Transcript
Ya who Mm-hmm. Live from a moist pile of moldy Glass Lewis sponsored meatloaf sliders. Ugh. Well, we didn't see that at the CII conference. no, it's here at in our studio. It's an all new terrific Tuesday edition of Business Pants, joined by analyst hole Matt Muscardi on today's AI powered proxy massage gun called October sixth, twenty twenty six. The good game. Kill well if it's AI powered it's not gonna be that good. Our show today what? Yeah. why wait whoa whoa whoa woah woah woah woah why on earth when you go into the sponsor read does your voice suddenly sound like you wish you were dead? Aren't you supposed to be excited about the sponsor? Yeah. I don't know, it's the first cold day of of the fall and I'm just I'm feel I'm staring at a sunny patch outside and I'm just desperately want to get there. Alright, well let's do this thing. Then read it with some enthusiasm. Yeah, yeah. Woo Yeah. Our show today is being sponsored by FreeflowAnalytics.com, the only platform measuring board power connections performance for Frey! It is a lovely platform. It is. They're a great sponsor. They've been a sponsor for a long time. we haven't done the good game since August. I I always feel like when we do it it's time for the good game 'cause we complain so much. I'm gonna be optimistic today. Ca do you believe me? Yeah. And I tried hard to put together headlines that upon first appearance seem good. Matt is here, Arbiter of Truth, to tell us if they're actually good, zero to ten. Let's go. All right, let's do it. Let's make this a quick show 'cause I'm just gonna give everything a ten. It's all good. I actually you should give the show a ten because I actually started with like forty five headlines and just and got rid of half of them. Already a ten. Yeah, already a ten. Okay, zero. Hmm. AI. We're gonna start with AI category. Only five in this category. California bans employers from using AI alone to fire workers. Okay, what employer was using AI alone to fire a worker? I bet all of them, but how do you prove that? I that's a good question. but already are have we already I mean, Trump used Trump used AI to start a war in Colombia, that's the reports. He talked to Grok a lot about it. No, Venezuela. Venezuela, sorry. Sorry, Colombia. You're not a we're not coming after you yet. Yeah, yeah. Have we Venezuela, you're no we're not at war yet. are but are we already at the point that we're just like, you know what? Critical thinking about other human beings, that's not worth my time. Isn't AI supposed to save us from the things that aren't worth our time? And something that should be worth our time is whether or not to fire a fellow employee at your firm. That seems like it should be worth your time. No. So it's a good thing to ban then, right? So I like this. Ban it. Yeah, ten. They should ban that. But I i I I already I'm already starting off with there's a problem with this is even happening. Much less that we have to ban it. But let's start wh it's good to ban it. Wow. Okay, but yeah, that's true. Speaking of California, let's stay with Newsom, Governor Newsom. Advances AI kill switch mandate under new California executive order. Again, we can't just complain, we have to fight back, right? What do you like? Do you like a AI kill switch mandate? So what does that mean exactly? d I think it means that you okay, so you push a button and it contacts Russia who then sends its its drones over to Mark Zuckerberg's house and I don't know, it looks for Mark's watch collection and then it I don't know what it does at that point. It takes the batteries out. I don't really know. I don't I don't know AI kill switch. I mean in theory I like this, but I don't I have no idea how this actually happens. like yeah, like those little disc batteries, right? Those little it didn't Didn't he veto an AI bill like he's really confusing. Like I I I thought like they were going to regulate AI and then he vetoed it. He's confusing. L to veer off a bit politically here, my sense with Newsom is that he no longer believes he's gonna be the candidate in twenty twenty eight and I think he's now just being erratic. Or maybe he's just doing what he actually thinks he should do as opposed to political I don't know. I don't know. he's in FU mode? He's just Well, look, I I am all for a kill switch. I'm all I'm actually past kill switch. I would just do I don't I wouldn't wait for a an imminent event or threat to use the kill switch. Just use it right now. Just For everything. Well, there there technically it it sounds like there already is an imminent threat. Everyone's warning I ca people who building it are warning us. All right. That makes the makes our lives easy. Just kill it now. Just kill it. Ten. Yeah. So the ten. Mayor Mamdani, Zora Mandani of New York City, banned Why do we only why do we use