Business Pants – 2023-11-14

Recorded from a bunker. Underneath another bunker that was labeled ESG, but Larry Fink crossed it out and wrote capitalism on it instead. It's a business pants. Fancy expert interview. With me, I'm your analyst told him at buscarte in a second home. My co-host the voice of Damian hazelnut Rallis But the person you're here to actually listen, to is neither of us. It's NYU Stern's clinical professor in awesomest Alison Taylor. Alison wrote a book called Higher Ground. It's coming out in February this conversation. We cover corporate ethics transparency, we're gonna sniff some bullshit, we're sniff some horrible shit. Now we're gonna sniff a little bit more bulshit but enough from me, here's our conversation with the queen of corporate ethics Allison Taylor We are with Alice Taylor, the author of Higher Ground how business can do the right thing in a turbulent World, which actually comes out in February of next year, which makes me feel incredibly special because I've read the whole thing already. Like, that's never happened to me in my life where someone was like, you've read a whole book. I read. That's never happened. I've never read a book. She's also the clinical professor at NYU Stern, School of Business and I'm crib noting here, but I, I wrote, as like my note for you, Allison teaching corporations, how they can unfuck themselves? Ethically, that's basically kind of the tenor. Is that with that? Yeah. Is that an accurate description point is that we have, yes, corporations have painted themselves into a very interesting Kona that they are struggling to get out of and I'm trying to Provide a way forward from the morass. I would describe it as a morass that we are. I like you already. Yeah, much more diplomatic than I am. Also was the was is executive director at ethical systems, which is I, I didn't know it but as arguably, the largest group of smart people that I've ever seen in my life, I mean it's basically like like two dozen professors who all are the most qualified human beings on the planet to talk about ethical systems. I want to start with the fact that your bio like that I read is doesn't do justice to the by the there's one line in the book that the quote is, in my 12 years as a corporate intelligence specialist, which please tell me that this fabulous and like secretive and you like you're in a corporate ninja, because that's how it sounds, was that what it was like? I mean, it was really, A lot of fun. I I was first of all in this job head of Middle East and Africa investigations and then head of the Americas. So, I spent a lot of time in Lagos. I spent a lot of time drinking with journalists and bars. I spent a bit of time in Dubai and I, I mean, I guess at the end of the day, I'm incredibly nosy and I like to gossip. So if that is not dressed, this is the perfect job. I really had a lot of fun. Yeah. You sure? Yeah, you served ESG data really well, I mean sort of Actually the book is full of like these story nuggets that are amazing. They're the most damning one to me was the nazaki story which I'm sure. I might be saying it wrong but there there was a there. There's like quotes in there like about how one immediate problem we faced was that compliance teams were asking questions that were somewhat somewhere between difficult and impossible to answer and then goes to there's simply no neat Paper Trails. The long nights. I spent in hotel bars with well-connected sources, usually raise more questions than they answered. It really does sound like, you're wearing all black, like, rooting through the trash of of like, like supply chain, to figure out who owns this company. It has been. No, it was not. Yeah. I mean, that was, that was how I spent my time. This was something that it was an industry that in the 90s was pretty sleazy. It was like, so, To intelligence. And then after 9/11, everybody started to get obsessed with corruption and terrorist financing and money laundering, and the industry pivoted to investigate and Corruption. But I think this is obviously Salient to how I approach questions of ESG more recently because this is where I develop my nasty Suspicious Mind and not really anything anybody tells you. So, that proved to be a very useful mindset when I moved over into sustainability, but it also when I moved over into the sustainability, raise a lot of questions about what corporations were up to. Because there was this very siloed approach between all the nice stories, we tell in sustainability, wonderful things we're doing. And then what was actually happening when I was working with the lawyers so were their actual elements of danger for physical Danger. Not really. Direct not really okay, you run, there's not really, it's not really gonna get anyone very far. If I turn up in Nigeria and start asking people a bunch of questions, you have to have her. Hold up, will bend in that will trust. So it's more about kind of running these networks kind of like an investigative journalist would do, right? So that's what you need ETF. So when you see a press release come out of a company and I'm generally talking about large companies, do you immediately laugh or giggle or like you? You're like you're like Fox Mulder and and and