Business Pants – 2026-02-19

Yeah, we're back. We're back. Come on us. Live from a sparkly and happy 2026, it's still 2026, it's an all new really throbbing Lee distressing Thursday edition of business Thursday. What the hell are we doing? I don't know what happened. I don't know why analysts whole map Mascari. On today's episode called February 19th, 2026. All the, the all the stories. Matt missed over the past week game. Yeah, everything is a stupid game on these shows. Everything. Well. There's that you ever watch the office? Yeah, there's an episode in like the, I think it's the first season of the office where Pam looks at the camera. And says, we tried to save our vacation to as far into the year as we possibly can. This year, we got to January 27th or something like that. That's why he left. No, it feels like when you said it is February 19th of 2026, it feels like it's 2027 already. I I feel like 20 26 has been tough. The the madman we have in control of our country ever since the revelation of the Epstein files have been coming up more. He's just been acting even more erratically and it's been tough for most of us that still have a conscience. It's been It's been rough. That's all I can say. It's been retired. Yes. So you at least got to go. You where did you go to the Davos? You went to? Yeah. Right. North Pole, where'd you go? You kind of so we have friends who have friends in Alaska and we wanted my wife wanted to take one, she had one weekend to go skiing this year it was supporting back. There are there are mountains here in New England, okay? So it was a four-day weekend and we wanted to go to a mountain in New England where we live and every single trip that we priced out in New England cost more than flying to Alaska and skiing there and flying back. I believe that a joke. I mean even get so expensive even a pizza, he basically need a loan to get a pizza. I will like we I don't know how people go. Right so expensive. So we we flew to Alaska. We stayed for free with friends. That's why I was cheaper, right? Was it dark the whole time. Does the Sun come? Know, it was beautiful. Actually, we got beautiful weather, we got fresh powder. The first day we were there. We got really lucky with the weather, and then we flew back, and we got stuck in Denver, because there was a wind storm. And then we got back, like, four in the morning, and I don't know what day it is. I don't know where I am. That's why you're back to this. I believe you fine. Yeah. And just get ready for all the amazing stories that were covering today. I'm very excited. Catch me up. Our show today is being sponsored. What? Go ahead. Do the spot. Yeah, don't interrupt the sponsorship. Our show today is being sponsored by free flow analytics and free full, analytics.com. The only platform measuring board power connections performance for free. In fact. It's the if you're gonna if you can live and die on this, the bullshit of the meritocracy, it is. ostensibly the only database that covers Boards of directors that can demonstrate some version of a meritocracy because something, yeah, because it's not enough to just say we don't like the black guy, because we like Merit, Like that. That's just racism. You can't do. That has been enough. That's so far Administration. Yes, of course. But that's I don't think that's enough Frank. Yeah, you'll use a number here. People. It's a number back. It up. Yeah. What were you gonna say? You look like it's something important. You want to say? No. Nothing important. You said. This is a game. I was the game. Okay. Ah, this is ah this this is a this really stretches the imagination for the definition of a game. I have broken all the headlines into six different categories. What you're going to do is you're just gonna pick out which of the headlines in the group, resonates the most, which is the, which is 18/8. Do you have to use the word resonate? Which one hits you the hardest, which is the, the defining headline of the? It's a trigger game. It's a sure. Look, I like that. It's not our fault. I repeat, it's not our fault. You know, we have we have sort of objectively agnostic, covered the headlines ever. Since we started this company in these shows and this is just what we have the pool from, you know, so I they read negative but this is just the world, we're living in people, I'm sorry. Okay, sorry, let's start, let's get it over with. Let's start with the first category, which I call the scary. This is all the scary headlines and this is from, we're gonna start with scary. Yeah, this is from the dystopia bag. Okay. Okay, really, we're talking about AI mostly. Okay, mostly AI. Let's start at the top Microsoft, AI Chief gives it 18 months. For all white collar work to be automated by AI. This is a guy from Microsoft saying this, Well, 18 months, you're reading that wrong. Okay, you still think there's some adults in the room, like this one, startled me. There is usually just a blowhard. It's a blogger. Some, in someone immediate, you know, what are you talking about blogger? The blow hards are the executives at the company. Now, 18, that's all it. Is 18 months, so is not very long and the back it up. The second headline AI will destroy millions of White Collar jobs in the coming months and Andrew, Yang warns, driving surge of personal bankruptcies. He's saying it's coming in, like, six months. According to Andrew Yang, is that Andrew Yang like, ex-presidential candidate injury? Yeah. Yes. Yes. I don't know. It could be a different injury Yang. There's a lot of injury. Yangs, that's him. Let's stay in the dystopia ring. Cancels flock deal after stopping Super Bowl. Add prompts Mass outrage. So, maybe this is like one of my old only good stories because But people got mad at something in a company did a thing, but I don't think it's really gonna Dent our dystopia. But so I don't know. If you remember this ad, there was, there was an ad where the ring everyone has these ring doorbells. I don't know anything about them. I don't have one of these stupid things but I guess it's like constantly watching your neighbor's and constantly watching people steal your steal your Amazon packages, right? Yeah, yeah. So the ad was about how using Ai and using ring, they could find your dumb lost dog, and but people find it disturbing and Disturbia dystopian and got mad. So because literally it showed like, viewing through ring, things like the, dog, wandering the neighborhood. And like it was clear that someone is watching through, all your cameras, everything happening in front of your face, so it's pretty gross. So there they ended their partnership. This is Amazon, of course owns ring. They've ended their partnership with flux safety. It was a partnership that would have given law enforcement