Transcript
Ooh, is that are we working? Is it good? Ooh. who knows? Who knows? Not worried about my internet. Live from your Broad Ridge sponsored Mini Donut Holes. It's a business pants Friday show here at October 2nd Studios featuring analyst hole, Matt Muscarty, yeah, whoopee, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well d the donut the sponsored donut holes were a real thing. That's real. Yeah, they were. They called them beignets. They're trying to be fancy, but they were donut holes. On today's weekly wrap up, deep fake bike helmets, deep fake board elections, and the tweens love ESG. Yeah. They yeah. They were filled with something. Yeah I love myself a good tween loving ESG Nobody does. Our show today is being sponsored by Freeflowanalytics dot com. hey. And Freeflow Analytics, the platform. I I don't know. The only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for free. I'm shouting 'cause the audio is hot in my headphone. hey ho hey hey Yes Yes, that Yeah, you could turn down your headphones. No, not even gonna do it. Let's go right we got a new for a slightly new format. Okay. It's very slightly new. No. Something's changed. Let's do it. Alright, I'm gonna introduce a new format. story of the week is now a a battle of the idiots. So we're both introduced a few stories and then w we will argue and pick one. Okay. Okay. How who decides if we're right? well, it it'll be natur I w what we'll okay, here's what's normally gonna happen is that we will automatically agree because it's so obvious, or we will argue for a bit and I will give up 'cause I don't care and I'll pick your story. Okay? That's how it's gonna work. and then so so what we've done is we've shrunk everything else because we were worried it was just too much. So we've shrunken ass holiest. Thank God the world can rejoice. We each just pick a headline, that's it. We just pick a asshole of the week, we pi I like that. I like that. That works for me. Same with Goodlius, same with Blowhardiest, Headlineest. We just kinda compress those, have a little fun with it, and then we get out with our predictions and winners and now. Well, we learned 'cause at the Weston Hotel in Seaport, Boston Seaport. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We gotta remember how to have fun again because the world isn't fun. All right. That's where we learned how to have fun? I just came out of there f angry. Well so the CI this was the CI Spr fall conference in Boston. We were there No, the f my walk yeah. Fall two thousand twenty six. We set up a little podcast booth. We're gonna have you know, reactions to some of the plenary sessions and we have an interview that we did with someone from proxywise who's gonna answer every question about AI and proxy voting. That's their that every question that could possibly be asked about that. They're gonna that's gonna be our proxy countdown for next week. but and thanks to the people at CII, and they throw a great conference. I We have a lot. I've got pictures. Everyone Yeah, thank you, Melissa. What? I they throw a great conference. I'm not sure I like the the beignets sponsored by Broadridge, but I they they did throw a great conference. they do. They do absolutely do, and I will say that from the dirty looks we get, w we have to be the in the bottom five of people that people don't like. No. We had n we had nice clean new sneakers on. We had you know, like everything we had on was relatively new and shiny and we were clean. H yeah. Just because we don't like o obe hey, if any of the CI men are listening and you're probably not because you probably think that we're you know, like we're I mean we look like hobos. We look like hobos. That's all we had. That was yeah. It was it was washed. It was washed. Yeah. too woke where we're like woman loving woke people, but but wha what's the deal with the like the see you all wear blue blazers with white shirts, you don't wear ties anymore, the collar's a little bit open, and then you have like some kind of like greyish, khaki kind of pants. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, and maybe slight undershirt showing What are you doing? Why? Why do you all have to do that? I just wanna know. I'm not even judging. I just wanna know. And now like forty percent of them wear sneakers with that because that's cool. That's cool. No, you gotta look at the shoes. Gotta look at the shoes. All right, let's do some stories. All right. I didn't notice that. I didn't notice that. Alright, let's get to this let's get Alright, we going back and forth. You do a story, I do a story. Alright, you start us off. Yeah, sure. Let's do it. Let's try it. I'm gonna go first. top AI executives sign commitment to self police after meeting at White House. This broke while we're at the conference. so Trump is calling this a morally binding AI agreement. I don't even know what that means, morally binding. there's also a a headline that the speaker of the House said that he hopes that the AI guardrails are voluntary. And they are. Yeah, they're voluntary. They're they're They're gonna self police. You know, maybe it'll make the newsletter, but I pulled a picture from this announcement and I c I captioned it, count the women. But it's really not much of a game because I I see Susie Wiles. She's she's the the sycophantic chief of staff who I don't think has any credentials to be chief of staff, but whatever. She she she's there, but she has nothing to do with the AI industry. I I think I see on the wall is that It's not that hard. I ca I in that tiny, tiny picture, yeah, I can see. She can carry a printer. Martha Washington? Who was the woman on the wall? That looks like Marie Antoinette, doesn't it? I d I d I don't know. Yeah. That is that possible? Well, I see George. That's George on the right. I'm guessing. Who is that woman, do you think, on the left? And then and then if you look through the dozens of men, I think you see Lisa Sue of AMD. That's it, right? Lisa is the Lisa is the only woman's she Her opinion is the only female opinion that matters in the entire world. Other than I don't know, I can't see past all the gold glitter. Yeah, Lisa Sue, yeah. Yes. Other than the portrait of who I think is Martha Washington, I'm not entirely sure though. And I I believe Lisa Sioux is like the cousin of Jensen Huang too, right? yeah, well yeah, and that that doesn't mean that she's any worse or better. I mean that Jensen's also the cousin of her. No, I'm just I'm just saying that like the only woman who was invited