and Scully you trust nothing, right? Or is it like Is there nuggets that you see when you see some of that stuff? Do you flash back in your like, you know what? This nugget seems true. And the rest of this definitely feels like bulshit Good instincts. Usually for where to look and what might be more or less credible but You know, I mean, this highlights a big problem in this whole space in general, right not to kind of jump to these big themes but we act very often. As if, if companies are just more transparent we will all collectively be able to sniff out what is bullshit or not and hold them accountable in some way, no one ever fully spells out and I think, as we know, like if you spend any time in the supermarket wondering, what kind of eggs or coffee to buy, it's overwhelming, it's confusing. We've all got enough to do and I don't know how we got into this idea that the public is somehow supposed to hold Corporate America accountable because it's hard even if you've got a lot of expertise. So yeah I think we're in this weird conversation where we're kind of encouraging corporations to bulshit and then getting very angry with them when they do. I mean this sounds so like existentially overwhelming. I mean, do you find yourself still feeling optimistic about the work you're doing, or do you feel weighed down by it? I Damien's been depressed? No I mean I have but that's but that's beside the point. I'm just saying like like I think when you when you take in the world with a with a healthy intellectual skepticism, it is it not a bit overwhelming at times to to because you because you're doing the thing that I think is appropriate you are you are taking in corporate info with a grain of salt, right? But but I think you speaking to something very important which is one of my struggles here with this company, is that your average person has decided that they don't, they know, they probably should do what you're doing and think of it the way you're thinking but they feel too overwhelmed. By the idea of walking through life. Really smelling out like the truth constantly, right? So it does it just to me it's just, it feels like an overwhelming. Thing in general but I don't want to speak for you. mean, I think when you think about it in terms of how can I tell a good Corporation from a bad corporation? Which corporations are lying to me? What how is Corporate America ruining my life? Then it feels overwhelming and depressing. If you think a corporation is just a group of people and it's uncorporated and kind of formed and reformed and recreated the entire time, something a student of mine said to me a couple of years ago, that absolutely blew my mind. And it's kind of an obvious point. But he came up to me after class and he said, I'm 26. And I am the last generation that graduated and worked in an office for a year before covert and I was like, Wow under 26, you have no memory of what corporate culture was like before the parents. So there are all these people coming into organizations with new exploitations and new ideas, and new views of leadership and corporations are changing. I think it's depressing if we think of them as these kind of evil black boxes or sort of like it's more kind of fun and maybe promising if we think about them as systems and systems that are in flux, Um, that could actually there's a bunch of places that sort of comes up in the book, right? Like, where are you talking about the the board you're talking about and you have like and the employees and all the stakeholders and pointing out? I think there's a quote in there that it's like people interact with people and you were talking about how when like a sustainability team has to go out and engage with some, you know, like supplier or something right. That it's it's not this amorphous team with this, a morphis organization. It is like Jane and John talking to each other and they have their individual incentives and all that stuff. But but there is sort of like, like There is like a tone that those people set that you point out, transcend can often transcend them. You use VW Wells, Fargo? Purdue Facebook to show that. Like sometimes the leadership gets fired and the culture persists. So what is like, what is that? What is that part? Like how does that? How are we passing? What are effectively bad genes inside this living organism of a corporation? So I am my favorite definition of culture is, it's the, the way we do things around here. So, I think the thing is that we don't pay enough attention to how easily influenced we are by the people around us. So when you start in a job, you know, there's a lot of people probably waffling on about values and making you sign things, but you don't figure out how to behave by reading, all these documents. You, look at how the people around you are acting. So, you know, I mean, it is true that cultures very difficult to change and it's not a new, can change the leadership. And often the kind of organizational immune system will be more powerful than that, but it's also true. That culture can be changed with deliberate effort. I think we just need to pay a little bit more attention to the reality of how people behave in groups and stop talking as if corporations of