his whole name every single time? Can't just be mayor. Bans AI for New York City public school students up to eighth grade. that's a ten. But I do have a problem that like the CEOs will be like CEO of Apple says, but Mayor Mamdani, who has a title mayor of New York. Yeah, should be New York. It should either be New York City Mayor, right? Or Mayor Mamdani or rah yeah. But it's always Zoran Mamdani. It's always his full name in the goddamn t headline. What is that? Walmart bans AI slop signs in stores. Compare that to the AI kill switch. I love it. AI Yeah, was this a problem? Were they using AI for sloppy AI sloppy s signs? Signage? Yeah. I I g I guess instead of a a handwritten sign that says like, you know, really badly made T shirts over there, n now they're making a sign that's like has pretty daisies on it that says really badly made T shirts over there. I don't know. I I need an example of what their AI slop signs actually were. That sounds like populist AI greenwashing, right? Like I I don't know how necessary this is. Did they press release this? Is this like something that like that was the important enough to them to s tell us all? Is this Doug McMillan's final act? Isn't he still executive chair of the board? Yeah, they they issued instructions to stores. I like it. I like it. Doug McMillan, executive chair of the board, who is sunsetting out, good for him, but is executive chair of a board that already has Stuart Walton and the Walton family ownership. What is what do you need an executive chair for? The family's been there forever. They own it. That's it's dual class. What are we doing? I'm gonna give this a five, mostly because I don't understand what signs exactly they banned. Yeah. That's true. That's true. Ironically, Walmart has more power in the country than Governor Newsom. So it's like so Governor Newsome is wants to have an AI kill switch and Walmart just wants different signs. I you know. Doesn't Walmart employ over a million people? Like that's significant power, right? And filing this category, here's a confusing one. Yeah. Yeah, it's like one point five million or something. It's a lot, yeah. Yeah. Open AI adds AI's safety official to its board. Now we like Am I celebrating that for the first time they added someone who has AI safety? let we backtrack. Let's backtrack. For the second time they added someone with AI safety. This one just happens to be a man. So the So the it's less sh it's less the shrill women, Helen Toner. And does anybody remember the name of the other one? The other woman? I can't remember her name. Helen Toner is the one I remember. Well, let's try to be positive. Who used to work for the company? Yeah, not not zeillus. The two women, no, that's that's Elon Musk's love child, or love mother or whatever she is, broodmother. the other the like the two women who ousted Sam Altman from OpenAI and could have saved us from our current impending apocalypse had they just gotten rid of the sociopath man baby running that company because they recognize the imminent threat to humanity's safety, They just broke up actually. They were the first safety officials, but they were th shrill and women. So now that it's like we now that we're talking about like the death of humankind, now they add a guy who used to work there and were comfortable with because he worked under Sam Altman. This is a zero. This doesn't even qualify for like a point. This is a hard zero. You added a guy to the board who worked under Sam Altman. He's to now supposed to be Sam Altman's boss. Is that the way that's supposed to work? What are we doing? Let's That sounds right. Tasha McCauley sounds right. But she wasn't she wasn't a safety person. Talentoner was like she like all she does is she's an academic who studies AI's destructive force of hu on humanity. That's that's like her s n field of study. Was that was it Tasha Macaulay? It was it though? There was a woman, Siobon Zillis was on the AI board. Yes, but she is at Neuralink. She's the he CEO I think of Neurolink. And she has like six of Elon Musk's babies now. Okay. And she is Right. And the big news this week was that he suddenly dumped her like over text. all right. Yeah. Okay, so that's a zero, so I've kinda ruined that's the way these games work though. I never know what's gonna happen. All right, let's move on to nerdy ESG stuff. So this is anything that well, okay. okay. S is just for me and you. This is this is a show now just for you and I. No. Anything that comes from like the the the world the environment, social causes, governance. okay. Let's start with okay. Oracle. I you know, this is the kind of thing that people read and they they think it's maybe good, but I want to hear what you think. Oracle to launch public dashboard with emissions water use data for new hyperscale data center. But what