, I'll just cover this very quickly. I don't think we talked about this because we don't get any really bored of talking about Elon Musk but he made headlines for calling remote work. Morally wrong, right? Yeah. He did say that. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. But what about the fact that there's no more remote CEO than Elon Musk? He, how many how many companies? He's CEO of three or four? I think it's more isn't neuralink. Nerling company, boring company, Twitter, Tesla, SpaceX SpaceX. So, and I think there's another one. There's another story AI startup that he's just fundraising for now. So is he not the king of remote work? Maybe he does it all from how one desk you think he flies to each company? What do you mean? How could he how could he not remotely work for at least six of those? It is it is a little bit ironic that a guy who won't pay his landlord for the office space is. Yeah, that's Another Place. Another not going to your office space. You're going somewhere actually complicated when I'm asking you is there is there not a more remote CEO than Elon Musk? I don't think so. Well, unless you count Richard Branson, when he pierce the mesopause, okay? Finally, in our wrap-up of all the news, all the updates succession, CEOs, rules succession style, we've two big succession stories coming out Lazard CEO Ken Jacobs prepares to step down, but I don't have much to say this other than the fact that he plans to remain at the company and continue working with clients. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know about that one. That's called stepping down. Yeah, also the bigger one Morgan and I think you hear to cover Morgan, Stanley, Morgan Stanley CEO stepping down and supposedly. There are three men who are leading the leading candidates to replace Morgan Stanley CEO. Everyone, shocked by that. Everyone is shocked. You have something to say but Morgan Stanley. Yeah, let's do this. because, This is real life succession without fishing keys, out of a toilet, and dying as a result. So the the chances that the CEO would not have been a white man, according to board sabermetrics, for either Morgan Stanley or Lazard. Now, lizard, we don't have data on, but Morgan Stanley, we do have a lot of data on it. Good, here's some good stats. The nominating committee influences 39%. It's pretty strong nominated. So yeah, the female power overall is 19% the female power on the nominating committee is approximately 0%. Oh, right? Yeah because the entire nominating committee is white men, okay? It is always about it, right? So the chances that they weren't going to like go with James Gorman, selecting a white man to run the company we're pretty low, for being on us. In fact, the gender power Gap at Morgan Stanley is 10%, as in women, have 10% less power than the body count, right? So there's already A big gap at Lazard. We have no data, but lazar's interesting for other reasons will come back to them, okay? There are a bunch of knee-jerk reactions about the lack of diversity. There's, I've read a bunch of pieces about how Morgan Stanley like is choosing all white men and how can they do that? And their board is not very diverse and their leadership. Team is also not very diverse. But there's another key sentence in the Morgan Stanley. Reporting, which is Gorman. 64 will take on the executive chairman role for a period of time after CEO. So we don't know if that means like to help the power transition or we'll just kind of hang around forever. First of all, if you've done succession planning, do you need the CEO to stay on as executive chair for a power transition? Didn't you do the plan? I would say, like, for maybe like, three or four weeks might be fine, just like show where the stapler is and where to get like the instant coffee that kind of, I mean, you want to show them the perks of your new like, Executive Suite on Suite toilet, right? That's it. Yeah. Like, where the bed really the best club sandwiches? How long does that take? Can't you have a concierge do that? Does that have to be the last CEO doing that? So, we actually have a slight Boomerang alert, a powered alert. Gorman owns 23% of the board influence followed by a guy named Tom glosser. Okay, glosser, I don't know glossar. Who cares closer is the independent lead. Independent director, who's leading is, an independent Miss has been there for a 10-year tenure sitting on every committee that right? Yes. So it's it's the Gorman. Glosser show is what it is. You one of the, is he one of the people in the running to take over? He's not Intake over but he is on the nominating committee. So okay fear not the lead independent director is on it so it's really it's up to Gorman and Gloucester here they're in cahoots because of the tandem, right? This is the Bromance on the Morgan. Stanley boardman's moved to Executive chair. Yeah. Effectively means he retains almost all of that power again. Still being paid like an executive. It's not like, I mean, it's not like he's just there, he's still an executive to the company. He still might even be the number one page employee. Not to mention the fact that they add another Insider to the board because you have a new CEO coming in, right? And they don't extend the board size beyond that. So what you've done is add another inside of the board who used to report to Gorman, no matter who they choose. Yeah. All right. So now the new CEO who will not be at the start because you have an executive chair. The power center remains Gorman and glosser. It's a fake quit. What's the point? It's a total fake, quit. Well, no, I wondered if not because of the examples of people like, Bob, Iger and Howard shows, I wonder if we're not in an error where, where that's what's actually, those seeds are being actively planted like what? Yes, I'm stepping down. But what can I do to keep the door open for myself, right? I mean, I wonder so we you're referring to it, like, it's just happens to be this way, but I wonder, if that's not actually in the back of their minds, right? Like, oh, there's almost no chance. It's not purposeful, right? They have to know that this is how this works out, and the boomerang potential. He's already Gorman's, already come out and said in