Transcript
Yeah, come on. Ouch. Live. We're live from your live from your Black Rock Headquarters. Why is it your Black Rock? We hey, we are live at Black Rock Headquarters at fifty Hudson Yards in Manhattan. and we're listening to a cover band known as Fink Ploid. What? I don't get it. Is that like M-ploid? That's all. I just I just wanna do a joke. I wanna do a cover band joke phi with Larry Fink. Fink ployed. I just wanna get that joke in there. Fink ploid. I don't not only do I not get it, but we're not actually there. Come on. Fink Floyd. You get it? Pink Floyd. Come on. It's a Business Pants Friday show here at October 9th studios. I mean, kind of technically. I don't know. It's Friday. Featuring analyst all Matt Muscardi. On today's weekly wrap up, Exxon's five year long Revenge Temper Tantrum Tour. Bobby Kotik rescued from the trash pile. Yeah, it's the day before, but also then, yes. It's something else. And Jeff Bezos' creepy diary. We got a lot of good stuff today. I like it. Yeah, he does. yeah. Is it? Where'd you go? Our show today is being sponsored by Freeflow Analytics and Freeflowanalytics.com, the only platform measuring board power connections and performance for free. I noticed something on the platform today. We this is the first platform ever. Wait, he had a creepy diary too? it's good to be back. I don't know, no, probably. Yes it is. Yes it is. Yes it is. in in the w in the history of ESG and governance data, board data, executive data, there's there's historical data here. No one ever gives you historical data. Ever, ever, ever. I don't know why. I I I can look up the crappiest baseball player from the nineteen forties and I can I I might even be able to see like their time in the minors w when they played in Japan, you know, college. I You could see a dude who had three at bats in his entire career. Yeah. Yeah. But but yet in the world of the the boards of direct corporate boards, g C suites, nothing. You only get the the most recent like pay amount, say or or whatever. But it looks like the people over at freefloat analytics dot com are working on unveiling a bunch of historical data which I support. I think it's amazing. In fact, like I even pulled a chart from the platform because it like they have the influence of directors over time and I pulled Exxon's chart, but they also have like knowledge mix over time and they have Well, you know what this is? This is the first step, I think, to really starting to prove that people really do matter because y you're starting to to take them seriously over the span of their careers, right? It's just yes. And I know that everyone pushes back on this notion it doesn't matter, but but clearly it it has to. I that's like saying it didn't matter that Derek Jeter played for the Yankees because well the Yankees have always been good, so Yeah, time, yeah, time. Time! Doesn't really matter who played shortstop, right? I mean they've been good since since Babe Ru is this okay, I yeah, you get my point here, right? let's do this. Yeah. I get your point. I'm with you And I'm sure they're gonna. There's like rollouts. They said there's more rollouts planned They're just they're they're gonna steadily release stuff It's like it's it's it does feel like the Netflix of governance where like they keep releasing stuff pretty soon They'll have so much content you're gonna be like looking through and be like my god. I'm glazing over There's so much to hear I don't even know I like that. What's the next thing they're gonna do? Like a zine? They're not that no, they're not gonna do a zine. Let's do this. Story of the week. Come on. Nah, nah, that's nuts. Alright, are we doing story of the week? Story of the week! Ba ba ba ba ba boom. So I can I'm peeking ahead. It looks like your stories are on a theme. mine are not, but I ha we only have one overlap. I'm gonna begin with very governance story, Sky Dance. Sky Dance is the new horrible c combination between Warner Brothers and and what? What what did they what do they merge with? Paramount and HBO and everything. and Paramount and Skydance and CBS and HBO and Discovery and CNN. Here's here's an angle. I I I wasn't intending to go on this angle, but the there's this is such a dystopian angle too. I mean, since I was a child, since I've been watching movies starting in the eighties, yes, I'm old. There's always been this like dystopian fear of big billionaires, especially like, you know, kinda creepy white right wing. I didn't mean to say white, sorry, that was a Freudian slip. Right wing billionaires controlling Not only they control their own enterprise, whatever they're doing, but they also control the media. Like like that's the fear, right? Like you don't want big Larry Ellison types owning the media because that's kinda that's where we get into like the Terminator and Superman, right? Like Lex Luthor, like but I mean, what isn't that what this is? Like how did Larry Ellison get his hand on CNN, on movies? Like what what is happening here? How did this even happen? we're... Come on. We're way, way beyond that, aren't we? Like, like, like. How did the guy from Oracle how does he control a substantial part of American media? It's nuts to me. Oracle. I w I mean Here's what I find fascinating, that when you go to Target or Walmart and you are, I mean just pretend, just like pretend. Yeah, you've been there, right? Like you're walking through the aisles and you're looking at tampons and you look at like we do and you realize that like. I don't go to Target anymore. I gotta pretend. I've been there, I've been there. there's 63 brands of tampons. Which one is the best one? There's like so many options. This one's biodegradable. That one's a blah blah blah. This one's made of, you know, whale blubber or whatever like that, you know. And then when you look it up, every one of those brands is owned by like two companies. That is now television. That's that's everything. Yeah. Blah blah blah. I l I love blah blah blah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember our Yeah. You know, it's funny. I was in Costco just yesterday. Costco's my new target and and one of the things that I I praise I I are they going to put out Nazi Halloween costumes too? No, one of the I was there with my mom. One of the things I praised about it is that so I needed a new toaster of all things. Just a toaster, you know, to make my bread browner. You know what mean? And you know what? They had one toaster and I I love them for it. It just I I you know, it just I went to get the toaster and it it just it was the to and it relieved so much stupid anxiety. I was just like, I trust these people to just pick a damn toaster and sell it to me. Yeah, okay. It was the toaster that they had. That's the... Anyway, okay. The story I pick, Sky Dance adds Bobby Kotik and Lawrence and Lorraine Port Powell jobs to their new board of directors. On top of that, oddly, the whole thing is odd. They're tapping Tony Blair, the former prime minister of of England, of all things, of the UK, as advisor. Tony Blair. so we're already we're already getting crazy, but I just want to remind people who Really? Bobby Kotik is, okay. Good, I talk about this a little bit later. I won't talk about it a little bit later, because this feels better to talk