Transcript
Come on, do it go? Let's go now. Yeah, go live. From your green washing Panic bunker. People don't talk about greenwashing anymore. That's so or Panic bunkers enough. It's a business pants Friday. Show here at October 3rd Studios featuring analyst Hall, Matt mascardi. On today's weekly wrap-up. Trump fight Trump. Pfizer Trump trying to Portman to that Trump visor. The f. Nobody for this one, the FDA actually does something good. I saw, I'm it almost seems like it can't be right? And the rise of the broco CEO. Broco bro. Our show today is being sponsored by free. Float, analytics.com. The only platform measuring board power connections performance for free. And I say this, it is that it is that all right, audience? Because of the Applause song came on. I don't think they really believe it. They plus sign went on, now listen to me. Uh, we get pushed back all the time from investors and from like you know fuddy-duddy ESG Professionals in our field that we're too aggressive. We're having too much fun. We're to Flippin. Yeah. Insipid. I think was one word, stupid, you can't vote out directors. It's too mean a lot of that can't. But we see article after article at the directors themselves want their fellow doctors voted out to be there. No, so I say this to all corporate directors, go to free flow, analytics.com. Build the case against your filter, doctors, and if you want, send it back to us and we'll help promote it. Like, I love we know and, you know, that there's some dead weight on these corporate boards, absolute dead weight. I mean, how often have you been in a room with like never in her? 15 people. Well, that's around. And you were like, you know, who like I mean, what are we doing here off the island, you know? Like yeah, I hate to break it to people, even when you watch, like the Celtics versus the Knicks, there's guys on the bench. Yeah, there are people not doing anything some of them, never play. That's right. Just let's go. Alright, ready? All right, story of the week. Yeah. Story of the week. I didn't like this. That's just seems to be the refrain for 2025. I didn't like this. Usually you're the depressed one. But this week with the story I did not pick, is the government shutdown. I could have was like, it's too overwhelming. So I would say that the government shutdown doj did not for some reason and the effect of the government. Shutdown is a highly politicized attack on anyone who didn't vote for Trump. Like they're just gonna fire all those people. Shut down all those States, whatever, but that's not what this show is about, but we're not a political. Get off your political high horse. I also read that that's What if Doge this is the shutdown will lose the government. Like 50, is it 15 billion dollars a day? So this doesn't seem very cost effective but let's get off of that. So so but unfortunately, where I landed was that there's just a lot of stories things that are continuing, let's store that are continuing. Well, I'll give you example, I mean, an example, like the war against women, this this is 2025, we've been pointing out week after week that this whole like, you know, this coded Dei word, which is really just a work against people of color and women, it's just keeps going. So, don't leave out the Gaze. So true this week actually Elon Musk gets to that later. I have that. Okay, later. Uh, here's what I'm talking about. Uber not responsible for sex, assault jury finds. This is from The New York Times and I know that you're covering some of these stories. So tell me if you want to go in depth on some of these stories. Now, if you want to go later, look, Let's do. Let's just talk about it now and then you get to choose later, I worked up my segment, the Uber ones tricky. So the judge said that Uber would be responsible for the women's harm. If the company was negligent and using adequate safety measures, and the negligence was a substantial factor in causing the harm. Right. Now, the jury said that, absolutely, that the negligence negligence did happen that Uber had been negligent, and it's general safety practices. And that in fact, that they focus more on growth than they did on on taking care of this. But, but they ruled that, but they ruled that it was not a substantial factor in causing the attack but How could the jury that's such a burden for the jerk, right? How could they prove that that negligence caused the attack? Like that's almost impossible. Right. What is it? Was job to stop? The attack, or is it Uber's job to make every piece of safety preparation available. But like, why don't we have their negligent and the creating the safety practices that would allow for? Yeah, the attack now? Yeah, I I know it's not necessarily, but that they were it. See, the Uber wasn't, the guy who was the woman. That's, that's right. Exactly. The guy had to be