but let's focus on the dashboard. Yeah. Do we like do we like dashboards with this d with this data? I mean we like data. We like disclosure. Is this just greenwashing or what you think about this? I like dashboards. Okay. We like dashboards. Well my guess is I like a dashboard. I'm not I do like a good dashboard. but but I I also know that the only reason why they would launch this is because everyone everywhere hates data centers. Yeah, they're angry at data centers. Which means the only reason they would launch this is to show data centers in a positive light. Which means do yeah, do you trust the data Do you give credit for this? Angry. Yeah. Cherry pick data. That is effectively launched as a result of marketing. I don't. I would if it was like if like Oberlin College was was deciding what data would be publ you know, like the the the the professors there were getting together and deciding I might trust it. Now, I see I would if like the New York City Comptroller's Office filed a shareholder proposal like four different years demanding the data and the board refused and then they sued them for the data and they were forced to comply and show you the data, and that's when or if there was a regulatory body whose job it was to collect all of this data, those are the conditions where I feel like that data's useful. When they don't really want to give it to you, but they recognize they sort of have to. I would trust them too, sure. Well, it it's funny, that was mentioned at the conference last week that that is one way to get instead of y using sh share of the proposals to ask for data, which is about to go away, you can actually you have the right to sue for that data, you have the right to ask for it. It's yeah. All right, so what do you think about this? Yeah, demand it. Yeah. It's material data. So I'm gonna give this a five c mostly because I think it's a marketing game. I think that like we're gonna see a lot of these like voluntary disclosures around things that we hate and the voluntary disclosures will all look prettier than they probably should. Speaking of hate, is there is there more hateable word than hyper scale? well d what are you not a you're not a founder? You're not in founder mode? Get in founder mode. Founder mode Hyper scale? I don't I J okay, next headline. General Mills is naming its C O O as CEO. So they're promoting the C O O to CEO. It's the first woman to hold the role in a hundred and sixty years of the company. You know what I'm gonna say about this. You don't you're gonna be like Vivek Ramaswamy who's running for governor in Ohio and say you don't care? What? Okay, but let's stick let's let's write the headline, then if you want to talk about it more we can. No, you know the part that that undermines this entire thing. Well you can't you can't rate that headline without the the a conversation about what it actually means because yeah, give it to a give it to the people. The context. Fine, I'll give you a little bit of context. But but I feel like this is unfair because I don't know how I don't know how people click through on half this stuff. But let's just assume that you hovered over the headline and you saw this in the summary. So her name is Dana McNabb. She's been at the company for three decades. her mandate, it looks like, is to return the company to profitable growth, which sounds pretty d difficult. I'd say in it Sounds bad. Yeah, it sounds like things should have been bad. Yeah, in a day and age where everyone's like stabbing themselves with needles to make themselves thinner and they don't want to eat junk food, that sounds like might be difficult. But the thing that I think you want to talk about is the current CEO, Jeff Harmoning, is actually not going anywhere. He's staying as exec executive chair. And he's the guy who is to blame for for needing someone to tur return the company to profitable growth. It's his fault. Yeah, there it is. There it is. So Well, I look, it I know it's not a perfect comp to Target because Target like basically spit on every gay person and black person they ever met, like over the last two years for s there's like for reasons that are unclear. Like they just decided to do that. although it's becoming clearer because there was a report that Safra Katz, who was on the Disney board, f threatened to fire Bob Chapick because Still doing it. That Disney was going to release a movie with a gay main character. Well, I'm all I'm saying is all I'm saying is the boards actually have influence over the executives, right? Like, so so it is possible that Target's board just doesn't like diversity. Like that's just their thing, right? It's someone on the board said we don't like it. But here's where I'm going with this. Target has a series of scandals and What does that have to do with Target? What's that for