was actually another dude's cousin who showed up, right? Like Yeah, it's a little weird. Is a family member of somebody else. Yeah. It is bizarre. The whole thing is the whole look, the whole thing is that they're at least being honest about what's happening is that this there is a bro empire kind of shaping our future and they are refusing any guardrails. Like so they've they're telling us what's happening. So that's the mice first story of the week. What do you got? What do you got? Let's go, let's go. That's nice of them. I'm glad they're telling us. Alright, so my first story of the week is Trump says he and tech leaders signed AI agreement that is morally binding. It's the it's the same story. That look Wait, what? well this is but this is going well though. We're 'cause we're not looking at what i what the other person chooses and I think we're making good time. Well, when I looked up and I saw that you chose it, I was like, All right, I I ch it can't not be my one of my options. But but the the the absurdity of a morally binding agreement. I mean it has to be an option, yeah. What does that mean? Is that it's not the same Did they spit on their hands and shake? Did they like w like like did they pinky swear? Like Like I always Well I don't know. I always hold the door for people when I go into places. Is that is that my morally a binding agreement with like door door hinges? What I don't understand what that means morally binding. There's either legal is legally binding, I know what that means. No, you 'cause you're not you're not what I wanna know is like like in this we I I I f I feel like this is the the the zenith of middle school men behavior, which is like w renaming artificial intelligence, which is existed as a as a term for a hundred years, you know, like forever, renaming it super intelligence or trying to, misspelling the words United States in the actual like Gaslighting. release of super intelligence, like re the rebranding at super intelligence. The whole thing is dumb. Yeah. They also the US government they they like launched their new chat bot and they're already saying like so the chat bot said that Biden won the election, so they they now restrict it from saying that. It it also mentioned something else it restricted it from doing. It they're already like telling it not to talk about certain things for some reason. I don't know. I a and and then combining that with like the that when asked whether this agreement is binding, Trump saying it is morally binding. Morally binding is what you do in a treehouse with like when you're trading tops baseball cards. I still wanna know what that means, morally binding. Yeah, but even that breaks down pr pretty quickly if someone really doesn't want to give up their Daryl strawberry. I mean they they they No, no, not Not when Doug runs off crying and gripping his Daryl really tightly. Can we move on? Well but it's morally binding after you trade. Then you cry and you tell your parents that you got a raw deal. So that was mine. What's your second story of the week? my I'm I'm back to an old favorite that I started last week and I like it. It's my We Told You So and I'm calling this We Told You So part two. I got two stories, We Told You So. the first one is non deferential boards matter. That's the topic. Peter Thiel says Trump administration overcorrected with loyalty tests to staff, not very smart people. What he's saying is he's referring to Freeflow Analytics.com, which is saying he's saying you don't want to have highly deferential boards. Because really what you end up doing is you pick people who are loyal to you and they're really not very smart. Like that's not a way to provide oversight. Well, look but th it's like I I would say th that I know, that's your take on that they can still be smart. All right, so in freewanalytics.com, when you go to that website, you look up any single company, there's actually a box when you look at the company that's that says deference, right? Like it actually it's a measurement, use it uses like twelve indicators to say how likely is any given director to be deferential to management. That's what I'm t that's my takeaway. I don't I don't care what you say. Which I guess you're correct that Peter Thiel is suggesting that like loyalty and deference isn't exactly what you're looking for to run something. That's not the that's not the be all end all. so I agree with him. Now the smart part is sort of separate. If they're deferential and idiots, that's a big problem. That's like not a little problem. That's a very big problem. Right. Yeah. Well, okay. But but but they're highlighting the the what the the problem with the actual so so th the current people in power refer to the meritocracy as anything that excludes women and people of color, right? That's what their version of the meritocracy is. But the real meritocracy is that when you look f when you look for people that are only your friends, you're you're actually Yeah, it's just no women yeah. No gays either. Forget the gays. diluting the gene pool and you're gonna end up picking people who aren't qualified. That's what Peter Thiel is referring to here. Right? By by causing by creating loyalty tests, you're you're eliminating a lot of very bright people who you should be picking. That's what he's saying. Are so d So the first I told you so is we agree with Peter Thiel. Yeah, and the second one is this. I call it recently former CEOs who are now executive chairs are still or are actually still CEO. You got that? Former recently former CEOs who are now executive chairs are still CEO. Right? Like like Brian Cornell at Target. Yep. Well, I'm gonna cover it every time it comes up because I just like it. Ex Disney CEO Bob Chapick says he raised concerns with the board weekly during Bob Iger power battle. He said Yeah, got I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't we cover this? We covered this already. I started hearing about lunches that he had and dinners that he had where he was absolutely trashing me. He brought these concerns to the Disney board and they told him, quote, He'll be gone in two years. It's okay. That's just Bob being Bob. So yeah. Meanwhile, the Disney board being Susan Arnold, the chair of the board who had more influence than Bob Chapick did. We pointed this out at the time that when the board chair who's independent has more power or influence than the current CEO, and then you had executive chair Bob Iger sitting around before that, who had more power than