access to a vast web of ring cameras. I'm kind of surprised. Maybe it's all a PR move. The head of ring is Jamie siminoff was not going around, a apologize and everyone, but I'm kind of surprised that they actually acted on this outrage. You think it's just PR? Why is Jamie Simone off? Yep. Apologizing, not just owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos. Yeah. Well, like look these guys, he's trying to get a busy on the yacht trying to get to the moon life on the yacht and he's like pretending that he wants to go to the Moon because he wants to beat Elon Musk. I don't know. It's a good Question, let's move on, dystopia category. The scary just over category platforms. Bend over backward to help d8, DHS, censor ice critics. Yeah. So we're not really in the Free Speech, absolutist phase anymore. Oh, come on. Like you believe that the first place that was something you were like you, like wrote that down somewhere and you're like, I'm gonna take a note, we're in Three speech UPS. I thought we have to. I thought we're killing woke, and cancel culture, and and getting rid of the people who censor us. And anyway, how about this one? You probably missed this one. This is the last one in this category. Did you know that anthropic is clashing with the Pentagon over AI, use and throughout because one of the AI companies, as a 200 million dollar, Contract the Department of Defense their relationships under review and Throop wants assurance that its models will not be used for a autonomous weapon to master Vans surveillance. While the Department of Defense know, we're we'll use it for all lawful use cases. That's their quote, which that doesn't sound good. And David sacks of all. People The Venture capitalists serving as the administration's Ai and cryptos are, how about that combination Ai and crypto's are a guy from the VC world of all people. David sacks has accused anthropic of supporting woke, AI. Because of its stance on regulation. Anthropic is really the only AI company that is making a full-on push that we need to regulate Ai and remember. Now Trump Administration is basically restricting States from regulating AI. He's threatening States who try to regulate AI. So this is so anthropic is fighting with the Pentagon. What do you think? Well, the good news is. I agree enough with anthropic that. I subscribe to it. But like the problem is here. Oh, you do is that clawed? Yeah, it's Claude. Yeah, anthropic claw. I mean, they do seem to be the adults in the rooms. It's it's they're not, they're still building it. My problem is that all these but building. Yeah, they're worrying there but they're still going ahead. But they're still like but we're gonna do it. Yeah, there's way too much money in it for me. If I don't, I believe this is all that money. I believe this is Dario or maybe a maybe and his sister Modi, and he has been complaining recently in the press that. Like it's hard because we want to be safe, but we have to keep pushing forward. We don't want to do, it's not easy. So he's in that mode. He's a good. I think what he's saying is that, I'm a good guy, but we're not doing good guy things and I'm sorry. I think that's it. That's where he's at. I feel like that's early Google like, don't be evil and then do all evil things. So what do you think? Which? Which dystopian Story resonates the most? Oh, wow. Well number one and two. Where the AI Microsoft's. AI Chief said, 18 months in. Andrew Yang. All white collar time. Oh, are the same thing. Ring canceling, the flock deal. Is. I mean, I I believe they will just share the ring data with like ice any, so it's a PR move to cancel its flaw. It's all PR, like the flock. Safety is that, I'm sure they don't actually need to have a partnership. They could just buy flock safety or build their own, right? Like, they don't, why don't you need these things? I mean, when, if someone knocks their door, can't they look out the window? No, here's what you can do. Yeah. You don't need to get your things from Amazon. So, you don't really that's because people are taking your fucking shit, right? Like like, like, like you could get an actual Bell on your door. So people ring it you go to it, or you can just go to a local merchants and just buy the thing. You don't need to go through Amazon at all. I just want to point out that the same people who are saying AI is going to destroy all white collar jobs, going to disrupt everything, the same people who are building ring and they are built. They build Google Maps. So you can get everywhere, more efficiently. It will reroute you that save you 40 seconds on your life. All of those people who promised you a frictionless future, the totally optimized experience. So that you have more time to look out your window, you're not looking out your window, they have all your attention on your phones because all that people do is fucking stare at their phones anymore. And they have not optimized your major life frictionless. They have created different friction. If you want frictionless die, it doesn't exist. So embrace the fact that there's friction that embrace, the fact that the friction and enjoy your fucking Community. I mean, Joy doorbells, where you go out and you say hello to the person who delivers the, you know, Uber. If you get like an Uber Eats delivery, there's a box. You can check that says, I want no contact with my drivers. Is that right? I'm not kidding. That's sad. What is that? Nobody doing that? Yeah, that's not. These are the Bros. Who promised you a perfect existence. And they're telling you, oh, by the way, Are literally destroying Your Existence and you need to pay us to make it better going forward. All of his fucking con job. Yeah. But I think I'm gonna pick the platforms bending backwards to help DHS sensor ice, critics. That's the most triggering to me. Yeah. Like because it's like the other ones could be blowhards. Everyone's saying the same thing about Ai and it probably will destroy a lot of jobs and we the anthropic feels like a good story. I like that somebody's pushing back, it's like edging towards good and the Rings already kind of doing evil stuff. But the fact that these fuk faces who are all dual-class, CEO dictators are telling us. Oh, we are opened our platform to free speech. After Joe Biden, canceled Free Speech are now literally censoring Free Speech. It's like going, it's like it's like You know, when a library pulls a book off the shelf because someone doesn't like it that they would be outraged. They'd be like, that's ridiculous. But they'll pull down your posts, they'll pull down something. When you're like ice sucks and I get flagged in my account gets canceled or worse. I mean it giving over user handing it to ice like let's all right. Unbelievable. Um, that that