people. Because in fact they're not and it's getting us into a part of the problem I think is is the well metaphors or wrong. yeah, to me, I mean what you're talking about, really speaks to the problem that we've given management itself And maybe you include the board with that way, too much power over the identity of the corporation. Right? And I don't know that that was that was always meant to be the case, but just sort of what's happened, right? So they're none of the other stakeholders Drive. The identity of these corporations anymore. It's just it only seems to be in the hand. This very select powerful few. You also have you have a quote from Nell in the book who was just on our show and we love now, but it was about how even when you insert someone new into the board. And it's supposed to be like fresh blood somehow, they all get subsumed into this one group thing that is the board and maintains the culture. Yeah. And and c-suite and see, I was really want a board that's agreeable and Cooperative. So the dynamic and, you know, that is going to be the signal. The board is getting, that's the base is on which its members of selected is going to be very hard for one person to change that dynamic, you tend to would tend to need at least two. but I will say this like there, there's a part of the, there's a part where you talk about Like a more promising path for CEOs. And it went a little off, the rails for me because you pointed out something that Damien's actually been pointing out in the show for a while, which is like this, move towards South Asian, male CEOs, like quiet, understated, generally indian-american Indian you point out Satya Nadella and Sundar pichai. But Sundar in particular, I mean, he's 51% of the company is still like, the voting power, still owned by Sergey, and it's basically, Sergey and Larry show. It's just Sundar is kind of like the guy who has to go get grilled in front of Congress. Is that really like quiet or leadership, or is that really like a human body shield in front of the guys who actually are the like, the owners, the ones who, you know, we have enormous problems in this country with the concentration of power, and the concentration of wealth. And I think coming up with a comprehensive solution to that, it's probably be on me, but there is interesting. Aside from these people. There's interesting data showing that CEO and CFO job descriptions of change. So we used to want these two skills. We used to want a certain kind of background and recruitment data does show. We're looking for a different kind of person in a different kind of skill set. I, I tend to be relatively cynical about the prospect of any of our current leadership teams changing fast enough in time. But again, you know, the reason I feel less hopeless than Damien in general is I spend a lot of I think, when I mean, well, for first of all, the bar to be less depressed and demons real low but like part of the concerning, the concerning piece of the data that that we're seeing. All the time is this move like it was founder fetish for a long time, right? A particularly Tech profounder where they would have dual class share or they maintain power and and all the equity and all the money, right? Like it basically was it is that concentration of power, but the move towards diversity and you talk about diversity in the book. And I love it because you don't talk about diversity as body count you. Basically talk about it as like, if you're not getting away from groupthink effectively and what are you really doing? But the data is showing that The that sort of model of founder fetish. The founders are now taking executive chair roles, maintain their Equity stakes, and put a human body Shield or several in front of oncoming missiles, which makes it way easier for us to say. Wow, that's CEO, is, is shit or oh, I love that CEO either way and the real power sits somewhere else, right? Like is some, it's now, the and that's what I thought of. When he said quiet or leadership cohort, you were sort of talking about like the style of Satya and Sundar, but I thought of it, as like, the quiet leadership, cohort are the same leadership cohort. They are just not out in front anymore, it's like, yeah, they're using human body Shields? Yeah, I think that's interesting. And I think it's fair. I also think I mean, you said where in this kind of very top-down situation but I do think there is an interesting. On the sets of ideas developing that I also hear in the classroom every day, which is the idea that a corporation is a kind of democracy. And what you need to do is gather the interest of your stakeholders and in some way, represent them on the public stage. And a lot of people have been kind of saying that. I think it's extremely dangerous and we're starting to see just how dangerous now there's this conversation going on about what Corporation shouldn't shouldn't say about Israel and Palestine. So I, I worry. And this is something I hear in the classroom that I find very worrying is a young people sort of say, well, I could stand in line to vote once every four years and what's it going to do? Or I could pressure a corporately leader and they might at least seem more responsive even if they are not, in