do with Target? right. Brian Cornell, who's the CEO through all the scandals and hating diversity, becomes executive chair. Now, like Cheerios, there hasn't been a major Cheerios scandal recently, but I don't The only scandal is that like when in America when you go to the chereal isle there's why do there have to be seventeen hundred versions of Cheerios? How about just Cheerios? That's a scandal, no? like also all how come every single box of Cheerios costs fourteen dollars? Like isn't it like isn't it like four oats and a bunch of corn? Is that all that you it's all you're eating? But here's here's the thing. Like if we're talking about a return to profitability, which is not a scandal, or profit what is what was it? Profitable growth. Like so they were just profitable but not growing. It wasn't getting bigger. It wasn't getting bigger big enough. so now they're gonna have seventeen extra Well, that's a different problem. Different problem. Yeah. Cheerios on top of the 33 that they already have. They put in st they put a woman in charge. Great. Why does the man have to linger around on the board? But why are we doing that? He doesn't have to. Doesn't have to. Th actually shareholders can vote him out. I I d I'm sensing you don't like this headlight. Give me a score. Yeah, I hate it because it 'cause the headline is so misleading. It's a zero. The headline is so misleading because it but it makes you think that they like like it's gonna give if you're a Republican conservative in this country, you could say G you know, General Mills just got woke. They're hiring women now like as CEOs. no You're cheating though. And if you are a liberal, you could say this is amazing. so glad finally a woman get gets a shot at the CEO role, but neither are true. The CEO is still the dude who's executive chair making as much as he did. Is it's just a fake headline. All right, come on. Let's move on. I although I will say I'm I'm on the our food page on General Mills. this is like some good old fashioned woke washing 'cause I'm I I'm gonna guess that there aren't a lot of people of color like i in the executive suite and on the board b but the first hand I see is a black hand eating a granola bar. That's just a hand. Then then there's a woman of color with two children. They're all people of color. and then there's well there's a dog, so I we'll just I'm it no, I don't think it counts. Then there's another woman of color feeding her baby. the dog's a golden retriever, so I guess that's a white dog. So there's a the second adult you see is a woman of color, and then the third adult you see is a basketball player on the box of a weaties, a third woman of color. So this is some great woke washing there on the food. I guess only women of color eat General Mills food. I Does that count? Yeah, it counts. Well what kind of dog? that's that's definitely a white guy. I love it. I love it. Okay, let's move on. So that was what's the score you gave it? that's terrible. All right, next headline Scientists unveil underwater solar panels. I didn't know the sun was in the sea. I gave it a hard zero. So yeah. Yeah. So I r I actually clicked through this article, but because the headline was like so confusing to me, it wasn't good or bad, I just didn't realize that we were it seems like we haven't solved putting solar panels on enough of the earth yet that we're now looking underwater for it. I d yeah. How I mean I gotta say, like I unless they found like a a a tidal basin where the the waves don't move, there's no like it's just everything is still. I I how how does this work? I I d I don't really understand it. I also think like so w the thing that they they are crowing about is in ideal lab conditions, it actually is it I'm just saying it's actually it's actually higher efficiency than regular solar panels, by like one percent or something. Yeah. sure, which is not which is not the ocean. Yeah. Meanwhile, like, you know, ho meanwhile homes on coasts are getting battered so much that insurance companies are basically stopped insuring them. But yeah, let's throw some expensive equipment in the ocean. well that actually makes it that actually makes it a better story because there's gonna be more ocean between the ice melt and the houses r drifting out. I it does seem cool. I'm gonna give this a six, because it's better than not. That's true. More ocean. It seems cool though. Yeah, they're trying. Now this next one, come on. Honda plans highway test of tech that charges moving trucks. Now we've been promised this a lot. There there in the past there was a I think the pavement itself would charge the car. And this one I think that that the battery itself will ch will recharge based on the speed. I I I mean this is like a such a no brainer to me. I don't Yeah, yeah. They have that. That's a thing, yeah. I