about it now. I I'm just gonna kinda wrap him up as quickly as I can. So in twin there the crisis that Activision Blizzard started in twenty twenty one, five years ago, when government agencies at California sued Activision Blizzard, alleging a pervasive frat boy culture of rampant sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. And and the optics of this going on right now when the country is struggling with what the horrible stuff that happened at Cornell University and the cover up there. I I I mean the the timing from from David Ellison and Larry Ellison is just it's gross because Bobby was I mean he was really one of the the the the most well known executives ever as part of like this horrible frat boy culture. So of course Bobby Kotik very quickly denied awareness of any of this. They're like, well, it's I don't know anything about it. And if it is, it's just a few bad Apples, right? It's we don't know. and then a few months later the Wall Street Journal came out and they published a bombshell investigation that squarely implicated Bobby Kotik. So here are among the things they covered in that reporting that Kotik and the board executives that concealed misconduct for years. there were multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and assault, He did not tell the board. he basically basically covered it all. a board that he was a a member of, by the way. So he actually so the wait, so it's funny. The Wall Street Journal doesn't point this out, but actually the board did know because the CEO Bobby Kotik was a part of the board. So anyway, yeah. That's the funnest part. Of course, and share. I believe if you look into our old shows, which every transcript is on this Freeflow Analytics platform, you can actually find Activision mentioned in there and you can see that we talked about how interconnected and insular and horrible the board that quote unquote didn't know was. Bobby Kotik also protected accused executives. There's one example of HR trying to fire a guy who sexually harassed a woman, and Bobby Kotik overruled HR and kept him. there was a report of Bobby Kotik threatening an assistant's life, leaving a voicemail, threatening to have his assistant killed. This is all from the Wall Street Journal, by the way. This is not just from like Doug across the street. And then there was a Ew. Why not Doug? There was a lawsuit that the the Wall Street Journal reported on involving a private jet that Bobby Kotik owed, where a flight attendant was harassed. There were just so many horrible stories. the end result is was nothing. he was never fired, he was never removed by the board. But what happened was that Activision Blizzard took a a lot of hits. everyone was mad. Employees, all the stakeholders were were were rightfully angry. The the the stock prices plummeted. There was so much reputational damage that Microsoft basically swept in, bought it on the cheap, and they they too didn't do anything to Bobby Kotik. They basically let him walk away like a year later with a massive golden parachute worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, so What do mean they didn't do anything? They paid them! They paid them a bunch of money! It did nothing. That's the story, and now of course he's resurfaced out of all places Sky Dance. Because of course, right? I mean they couldn't find anyone else who had any no any industry knowledge, right? Nobody. Of course, there was no one qualified. There's no one else qualified except a guy who literally is the epitome of like frat boy culture who was actually sued. Yeah, actually, literally in media. There's no one else available. Literally, literally. Yeah. Yeah, so and just quickly here, what's interesting to me is Lauren Powell Jobs now is the widow of Steve Jobs. Now I I guess I give them partial credit because not only is it a woman, although she's you know, she's attached to Steve Jobs, but she's not a conservative. She from my memory, she's attached to a lot of liberal causes here, so some credit there, yeah. Yeah, but notice what they did. Right. OK, so so I don't know who's a conservative and who is a liberal, and it doesn't quite matter. She's donated to to democratic causes, that's all I know. Let's just say that she's donated to politically left or left of center. And giving away a lot of Steve Jobs' fortune. Yeah. Let's say that's her thing. How much power or influence does she have on a board that has Nepal baby David Ellison, Larry Ellison owns the company, and then all of these other like media mogul executives? How much power do you think she has on that board? zero. Zero. They well, I think the reason why they're adding Jobs and Blair i is just because of their connections, right? Their Rolodex. I mean they they just ho they have a lot of power, those two, I mean, right? Their connections. They I guess I mean, it's not exactly like they're on a lot of boards They have a power in in in the names, but not exactly but what they have is optics power because now they can go out and say look how balanced we are we got we got we've got you know, we've got like, you know a big Liberal donor and we have a you know, a Labour Party, you know Yes, yes. Optics. Look, we have Steve Jobs, o w well, his widow, whatever. Yes, former powerful Prime Minister. Yep. Look at how much how we're balancing, you know, we want to be equal up to it Don't don't believe it when you see that they're on the board of therefore power is equal Bob I can imagine announcing Bobby Kotik right during again, California Yes, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued Activision Blizzard and Bob this is a company controlled by Bobby Kotik alleging a pervasive frat boy culture. That that is in the lawsuit the term frat boy culture. So anyway, congratulations to the Ellisons for being gross. So that's my first story of the week. What do you got? In the middle of the Cornell thing, yeah. Alright, my first story is like you said, I have a theme. There's one story of week to me and it's oil. Yeah, I I also picked the story, so but I'm gonna let you get into it. I didn't mean baby oil either. I don't mean like, you know, almond oil or like avocado oil, which is great to cook with. I mean like the black gooey stuff that we're still obsessed with drilling a giant hole in the earth and sucking out of a straw. We think that's the only way to make energy in 2026 somehow. What? Ooh, almond oil. Yeah. But the reason why it's my story number one of the week, my oil story number one, is here's the headline, SEC warns activist investors after climate push at ExxonMobil. The SEC released yesterday, or two days ago yesterday, a report of investigation pursuant to Section 21A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Climate Action 100 Plus, and the election of directors. at the May 2021 annual meeting of Exxon Mobil Corporation. Yeah, we got this is like two this is like two blasts from the past this week, right? Like r both the Kotik story and this story go back five years and and they're like relitigating the history of this, right? I mean, go ahead. Yeah. Literally the same time period. Yes. This is so the SEC is started investigating Paul Atkins because there's only two commissioners left Hester Pearson rotates out in like November. She's basically