fact, more responsive. So we I think about how powerless we feel. Way. Which part are you saying is dangerous? I'm I think the notion that a leadership. Represent. Called us in some way is dangerous. Corporations aren't designed to do that? They're not designed to represent the majority opinion of their stakeholders and I hear a lot of this kind of rhetoric out there. And I think, I think it's mainly worrying because it takes energy away from the political process. So you're saying that that since they're really there to represent this. Sure. Holder that we're, we're confusing what they're really there for and that we sure they're there to represent the shareholder. I think they might be there to represent themselves, right? Like, clearly in America, they are. Yeah, but I think in other places too, I mean I think I think the idea of this shareholder, I mean, if they were there to represent the shareholder, you'd have boards that were independently Chosen and that would hold management. Accountable in the shareholder, would say you represent us, right? Like you have to do what we have. A system is created, that's how it was designed. But what you actually see is that the CEO and the management team choose the board. They all get rubber stamped at a 96%. I mean, I think they largely represent themselves, not even the shareholder, and I think that Central tension of the book, I think in many ways, which by the way, is an excellent book. I've read a lot of these kinds of books and this one's really good because it's very practical. But the central tension is like, you have these stakeholders that are a morphis and you make them less a morphis by talking about who they really are and the incredible untenable variety of views that they're going to have and that comes head on with the incentives and the people who are in a position to represent or make change and that's tension, just plays out everywhere. It's, like on the ground to your point in the Middle East or in Lagos or in a hotel bar and it plays out on Twitter, right to this, where we started the conversation, right? Which is the gap. Seen what companies say and what they mean, and even the way of framing that suggests, there's a single brain, making a decision, which isn't true. But but the problem I think or part of the problem is whether and we could argue all day about, whether these leaders quote unquote, mean it or not, but they change their rhetoric. They used to say shareholder value and don't break the law. We are politically neutral, we don't get involved in these controversial questions. Starting in around 2016, to 2018, they start to say, well, no, now we also need to be socialist responsible and represent and balance the interests of our stakeholders. You don't have to have meant that to have opened up an enormous space of debate and contention and pressure and rhetoric and expectations and whether they Mentor or not, it's kind of beside the point they've opened Pandora's Box and now, there are all these stakeholders yelling at them and they can't really put Pandora back in the box and say sorry, we didn't mean it. We were just trying to drive shareholder value by making a lot of convenient noise during the Trump Administration. Yes, I just I agree with you in principle, but I think there's like another thing going on, which is, I, I think we're talking mostly about American companies, right? Am I wrong about that? Yeah, so the other thing going on in America and this is certainly happened like very steadily since like the Reagan Administration is that especially compared to the economies of say Europe or Canada. Is that people here have absolutely are basically get nothing from their government anymore, right? We don't get we don't get health care in the book. I mean we really get nothing and I think it took us 20 years to realize as a people that look I mean we it's our corporations now giving us the benefits that we should be getting and that you're getting in France, or Canada. So we we kind of have to turn to our Corporation and and write and be like help us out more. Yeah, that we've got no. Where else to go, there's an even great to irony, of course, which is that these corporations having many respects spent 20 or 30 years, under my name, Social Security Worse education system, any Prospect of regulating climate change, any effort to deal with inequality. So, they've spent their whole time lobbying in what they felt or believed. At least, was their short-term self-interest with the deeply ironic consequence that. Now, all these policy problems are dumped in their Labs. Yeah. Well, what it did is I think it helped them control their labor force better, right? And we know that like again, starting with Reagan, he hated labor, but if you want, if you need, if you, if you want your labor to not complain or argue show up every day out of fear and just listen to you the best way to do that is to be the ones to control of all their, like, their Dental Care, their health care, right? So it's not, it's it makes sense to me and that way, it is a funny way to think of it though. Like, in order to get labor, to be more controllable, you have to undermine the government systems, that provide them services, and then