I believe this is very feasible. I'm sure the oil and gas is doing everything they can to squash this kind of R and D, but I love this. What do you think about this? Well, the good news is this is in Japan, right? Like this is so this isn't happening in the United States. So gas won't they'll test it and use it and then everybody in Japan will have it and we'll be sitting here. They're they're actually gonna make our roads out of tar that is un you know, like the liquid tar because we like, you know, oil so much. look, I think it's long past time that this was a thing. It seems like a no brainer to me. I don't know. Can't you use like so it will they'll actually be able to test it and use it if they like it. No, we won't. Asphalt and roads seem like, you know, there's a lot of friction. Seems like 'cause you can make energy from it. I'll give it a seven. I don't know anything about this. I'm gonna just say it feels good. I mean, I don't I don't know how that would work. I don't in the northern climates, maybe it's not a great idea, but but most of the people, at least in our country, seem to live where it's hot. So yeah, why not? I mean, you know, they're not Yeah. okay, Obama. former President Obama says governments would be better if women ran them. I'm confident about that. Well it's gonna be hot everywhere soon anyway, so this is great. Yeah, yeah, we've been saying that for ten years. It's just it's just a ten. It's it's not it it's not something to be confident about. It's not like a a hypothesis. It's it's just tr it's just true. Like we we have the evidence that men have not done a great job. Like everything is going to shit. At this point, why not try it? Why not just go for it and try it? We have a pretty good example here in the United States. Yeah. Okay. more than half of directors want at least one fellow board member removed. I love that one. Makes me giggle. Yeah. All right, I'll I'm gonna give you an eleven. I'm gonna allow that. Love it. This is my favorite. This is this is an 11. This is my it's my favorite thing every single year. It's my favorite thing every year. This is the PWC survey of board members. Board members routinely respond that every single board hates one of their board members. And for 25% of them, it's two or more board members. 25% of boards. At least one. I wanna know. I think we're I think it's time. We've had this survey for many, many years. I think it's time we start naming names. Just say Doug and Sally are idiots. I want them gone. P W C I love I love it you do this. Yeah. And I wanna know actually what I want PWC to do is ask a follow up question about that, about the reason. Like what about that person do you think disqualifies them or you don't want them on the board? Is it 'cause if they all just say culture fit, then they're just looking for another bro to put on the board. But I would much I know it is. Well Unfortunately that could be it, but I'm gonna use I've been using a lot of analogies to the TV show Survivor. So I'm gonna do it again. On Survivor, when there when there's like a couple, if like if if two people kind of couple off and they they they become they represent kind of like a bond of two votes together, they the other tribe members t they vote them off. So I what I'm hoping what this means is that the board members are saying, look, Yeah, like Yeah, huh. We can't have like two people from General Electric who both like went to Harvard. Like we we gotta break them up, right? We c that's too many overlapping voices. So so you think it's purely a like a survivor move inside the boardroom? Yeah, I like that. I like that. This is just this an eleven, yeah. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Okay, cl back let's go back to some like fun old fashioned woke washing. We don't talk about these things a lot anymore. They've kind of gone out of fashion. But the headline is climate pledge top seven hundred companies committing to net zero by twenty forty. It's like a big word salad there. So T tw twenty forty? That's like that's like six months from now, isn't it? Getting closer. It's it's better than twenty fifty. And seven hundred companies seems impressive, but I don't know how big these companies are and you know okay, and that's so that's pretty small. There are there yeah. And pledges, I don't know how you feel about pledging things. I used to pledge the allegiance to the flag almost every day when I was a kid. Well, that's a global number, right? So it's not a lot. But, you know, I hate pledges. I hate a pledge. F I I never I never fully said the words and I didn't believe in anything I was saying. I never said the word God because I didn't believe in God. Yeah. Such a fake pledge, yeah. Aw. You just made it sad. You just made it sad. I I'll give it I'll give it a a five because it's like