triggered me most okay you won that game. I don't know how there's no winners or losers you can't you can't lose in this game. Let's go over our speaking of that. Speaking of big tech let's go to our next category, our big data overlords now, the first one, It's a good segue. We, we can think citizens united really was the was that the beginning of the end, the Supreme Court decision citizens united. So yeah, where is that? Why we're here. I don't know. There's never why we have Trump, who knows. All right, so the first headlight, meta begins, 65 million dollar election, push to advance AI agenda. So this is not the only headline of this sort, but there are the, the lobbying, the remember, the drain? The swamp thing, a trump, one of the drain the swamp, but the lobbyists are just like they're they're living. They're they're loving life these days because I had a tech because they're just spending so much money to basically Control law, I suppose, right? I do like it when the sewer suggests, we should drain the swamp. That's that's good meta, sort of sort of famously, not too long ago, remember they were completely out of this game. They, they didn't get involved with any of this. I think that was, was that Sheryl sandberg's fault. Was she trying to act adult at the time? But now they're just like, forget it. We're we're here to control legislators and, and governments, and elected officials. And Well, he's got a new Sheryl Sandberg. Now, they hired Patrick. Yeah, you're right McCormick, something like that, wife of a Republican senator mind you. I mean she's like a long time conservative and you know like she has no experience doing the things she's about to do and and her role is to basically be the young girl version of Sheryl Sandberg but the opposite, right? Like instead of saying Mark you have to clean your room. She's gonna say, hey Mark, it's you know what it's 2026. It's if you want to leave crumbs in your room, it's your room. Yeah. It's your brother. Well, he has a lot more than one room, but how about the juxtaposition of the corporations basically, still kind of dominating controlling our election cycles and yet shareholders are losing basically right to vote at their elections. It's a nice juxtaposition I but not at Mark's election, right? Well, Mark, there's no electrician. Have a right to vote for him. Anything to Mark. The second story in our big data, overlords Mark Zuckerberg faces jury in Landmark trial over alleged youth harm linked to social media. Alleged, if you have a, if if you're a parent, you see the harm, that's linked to social media. I mean, even if you're not a parent frankly, but whatever, so that that testimony is going on as we speak, and I'm going to highlight a few moments from this. According to reports Zuckerberg has not directly answered the central. Question of the case whether Instagram is addictive. The plaintiff's, attorney Mark, Lanier asked if people tend to use something more, if it's addictive. And Mark Zuckerberg responded. I'm not sure what to say to that. I don't think that applies here. I mean, really, I mean isn't that I feel like you can be guilty just on that Dodge, right? He also said that he believes in the basic assumption that if something is valuable, people will use it more because it's useful to them. So that's why they're spending all that time on Instagram. It's not has nothing to do with addiction that they just find it really valuable Matt. They find it valuable to the exclusion of all other things. Yes, in their jobs, and children, and friends. And, and then, finally, I wanted I want to point out those other stupid thing when asked about his compensation, Zuckerberg said he has pledged. I love when they go right to this, I love when the billionaire overlords go, right to this as an excuse. He said, look, he's, he has pledged to give almost all. That's the quote of his money to charity focusing on scientific research. And the lawyer asked him how much money he has pledged to victims, impacted by social media to which Mark replied. I disagree with the characterization of your question again, aren't you guilty, when you say things like that, that was a, that was a that was a numerical question. Yeah. I mean what a farce this whole thing and another headline to go to wrap up that one, this Mark facing a jury is that this headline? Zuckerberg's Courthouse Entourage showed up and meta Ray bands? And I I point that out because a, it's incredibly douchey and B. There's another headline this week meta adding facial recognition to its smart glasses. That identify people in real time, hoping the public is too distracted by political turmoil to care. So that last. Yeah. Oh God, I published in two distracted. Yeah. That's not some, that's not the writer of the article who's guessing that? That's what they're hoping, right? That was the internal memo. Yeah, that said they met up the themselves believe. The public will not be paying close enough attention to care at this political moment. That's not like some speculative headline clickbait. That is what they actually think about the role out of this. Yeah, Friday night news dump, right? It's like let's let's slip the dystopian glasses right now because everyone else is distracted by everything. Including that Graham? That might be the most triggering thing you say today, like I have two more headlines in our big data overlords. These are quick just came out. Just this morning, Apple Sued By West, Virginia for alleged failure, to stop child sexual abuse material on on its devices. No way. I have two more headlines. SpaceX just only because this is just entirely predictable. And this is a joke and you talked about this last week, but I thought I should at least mention the headline SpaceX said to weigh dual class, IPO shares to empower, never saw that one coming. I can't believe. That's, I mean, can you? I mean, look on its face. The face value of this. I like, how was this, how is that legal? How do we live in a system where that's legal? Why should he have more power than other investors? How was that been allowed? How do the listing exchange is allow this shit? I mean, this is a subversion of everything. It is to be a a human being. What are we doing? What are we doing the listing exchanges? Let's say they allowed this shit like you know, the institutional investors blamed. The fact that they hold it on index funds because they have to index to the entire market. And the reason why they have to index to the entire Market is because if they don't, then they can get. Food for losing for making a decision, effectively, not investing, and say Facebook or meta and, and losing the upside of that. And then they can get sued by their clients or their usually pensioners for losing out on