the CEO, you have a dynamic that suggests like, well, yeah, you're on the outside looking in, buddy. Congrats. yeah. That's my second one. Go. Yeah. Mm-hmm. What do you got? Those are your that's your that's your I told you so? I don't know how I feel about this as this as a topic for story of the week. All right, here's here's mine. My number two story of the week: Manufactured CEO pay. Here's the headline that I saw. America's top executives rake in one point seven billion in special payouts. So you covered this. you know, I don't know. Might change next week. I'm not loving it either to be honest. Go ahead. Do you mean all the things that we flagged on the proxy countdown? We flagged these week after week after week, these bizarre special special bonuses, one time equity like you know, but these were off policy and really didn't give shareholders kind of like any bearing of like like you know, how to vote on this because like they were after the meetings, yeah. Okay, go ahead. He and massive and massive. Yes. You but literally every single week Damian pulled this. One time equity awards, yeah. And they were incredibly random, right? Like they were just like they they were like these massive one-time payouts to CEOs, and they just said, This is a f with this is a retention award. They like to call them retention awards. This is what Antoinette Giblin, who is of Diligent, which you their sponsor. Yeah, they're a sponsor at CII. Just for the hell of it. Yeah, where are they where are they gonna go? Yeah, go ahead. diligent. They were weren't they one of the sponsors of CII? They sent like 10 people. That that beats us. I yeah, well everything beats us. I I but I do generally like what Diligent does, except for these quotes. Quote, one of the biggest drivers this year is intensifying competition for executive talent. Board boards are navigating this while also asking CEOs to manage a broader range of risks, including supply chain ri disruptions, tariffs, and the challenges and opportunities created by AI. Yeah, true. W is there proof of that? That it's intensifying? no. Okay, but that's all that's evergreen. All those challenges are evergreen because AI a few years ago was cybersecurity and a few years before that it was just tech and I mean, come on, these are all evergreen issues. Not to mention that I I captured a headline just this week saying that the the the importance of the CFO has grown, because they are the ones tasked to deal with AI. so so the weight in the C suite actually is going towards CFOs and not towards CEOs. But anyway, keep going. These are all the these are all the like All I know is that this is this is diligence excuses for why we saw bigger special payouts. And they also she also added strong market performance has also played an important role. Total shareholder returns reached notable highs. so look. I want facts diligent. I want facts. What does that mean? Wait, so that means you shouldn't like give equity you shouldn't give equity just that r that gets paid out for a bull market, right? Isn't that what that means? No, you what ch that the combination that she's saying is that there's all this talent pressure, this talent competition and these market challenges, and these CEOs are outperforming on the stock. So now boards are boards are like, we gotta give them new money. But here's here's some food for thought when considering this, okay? here's a headline from last a year and a half ago. I don't I don't believe that. I don't believe that. It's always been. This has been going on for decades. Fortune one hundred CEOs preferred Republican affiliated campaigns with eighty five percent of total dollars donated to Republican affiliated candidates. So You know, yeah, it's too bad because the the headline I took out 'cause I thought you would hate it was and I replaced it with the stupid we told you so, was an article about the the the the millionaires and billionaires who are currently giving the most to the election cycle. And I I I grabbed it because it there's only one giving to a Democrat on that list, and the rest are all people that we talk about regularly on these shows. So this is what is happening. CEOs are handing money to Republican super PACs, big money. They're basically trying to buy the election. The party that they are supporting is the party that backed, the only party that backed tariffs that created supply chain disruptions with like changing the trade rules. They are backing AI everywhere. They're Big big money. Yeah. Well, yeah. Self-policing, they're they're they they're they want no guardrails, they they're just like whatever AI can do whatever it wants. They effectively manufactured all of the challenges that Antoinette, Giblin, and Diligent listed as the headwinds that CEOs are facing. So CEOs give massive money to a party that manufactures all the challenges that CEOs face. Then That same party goes out and creates a talent problem by being anti-DEI, by by talking about the meritocracy, which is just code for white guys. And they they are targeting any company that is looking for any CEO or executive who might be a woman, might be a person of color, and heaven forbid you are a black lesbian. Like you you are just fucking dead. By like yeah, by eliminating everyone but white men, yeah. Yeah. And they're doing this everywhere. I mean they're they're even doing this in the military. I mean they're doing it gleefully. Pete Hesgeth is doing this. They call it a war on woke, is what they call it. Yeah. So the here is your here is your circle, your circ your retention award circle. You have the Republican CEOs giving massive amounts of money to Republican politicians who then manufacture a talent crisis by removing DEI or any sort of diversity, and they manufacture headwinds and challenges. By removing any sort of you know stability in the market and create the perfect cauldron for you to say, everything's real rough for me right now. You know, all the people that I backed are making it rough for me right now. So I know the market's way up because there's no insider trading rules anymore, the SEC doesn't exist anymore. so you need to pay me this retention bonus. what an amazing rinse and repeat. Because now we're going into the midterms and that's exactly what they're doing. They're doubling down on all of it. Can you imagine the number of retention awards in twenty twenty seven that are gonna come for CEOs? Well, I don't have to imagine because we're we're gonna attract them weekly on our show, The Proxy