nothing burger. Okay. you love this stuff. You love like shipping and sales and all that kind of crap. I know, I just li I like the joke that like ships would need to reduce emissions so they added sales to them. I just think that's a funny joke. So let's go let's go back to Japan. Japan's large ship hydrogen engine cuts CO two emissions ninety five percent. Hey that's a th yeah. Alright, see that's that's a nine. And it's a nine b look, they invented something, right? Like they took something that's new and they cut emissions. They you couldn't have had a hydrogen engine in two thousand BC, like you had sails, right? I like that. If only the boat also had sails with the hydrogen engine, then it would be like ninety-nine percent reduction. Ninety five percent. True. There was hydrogen though. Yeah. Yeah. So, two more in the ESG category and then we'll end the show with a speed run. We're making pretty good time here. All right. Hear me out. So the SEC has a a a s very CEO management friendly thing coming out where they want to scrap all shareholders proposals because they love kissing ass. The current administration loves kissing CEO ass. so that's what this headline's about. But I I wanna Turn the headline a little bit and ask you this. Does this mean we're finally dawning at the age of investors, institutional investors finally turning on directors? So I just told you that more than half of directors want at least one fellow board member gone. We're we're gonna get rid of shareholder proposals. Are are we finally here? Are we finally gonna realize that the people are making decisions? Because I just saw a headline. That we talked about a few weeks ago at the at Volkswagen, it was the board that approved massive layoffs, right? So board members are doing things. You you were talking about saffra cats threatening somebody because we don't want a gay character. So these board members actually are real life people. They're not they're not like Mm. Board member. Yeah. Safricat's now on the Paramount board, so no gays in Paramount, apparently. Yeah, directors are not like brooms with like smiley faces painted on them, right? They're actually living, breathing people. So what do you think about this? Could this be good? Maybe the sc's plan to scrap shareholder proposal rules sparks criticism, but I'm saying is this and and st forget about the criticism. Maybe it's good that we're gonna finally forget about these share proposals and go right to directors. I that's my perspective here. What do you think? That? Some of might be. Well what is it what's the headline? Now I don't know how to rate that headline because you want me to rate the opposite of that headline. look, I I think I think ironically, f forcing an investor to actually pay attention to who they're electing. I mean, i it seems like in every other walk of life, when you hire somebody or elect somebody, you fucking do some work. But with boards we don't. We just defer and we don't care. I do, I do. I want you to write the opposite. Think my coffee just hit in, yeah. Yeah, do your job. Do some work. Well and no offense, but these shared proposals were not really doing work anymore either. I mean, we've seen them all. You say yes to this, you say no to that. I mean, come on, they don't pass. Yeah, it was proponent based. but I wanna I wanna quote you something from the article. So it's gonna be a ten, because I do think it's time to vote against directors. But here's something from the article that I I'm also gonna give this is gonna be a double ten for this quote from the article. Are you ready for this quote? Okay. So in the article they they they talk to these investors who are criticizing the SEC. They talk to some ESG investors, they talk to just like some investor advisory groups. Ooh, ooh. Love a ten. I can't I can't do that in my spreadsheet. Go ahead. Yeah. They talk to straight up investors and then they talk to anti-ESG investors, like the anti-woke, the conservative investors. So the one that they, you know, they talked to was NCPPR, the National Center for Public Policy Research, right? They they they file proposals that are like, you know, disclose how much you're helping trans people so that we can, you know, hate you. I'm sure they've never met a single trans person, but this is my Ooh, I like that. Anti, yeah. love them. Lots of hate they they they hate trans people. Yeah. Not that they've ever met a trans person, but yeah, go ahead. This is the best quote in the article because this is the criticism of the SEC removing shareholder proposals. Okay. Quote: The allegedly free market commissioners at the SEC have proposed already, allegedly free market commissioners. I love it. They're going right after these free marketeers. The allegedly free market commissioners at the SEC have proposed to lock in left-wing