upside. So, in the end, everyone points a finger at everyone else, for reason why dual class shares exist at all, and then everyone's happy to allow them to continue to exist such that they can make the money off of it while having no rights. And finally, maybe in a good one. French president. Emmanuel macron said, the Free Speech defense of social. Media platforms is, pure bulshit pushing back against the key foreign policy goal president Donald Trump. Hey, I mean, I think that's the best way to sum it up. It's bullshit. Yeah. Oh, we're getting closer. Are we getting closer? What's, I mean, this is gonna be the Reckoning because, you know, you still have people on the left and right, who hate this, who hate this section 230 thing. I mean, we ever gonna hold these people kind of ever, is it ever gonna happen? No. Oh no. It's the answers. I don't even need to say more, just because France care doesn't mean anyone else is gonna do it. I'm picking strictly meta adding facial recognition to its smart classes. At the same time, they're actually in a lawsuit about the damage to youth linked to social media, like that, that is the worst of the worst to me. It's pretty bad. Let's move on. That's our second category. The third category is this? I'm calling this the stupid, the stupid and this is the ESG Edition. The stupid. Oh And the additions, the big news out of our ESG world. Is this one? This disheartening I guess, not surprising, but still disheartening move out of Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs to drop, d e. I criteria for board members, of course. Yeah. Finally, let's not forget. It was only in 2019. This is a funny statement here. This is from The New York Times. They're not, they're not tempting to be funny, but in 2019, Mr. Solomon and his top, Deputy John Waldron, and the firm CFO Steve insurance. All three men declared diversity, diversity inclusion. A top priority, I love that. The three dudes a few years ago, a top priority. When we were you this is what David said, diesel. When we unite around a common goal, we make progress together So so where is all gone? Where have we gone their executive officers? There's eight people, all of them are white. when you look at their management committee, the board there are there's two, three, four, there might there's out of, maybe 60 people on the management committee, or 50 people, there's maybe five people who are non-white, On the board. They have achieved diversity by having one, two, four. And a third, not white people. Yeah. And it's only four women at a 13, which is pretty low. What are you talking about? You dropping it because of all the diversity, you had. And the worst part of this, from our perspective of a company. Why their sighting that they, because of a deal that Goldman struck with the of all people, the national legal and policy Center. The anti everybody group, The, I mean, they hate gay people, they hate women. They hate black people and as part of the agreement, that the national legal and policy Center has agreed to withdraw, its shareholder, proposal demanding, that the shareholder proposal resoundingly rejected. Yeah. Why don't they just replace that crap with just, that we were afraid of trump or or maybe we're not afraid of trump. We love Trump because he's making us all. Sure. I mean just be before. Be honest like really began with. Really what's Happening Here is investors, Goldman Sachs is a one share one vote company. Goldman Sachs is a long standing, you know, Investment Bank. You can divest from Goldman Sachs or you can vote out the board that made this agreement. The board makes this agreement right. The management team doesn't make this agreement, the board does. So if you want the names of the people on the board, they are DJ diesel but it's Michelle Burns Mark Flaherty Kimberly Harris, John Hess Kevin Johnson, Ellen, Coleman, Casey McClure, Lakshmi middle, Thomas Montauk, Peter, Oppenheimer Jan, Ty, David Vineyard, and John. Waldron, those are the people that you can vote out. And these people, actually, some of them, like, I recognize their names from other boards, right? Like John, Kevin Johnson was the CEO of Starbucks. These people are, this is A very small insular group, Ellen Coleman's UTC, she's also on. She's been at Amgen Michelle Burns and has her Bush Etsy. Oh, Thomas Montag is a is a Goldman like a long-standing Goldman person is so is David vignar if I'm not mistaken, but the year was that block Jan Ty a General Motors, Huntsman Progressive iron net. Here's the thing, every one of these people has other board positions. So when you're thinking about how this is fucked up, that Goldman Sachs went and made a deal with the national legal policy. Center about a board that has no Dei to speak of to get rid of Dei as a requirement on the board. When Dei is supposed to be a way of measuring getting other people onto this board that are Outsiders and might have an outside perspective and they have an accomplished that even with the policy the fact is you can go vote these people out not just here but everywhere, they don't know what, don't settle for fucking Goldman. I don't know what the people. I don't know. I'm gonna fire you everywhere. I really don't know what's wrong with the practitioners in our industry, who are still first of all, you know, I, I support you for still being angry about stuff like this, but You know, we need more as bad as you just pointed out, we just need some straps more creative strategies here. I mean, it takes some inspiration from the people of Minneapolis and it just find ways to fight back, honestly, like, like stop the same old crap. Honestly, I and, to your point, that's a, an easy way to start, right? Is the don't just think of Goldman Sachs directors. As Goldman Sachs directors, these people exist on other teams. You can go after those teams too. Right. I mean, it's it's if you need like more fuel for the fire, like Michelle Burns is on the Anheuser Busch. The abim board. They own Budweiser who basically flip-flopped entirely on Dei because Kid Rock shot a can and they handed one can of Budweiser to a trans person. Yeah and they freaked out about an Internet troll and rolled back everything. These people have Now, a history of doing this. Make them pay. Like and it's not about Dei, the policy was right or wrong. Most of these policies, we made fun of five to seven years ago and they were coming out as being window dressing to begin with. Because these are insular boards that weren't very diverse to begin with. Even when they add diversity, the data suggests, they what they add is people who have long-standing connections with the existing directors. They are known quantities. So you're not getting diversity so much as you're just putting other friends