gone So Paul Atkins starts investigating the climate action 100 which is a group of investors that have been formed over You know a decade who are all interested I mean like yeah, finally someone someone's Paul Atkins, you mean? This is Paul Atkins. Yeah. And he and he's on a rampage, so this is all Paul Atkins. Glad he's got his priorities straight. He's going after the climate group. Wow, this is thank you, SEC. Protecting stakeholders and shareholders for everywhere. Yeah, go ahead. Now, Climate Action 100 is a voluntary sign up group and it is a group of people who are vaguely voluntarily committing to care about the climate in their investment decisions. None of these things have any teeth. It's just a thing that investors do and then they go to conferences. Yeah. Still could be a bit of greenwashing there, yeah. Remember when remember when like getting rid of like air pollution and smog was not a political thing. It was just like every every American liked cleaning up pollution. Remember when we were all behind things like don't litter and don't throw things in the reservoir and like n how did we get here? I I I But isn't that the problem? Because we've forgotten that you couldn't walk outside in LA for 20 years because of the smog. It's so far in the past. And it and Paul Atkins has to protect his friends at places like ExxonMobil, 'cause ExxonMobil is incapable of diversifying and and and figuring out other ways to make money. They so they have to be c coddled and protected? I I to your point, oil, gooey oil. I mean, this at a moment where literally that there was a headline yesterday about how much money Exxon and the oil companies are making because of the war in the Middle East. Like it's astronomical. Here's what Paul Ickens wrote. Here's some of the things that he wrote in. It's a 23 page results of investigation. First of all, the SEC is not taking action against any investor who signed up in the Climate Action 100. This is a warning. And the warning is that these groups please. Yeah. No, the they're warning. It's a warning. Yeah. particularly climate groups that espouse the position that climate change is real and we should push companies to stop polluting are run afoul of the 13 D 13 G filing rules 13 G is you are not an activist investor You are just a passive holder. You don't have to file a whole lot of paperwork yada yada yada 13 D means you're an activist investor You are pushing companies. There's a million and you're part of a group Mm-hmm. I don't see how this is this is of activists, investors, and all of you need to take legal responsibility for that and file differently. I'm sorry, but I feel like he's like misunderstanding what an activist investor is versus a an actual political activist. Like I He's not distinguishing because they're using the tools of capital markets to push what he views as a political agenda. But regardless of the fact that it's a risk in science. Well, it's a risk based science based agenda. Right. Like so. But let's let's see what Paul Ickes had to say. That's not what ha that's not what activist investors are yeah. And forget and forget the fact, Paul Atkins, that the amount of of people warning about the long term risks associated with with operating b businesses w within climate change anyway. You know what I mean? Like everyone's warning about it. This is a is this is not just a political thing. There there's money being lost here. But go ahead. Well, that's true. That's true. There's also money being made by solving the problem that Exxon could be doing. like here's what Paul had to say, quote, the context, and this is the, this is from their investigation in the context of Exxon Mobil's 2021 director election. Now for a refresher for anybody who doesn't remember, this is an election where engine number one, a very small activist investor, an actual activist investor slated, Go ahead. Surprising, shocking. a number of directors to put on the ExxonMobil board. They did it saying it was about climate change and they wanted to, you know, like push ExxonMobil in this direction. But they put on the board a handful of other oil executives, right? Like Greg Goff, Kaiza Hytala, who's still on the board, Jeffrey Ubin, who's still on the board. There were a bunch of people they put on the board at this time or wanted to, and they were slating them. Ostensibly, yeah, that was the marketing behind it. This was the Gough, Greg Goff, right? In the context of ExxonMobil's 2021 director election, the investigation examined whether members of CA100, the Climate Action 100, used the organization as a means of coordinating their votes to influence the outcome of the contested director election. I still don't understand why that's wrong. So if you're going to basically if there is a contested election and number one is doing a contested election and a whole bunch of investors all coordinate to vote a certain way they they the SEC wants to consider all the investors who coordinated part of the activist group. That's what they said. This is part of a clarification to a rule that they did last year that no one cared about. Yeah. This this sounds like another this is like a scary another scary moment where there's something fall that's gonna follow this, right? This is like the Yes, this happened, this is what we were worried about last year, right? With the slippery slope of getting rid of share of proposals, right? Remember, because first he gave companies the right to just ignore them and now he's saying, uh-uh. So that's what the warning that's what this warning is about. Yes, this is the first step of a longer game, yes. Yeah, I was saying they're gone. Well, this warning is directed at three investors in particular, BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard. This is what he said. The evidence suggested see. Yeah, yeah, the globalist, the CA 100 and its members pressured BlackRock and State Street to support CA 100 flag matters submitted to a shareholder vote. One thing that the report. The gl the globalists that that the right wing are scared of, even though they're yeah. Like anyone's ever pressured Larry Fink into doing anything. Seven trillion dollars in assets, like he cares. OK, they also. He he very conveniently, he says and then backs us out. He conveniently ignores Vanguard entirely because Vanguard did not join the Climate Action 100, but still voted for those directors. So he doesn't want he in a passing line, he says Vanguard did not, in fact, join the Climate Action 100 despite being pressured to join quote unquote. Pr pressured. pressured they did not join BlackRock joins but he has to admit later on that BlackRock joins only because GPIF the massive the largest pension fund in the world their Japanese pension fund pulls 25 billion dollars of assets out of BlackRock because they're of their inaction on climate change so GPIF pulls out having nothing to do with climate action 100 GPIF PIF pulls out of Black Rock Black Rock then says we will join the climate action 100 and says and says actually that like they Set rules and parameters that they will never you know They're not going to act just because the climate action 100 tells them to they say that in internal documents These are subpoenaed documents. This is what the