you have to take care of their Teeth, right? Like it is like a really weird, but this is why they eventually had to weigh in on stakeholder issues, though, right? Like, I feel like the people were pushing hard enough that they had to kind of start talking about it, right? It's like because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy like we're now taking care of you and you're now showing up to ask us what, you know, what is Mommy and Daddy think Yes, I don't know. I just see like I just see as an inevitable. It was inevitable. Right? I am Well yeah you have a great quote about how the Larry Fink letter the letters, right? But you you talked about how people are coming to you to discuss the Larry Fink letter, all the sudden, and you get excited. And then all the sudden you realize, I don't know, all the sudden I'm pretending but like I can imagine you like sipping some tea looking out the window and then thinking to yourself well shit, Didn't we just get to a place and you say, quote get ourselves into a circular argument that shareholder returns are the best way to evaluate in a counterweight to the overwhelming obsession with shareholder returns, right? Like it was like we've gotten ourselves in this giant Circle, but, I would argue that. Isn't there some value anyway? You because the corporations opened Pandora's Box and they didn't mean it to be anything other than shareholder returns, right? They just were it was basically a way for them to position themselves to sound like they cared about you while getting the shareholder returns. It's also been a catalyst for I like More action than prior to that, because we used to make fun of BlackRock for not voting on anything and ESG world, right? And then they started voting on stuff now, they're not voting on it again because the conservatives in this country because we're full idiots, but it did do a thing at least temporarily, isn't there some value to it and that way to ESG you mean, Oh, I mean to like this notion of stakeholder capitalism that. Like even if it was like opening Pandora's Box and now they're providing us all these Services, the pressures on, I mean, and the data, you get from them, the action you get for them. Has been something. I think I don't think there's well I don't I mean I guess people do debate this. I don't think there's that much debate that the singular. Focus on shareholder value has run out of Road. There's clearly enormous Mountains for very good reasons. That's really a result of us. Treating negative externalities as irrelevant to corporate value, that's become unsustainable. The question is, what do we do instead and how do we do it? And you know I think one of the the bigger problems to this point about companies now taking on policy problems is that we've got all this rhetoric about how corporations are going to solve inequality and the healthcare crisis and provide education and and so on and we're not paying attention to how they are interfering. The political process on the back end to ensure that we don't really get access to any of these things. Well, the rhetorically problem, if we were encompassing influence on in the political sphere, The world. Could we split screen? Yeah. What could we solve that with the same mechanism could? We could, we try to open disclosure on that and two and include that in the ESG data pile. And so what about the disclosure, because it's very prominent in the book like like that, the recognition that disclosure isn't the solution, right like and and the double edged nature of disclosure. Why is it not the solution? Damian is a, Know like full transparency like like he's all the way at the other end of the spectrum like make everybody do stand-up comedy routines and record them and then make those public like that that kind of thing. Or if you look at the CDP website, for example, and what it was saying when when it was founded in 2000, it's kind of like we're gonna push all these companies to disclose and then we're gonna hold them accountable and then we're going to drive change and Tackle climate change. I think we need to just A recognized that it's now 23 years later and we're still arguing about what and when to disclose and we still active. This is going to be a Panacea when it in fact, isn't I think, also, we don't acknowledge company, disclosed it just a massively complicated even when they're not trying to lie to us. So the notion, if we just get more information will be able to hold these entities accountable in some way that's never fully spelled out. I think his wishful thinking and I think it it gets. It's a lot of job creation for the conscience, written children of Boomers. It makes a lot of people feel like they're doing a bunch of stuff but when I look out there I'm like wow there are a lot of people working on information a lot. Not a lot of people working on actually changing anything. So that's what worries me about this. We treat it. I agree with you but I wonder is there not an unintended consequence to asking any anyone to disclose anything about that? Like if I had to disclose my relationship history to everybody when I like met a new partner, wouldn't it? Kind of make me a better partner to the next one. Like if I had to