on the board, a different friend on the board. I get that the policy suck but putting out like some release saying the national legal policy Center. We struck a deal with it so they won't put a troll shareholder proposal that we would have gotten point one percent support to begin with. It would have gotten know, what would have been less than one percent? Yeah, it would have been less than 1% support to get rid of their Dei Costco. Like basically said, fuck you. We're not, we're not changing our Dei policies. And look what happened to Costco. Nothing. Nothing. There's no, like Mass investigation, there's no, there's nothing like coming down the pike, where they're always white. People love fucking Costco. Right. Well, I love even more now. Yeah. All right. Let's move on. I because the rest, you could be just I don't think I'm gonna, you're gonna beat this one. I got three other headlines that you can be just as angry about. I had to pick out this one too, because they're like a new, I don't know if they're like a new player in this field of sugary anti everything. But the headline is Inspire investing CEO Nikes d. E, i is illegal liability. Shareholders Coming For answers. So they're talking. So the article says that Nikes Dei fight is no longer. Just a social media culture, War argument and they're saying this only because Trump's Administration is trying to turn it into law but They're the ones who created the culture War argument. I you can't use the Trump Administration as an excuse. The whole thing just makes me mental. Obviously, honestly and Inspire yeah to their credit. They've been around a little bit, okay. Like a boy or research in the background, there are entirely a Christian or and their, their leadership team. And I mean the entirely leadership team is 100% white and 100% male. This is a guy, the guy this is run by the Robert Nestle, who wrote a book, biblically responsible investing. Yeah, on Wall Street as it is in heaven. Yeah. He's using a made-up place of what is in heaven, fairies and unicorns. I don't even know what's in heaven. Black people in heaven. I don't think so. I don't think so. All I know is that inspires it like coming from inspires CEO? That Dei is a legal liability when literally your entire leadership. Team is 100% white men, that actually at least makes sense, I don't like that. I like the fact that they're seeing you know Alex carpet palantir is always like he's thrashing Elite and Elite Education yet he went they all went to Stanford and Duke and whatever. Yeah at least this guy, he got his degree at an online university so he's just he's a regular guy, this guy online and I think buy online in the cloud. They mean heaven, right isn't happening in a cloud. All right. That's, that's way too. I, well, I will have to ask Google whether or not our cloud services count as Heaven. My favorite part of this too, was that this comes from a news, a news source called outkick, which is a basically, an anti anti woke, anti-woman anti-everything, Sports Media company. That that's that, that makes the estate that says that the rest of the sports media represents an elite left leading minority. I I someone who I have seen a lot of sports. I've engaged in a lot of sports media. I I didn't see any of the the left. Is there a leftist? I'm watching the football. There's it's a leftist thing I'm watching. Anyway, what made me laugh? What made me giggle is out, kick is owned by Fox Sports parent company. Fox Corporation. So but Fox Sports the most watched. Yeah, right. So I don't even understand. What's happening here? Like they're angry at Fox Sports and ESPN. Those are all really. The only two Other, it's Disney and Fox Sports. Who else has any say in, in sports these days? Anyway, I got in a little bit of a rabbit hole. That's the second one, the third headline, in this series, the stupid from our ESG Edition Um fed. Oh this is a this is another one that you'll like Federal agency Unfortunately this is the US equal employment opportunity commission is suing us. They're suing Coca-Cola bottle or over work event that excluded men. That's a new one excluded man. So now we're so it was like, oh a woman. Yeah, group within Coca-Cola's Bottling Company, I'm sure it was it was trying to do something with promoting women leadership further in their careers. yeah, they went on a work trip and men were, you know, because it was a like the men wanted to go anyway, but but the point you. Yeah, this is what we've come to this voice. Come to ya, boy. I'm tired. I'm talking, I'm talking strictly to you right now. Are you so fucking sensitive that? You have to go to Every work. You know how much you hate work events. What's the, what's the statue of limitations on those problems? But what's the statue of limitations? Can we go back and sue every event in the past that only white men were involved? Were at company events. Can we retroactively, Sue, is there a statue of limitations? How we should ask, right? I mean, what about when the board was only men or only white? Can we sue for that? Can we, can we claw back all your profits from those days when when you were excluding against other races? And well, when does this have to advertise, you would have to advertise as white men only. But they didn't say they didn't, they just did it this time. They said, this is a women's event and, and, and, and men were the men were so sent there such fucking snowflakes. Have you met? Like, I know, like there's a lot of liberals got made fun of a lot for being snowflakes, with their terminology political correctness, and all that kind of stuff and it was joking and funny. And like when you saying, like, when you're saying something like racist to an Asian person and then you defend that Asian person, your snowflake for getting sugar. It's just a joke man. It's just a joke. I mean but I get that the Liberals all went go. Far and they're like policing something that you could like, you know, like your pronouns like okay somebody's gonna be a jerk and not use your pronoun and let them be a fucking jerk and I use your pronoun. Its human in any context or setting to police each other. That's all we do is we critique each other. That's what we do. It's always a human's, is there anything more snowflakey and triggered than these fucking conservatives that we're suing? Because there was a women's group so like women like a women's book club. Can we sue them because like yes yes. But what club? What Universe do we live in? Well, this is why Matt, this is why I fucking insane. This is why I wanted to attack the Inspire investing CEO, Robert, Nestle for for claiming the you know that that were the Dei fight is no longer. Just a social media culture were argument because that's what it's still is. It's still