government is wasting its time on like so much money and time Yeah, it's weird. Just to protect oil industry. In fact, most of this report ends up being an indictment of the now leaving Mindy Luber, who's the CEO of Ceres, because what they use in this report as their investigation are quotes from internal Ceres documents from I worked at Ceres. I know how Ceres works. I actually was there not during this period, but I was there and I know how Mindy works and how a Ceres works. The indictment is Why? Why? Hmm. Yeah. Sure. The internal documents at Ceres and the conversations between Ceres and investors. Ceres is a non-profit. It's a non-profit that all they do is convene, air quote, whatever the fuck that means. They get people together in a room and they ask them to do stuff. Ceres, like most non-profits, has found, like funders, and they need to act like they're making change to get further funding. Yeah. Pizza. Right, it's it's it works on both sides of the political aisle. Yeah, I understand. Yeah. Yeah, of course, it's the same thing that works everywhere. That's how you get nonprofit funding. You sound like you're doing something, but nonprofits by their nature overstate everything that they're doing. They're not actually doing half the things. And the reason why I know that is because my remit when I was at Ceres was to build a database of all investors who are investing in clean tech and quote unquote, make them invest more. That my actual goal, I actually got a negative performance review when I was there. Well, that's not shocking. I give you a negative performance review every week. Well, yeah, no, not at all. But my performance review was negative because my goal was to increase clean tech investing as a junior associate at a nonprofit based in Boston. My goal was to increase global investing in clean technology. And when I showed like at the end of the year that like. Mm-hmm. yeah. Yeah, clean tech investing went up, but I didn't have anything to do with it, right? Like I'm just tracking it. I don't fucking, I can't allocate capital. No one listens to me. What are you talking about? They said that was your job. You admitted it, you didn't have anything to do with it. Yeah. Wait, so wait, so why is this report an indictment of series exactly? Of Mindy of Mindy? Yeah. because in the internal documents they actually took credit for BlackRock joining the Climate Action 100. They took credit for BlackRock like voting on Exxon. Everything that they said and that credit is all hyperbole because they have to tell funders they're doing they took credit for everything. They took I see what you're saying. And you're suggesting that credit was a bit of hyperbole. Yeah. Of course. I still don't see why it's r I I still don't I I f I don't understand why any of this is wrong. I I still don't get it. Like I don't I don't get the warning at all. In Ceres actually said in their internal documents that they quote, there's a quote, talked about scoping good board candidates for the Exxon campaign. Blackrock said there was no chance they would ever help us with that. So in the internal documents, Ceres admits that they wanted Blackrock to, you know, like, scope some directors for Exxon. And Blackrock was like, are you kidding me? No, we, we, we would quote, Mm-hmm. God, I mean There's no chance they would ever help us with that. B Paul, Paul Atkins, I know you're listening. Wha wha stop beating around the bush. Just get right to the point and just say like that shareholders, stakeholders, w you have nothing to do with any of this. This is a CEO's game, this is a board game, this is a C suite game. leave us alone. You don't get to say in anything anymore. Just just tell Paul, tell us what you really think. Well, here's what he really thinks and I'll zoom out because I'm going to go long otherwise. In between 2000 and 2026, there were about 15,000 shareholder proposals filed and the number one company targeted was Exxon Mobil. Oil companies are the top targets. in 2024 or 2025, Paul Atkins All right. Come on. To I'm I mean, who would be surprised by that? But yeah, go ahead. Changes the clarification of what is 13g and 13d he changes what is an activist investor and how you could be a group and You can't focus on any political things you he changes the rules of engagement. He says no more talking to companies Right so called So called political things. There th I don't see still I don't see how climate data and science has anything to do with politics, but go ahead. He changes the rules of engagement. He tells these massive investors that they can no longer talk to the companies. In fact, their recent clarification basically is like Women Act First on Bumble, where companies have to approach their investors. Investors can't approach companies about issues anymore. He does that and then he rescinds 14 shareholder proposals. The biggest beneficiaries of all those things are who? They're just the oil companies. They're the only companies that really had this problem. In fact, when Exxon, not Big Tech at all, Big Tech gets targeted, but Big Tech could give a shit because they know they're going to win the shareholder proposal, they're dual class, they mostly don't care about this. Turns out that Atkins himself was an advisor to Exxon. Exxon was his, his client at Patamac where he, and he owns Not not big tech. Well they're dual class, yeah. Controlled, yeah. stock in Exxon now to this day. So Exxon spent the last five years since the 2021 loss diluting their board, suing Arjuna Capital. They put their own directors on the board to get rid of them. They hired Atkins himself in that period. And now Atkins is the SEC chair. And what do we see? A steady erosion of every rule that allowed investors to push oil companies. That is it. This is only about oil. I don't think actually, I've stopped thinking this is just about giving companies power. I think it's about giving specific companies power. This is only about oil. Only oil. Yeah. Well, this has been this has been another b another pattern of my life since the nineties, certainly, is we just start wars in oil oil lands and the oil industry and the defense industry makes a lot of cash. Like that's just been going on forever, it's going on now and yeah, I all right, can we move on from this? I I don't like I don't like Paul Atkins, I think. I've decided. oil rich countries, oily land. Alright, yeah, that's my story number one. My other ones are shorter, don't worry. Well, he's been triggering me for like a year. I'm glad you're on board now Yeah, let's have a come on Paul, called call the show. Let's have a let's have a discussion. My second story of the week. Anthropic has been aggressively lobbying the Vatican to consider AI consciousness. Now th this is reporting out of the New York Times. So okay, I I'm gonna very quickly I I very quickly wanna tell you my my my little theory on this. so my sense was that no, my theory's not weird, it's actually spot on. So the story's weird. so my theory is that once man and I emphasize man, once man created all the the stories of the of of This one's weird to me. No, no, the story feels weird. you know, monotheism and God and whatever and the they they wrote down the all the text, the Quran, the Bible, whatever. Once they