Content. I I wanna say hats off to my new favorite person that's the Oregon treasurer, Elizabeth Steiner, my favorite speaker at the CII fall conference, who who parroted she's way smarter than me, but she parroted something I always say. I always call I I call CEO Pay at crazy and she called it bad, really bad. So Yeah. And I was wondering to myself, how did Oregon get someone so smart and wonderful, Elizabeth Steiner? And I just realized how she was born in Massachusetts. That's how they found it. So yeah, all right. My third is two big CEO hires this week. I'll go kinda quickly on these. that's how they found her. So that's my that's my second story of the week. General Mills, they've been in operation for a hundred and sixty years and they found a lady. They found a woman, th the first woman ever to run the place she's not gonna get a special retention award. Sh no, actually she hasn't. she's COO Dana McNabb. She's been at the company for almost thirty years. She is succeeding Jeff Harmoning. Although here's the here's the footnote. Jeff will transition to executive chair. Now come on, can't you just let someone have the fucking job? And here's the part that that worries me, and I'll get more to I'll get to this later in my predictions, is her task is returning the comp this is their words, returning the company to profitable growth. So she's already kind of started like this, you know, I so he left it without profitable growth. He's staying on his executive chair. Yeah, what is he still there for? And and we're talking about an industry that is getting walloped by like these these obesity drugs. So I'm a little worried for her. So anyway, that's the first hire. Yeah. What on earth? What can we just stop and think about the absurdity of that? If the problem at the company is returning it to profitable growth, and that's a big problem for the company, the guy who's been the CEO who did not do that, why the fuck do you want him around? What exactly is his role as executive chair, except to make a lot of money and tell the board that your current CEO is not doing a good enough job? What else does he offer? That's a big problem, yeah. It's to it's to hover. Because if he gives you any advice on how to run the company, he didn't do a great job of that, did he? Did he like if we're returning to profitable growth, he didn't do that. Well I I know what they're gonna do by the way. They're gonna get a giant syringe filled of filled with protein and they're just gonna inject it into all their products and they're gonna All right. Second big hire, again, like you know, I I say these are CEO hires in quotes in my in my my notes. David Ellison names Enon Kreitz, co co CEO of the new Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery, which they're calling Sky Dance. so Hopefully with corn syrup wrapped in the protein. Kreitz comes from Mattel. and by the way, I hand I I I I credit the CNBC for this headline because they said David Ellison names this. Because Fine Yahoo Finance said Paramount named. It's not Paramount, it's the Ellisons. But anyway Why didn't it say Larry? It should say Larry. early reports is that the new co-CEO is going to make a pay package worth $47 million. And I wanted to point out one other tidbit is this other headline that dropped today. Paramount's new co-CEO once hired a barista he met at a cafe with no resume. I love that, right? Like, that's the meritocracy at work, right? His advice, now he has it. He already has advice to Gen Z. He's already coming out with advice. He says, look up And make eye contact. This is this is and the reason why I point this out is like literally like ten headlines later was this report from Goldman Sachs. So it's not just like Bob and Doug in their basement with a spreadsheet. It's Goldman Sachs saying eight in ten, eighty percent of Gen Z and millennial millennials have two jobs to make ends meet. So you so Kreitz, you're he's blowing hard already. Well, if they don't make it enough eye contact. Yeah, you're asking these tired, cranky, angry people to look you in the eye when when they're serving you, your stupid Americano. I mean, c this is just I love that he's already launching off in the blowhard land. So anyway, that's my third story of the week. What do you have first? Your third. I hate your third story of the week. That makes me upset. I got wonky on this one. I went, here's the headline. IBM elects Frank Baker to its board of directors. Yeah. Don't you don't you feel like when you see that headlight they've already had like four Frank Bakers in the past? Well, first yeah, yes, but first of all, there was no election. Like there's no fucking election. No. There w investors did not elect this. This this was appointed. So and this is not like a headline that was written by like Jim aggregating Ya Yahoo Finance. This is IBM's press release. It's a straight up lie. There was no election. IBM, yeah. I was gonna s actually I was gonna ask that, like was this an AGM? Was this yeah, was this appointed The board appointed, yeah. So it's a lie. What they stated was the board elected this new director, but the board does not elect they selected and appointed a director. It's a straight up lie. All right. The election actually happens, the first election happens in April, because that's roughly when their proxy filings go out, or and their and then they they have or their elections happen and their proxy filings go out in March. So first of all, already a lie. No stop. Selected. Yeah. It is a lie, it's a lie. So that's that already got piqued my interest. Second of all, this is one of those things that you tag every single one of these. There's like a thousand of them a month. Okay. I hate it. I ha this is my least favorite category, by the way. Overwhelming. This is like someone gets added to a board, someone leaves a board, and no one cares. No one literally zero people are reading that. You get a couple of data providers who are then like casually going to, you know, look to see if there's any data to add, but they usually wait till the proxy to add anything. And that's when it gets added. This is like something that someone should pay attention to because in order for this to happen, first of all, Fred Waddell left the board at the last annual meeting. Yeah. Well we care. They decreased the the board size according to the bylaws from 14 to 13. In order to add Frank Baker, they had to re-increase the board size to 14. Did anybody stop and say, is 14 too many fucking board members for IBM? That's