a bunch of trolls just because the Trump admin Is doing it doesn't mean it's not just a social media culture were argument. It's it's still that it's still that. And anyway, the fourth headline in this category. Trump revokes Landmark ruling that greenhouse gases in danger public health. So this is the 2009 Um, ruling from the Obama error. And and I just wanted to point, this has been a lot of press on this. So I know you've heard of this already but I did want to point this headline to support this Bill Maher eviscerates, Donald Trump over, biggest dick move in American history. He's calling he's calling this action, the biggest dick move in American history so I I like that. Amongst all your rhetoric about how you hated liberals and trans. People were crazy and all that stuff. This is the one he cares about now, we're weighing in on the fact that you're reaping, what you sow, by having the biggest fucking asshole ever as the president, I was looking at some of the reporting around this and the Republicans are saying, Hey Now, You're Why this is great? I mean, forget the planet, you know, dying. And by the way, scientists are saying basically that like, we're getting closer and closer to, like, Earth being inhabitable, but they're saying the Republicans are saying you, you might save 2000 dollars on your car and I'm thinking, well, well that counteract counteract. The tariffs that the increase from the tariffs. So we'll, we'll subtract that tariff money with this subsidies. Are gone too. Okay. Yeah. All the American car and all the American car companies are whining about their impairment bills from winding down their EV manufacturing and they're complaining about that as I was like. Again, it's just like, Goldman Sachs to me GM, still Atlantis. All these companies you don't have to give up. You don't have to stop. Try it different way. What do you why you winding down? I mean Europe. As a, as an example is still buying these things. There's plenty of us who owns love them here in America. You don't have to give up just because Trump is winding down the rebates. Find other creative ways, make them cheaper, sell them cheaper, give your own. You give free you give your own rebate for other models for gas models. Anyway, those are my four stupid ESG stories. You want to pick one or you already picked one? Did you already picked? Yeah, I already picked one. It's Goldman Sachs all day long for me, that's the most triggering, but but the endangerment finding is the probably the most Long-term impactful, right? Like that, that the EPA now. No longer considers a gas, that can kill the planet, a threat to the planet, that's fun. Yeah. All right. And then let's move over to our the boring, the boring headlines. This is our Esh, we're still in ESG, I'll try to go kind of quickly on these Star Bucks. Investor group, urges shareholders to replace directors, over labor, fight their targeting lead independent director Jurgen a new store and chair of the nominating committee, Beth Ford. I included this one because I don't know. I like it, I like Because you usually, it's, you know, what we live in this world where we constantly have to bow down to all the wealthy activist investors, they're the one to know governance. They're the ones they're fighting directors and putting their, but this is kind of an Old Fashioned. Another version of the alternative democracy at work and their, their angry at how they affect, how they start a books treats their employees and their going after. Two. I don't know. I kind of like that one included, that one. You got something to say. Want me to move on? No, I saw this. I did. This is the same group that actually did a dissident slate I think two years ago right? Yeah same group. Well, this is a this is a there are more people involved there. This is a group of shareholders. I know like that. I think the New York City controller's office is part of this and other entities. Let's move on. Second headline companies are cycling through CEOs and replacing them with the first timers, so among incoming, CEOs, 84%. This is the first CEO role 100. So two thirds and never even served on a public company board. So what do you think about this? Any thoughts about this? I don't really finding experience CEOs. But to me this is like, to me, this is our what represents the, the modern version of the meritocracy, right? Are we going back to just hiring people? We like, right, because we don't need experience anymore. Because what the mayor talking to see really means is, you don't actually need experience because or education, because as we proved in many, many times over women and people of color actually, usually have the most credentials when they step into these roles. So does this mean we're turning back to just finding whatever schmuck we want and putting them in the job? Is that what we're doing? Well, so here is The problem. Yeah, the of them nearly half were CEOs. And we know from the c-suite data that the vast majority of the c-suite are white and male. And CEO is more dominantly white and male. So really what this headline should say is companies are hiring inexperience, white men? Exactly. Yeah. That's my point. That's it. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So it's not This is. Yeah, it's 1987 again, or maybe 1994. I don't know what it feels. It feels like we're reliving the past. Yeah, well, that's what one of us that surprising third headlines. CEOs, whole CEO, hopefuls, have a new rival for the top job, their own board directors. We've been reporting this, on our other shows countdown year. Yeah, yes. So there is there's an uptick, a lot of boards are now pulling from. I mean, a lot of companies a lot of session plans they're just kind of giving up and picking a director because they're there. Yeah. Right. Yeah. All right. And the last headline here in the boring ESG that you missed over the last week. Well, you were where were you the North Pole? South Pole, Alaska, you all, do you only visit states, you know, in the United States that shouldn't be part of the United States Alaskan Hawaii like Alaska should be Canada and Hawaii should be its own Sovereign Nation. I can't help where my family and friends, okay? The last headline, Wall Street banks are paying their CEOs. Like it's 2006 again. So to your point here Morgan, Stanley CEO, Ted pick 32%. Raise to 45 million Bank of America. Brian Moynihan, 17% up to 41 million Barclays, CEO, get to pay hike City Group J, CEO, Jane Fraser, she's up to 50 59 million. So that's the other headline getting paid like it's 2006 again. That's it's right before the collapse right before the collapse. I'm sure I'm shocked. All right, so you want to put one of these headlines? I think they're right one is the couple and