created the theory of God, i it was it would be it would unless we all had a lobotomy, it would be impossible for it ever to go away. Because p people were just wonder like, could it be true? You know, I mean w once you hear about the idea of God, then you're not gonna let go of the idea of God. And that's what I Yeah, it's like Tucker Carlson just asking the question. But that's what I'm saying. I'm saying that you just can't get rid of it. You can't get rid of the idea that that Jesus could be God or whatever. I'm not sp I'm not focusing on any one religion here. my point is is that once these these dudes, these men created their little AI fund, they they're they're creating this new entity, which I think is their their idea of what God is, right? I mean, w what is God? It's an omnipresent, omniscient. But All knowing, all seeing. Now we're screwed as a as a society, I think, because you're never gonna be able to take away AI. So, you know, Gavin Newsom threatens like an AI kill switch. It doesn't matter. If anyone tries to get rid of AI at this point, they're just gonna someone else is gonna recreate it. We are stuck with AI forever. It's not it's ever it's not gonna go away. It's the same Yeah, it's the same how how is it different? And and we don't have to spend a lot of time on my my incredible theory here. So you're AI is God? metaphysical theory. But that's my theory. So it's no surprise to me that Christopher Ola, a co-founder at Anthropic Claude, is busy going around begging religious leaders to to to to consider AI as having consciousness. Like he you know, because he he these boys they want to be recognized, they want to be powerful. They want and I and I'm I'm just gonna quickly so he took it all the way to the Pope, and we know that the Pope Hates all this, as he should. Yeah, the pope is not in on this. There was a headline like three days ago about he's like out on AI. So, and he and let me tell you about Christopher Ola. This is who Christopher Ola is, and this will shock nobody. This is the co founder of and one of the co founders of Enthropic. He's a Canadian, that doesn't really matter, but he's Canadian. Studied math at the University of Toronto for one year before he dropped out. That's not a surprise, right? What's weird is he said he dropped out to support a friend accused of terrorism. I don't really know what that means. I don't really care. Nah, well it seems weird. he dropped out! I'm shocked! What is that? is that? What it's what's important is that he's a a dropout, right? he received a Teal, a Peter Teal Fellowship in twenty twelve. No one's surprised by that. And he of course he's he previously worked at both Google and OpenAI, of course, right? and he's an atheist, which I think is important. Yeah, okay. Focus on the dropout part. Yes, finally, finally. Yeah, they all do, yeah. That's... Which I think is important here because I I I swear, and you've talked about it much better than I I'm about to talk about it, is that all these middle school boy brats wanna do is just they just wanna, because of their backgrounds and their experiences in middle school, they just wanna be powerful. They just wanna take over the world, they wanna be valid, they wanna be recognized. So I'm not surprised that this is happening at all. And and so there are other headlines that have come out since this New York Times reporting. It's validated. It's all validation. Where Sam Sam Altman is warning against religious force and AI. because I guess Grok, Elon Musk's Grok, is calling Jesus the Son of God. I don't know what's happening. We're but we're already here. We've already we're we're we've already gotten to AI, weighing into theology, and and and Christopher Ola really wants you to think that maybe maybe AI is God. Maybe it's a it's a higher consciousness, right? It's No, he wants you to think that it's conscious. They'll get to the god part later. It's the long plan. no, I think it's more than that, believe me. Believe me. Because again, what is what is God other than an unseeable, unknowable voice that knows the answer to everything that you can go to night or day, you can say anything you want to it. y maybe you'll get some answers, maybe you won't. But that is the that is the human being's concept of God, and that's what these boys are. are try are busy trying to create. That's why he wants validation for this. Anyway What is God if not hacking Wikipedia's page for Sam Altman occasionally? My second story of the week is also oil, but here here's another version. Here's another version. This is the headline No, no, i'm staying away from that. Here's the headline to block solar energy projects one community lumped them in with junkyards and adult bookstores That's my second story of the week. What do you got? okay. Let's do it. And you're not even mentioning the Iran war, so yeah. All right, go ahead. Wait, l let me get back to the headline there. To block solar energy projects? Why are we blocking solar energy? Yeah. OK, you ready? Are you ready for this? So this is like, you know, oil lobbying. That's why it's oil related. OK. There were eight hundred and eighty eight state and local laws across the country restricting renewable energy across 48 states. Yes, there are states are actually so as the as the Fed and the EPA back off thanks to the oil lobbying lobbying and as oil companies lobby in the states and have a much Do they live in a cave, maybe? And they think it's stupid? Yeah. Seriously, this almost a thousand laws. I don't I don't I don't know what's happening. deeper set of influence inside the states. There are nearly a thousand state and local laws restricting renewable energy. And that's according. Yeah, they want to stop the wind dripping water. Yeah, they don't like it. That's according to Columbia Law School's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. This story comes out of Indiana where I know what's up. Restricting renewable energy. Wind, sun, water. Of course. Yeah, a a g a god fearing state, yeah. There are restrictions. are actual laws restricting renewable energy in 30 of Indiana's 92 counties, which actually seemed low to me. It seemed low. I would have expected more. But it turns out Montgomery County, where this story is taking place, is not one of those counties that have a restriction. It turns out they are now making restrictions that aren't restrictions. They're indirect restrictions. This is what they did. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. They're good they'll get there. Yeah. was a major solar energy, a multi gigawatt project was proposed in Montgomery County to serve the county with energy. It was gonna give everybody basically low cost, almost near free energy from the sun, right? That's what you're doing. There's so much misinformation out there from the oil companies and the lobbyists and all that stuff that people are voting it down. But the way they got rid of this project wasn't to vote it down or put up a new law. They actually labeled wind and solar as an undesirable land use in the same category as a junkyard, a landfill, or porn companies. That's how they got around it. That's how they got around it. It's like the librarian's dream to get rid of, mean, just recategorize it and then we don't have to make it anymore. Yeah. Do wait, so under the I I o I mean, we don't have to even get into that that discussion, but what what's so undesirable about a junkyard or an a this is as adult oriented businesses, but what a junkyard? Well, they're basically they're basically putting this on par with like, you know, how do you want to use your land? And most residents don't want a junkyard in their backyard because it reduces property value and it's like and it's horrible and unseemly and smells and whatever. So now they just said solar is. Yeah, they said solar is basically a porn shop covered in a junkyard. Yeah, that's my second story. Well, so put it in a different county. Put it in a poorer county. Wow. my last story of the week is your first story of the week. SEC warns activist investors after climate push at ExxonMobil. So what's your final story of the week? My final story is the ongoing oil companies are begging the Supreme Court to let them off the hook for climate change. Good. I'm glad you got to this. I I didn't pick this story. so the the current case of the Supreme Court is Suncore Energy versus Boulder County. they're hearing arguments over whether Boulder can use state law to seek damages from oil companies for climate related harms. Now, the reason why I didn't pick this story 'cause I'm kinda waiting for for the re the 'cause we're gonna cover it again when they come up with their their decision. But yeah. And part of the biggest thing in this case is Samuel Alito recused himself. Recused himself. They've been begging him to recuse himself from this kind of stuff for for years. I can't believe he actually did it. This time he did it and there must be something really bad that he read so that this is on this is the only way you would do it right like this so What's the story? I think the story of the week is the one we both chose. It's it's the SEC. I mean Yeah, that's GM. All right. Sure. I could have gone with old fashioned Sky Dance governance story or sh the SEC, but yeah, let's let's do it. Let's do it S S E story. Yeah. Let's move on. You know, I've noticed yeah, that's right. We got a bunch of s quote unquote quick categories coming up. I noticed that as we've tried to segue you out of Asholius so we could cover different stories, you still are kind of picking assholes for your story of the week. Yeah, let's do the SEC. SEC, SEC. Alright, let's move on. Goodliest. Blowhardiest. I mean, it's all the same, isn't it? The whole news is just assholes. I don't know. That's up to you. Okay, let's do let's speaking of that, let's do As Holiest. alright, let's do that first. What do you have? Yeah. Let me let me go first. I have a another classic governance story. this to me in a nutshell is are are is the essence of the things that make me angry about the corporate governance world and and this are looking taking a blind eye to directors and ownerships and C suites. this is not a publicly traded company, but again I've heard this story before. Kentucky Bourbon CEO fired after a lawsuit alleges hidden cameras recording family members, nude minors, sex acts. So this is a guy named Wes Henderson. He's a Nepo baby, he's the son of master distiller Lincoln Henderson. they have a yeah, so they they have a company called TK C TKC Distilling. Ugh. Master Distiller. they they o they they they sell whiskey, they own a a hotel, a bunch of stuff. it's a this disturbing report. this guy has put up cameras like everywhere in the hotel rooms, in the houses he rents. So many cameras capturing everything. It's gross. so what happened was, and I I I I couldn't find the names of the board members because it's a private company, but several stories says explicitly that the board has fired Wes Henderson, the CEO, right? The Nepo baby, because of this horror horror. And who and who did the board pick? well first of all, they're gonna they fired him and they're gonna conduct a full and independent investigation, right? As as they always say. And who did they pick to take over the company? Wet Wes Henderson's son, Kyle Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, they do. finally. I was worried Kyle wasn't going to get a shot. Kyle Henderson. Now The only leadership team I could find of this horrible company i it includes Wes Henderson and his six sons. It's just seven men, all Henderson's. So the so the board is gonna conduct an independent investigation and yet they're putting in his s I I mean, this is just this is how gov this is the the in a nutshell, this is what makes me angry about governance. But go ahead. That's my assholes of the week. Who do you got? Yeah, well... There's no board. There's no board. Come on, there's no board. There's no board my asshole. My asshole the week is men again. Again, yeah. The headline I saw was masculine energy is costing companies billions. If you don't like the masculine energy is actually a quote from Mark Zuckerberg. told Joe Rogan that the corporate world needed more quote masculine energy. there you go. That's what I just said. yeah. More. It needed more masculine energy. yeah. More doesn't have enough and he also said that it needs to get back to a culture that quote celebrates the aggression a bit more like I mean you could make the claim that there is only masculine energy in the leadership of boards and c and companies. Only. Only. Of of course, like what are we talking about more? What are we talking about more? And here is what the article like actually went through step by step about how masculine energy is currently costing companies like money, like real money. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners did a 2024 study and they found that men committed 75 of fraud cases and caused higher losses the median of 158,000 per case versus 100,000 for women they Yeah, but to be fair, like aren't is only like n what, seven percent of the Russell three thousand is c companies led by women, so it's like mostly men out there anyway. Yeah. Right. Well yeah, it s surprises nobody. Well, it doesn't matter because they're doing it on a per case basis. Women just do less fraud, period. They just do less of it. In 2018, a Harvard Kennedy study showed that they described work as a masculinity contest. They created four norms. They did a survey to measure how strongly a workplace followed the four norms like the masculinity contest. When scores were high, they found more toxic leadership, less psychological safety, more bullying and harassment, more burnout, and intention to quit. It's like founder mode. It's something reminds me of founder mode. And it turns out that they analyzed 50,000 workers after that and found that avoiding a toxic hire, avoiding like the masculinity contest, is worth more than $12,000 to a company, which is twice the amount of a top 1 % performer bringing in. Yeah. Well, of course. Because the we've read numerous reports about how expensive it is to replace employees. All you gotta do is not hire an asshole, a masculinity asshole, you actually don't, you could use, mediocrity is better than hiring one masculine asshole. That's what they basically found. Well this is why this is why I I I know we do it flippantly and you know we we use like silly language, but this is why we focus on stories like Bobby Kotik be you know, r appearing once again in the Skydance board, right? I mean yeah. Yeah, and then on the flip side, they found in 2025 that were in private education and health care where women hold 77 % of jobs. And this is a BLS data study. 