a gigantic board. That's a massive board. They also added Frank Baker, and when you add a director, you must be adding them for a reason. Okay. That's lot actually. Especially for a company like IBM. That's a lot. Yeah. They bring something to the board, that something you re you needed. Yeah. I diversity of thought usually diversity of background of skill set. Well, Frank fr Frank Baker is is actually a venture capital private equity background. And the board, according to FreeFlow Analytics data, is 100% of the board has basically CEO experience, and 74% have econ and accounting experience. You know what's not on this board? Anyone with fucking computers and engineering backgrounds at IBM yeah, I bet they don't have anyone like that. Yeah. Right. Yeah, well yeah. International business machines, like the the oldest computer company in the country. They might want to be concerned by this because yeah, I can see that they're they're down from down like a hundred dollars stock last over the last year. Yeah. This is a this is an underperforming stock where no one cares about them. They increased their board size to add this guy. Now, when I looked at Frank Baker, he's like a he looks like a terrific human being. No joke. He looks like like he he looks like I mean he's he's like he just no, he individually paid for like the entire graduating classes of Spellman Colleges, you know, okay. Why? What does that mean? S he has does he have six pack abs, is that what you're saying? debt, right? Like he's he seems like a chems like a nice guy. He's like doing some sort of stuff like that, right? but the fact is The the whole the whole class Okay. Yeah. Although I wish you'd work with the system to like get to a point where they're not gonna have debt in the first place. But yeah, you're right. It's nice to write a check. Yeah. That seems like nice. But the but the fact is, Baker, I found like this is a cursory look. I found that Baker, though he's seemingly an amazing human being, he sits on the board I yeah, I don't know if he's a jerk in real life. I don't know. I don't know anything. But he sits on the board of the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center. he's the chair of that board. This is a non profit that does human rights work. Mm-hmm. Seemingly, yeah. Well, we don't know. And we're not here to call people jerks. How dare you? And he sits on that board with a a guy named Dermot McDonough of BNY Mellon. And Alfred Zeller, who's on the IBM board, also sits on the BNY Mellon board. So it took me one second to find how did they find Frank B Baker and add him to this board? What was their choosing criteria? In one second, I found, he knows a guy who knows them. That's it. Yeah. Well you know I used I used to sit on a corporate board and I I was sort of known as the as the the airplane the paper airplane guy because I would make really bad paper airplanes. I'd never really have been very good at it. And how we would select new board members is w yeah, we'd go to a group with with some of our buddies, I'd make an airplane, I'd throw it and it would wonkily go around the room and then it would just hit someone. I'd and then we'd like that's the that's who we want. Yeah, that's who we're gonna add. Yeah. You it would hit someone a and we'd be like, Who do you know to add to this board? That's so at least you were the paper airplane guy. I was the spitball guy and nobody likes the spitball guy. I'm just saying that like look, we should care about these headlines when they come up. I but I mean, people should know because like you go out and you buy an IBM computer, you don't think anything about who runs this company, how long have they done it, how much money do they make, or like w like what is the All right. Can we move on? Do you have anything more to say about Frank Baker? We do. We do. Well, the window is closing because as the SEC gets rid of shareholder proposals, a lot of institutional investors, retail investors, they're really not gonna have any say other than voting against directors and pay, right? I mean, I guess the auditor, if you can vote against the auditor if you feel like. I mean all right. we I mean the the story of the week is obvious. Can we just move on? It's it's top AI executives signed commitment to self police, right? That's it. That's all that's left. I I guess, yeah, they do that a lot. All right, those are my three. Yeah, it's a morally binding agreement, which is actually what a say on pay vote is, isn't it? A morally binding agreement. So that's that's that's what it is. All right, let's move on. Let's do let's do assholes and goodliest. And then we'll do the No, I didn't. I got another one. that's true, yeah. It's an advisory vote. Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's move on. I feel like you just did that. No, maybe you didn't. I'll go first because mine's quick. This is As Holiest of the Week. this is the second time we've referenced Jensen Wing, I think, in this kind of blowhardy category. I should say As Holiest. NVIDIA's CEO says, and I I forget the I forget the first one, but it was it's just as troubling. He says AI must c must cause pain and suffering before it can help the climate. It must cause. that sounds blowhardiest, not assholiest. Pain and suffering. Well to me that's just like pure I mean who is he? I I I must cause pain and suffering. And you don't get to tell me what I think is an asshole or not. That's who I think is the asshole of the week, because I just find that that's just a horrible squad ya got what do you got? Must cause pain and suffering. Only a man, only a man would say that. Yeah, go ahead. Must. He said must. W well, I mean he did say must cause. All right, my asshole My Asshole is a throwback asshole. here's the headline. EEOC sues Harvard for data on diversity and hiring practices. This n this is another like c cry baby white people are getting hurt kind of s lawsuit. Yeah. Andrea Lucas. This is her thing, yeah. This is Andrea Lucas. All right. Andrea Luc yes, this is her thing. She loves a downtrodden white man. I don't know why, but this is her thing. In April of twenty twenty five, she actually subpoenaed Harvard and they cited archive materials from the university's website. Here's what her problem was in April of twenty twenty five. The website showed Yes. That the share of white men among tenured faculty declined to fifty-six percent of faculty in twenty twenty-three from sixty-four percent in twenty thirteen. So in a 10-year span, Harvard