companies cycling through CEOs, right with first yeah because you're his message important here. Yeah, this is the dog whistle here. Like this is the this is and actually it's the running theme for all of these things. We've talked about Ad nauseam, the attack on diversity, the attack on women in the attack on people of color that this is just a declaration of war like everything from the way we're seeing the votes. Go who got voted out the first director voted out in like 2020. The late 2025, you know early 2026 proxy. Cycle was a black man. You know, like we've been reporting on this for a while. This is just. More evidence that the meritocracy is bullshit. There is your meritocracy. Jones says, yes there is. No meritocracy. It's all a cloud cover to just put your friends it back in power. Yeah. It's a powerful. It is oh, even or if it's not your friends, it's people that you know, won't like make you uncomfortable or won't push you or won't like right like well, the broke economy. Yeah. Right. Like either way, right. Okay, let's move over. You're not gonna like this one. The Bro culture category. This is the Epstein Edition, and I can go quickly on this, it's up to you. I just wanted to cite all the either the people in our database or the top Executives. That there's been some more Fallout over the past week. Let's start with the the executive chair of Hyatt. Now, hi, it is still dominated and run by the pritzker family, right? They still have Majority control I believe. But anyway, Thomas pritzker. Stepping down. Now he wasn't fired. He's resigning. Oh, he's retiring. Thank God. And of course they Hyatt's reaction to their to the leadership problem. Here is is not to find an independent chair but just to appoint their CEO, Mark hoplamazian as the new chair. So, so the CEO just becomes the chair. So no, that's easy. Yeah. And of course they they thanked him on the way out. They say only nice things. They even they even prays that their, their thoughtful succession planning that and this or they're praising their decision to appoint their CEO's chair. I mean listen I mean really this guy is stepping down because the Epstein files and their their patting themselves on the back that they named their CEO a chair to replace. The guy who's leaving, who they wouldn't even fire because the other scene files and ryzen patted themselves on the back for replacing their CEO with the lead quote on quote independent director. A Dan Shulman who's now, CEO of Verizon. These boards do seem to think of themselves as doing their job. When they point to a guy in the room, they're sitting with and say, okay, UBC CEO this time. And then in a letter to the board, Tom pritzker says that basically, he said, you know, I deeply regret my relationship. I exercise terrible judgment, I have no excuse. I, I condemn the actions, in the harm caused by Epstein. I feel deep sorrow for the pain, they inflicted on their victims. And yet, he's saying that he's crediting himself by saying because his job and responsibility to provide good stewardship. The good stewardship includes him stepping down, so he's like praising his own decision because he's, he's being a good guy. He's being a good. I mean, what all this is. I'm sorry. But this is just, it's craziness to me. It's crazy. It's but, but it's remarkable. Uh, that's something you even happened. I mean, honestly, like, I mean, did it happen? I don't know. He just do it himself like it, there was no indication. The board would have gotten rid of, that's true. And and according to our data, a free flow analytics, Thomas pritzker and Jason pritzker. I don't know who Jason's son of is. I don't know if it's Thomas, but they they control. They're both on the board of Hyatt. They control 71% of the influence. I wonder if Thomas pritzker will be replaced by another pritzker family member, right? I mean, again, what's really right? What's the penalty here, too? He's 73 years old. He's been there for. He's been the executive chair since 2004. I mean he should have been gone anyway. I mean, what's the penalty here? Is that he had to apologize and he's feels embarrassed. Anyway, that's the first story. The Second One. Dubai's DP World announced that they were releasing their CEO after the Epstein's emerge. So they replaced Sultan amid their were placing him. He was the CEO and chair of the replacing him with two men. He's been the CEO there since 2016, the chair, since 2007. So again, I'm surprised that anything even happened but he's He's stepped and it sounds like here that they did replace him like, Thomas pritzker resigned. But they replaced the CEO over there at DP world. Yeah. You just gonna say, sorry well I can keep going. Um, is it more? It's all. Casey all Epstein. Yeah. Well, this is the category. Yes, I'm sorry. This is the category. Here. This is one's pretty triggering the talent agency, the Wasserman teller agency Casey Wasserman in the CEO, stepping down. But he also he's selling his part of it for his role, for his friendship, with Epstein. And of course, he's deeply. Sorry for his mistakes. But of course he, you know, he's selling it, he's gonna gets to keep the money. I mean, what's the penalty here? There's no, again, there's no penalty. Former Victorious. CEO less Wagner is testifying in front of the house. It's part of their upstein investigation. He's also doing the same song and dance fucking Cloud. Yes, saying I was naive foolish gullible. He's pretending like he didn't know anything was happening. How about this back to Goldman? Sachs their top lawyer, this is a woman now. Kathy rumbler, she's resigning over her friendship with Epstein because according to the file she called up scene, sweetie and Uncle Jeffrey. And there's another headline that said that Goldman, CEO? David Solomon says he reluctantly He reluctantly, let her go after this but you know what? If it's a hard decision for you? David I know. Like that's a big one, right? Finally, three more. I'll wrap it up quickly. King Charles brother, Andrew was arrested this morning on suspicion of misconduct, this funny headline elon's brother, quit Burning, Man board. So he's still on Tesla board. And finally, the White House, Donald Trump Shrugs off. Commerce, Secretary, Howard Lutz Epstein ties. They don't care about the Commerce, Secretary Howard, lutt, next ties to Epstein. So he's staying this, they don't, yes, he's staying because, yeah, because Raskin, the saw the unredacted files, there were a couple of, you know, Congressional members that saw the files. You know, the unredacted files that were to them. I'm sure there's a lot of those ones that were available and fair, it's be fair and Trump. Trump himself, his name went from showing up at the files like 50 times to over a million times, right? Like