admit some of the stuff that I did wrong and like, you know what I mean? I just think that. Like, and then they would no one would date you. Okay, that's fine. But I'm just saying like, is there not a? Is there not a positive unintended consequence that by making companies? Just tell us who they are to the best of the, of their ability. That as a society. We're kind of, we're at least like edging towards more, proper behavior. I don't know, I mean, maybe I'm Pollyanna about this. Certainly puts in place, a lot of very expensive efforts by companies to tell us who they are. I'm thinking about the recent Apple ad and I just don't even know, sure, but I'm sure that they're saving Mother Earth at the same time. There's I use an example from the book about, how kind of Congress got ruined by all this transparency. No one can do deals in a, you know, behind the scenes and get things agree far too awful to look. Like you might be cooperating with the other side because we're so polarized. So there are lots of instances where transparency or feeling like you're being looked at the whole time being like you're like asked like you know, look like you're being asked to perform there's now this kind of tendency with the ESG data. We've got to have it all real time so that we can all out there. Somehow hold these companies accountable in a way that isn't happening. So we sort of have got this idea that more and more and more and more data is going to somehow that's true. It isn't. Yeah I think in fact there's there's Two recent novels, I think on this, there's a Dave, Eric Eggers novel and there's one out by Jennifer Egan that talks about this, this idea that, that it starts with like a big tech company, but that 100% constant open. Like, knowing everything will solve all of society's problems because you wouldn't commit murder. If everybody was watching you, right? Like, it is sort of a fascinating question, like, by, if you force corporations to constantly tell you what, that the evil they're doing, maybe they won't do the evil, but I, but you're right. Like, it's so much more complicated than that, right? I mean, not least because we don't agree on what the evil actually more. And more disclosure about how these companies are overseeing. Their supply chains that just not the question of do we think Western corporations or to be operating in China? Given the human, right? Yeah. That's the question. No one wants to answer. So we're like, oh, let's get More information, and that will know. Yeah. Well you know, it's yeah. I was gonna say it's part. It's part of the downfall of the ESG industry is just because it's a lot. Look, there's a lot of academics there and this is what academics do best, right? We hand ring over how to name things and the proper way to classify them and and what to do like. Yeah. So it's just like it's a laborious process. Yeah. I will say you you bring out something that really hit me close to the heart when you talk about, like there's the transparency but we knit we rarely think about the receiver of the data, right? And well we do when we standing in the supermarket trying to figure out what coffee to buy. We are the receiver I spoke at a teacup, right? People that were like, we can't even fit all the certifications on the packet anymore. So think this is easy to see the problem with this. If we think in human terms, you know? Transparency is just another word for constant surveillance. If you put it that way right I don't think humans respond very well to the notion that their email and everything they're doing at their computers is being tracked by their employer. And I don't know that corporate entities respond very well to the notion that stakeholders are evaluating them and pointing fingers at them the whole time. I think the other thing that's really interesting is in the sustainability Community, we tell companies this weird story which is, if you're just more transparent, stakeholders will trust you and you'll have a better reputation and your drive more shareholder value. This isn't true. We tend to attack off and the best performers. Not the worst performers, the best way to place to be is in the middle of the pack with your head down, we punish the best company is so we're telling people a story that isn't true and then we're not surprised the skepticism. Yeah, it is true. I mean, the more, the more popular you are as a company. These days, you're in, for a lot of trouble, like you're gonna get constant scrutiny. That's, that's true. That's like a human condition, right? Like athletes like, like a Hollywood stars. It doesn't matter who you are, what you are? If you're at Peak popularity, like there's somebody right now trying to find every dirty piece of information about Taylor Swift because she's at the absolute top of her game so you can be sure. But like what struck me about it is in when you like we need to talk about like CDP, right? I used to say when I was at msci and I was in a salesperson, I was an analyst. So I would go into these meetings like PMs and talk about the data. We had in the model that I built and all that kind of stuff. And they used to say, like, things to me, like, why do we care about carbon? And this is 15 years ago. Nobody