reduced the the number of white men who are tenured faculty dropped eight percentage points. That set her off. That just it drove her nuts. According now the now the E is EOC is suing Harvard for the data. White I mean sh well but but I mean what's concerning there is that white men would hold s o almost two thirds of faculty positions. That's just out of whack. It's out of whack. Especially for a for a college. I mean it's out of whack. That is correct. The They're suing because they think white men were discriminated against. Meanwhile, the graph that Harvard gave the EEOC shows that white men in 2023 still outnumbered white women, men of color, and women of color when you separate them all out. They outnumber all of them. They're they're the number one it's the largest group. And yet, the EEOC, Andrea Lucas, and the EEOC are suing Harvard. Yeah. Meritocracy. Because there's not enough white guys with jobs there. So yeah, that's that's definitely the assholiest. I'm I'm voting for yours. That's the that's holy guess of the week. You know, I I I I hate to mention this in a cursory way, but it does relate to to what we're talking about. So we have covered so many of the Trump two point supposedly anti woke, anti DEI fights with the Ivy League, right? I mean we've covered them all. so there's this there's this horrible case out of Cornell involving sexual assault. they're calling it the Cornell 7. and Donald Trump and so we're not gonna go into that story. That what it's not something that we we cover, but but I just to say this that Donald Trump was asked about it and and he and in reaction he praised Cornell and called it a fine college. The first time I think anyone in that administration, even the people who went to the Ivy League, have praised the Ivy League at all, is at The high Really bad. This moment, which tells you basically everything you need to know, let's let's move on to Goodlius. That's a bad segue to Goodlius, I think. Yeah. why don't you go first? Because mine's a bit long-winded. Ugh Yeah, that's a really bad segue to Goodliest. All right, what's your Goodliest story? Alright, mine is really short. a horde of obsolete humanoid robots made to hurl themselves into vat of liquid steel for total obliteration. Yeah, but they're gonna use that like molten lava to build another one, aren't they? Well, all I know is that I watched the video and it was very satisfying to watch I'm hoping that every one of the AI overlords and all of their robots can jump in and I frankly I'd love to have my Roomba just go over it. Like can we just throw our devices in there? I I we used to. I got rid of it very, very quick. No, it's horrible. It's stupid. It's stupid. Yeah. Can Sam Altman d can he go there too? Yeah. Do you have a Roomba? Does it work? Does that actually work? Yeah, I was gonna say. okay, mine's a little wonkier and sillier, but not sillier, but wonkier. Vanguard finds younger investors choose ESG voting policy at twice the rate of older investors. Actually, this kind of surprised me a little bit. I'm gonna remind everyone what the policy. voting options are at Vanguard because they make me giggle every time. So so first there's the the company board aligned policy, which means you vote along you vote with the recommendations of the board, which is pro-management every time, right? The second one is the fund proxy policy, which is voting in accordance with the board of trustees at Vanguard. And when you look at them and their backgrounds I can't imagine it's very different than what the board is picking, right? I I find that one truly mysterious. Like why would you how are you gonna know what they would pick? Don't you find that one a little mysterious? The fun the fun proxy policy? I don't I don't like because it's you're aligning with the board of the f fund but not the board of directors at the company's what w but that's what I mean like but isn't there like seven so you're just doing what the seven dudes who are the head of the who the trustees of the fund what? I don't Who are you aligning with? Do they list the trustees for you so you know who they are? Board of Trustees. No, they call it the funds trustees and and I spent a lot of time looking this up. I think that is the they c they are the Board of Trustees. I I I it's weird, right? I I don't really know what you're aligning yourself with. No. No. Oddly, this is that was the number two choice for the young people. The third one is because the other ones are horrible. The that that's what's weird about this too, is that that's the best second option, is the fun proxy policy. Because the third the the third one is the mirror voting policy, which means you Like a You vote in the same proportions as votes cast by other shareholders, which that is overwhelmingly pro management. Overwhelmingly pro management. Wait a minute, how do they know how other shareholders voted on that this year? Like you could look at last year's and just unless you're yeah, you're retroactively voting, that like what is that? That's a good point. Right. That's a good point. this is like a back to the future Bill and Ted kind of problem, right? How do you know? And then the f and then the fourth one is just to me, this is just me speaking. I don't represent free flow analytics. It's just the odious policy, the the Egan Jones wealth focused policy, which is just pure gaslighting and greenwashing, or I should say anti greenwashing. Because it's just essentially the anti i okay, it's a policy which rejects ESG proposals unless they directly contribute to revenue generation at the company receiving the proposal. I it's hogwash because you can't actually know in the long term, you can't actually know what contributes to revenue generation at a company like this. I mean yeah. Yeah. Here's a Here's the problem with all of it that none of these, not even the best one. Well and and the best what l get to your point after I say the the the fifth final one is the Glass Lewis ESG policy, which follows the view that investment returns can be enhanced through a focus on disclosing and mitigating risk related to ESG issues. So yeah, go ahead. What's the problem? the the problem is even the best one, there are no votes against directors. Ever yes, none of the policies actually carve out a vote against a director, which means every pass-through policy, there are no people that get targeted for shitty behavior, shitty oversight, like the like you you you are just rubber stamping every single director on their way through. So