shareholder activist gains. Go ahead. Yeah. Well they're not wrong there, yeah. What? And leave pro free enterprise shareholder activists to tender mercies of corporate management loving state laws. my god. So there's they're suggesting that that the left wing has already done our their damage in the corporate world and now we can't like do anything to get rid of it. my god. Look. Now we can't do it. Now we can't we can't bring back. Do you do they know how shareholder proposals work? Like they're first of all, they're non binding. Second of all, which part of the like the they which part of the corporates are woke at this point? Like they have all the power. They don't do diversity, they don't you know, they all dropped out of a mission. What are you talking about? No, not at all. Well First of all, we know Steve Malloy, the director of this of the S N C P PR's free enterprise product. I gotta you know, look, he's a master in political theater. They're all they're all love the theater of all this, right? but I do agree though that I agree with the first sentiment, the allegedly free market commissioners. I mean they're the I don't know what the SEC is doing. They're they're telling shareholders that they they they don't have a voice anymore. I mean let Let shareholders decide though. Let I don't understand. so I I love the whole quote. I love the whole quote because the reasoning is so stupid, but the the the target is correct. He basically basically what he's saying is corporates are now going to get all the power to do what they want. his the the left wing thing is like the lunacy, and it's fake free market commissioners giving corporates all the power. Whatever his reason is, it doesn't matter if it's stupid. I agree with that. He's a shareholder who has the right to have his voice heard at the corporates that they own. I don't care if you're a moron. There is no IQ test for owning shares in a company or even filing a shareholder proposal because they're equally as wacky. We read shareholder proposals where like there was a one from the nuns who wanted like 7 Eleven. to to issue a report on the the cigarette butts outside of seven eleven, right? Like like it was like absurd. yeah. Pick up cigarette butts or something? Yeah. Yeah. That's a report I would read actually. Like how many were menthol? How many were filterless? I like that. I mean it's not that I wouldn't read it for the c content, but it's nuts. It's just like, but that th they're sir fucking right. It's they're right. I love it. It's a ten. Yeah. That's their right. Yeah. They should call this the SEC should call this like the Exxon sponsored th you know, this is basically for Exxon, right? Like Double ten. like Broadridge sponsored beignets at the CII conference? Yeah, this should be like the Exxon sponsored shareholder proposal like scrap rule or whatever. So the last one, the ESG, the nerdy ESG stuff is this headline, the latest gender battle. Nobody asks why having more men is better. that's just a shout out to us. Yeah, yeah, I like that. Exxon sponsored fourteen A. Yeah, you said that t I I'm giving this a seven because it's a ten, but I'm sick of hearing it. You said it twenty years ago. You're sick of hearing it, yeah. Let's move on. I know, let's move on. Speed round. I got seven good ones for you. I'm gonna just give numbers. The first one is I maybe I shouldn't have put it in the speedrun because it's a complicated issue. I don't know which where where you land this, but Trump accounts. These are these things that like kids are getting, like they're getting stocks, I guess. Although I think instead of stocks, they should get free credits like on Calci or DraftKings or something. That'd be better. Trump accounts have auto enrolled more than sixty million children. You what are you for this or against this? What do you think? Good? All right. Ooh now you're talking. it's a seven. I f first of all, I I I I don't like the method by any of this happening. Like it's all like graft and like the company that's that gets the accounts and gets to run them and like big donors to try all that kind of bullshit. But look, it's not the wrong approach. So I'll give it a seven. Walmart back to Walmart. Walmart Walmart's always like they're always knee deep in really important things and decisions over there. Walmart is rolling out light up shelf labels to help shoppers find items in stores. People are dumb, I guess. I mean, look. But no, combine this with the first thing that you read. Now the light up labels will not be AI slop labels. It's a seven. Yeah, good. This is finally. I can see and it's not AI slop. They are big stores though. Yeah, it'll be a light bulb. It'll be a light bulb. speed run on the good game, October sixth, twenty twenty six. Peter Thiel says he worries it will be hard for JD Vance