cared about carbon. But I used to say, like, look Gordon Gekko said, the value is in the information, right? I what I don't know just because an NGO went and got you the information and said they were going to change the world with, it doesn't mean you can't use the information for whatever you want to use it for. And I think the funny part is in your book that might He's saying that to like a PM is part of the problem, right? Because then they go and take the information. They can say they took the information they can Market it, they can do, they actually can use it to Target something antithetical to what it was. Got like the reason why we got the information, the first place and there are all sorts of problems and I, the receiver became it. What to me, it wasn't transparency. That was the problem. It was how that transparency, then got used, and you point that out, time and time again throughout the book. Exactly, that's very well. Um, Yeah, I was gonna say we I want I'm like really interested in this idea what you're talking about so can we just like take you you mentioned the supermarket a few times? And I just read this analogy of like, what packaging is these days? It's the front is for the company and the back is for the I guess the stakeholder consumer, right? Like the because the back is regulated by the government and they're the company is forced to tell you these things and the front is a free for all like they can do all their line there. This is the best chocolate ever. So I'm just like confused, like from your perspective, like are you saying that there's There's something negative about the side that's for the consumer like I'm just a little confused about your position here. I'm saying is something yeah a little more basic than that. I mean I'm just saying okay transparency isn't bad but it's not a Panacea it's not the solution, got it suggests it is the whole time and that we're telling corporate leaders a story about transparency that it's all wonderful and it's going to make their lives better. That isn't true either and then we see surprise, we're getting these incredibly paranoid curated bulshit ridden disclosures because we're saying transparency will be great and just be more transparent and stakeholders will love you. It's quite obviously not true. And we're ending with a lot of brochure wear and PR and not I wonder if there's like you know, if you look at the history of this, if you if you think about Enron and then you think about the collapse in 2008 and I think there was like a lot of good intention. This idea of like we need more transparency. We need it. Like now we need more disclosure blah blah but then also hit with the rise of social media where everything is transparent 24/7. And it like it kind of we are we as a people go. We're overwhelmed now with information and, and you're right. Like, there's something like transparency went off the rails at some point, right? It's like, but I think you're right to point out, though. I mean, first of all, we thought it was great. We thought it was going. Yeah, create democracy. We had the arrows spring we had occupied Wall Street where like right to hold everyone accountable and this great new era of sort of interactive. You know, a lot of these very In the kind of early 2010s, um, and then everything started to go horribly wrong. And now we obviously put playing social media for everything, but it's got a lot darker. There's a lot of data about the impact on mental health and then I think right hard for anyone my age to understand, what it's like to grow up like this. But something I see in the classroom is as well. Students are very sophisticated about these questions of authenticity and image and what you say and what you really mean. And so you know I talked about transparency and I talked about employees especially kind of weaponizing. Internal information. I honestly think that's just getting going because if you grew up on line, you have a view of these things that is very, very, very different from if you did. Yeah. Or I think able to use you use this information in really, really interesting ways. And I think that combined with the general attitude, I see in the classroom means that corporations are really need to buckle up because this is all going to get a lot more. Difficult. And I think I'm glad you pointed it out like that too because you're right like we're at this divide generationally speaking where people like me are kind of like wondering, you know, is social media, the problem, blah blah, blah. And I'm sitting there in a bench in a park thinking about these things. And you're right the new generation, they're not wasting their time with that. Thought they're like moving ahead like a Breakneck speeds just dealing with what is right? So I mean God you kind of point that out that you and I might have that the real world and then there's the online world and there are two different things that's not know only to us. Yeah it's allowed to say what because I think. Yeah. Has a physical impact. It's not. You have what people say and what people do, but these things interact in a, much more kind of threatening, and dynamic way. So I think even our mindset is completely anachronistic in some