that was the reporting and and even the reductions are so bad. Because I looked at pritzker, if you can go search through these episodes, team files that they made available and they made them available really badly and they're definitely edited. So that Donald Trump has never get in trouble and those if they're burning the files right now, we don't know what files are. Missing fucking heinous, what's going on? But in the pritzker files, it Epstein and pritzker have an email about meeting at a restaurant. And in one of the files, the name of the woman is redacted, in the other one where the the like it's just emails, you know, the replies are piling up the very bottom, the name is undetected. Yeah. So I mean like not only is it insane. But it's also the victims are being put out in the world because it was so badly. Done in order to just all they did was reject Trump's name like they didn't care about anything else. Whole thing is gross, whole thing is horrible. How am I supposed to choose one? I think you've chosen it. What? I think you're White House. Shrugs off lutonix Epstein tires, right? Because they don't care. Is that the one you're gonna pick? I just picking, you know, it's all I'm gonna pick. I'm gonna pick Goldman Sachs, how about. Yeah, Goldman Davis with this guy. I, again, there's no accountability anymore, there's none. I vote out the entire board, including him all, the pay goes up for CEOs. And they know because of the cloud cover created by Donald Trump. That there's no accountability anymore, they can say and do whatever they want really, that's the true is headline or piece of reporting. That's been done. Come back in history, you should hear with Glee. But putting out the meta Ray-Bans with facial recognition because of the political moment. No one's paying attention. That is everything that is CEO pay. That is the Epstein files. That is literally every everybody's looking around and Trump, like, taking going after Greenland or Venezuela, all that stuff is cloud cover. So you're not paying attention to something else. These CEOs are not idiots. They know you cannot watch it all. So you're fucked unless you vote them all out. With the blowhard index, for this is my favorite thing you've said today, February 19th 2027. Look, we had a lot to cover, you've been gone for like a few months. I only have three in this category. Three really just dumb blow Hardy horrible headlines, sales force, co-founder not. Okay, with Benny offs, ice crack Mark made a very bad joke. We haven't covered this yet. Marc benioff at a at an annual company kickoff event in Las Vegas told by Mike how at least three jokes about ice. So first, he he asked employees who had traveled to the event from outside, the United States to stand up for recognition. And then once they were standing, he made a joke saying, thank you just so the ice agents know in the building know who you are. That's why he had them up. Wow, you know what? I know how to Like make your own employees, feel horrible about themselves do that and then he made a another joke laid in the presentation, suggesting that ice agents were also monitoring those who hadn't. Yet used a specific new slack bot tool. And then finally, he made a another one another joke, how ice was was looking into employee travel. I don't understand the joke. Now, his own, some of his own people have have clapped back a little bit coat. Again, the co-founder said that, you know, he found the the jokes to be a violation of the code of conduct and that they could be considered a fireball offense for a typical employee. Of course, not the CEO that the head of slack, Rob siemen said he cannot defend, or explain the jokes. So there you go. I, you know, Marc benioff. Yeah, again, know what kind of ability, there's not there's nothing. I mean, you know, whatever, right. Who cares, right? Benny off. I know you're a big donor to the to the Democrats and or whatever. But like between saying San Francisco was a shithole and bringing the true's conference and it said like to ask for the troops to invade push and hold, what's San Francisco? Is he looking at? And then doing this, you know, so Super Bowl in San Francisco and the reports were people who went to the Super Bowl who never never been Cisco. Were shocked at how beautiful and wonderful the city was jaw-droppingly. Gorgeous because everywhere everywhere is just wrote about how it's a homeless encampment with, you know, needles sticking out of the ground every Western City. It's unbelievable. Okay. Second blow Hardy headline. Elon Musk. So first time we talked about Elon today. I think Elon Musk says anthropics philosopher has no stake in the future because she doesn't have kids. So he's calling out. Did I? Yeah, I didn't know. JD Vance at 1 points. Say that only men with families should be able to vote. Like it. Wasn't there really something like that? What treasury Elon is what a treasure and then finally palantir. Is the headline palantir, which is powering ice. Says immigration, Crackdown may hurt hiring so I looked at their 10. Yeah, so they had a 10K two days ago. I looked I looked it up. Said that, you know restrictive immigration laws May limit our ability to recruit outside the US and increase regulation of immigration or work. For users could also be bad for the you know, they're complaining about that. It's a risk for that. I'm picking that one. No, because it's triggered me, because that's comedy. There's no that ass hole is that? It are we done? Can I go to bed now? That was a lot. Come on, you got to cover stuff. I honestly, it's important. If there's a takeaway look we're not good about giving takeaways. Here's a takeaway vote out the Goldman board and every board member on any board. They say dirty get your answer, don't settle for Goldman. Tell him how you feel by getting them out of the office. That's all we got. That's hazelnut Rallis also known to his mother's Damien. I am your analyst Hallman atmosphere. We are free float. Well actually be back tomorrow throughout the week. What? That's the plan. Oh, we gotta I guess we just one show this week. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see tomorrow. But next week we're back on schedule. There was a shareholder Primacy that came out yesterday if you didn't get that. That's where Mike and Anne Lipton. We're talking about Warner Brothers, Discovery and the musk's security lawsuit. They went deep. Let's look at the shows traveling. Yes, this show will be traveling to see III in the first live show, right? March we will do a live show at CII the castle why they want us, nobody knows unbelievable that anyone's wants us on station to talk about stuff, but we're going to, we must show, which will do next week in advance as well, until then good.