Even in the ESG policy you're saying. So yeah. You know, one of my one of my biggest gripes and we can get to this next week at the proxy content about one of my biggest gripes about the CII conference was that I kept trying to ask a question like that where I said because they were talking about how i i i it it's diff it's more difficult to to do engagement, they're taking away shared proposals. So I kept asking, so why don't we why can't we articulate which directors are are holding back like your say your climate goals or whatever and So what's the point? Who's performing well, who's performing poorly, and why don't we vote against those directors? And either they would they would not ask the question or they would delete the question over and over and over. I and I I don't know why that's not a fair question. Like, why don't we just figure out which directors are for which policies and then vote against them or for them accordingly? Well, there was there they did ask one of my questions, which I posed to the chair of the PCAOB board. And I was very proud that they asked the question at all. but the so the PCAOB board, if you don't know what that is, it's like the board of overseas accounting, the accounting profession, effectively. And it's a government board. It's a appointed by the SEC. So now there's like one SEC commissioner left. and they you know, who's got a quorum to appoint them. And the chair started by saying, We are, you know, this board has been politicized in the past and we are modernizing it and yada yada yada. And then when we looked up the board sitting there while he's talking, we looked up the board. The board went from a board of like, you know, it's eight-ish people, and it was like a black guy, an Asian woman, a white woman, and a couple of other dudes, right? Like a yeah, like a normal pre Trump two point board. It turned into eight white guys w who wore glasses. Now literally And the glasses is a is not the important part here, but yes, they did all wear glasses. Yeah. But they literally all wore glasses. Like they they they it was so like like I I I don't I don't even I so I asked the question. the board, you know, went from a board with a black man. No, I well I asked the question like it had a black man and two women on it, and now it's literally all white guys wearing glasses. How are board members chosen? But Meritocracy is real, yeah. They didn't answer that question. What are you talking about? They didn't ask that. That's all they yeah, that's what they ask. How do you choose board members? Yeah. on the screen, 'cause we've d we've presented at CII before, on the screen you see the full question and they actually giggled and only asked the question, How are board members chosen? And he answered like it was politicized before and now it's not. So basically he was saying like, you know, like he was I don't get I don't I don't understand why they w yeah. Yeah. Wait, it's so it's politicized when women and people of color right. There's pesky that that pesky suffrage movement, that that pesky anti abol abolitionist movement, yeah, the pesky civil rights movement. It's all politics to them. When women and people of color are on the board it was pol political. Now that it's all white guys with glasses on, now it's not political. But but on none like to to the Vanguard question, none of these fucking things are like a target that. Like n you have no ability to target. I'm I'm gonna say mine is mine's the goodliest. A ho a horde of robots jumping into a vat of s molten steel. All right, well Okay. No I'm gonna say mi I'm gonna overrule you because mine talks about yeah, ESG stuff, so y I win. Because no one cares. All right, let's go on to blowhardiest headlines winners predictions. See, we are making better time. I knew it. I knew this would make better time, this format. My blowhardiest god. Uber they never say then maybe this is our fault, because I still don't know how to pronounce his last name. it's it's Uber CEO's Derek Cosso. I can never say it. yeah, who's your blowhard? Ka K Khazrashahi Kaya Ka C O C E O Dara, yeah. Dara. We call him e we call him CEO Dara. so Ubosh CEO Dara says he emails staff on Saturday, right? He I'm already like, dude, you suck. But yeah. Because you're not pay they're not you're not paying them for their labor at that point. Then sends a just a question mark in quote. So he sends a literal question mark on Sunday if they don't reply to I this is the blowhardiest I I already I'm already out. Joe don't email me on a Saturday, asshole. Yeah. Maybe I should have put that one in assholiist. I don't know. Yeah, maybe I maybe I screwed that one up. But e Uber, CEO Dara, I don't I don't like you. What do you got, Blowhardiest? Yeah, that seems more asshole than blowhard. You just bac you just you just went backwards. Here's I got two. I'll start with this one. Facebook whistleblower Francis Huygens Haugen questions whether AI companies can police themselves. Yeah, they can't. Do you like stop blowing hard on it? We know they can't. you don't need that. And here's the real blowhardiest, and I think this is the winner. GM's Mary Barra says I'm done making predictions, but sees fully autonomous driving in twenty twenty eight. Yeah. Hagen, yeah. Yeah, I you don't have to question it. They can't. No one completes themselves. Wait, what was that the last was that the last prediction then? Why you know, Mary, can we just forget about the autonomous driving and just give us some E Vs. Just get back to making some good cheap E Vs. Alright, I w I'll just pick that one 'cause I don't really care. Let's move on. She's done making prediction. I guess that was the last one. I don't if you're done, you're done. Be done. headlines. Headlineist. You have one? Yeah, let's do headlineist. Elon Musk says Instagram is for girls. That's also blow hard yet. I know, but I I mean, come on. I mean that's that's like to me like that's the perfect clickbaity headline. And and by the way, he did he did actually say that. I I looked at the the his tweet or whatever you call it and yes, he Yeah, he he said Instagram is for girls. I I don't know what he was I don't care what he was even responding to, but he was upset about something and because someone was using Instagram and maybe I I don't even know. Maybe someone was was saying something about him but Is Twitch that time somebody used Instagram. Instagram is for girls. That's such a that's very middle school boy of you. Yeah. And if you want to keep it going, middle school boy, there was another headline that a lot of people have been making fun of Elon Musk's body this week, which is which is fine with me because all the body shaming and body dysmorphia usually w goes against like girls, like teenage girls. So if it's going against a man, fine, whatever. but they're actually suggesting that because he's been taking so much testosterone that it's caused an estrogen deficiency and and 'Cause he makes fun of everybody else? Yeah. I'm serious. This these are what the headlines are talking about. And I I just thought it was cute that it was in the same week that you said Instagram is for girls and yeah, this is your anyway I d I d I can't. I d it's what a waste of time. Elon Musk could not join Pete Hegseth's army, could he? 