ways Damien. Yeah. Oh yeah. I, I mean, like, and I think the central tenet of the book is like that transparency among other things, but like the things that make a company ethical are not going to be that they disclose something or that they like, and it's not going to be that like you can't predict what the receivers gonna do with information that you exist. In China, is not ethical or not. Ethical, it is a question that you need to. Like, you need to understand like you need to actually measure understand engage and and I actually think the book, I think it's in the conclusion, the quote I pulled was and a vowel purpose can be It a public Declaration of a company's superordinate goal. Why it deserves to exist? And to me like that was is the point, right? Like, all of the things you were talking about disclosure, they do these purpose statements and vision statements and like let's go hug each other. Like like that, all those public declarations are what the current generation, the kids in your classroom. What even ESG people, I know you don't like the ESG data people that well not the people but the ESG data that much, right? But like everybody's taking the same data sets and they are they are effectively asking the question. Should this company exists one on one hand? Will it exists from a capital Market standpoint? Well, and on the other hand, should it exist from a social, ethical purposeful standpoint like what's a good me? Yeah. Um, Look, I think where at the 40-minute, Mark, and I think. So, I'm just getting started. I know, like, I think I need like two or three more hours here, Jamie's gonna show up in your class like, actually, sure, why not? Why not? Sitting in the back, this is awesome. Are there any parting thoughts that you want somebody who hasn't read the book? Because because you know like I we're not multinational corporations right? Like where just read it and I loved it. Thank you. If I had gone line or I would say, you know, we've lost sight of what it means to be a good business in the 2020s. But you said it's a book about on fucking corporate ethics and I now prefer that much more, so, that's what I'm going with now. So thanks for helping my book, launch and likes you guys just be a quick pain for one more minute, I'm sorry. I asked the guy, I gotta ask, like, how do you define? What is good. What is a good Corporation? Do you have you Allison, right? I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe not just you. Yes. Alice and I want to hear what you think but to the broader world too exercise. About your impacts on human beings and make a best possible effort to do no harm and clean up, your own mess before you start trying to solve it, okay? And is there, do you think there's a way to measure that or should we even ask that question? Is that a dumb question? You can measure it. I mean, you know, the the main point I think is that we're not even trying to measure it. What we're trying to do is is tell a nice story that deflects reputational risk and protection of values. So we're again, we're using these kind of new terms and new phrases and New Concepts like stakeholder, capitalism. And we're a fact, just doing the same thing over and over again and expecting I yeah. I I now, I'm kind of seeing the bigger picture. Yeah, I and I tend to agree with you. Yeah, definitely. Because I mean Mark, I just say quickly like my problem with the ESG industry is that I always say is just it's a big marketing exercise, right? Like it's a like their like and and that I clearly don't come in from that perspective. I came in you know from the perspective of seeing how to use it to kind of apply good like you're talking about and then I realized like it's just this like Relentless tireless, way of like marketing a product and selling it not really caring about anything other than that. I mean, but yeah. So I I'm with you this this parting question then, um, since Damien opened the Pandora's box of final question, I'm just trying to keep all around longer. I know you are What? And I was obsessed with this, when I was at msci, because I, I actually think this, I know why we have limited liability, right? I know that the legal construct, and the mythical construct. I read, you've all hararis sapiens. I know about how we need those myths, and all, that kind of stuff. Does, do you reintroduce ethics as soon as you reintroduce liability, though. I sing. To some degree. It depends if you think the legal system, reflects the state of social norms at any given time. I tend to think that is and the mechanism to translate social norms into legal. Controls is sort of broken. Honestly, that's the perfect answer. That is Allison. Tell the book is how a Higher Ground, how business can do the right thing in a turbulent World. It comes out February 2024. Thank you so much. If when you're up for it again we'll have you back on and Damien Kentucky to do this forever. I'm like That's it. A huge. Thanks to Allison for enduring our never-ending rambling, incoherence, In making us ever so smarter. We'll be back again with a business pants Friday, show wrapping the week tomorrow. But in the meantime, go pre-order the book Higher Ground from Alice Taylor, and until tomorrow, goodbye.