one of the quotes he has and I don't have the quote right in front of me. But one of the quotes that he has, he talks about all things like he plans on stepping down and he's gonna be executive chair for a period of time. Pending what's happening structurally in the market and things that are going on? You might as well have effect. I'm ready to be the the C. I'm basically taking a vacation from being CEO. Until something shity happened. Yeah. When I have all the power, I've been doing everything anyway, I know it's going on. I was just sweep back in and BC, EO and get another big. Maybe a good options handout, maybe and get. I mean like because technically you Quit the role, right? So they can give you a golden hello. Like go they call that a golden. Hello again. Paul Hudson came up with that one golden. Hello again, golden. Hello again. I think so. I'm gonna I'm gonna say he came up with it. So if you're wondering like whether or not anything's actually changing, the answer is no a Morgan Stanley. It's still the same exact show. It's a total, fake quit and poised to come back. If anything it, what is happening is that there's gonna be a power confusion, right? And it's, and it's letting one man Gorman. What does first name James, Jimmy clothing. It's letting one man potentially get really, really extra Rich by coming back in when the share price is low. And coming in to be the Savior, right? It's he's he kid, it's better than I growing because Igor actually left the board and came back, right. Well, that's like you might stick around not to mention that it's not like I was old, but he was in his 70s and both the lizard, CEO of the Morgan Stanley CEO, and they're looking, they're young 60s, right? Yeah, it almost. That was the question I had about lizard CEO Ken Jacobs, is that he he's only 64, he's still gonna be working at the company. What is exactly is going on, is just waiting to come back. Jacobs is even worse because Jacobs is in the same exact role as Gorman, except they has a classified board, which has term limits. So you can't even roll the board over to get rid of him. If you don't like their choices, this lead independent director. He's the only person of color on the board. Okay. Only one and he's a guy named. Richard Parsons well actually highlighted him. Yeah because here he's been He's, I feel bad saying this but he's he's been in all the worst possible situations. You could be in his board seat. What do you feel bad? Because it's like sure it's his call and I think its proximity to power, but to call him a lead, independent director is really hard. Considering these are all of his experiences and on powerful boards he was on the, he's basically performatively independent, he was on the Madison Square Garden board. Okay. Great Dolan. Family joint, family owned. So he has no No power, no voice, no power, no voice doesn't matter. He's on the es de Lottery board. Oh, even less powerful. Can you imagine listening to Richard Parsons if you the family know, offensive Richard but that's what I mean. That's why I feel bad. No offense. But this is not real. He actually had a one-month 10 year as the interior board. Chair at CBS. Oh, another family that's still in family joint. Are you serious? So he knows he knows where to go to get a big paycheck to up his profile, with having any power. Yeah, he knows what he's doing, he was CEO of the Clippers after Donald Sterling left. So is he? Yeah, so let me ask you this, as a black man, is he being is he being asked to join companies to clean up some messes or or like, what's the well, I would have thought that except that he was the CEO at a Time Warner. Okay. And he was at that time warner when they bought AOL, so he helped make the mess there. Right. That buying AOL to Slick movie. Yeah. Then then they had to like sell and they had too much debt and then he left Jacobs. However, the currency CEO stepping down He will keep, he will keep some role at the company. They didn't say, what they're not specifying, he'll be executive chair, but they, he actually said they were going to keep some clients, which means so, so the clients I'm guessing, what is he an employee? He's definitely not like he's not gonna call up to CEO and be like, my client wants to do this. Can I do that right? Yes, he was the CEO of the company. Plus, it's not gonna keep like free flow as a client. He's keeping the Heavy Hitters. Yeah, actually have an effect on the revenue, right? Yeah. I'm just saying like imagine the power. He's still gonna have if he's still maintaining the relationship. With the most important clients at the company in the way they ended up picking the CEO, the new CEO, who they're talking about, as peat or sag, who was not Obama, official is not official. They have an announced it but everyone speculating that who it is. There actually is a guy in the leadership team whose title is President. Oh of the company. Who's a black man? Who basically has all the things Harvard everything like every possible experience you could want but they're going speculating they're going with Pete orsag instead of the guy they named president, okay? Why? Well, I don't know. We don't know this for sure, yet. But we do know that this is basically a fake quit and the boomerang potential remains high. If you are still there doing a job, the lead independent director has never actually had any power well, who's going to turn to and things go badly. So I look, I think we've coined a new phrase, at least in today's episode. It's fake, fake quitting right CEO, fake quit, it's fake quits, fake quits everywhere. So that to me is what's going on with this position playing good enough, That's it. Nobody thought that we'd have a real life boring version of the show succession Hall. Wait what? But we just did. Oh, that's Stephen Ross. A Memphis guardi. We are free. Float. That was business pants tomorrow. I think we have no corporate theater. Or we have one. No, we do. We're speaking of the devil. We are think it's an episode about Elon Musk. Oh I hate it. Already. We have no one here. Don't listen to it. We have a lot of changes coming up, starting in the next couple of weeks for the summer, but we'll tell you about them later until then goodbye.