77 % of jobs in education and health care. They added 800,000 positions while all other sectors combined lost 500,000, according to BLS data. So I'm just tired of reading story after story. Hmm. Yeah. about how men being masculine and beating their chest. was a whole thing about how like male dominated industries that beat their chests actually have higher occupational health issues. Everything about it. Whenever you have just dudes. Yeah, I mean, that's what should concern you. Because that is these are male dominated industries. Like like AI and tech? Yeah. But Matt, they're they're giving us super intelligence, Matt. Boys are so smart. And they're the ones telling us that AI is conscious in Jesus, right? Like that should really concern. I'm done. I'm done with that idea of a good list. Yep, it's cool. They're they're winning at Monopoly, Matt. They make so much money. It's cool. All right, good list. I picked kind of an old fashioned one. I don't feel like it's that great, but I kind of struggled, honestly. I I sp I went over the headlines twice, really slowly looking for good news. diesel prices are rising world w worldwide. So are electric truck sales. and then cow I do too. A few more stories to go with this. California has enacted new laws that are gonna help ma help people buy more electric trucks, which is good. and then Honda Honda is planning a test where you can charge electric trucks while they're moving on the highways. So look, I mean it w we talked you talked about the oil industry and your stories of the week, but you know, th this is the there's always Yeah, that's, that was, yeah, it's been happening. I don't know. I I don't know even how to say it. There's some optimism that these sky high prices and the anger a around all this could lead to better outcomes, right, in the future. That's the that's the current optimism here. I I know it's it doesn't seem very good. Yeah. Go ahead. That's a nice stretch. I like that stretch. Well, mine is like two half good things. It's really the best I could do. One is PepsiCo's Fizz fades as GLP-1 drugs and activist investor Elliott's Target tested snack business. Basically, nobody's buying Pepsi snacks because they're taking GLP-1s and activist investor Elliott is now targeting Pepsi as a result. That feels okay. Go ahead. I like half good things. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's the sick sort of the same story there, right? It's it's kinda like that. I I mentioned a few weeks ago a story where really the one of the things that got me to quit smoking was making it so expensive and that you couldn't smoke anywhere, right? So there does have to be a bit of consumer pain to give up on things like gas. Like gas cars, right? I mean Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and and Doritos exactly yeah And my runner-up story NFL tells Supreme Court prediction markets are gambling and should be regulated by the states Well the NFL telling the Supreme Court that prediction markets are gambling the only way Cal she and polymarket actually get be become problematic right like is if the thing that Americans care about most But that's good news. Yeah. the National Football League decides to step in and say, you know, that's just gambling. it's not that they're going to regulate it because they want to regulate it at the state level, which is already a problem. But they basically are telling the Supreme Court like, look, it's it's it's just it's not a market. It's just gambling. And that's if the NFL says that people actually start to say, is it is it? That's my favorite thing. C yeah, gambling and TV, that's the thing they love the most. The whole thing is gross. The whole thing is the whole thing is gross. I don't watch a lot of live sports anymore because I'm just kinda tired of the pr private equity private equity billionaires have taken over my beloved sports. But but now when you when you watch sports, I was looking at a baseball game the other day, you could see like ads for for gambling like as it's happening. It's just like how, how is this okay? All right, let's move on. So it's half good. I watch Serie A, Italian soccer baby. Everywhere everywhere I'm gonna play us into blowhard is let's do blowhards headlines winners predictions We'll do the rest We play us into the rest Wait. I didn't know you were playing. Okay. That's a odd timing to play us in. What'd you forget before? Is that the problem? No, because these are all supposed to be light like the fast ones. It's just not fast because we didn't do it. Okay. I'll try to go fast on mine. my blowhardiest this week is UFC UFC CEO Dana White. UFC CEO Dana White says I I love when they go I I love when they go to the extreme. When these people go they always go to the extreme, which makes me realize that they're idiots because it's impossible. UFC CEO Dana White says it's impossible. It says. Impossible! Yeah. Not possible. That's the extreme. To build a successful business while working from home. He says it's impossible. So I did about five minutes of cursory research, right? And I found several companies that ha that are worth over two billion dollars. that have all that all not only did they this isn't just like Steve Jobs f he he you know he discovered he started something in his garage. I'm talking about That we're dead. It was founded at home and scaled up and run all remotely all at home. And I'll just go quickly a few of them. One's a publicly traded company, GitLab, worth $10 billion. WordPress Automatic, that's a software company worth eight billion dollars, built from home into a 2,000 employee workforce. there's several more on this list. Envision $2 billion. I I don't even need to name them all, but this it's clearly a thing. It's clearly possible, Dana White. So Yeah, it's possible. Let's just say possible. And and you know what? It's twenty twenty six and th there's only gonna be more of these. And it's so obvious, Dana, that there's only gonna be more of these coming. Cause we are no, sorry, it's impossible. That's my that's my blowhardies. What do you No, it's impossible, Damien. It's impossible. Here's my blowhardiest. It's a little bit weird, but I think it's funny. The headline is quote has no friends. Amazon is keeping amazingly detailed records on its customers and they are downright insulting. Jeff Bezos and Amazon here are I just pulled out what people have reported. So if you go to your Amazon account, if you have one. Go ahead. Jeff Bezos, yeah. You can see your report card. You go to shopping preferences in your account. You click about me and and it will show you a list of things. Now, they've already scrubbed a lot of this out, but these are largely AI generated, looking through all of. Yes, super intelligence, looking through all of your purchases ever and creating profiles, detailed profiles on you. And this is the blowhard things that they say about you, quote, Really? I got rid of my prime though. Really? Of course. Super intelligence, yeah. Just so that can sell you more. Okay, g let me hear, let me hear. worn a