or Marco Robio to win in twenty twenty eight. He's worr he's worried. He's war I like that he's worried about that. Is it just 'cause they're horribly unlikable? Yeah. Ten. I just looked at their this is a dumb quote. Waymo. Waymo is the what is it, self driving cab? I'm I've still never seen one of these. Waymo calls cops. Although I don't even know who who is calling the cop. The car? Like a person at the headquarters? Is it Okay, well it says Waymo calls cops on passengers with assault rifle. Yeah, the cars, yeah, the cars, yeah. Yeah, I th I d I don't know, yeah. That that seems reasonable. Yeah, I mean I guess this is one instance where I'm happy there's not a person driving that cab because I would be afraid for that cab driver if they had an assault rifle. That's true. That's true. Yeah, I guess you're right. No, they wouldn't pick up. If you saw somebody holding an assault rifle, they just wouldn't get picked up. I mean, I they d I think they have no cho I'm gonna give this a five. I'm gonna give this a five, not because I think they have no choice, right? Even if you're in a place where you can legally carry an assault rifle for fuck's sake. Like what the hell do you need an assault rifle for? But let's say you can legally carry it and you're dri you get in a Waymo. What's to stop you from like rolling down the window or just shooting if they didn't st like you could j Yeah, even if even if you're legally allowed to carry, I think the cop should come over and make sure this person is sane. See the license and everything. Yeah. back to Mamdani. you're right. It just says Mamdani. Mamdani targets greedy algorithm of corporations in a new brand of politics. What you think about this? This new version of a populism. Greedy algorithm of corporations. What do you think? And be like, Okay, do we can I see your gun license? 'Cause this is nuts. I don't really understand what that means. and I don't know what targets means. I I'm gonna give this a four until it says a thing. Okay, come on. fall movie preview The Social Reckoning and Others Take Aim at Big Tech Moguls. There are three big movies coming out in the fall coming coming after big tech moguls. Do you think this is a way of fighting back? I think literally no one's gonna see these movies. I it's a five. And finally, in the good game of October sixth, twenty twenty six in our speedrun, Kraft Heinz is launching a couldn't they have come up with like a a new name. Does it have to be Kraft Heinz? What what would you call it? Like food stuff? I mean I let's be honest. Aren't Kraft and Heinz aren't they the same word? Isn't right? I mean aren't they the same type of thing? What what's I don't know, why th they need to we need to we care about their legacies so much? Yeah, why can't it be just like crappy food or something? Why stop. It's okay, well, it's again it's the same word. No w one One is mac and cheese and the other one's the ketchup you put on mac and cheese. I mean I don't even know what h what does Heinz make except for ketchup? Like what what is that? But again, it's the same it's the same dumb company. All right. Kraft Heinz is launching a mac and cheese flavored cream soda. Aww. Zero. Let's end on that. It's that's definitely a zero. Nobody needs that. No one needs that anywhere. No one ever needs that. I thought I'd gonna have you on that one. that brings your score to a a a very round number this week, a six point five. That's high for me. Yeah, but I I love how it's like it's there's not even it's it's perfect it's six point five perfectly. There's no extra places in that decimal there. It's just six point five. That's yes that that's the most impressive thing that we've ever done on this show. That's not bad though. Six point five rounds up to a seven. That means you're in pretty good mood. All right, let's get out of here. It's the best. I told I was going to be optimistic. That's Hazelnut Rawlist, Damian to his friends. I'm Aaron Solmat Muscari. We free float. Come back on Thursday. We're going to release a proxy countdown from CII. We were at CII conference last week. We did a you know some reacts on the show, and we got a long interview with Alex from Proxy Wise that we're going to release then. We got a shareholder primacy coming out tomorrow. Another shareholder primacy and everybody's favorite show, Mike and brother. And and then we'll be back on Friday to round out the week. If you haven't gone to our sponsor, freeflowanalytics.com. They just put out a zine today. and I heard, I heard from them that they are putting for for paid customers, they might actually be doing some big upgrades, like historical data in there. Like so you can like look up boards from tw twenty nineteen, cause everybody Yes. Shouldn't know who's on the board six years ago. So go check them out until later. Goodbye.