'Cause he's not cute enough and he and he he he's he's chubby and, you know, autistic, so diverse, you know. 'Cause he's a girl. He's he's chubby. Yeah. Anyway, this is your this is your CEO people. What's your headlineist? w I actu I actually also have Musk related headlines. but they're dueling headlines. This is what I couldn't get past. I couldn't figure this out. Here's headline number one. Tesla sales smash Wall Street's expectations. Yeah, because the expectations were probably like in the gutter, right? And here's the t headline number two. Tesla sales slump in third quarter. I what I don't I'm so they were literally like back to back headlines. I didn't know what to do. Well because be because my guess is yeah, what I'm saying is correct that the expectations were low, but y and so they beat the expectation, but they're still suck overall, right? I'm I it's just it was just like I saw forty headlines that were like Tesla smashes sales expectations. And then when I actually look through it was like the subtext was but they declined year over year. Like so w what we smashed, crushed, destroy. My Yeah. My here here's my anecdotal observ here's my anecdotal observation currently of his Tesla empire is that especially when I leave Maine, I don't see a lot of Teslas in Maine, but when you go to like the powerful suburbs, like the New York suburbs, the Boston suburbs, I st I feel like I'm seeing more Teslas recently than I so I understand I I get that they're smashing Wall Street expectations, but but overall I think they're all used. There are so few Teslas. Like, I like it's crazy. There are so many Hyundai. There are so many like Toyotas and Super. Like, I I just what a disappointment this guy is. I mean, just doesn't sell a lot of cars. Doesn't sell a lot of cars, this dude. Alright. my winner is easy. That would be CII's fall twenty twenty six conference for having us there wandering around like idiots. and Yes, less. Yeah. He ha he could'a won. He could have won all the cars. Could've w All right, who who won the week for you? Yeah, we did do that. And for the segment, this I'm just teasing the segment. We're the segment that we will air next week, on the proxy countdown, because sh sh you know, we've been hearing that that's the one that people are okay listening with because it's more serious. It's not like this stupid show. So we're gonna cover everything that we all our observations. We're also gonna play your interview with proxy wise co founder. All next week. That's the winner. The winner is the is everyone who attended CII and laid eyes on us. That's the winner. I like that winner. my winner is a quorum of one. Yeah, the SEC's new ridiculous rule that yeah. Yeah, the SEC just passed a rule because they the Hester Pierce is stepping down. So there's three SEC commissioners and two vacant seats currently. The two vacant seats are so they're they're supposed to be the for democratic, you know, seats and they refuse to fill them because they don't want any Democrats at all because c because heaven forbid you have somebody who thinks differently from you on do doing anything. So we just need the echo chamber entirely. They're afraid of everything basically. Talk about a group afraid of oversight. Yeah. They hate oversight, yeah. A woman. Yeah. But now Hester Pierce is stepping down. Hester Pierce was one of my favorite SEC commissioners. She did a lot of hand-wringing over ESG and ESG data, some really funny stuff that she put out there. So really funny stuff she did, but she's finally terming out and stepping down. And rather than going out and saying we're going, we need to fill these seats, what they did instead is Yeah, it's one of your favorites, yeah. the young people are not listening though. Young people like it. They said that now the SEC can decide everything with a quorum of one instead of two, which is what they unbelievable. They just changed the rules. So the winning that's a winner though, quorum of one. No w what's your prediction? They lowered the threshold. That's yeah. I don't even how how's that even allowed? I guess yeah, I guess so. My prediction is that former CEO at General Mills, his name is Jeff Harm Harmoning, who's now the executive chair, so I don't know, maybe he's kinda still the CEO who whatever. He he boomerangs back as General Mills CEO after the new CEO, their first woman in 160 years, Dana McNabb, after she Yeah, he's still the CEO. I'm shocked. fails to return the company to profitable growth within like what? Like they're gonna give it like eighteen months or something. A problem that Jeff created in the first place. Yeah. What what he got? Yeah, good for him. That's good. I think but that's I think we both have predictions that are pretty much layups. We're guaranteed to get these. My prediction is Maribara is not done making predictions. That's my prediction. Is I I think I that's a winner. I mean, is that on Cal she? But bet that. Bet that right now. That's all we got. No, no way. That's a good prediction. That that's the winner of the year. Yeah. Yeah, good. We made good time. We saved ten minutes. That's Hazelnut Rawls. I'm your analyst, all Matt Muscardi. We are free float. That was our Friday show wrapping up the week. If you like the new format or you missed something, let us know. Hopefully you like it because it's not that different. But otherwise, look out next week when we drop our CII conference show on proxy countdown. Actually, we also released today on Shareholder Primacy a it was an interview with a Berkeley. You do. No, you don't. I know you don't. Ooh. a law professor who wrote a book as super interesting stuff over there. You can go listen to that. And next week we'll be back with a full round of shows. Until then, good bye.