medium size in anything in years hasn't worn a medium size in anything in years quote has a stomach that hangs over their vagina i have no idea i don't this is what it said Okay. That's a weird one. Now how do they know that? Did they I you know what? You know what? Because they probably sent in a picture as part of a review of some sweater they bought and they probably made a quick determination and put that creepy thing in the notes. It's like these aren't notes. These are things that are based off of your buying habits, which would which actually it's like if you buy too many Spanx, maybe that's what their conclusion is. Uses phone in shower to read Kindle books. I swear to God that in fact, that one's funny because the user who posted that like online said, I actually do do that. But how do they know that? Right. Part of your record. Yeah. What else? I wanna I like these. No, nobody does that, do they? Yeah. Okay, well f fair enough, yeah. What else? seasonal rotation of decorative goose outfits. Okay, that's a fun fetish. Goose outfits, yeah. I don't either. I don't know what a goose outfit is. Brunettes with muscles. That's all it said. I don't know. Okay. I mean all let's be fair, a all people, no matter what your hair color is, we all have muscles. Right. Yeah, I don't know what that means. I don't know. Cannot keep real plants alive was one of the. And then finally has flat buttocks. Well, I love the insinuation here that they can keep fake plants alive. I like that one. What else? You know what's strange about this list is that when I left MSCI to s to to to form this company, these were the exact things on my employee my record. I asked to see my file and these were the all the things, yeah. That was what it said. We so I looked up mine and I said I sent this to some of my friends to look up theirs, too My favorite thing that it said on mine was we have a preference for drain maintenance That's what it said Who don't I love a good clog drain That's blowhardiest headline Yeah, what what do got? Blow hard. Well as opposed to those who love a clogged drain. Yeah. my god. All right, let's get to headline, yeah. you go first 'cause mine's a bit detailed. I knew you were gonna pick this one by the way. Whenever you see yeah, when there's a certain phrase I know you're gonna pick. Go ahead. Mine is just the headline because I followed the rules about this. a teenage AI meat proxy stranded on Widowmaker Mountain after following AI instructions. Do I need more? A meat proxy followed AI instructions? Okay. Now let's just y no. I know I'm cheating here, but I'm gonna back this up with a little bit of more data. The the headline is two thirds of Americans see social media as harmful to democracy. So sixty f two thirds believe it's bad for democracy. Ninety percent thinks it makes people more easily manipul manipulated by false information and rumors. Eighty percent says it makes people more politically divided. Seventy percent no yeah seventy percent roughly of Americans oppose the construction of AI data centers. Seventy percent believe tech companies and their billionaire executives hold, quote, too much power over political discourse policy in daily life. Two-thirds hate Mark Zuckerberg, including a majority of Democrats and Republicans, and yet I I I mean, all that is a lot to swallow. I I mean, I can't think of a more hated hated thing. People are scared. They they hate it, they think it's ruining the world and democracy, and yet seventy percent of the US population actively uses social media. They they're saying for younger democ demographics that adoption is closer to ninety-nine percent, and the average user maintains accounts on roughly seven different social media platforms. So I There's a lot of... yeah. What do you say? W what can you say anymore? Right? This is clearly but it's clearly a drug, right? It's a drug. this is so dangerous. This is so depressing. So depressing. What do you do anymore? Yeah. We hate it. We think it's bad for us. It's drug. It's a drug. It's drug. You just described a drug. That is meth. It's like you just described it. I know it's bad for me. I feel horrible. I hate my life, everything. And yeah, I keep doing it. Unbelievable. People quit the habit. Quit the habit. Yeah. Alright, that's what we're almost out of here. I mean, look, Bobby Kotik. Bobby K. Yeah. I mean, how how does he not win? I mean, what the hell? Is there any is there accountability for anything in the corporate world? It's so shameful. So shameful. Yeah. My who won the week for you? that's exactly who I had. I said Bobby Kotick. How do you- How do you fail up that hard? How do you fail up that hard? Do you have any predictions then? Prediction I'm gonna stay with Sky Dance here, but I'll talk about the other two people they appointed. So, my prediction is that Tony Blair, you mentioned, you know, Labor Party, you know, he's a he's a quote unquote liberal, I guess, sort of. Tony Blair, although you know, remember he was big friends with George W. Bush when there were another war in the Middle East that happened to make oil companies rich, but forget about that one. Tony Blair gets blamed for something woke that happens at Sky Dance, maybe a movie or something that maybe that talks about the environment. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. centrist liberal you. So the first time that that happens, the people are gonna be angry that it's his fault, you know? And the second one is that Lorraine Powell Jobs, she's gonna get blamed for something that's D E I. Like maybe they maybe they hire a b they're gonna hire like a black director to like to make something right and yes, it's she's all people are gonna be angry at yeah. That's my prediction. That's my prediction. Yeah, that definitely. This is going to be one black character. There'll be a gay person somewhere in the background of a show. All right. My prediction is Amazon's shopper preferences for Bobby Kotick will now read because now he's on the Skydance Paramount board. It read beer koozies, inappropriate hot tub behavior. here we go. Brilliant, brilliant. Yeah. And now we'll also read CSI Las Vegas as one of his preferences. I know. Well, I thought, look, I don't think it's going to say flat buttocks is all I'm saying, or something hanging over his vagina. That's all we got. That is Hazelnut Rollis. I'm your analyst told Matt Mascardi, we are free float. There will be a proxy countdown that comes out today that y you could have gone harder at Bobby there. You were you were nice to Bobby, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's enough. Is the CIA rapid we talked to Alex Coltenberg from a proxy wise AI it's gonna be a short interview with him, but we also Be I like Alex That's that's all it takes if you want to be on our show reach out and I'm not saying reach out and you have nothing to say about corporate governance or shareholder product, you know Proxy voting or anything if you've got nothing to say about that. Don't reach out. I don't care about you. Yeah Why does he get free advertising? okay. Fair enough, fair enough. no, reach out anyway, bother Matt. But otherwise reach out, we'd love to have you. And go rate and do things on the show. Go sign up for foodflowanalytics.com. Until later, goodbye.