named Uber jefferys or something in order. I'm sorry. But here's the part society that they get wrong, the thing that just this is the thing that we're not talking about anymore. This is the reason why I like I'm angry at Elon musk's pay package. It's not for all the corporate governance bulshit and whether he's worth it and all that nonsense, it's like the erosion. Of our culture in society. Uber should not be allowed to get stinking rich on creating a taxi company where there is a high level of assault against its female passengers. I'm just, I'm sorry. Like someone has to be held responsible for this. Somebody. I, you know, because we're now living in this world, that's just created, that's just being more and more controlled by these Tech. Brilliant are baby Bros, right? And, and there's just no accountability for any of this is what makes me crazy. But I'm already going too long on my first story here. The second one is Trump is he's actually going after an executive at Microsoft name, Lisa, Monaco notice it's a woman. Everyone that Trump targets is a woman. A person to call her or both, right? Now, she is someone who I guess. What? Worked at the justice department was involved in the Justice Department's response to the January 6th attack. So the member of the Insurrection back in 2021. And now she's basically what Microsoft to fire seeing Expedition. Right. Okay. But now he's basically calling out a publicly traded company to fire one of his Executives and we've gone full crazy. I mean right? I mean it's Yeah, full nonsense. It's also like not like a topic. It's like she's just if She'd be like a regular higher. That wouldn't even realize all the time. Not you know there are so many. There's a million of these men and women that jump right from the government to either very high, paid jobs at corporations where they probably don't do much or board seats where they do less. We see this all the time. I have a side note later, I have a prediction about Apollo Global Management. Speaking of like going from the government to, you know, a company, but at Apollo did you know that they're sustainability committee, which they took. So seriously, there's there, there's four women on the board. The sustainability committee is three of the women plus anti-walk anti-esg X, senator Pat Toomey. So like these guys just jump right onto corporate boards. Right into corporate life all the time. That's totally normal. So I wonder what's going to happen at Microsoft, we know in Adela has. No, he's not like on the A-list of buddies with Trump, but he's right up he shows up to the dinners right? He goes to the dinners. I did the oligarchy Circle last week on the show, right? Like Satya nadella's. Second string, right? Like he's, he's a bench player in the oligarchy, he comes in occasionally, but you notice who's all the bench players, all the bench players are that are the brown people, the Asians true, they're the gays, the gays like, all the central players are like a bunch of white Tech Pros, right? Like Ellison's Altman's, the sucks the rocks, and then the other attack on women, this horrible one, this this is again, this is 2025, is the year of anti so much in fact that we don't even hear from the original anti-troll, Robbie Starbucks. Remember we talked about him all last year because we don't even need to hear from him this year because everyone's doing the work for him and no one is fighting back that I can see but the other horrible story from this week. Oh no I actually have two more. The headline is military women. Fear losing every bit of ground as Hegseth looks backward to the 90s. So so basically he's creating a test that he arbitrarily set from the 90s and saying basically that if you're not up to code as a military person based on 1990s, version of a good soldier, then we're going to get rid of you because I guess that's when he's saying that that's when woke ISM began the night that's when women started being allowed in combat, things like that. So he chose he acts like I think the quote he had arbitrary hate is is 1990 seems to be as good a place to start as any, right? Like that's very defense of the United States who we don't have to cover it, but spent like an hour, lecturing people, who actually, he was a talk show host, right? Like he looks like that. Yeah, but 1990 was the last year in 1991 in Busch won. 1991, they allowed women to fly warplanes in the Persian Gulf War. It was the first pro removal of a Prohibition of women in the military. It was one of the first times they were allowed to do something like that, and he was like 1990. That seems as good a date as any, it just happens to be the year before they let women do stuff, right? That's insane. And it off like, oh, it's it's just a random date. Why not 1990? And listen to this, right? This rhetoric calling a softening. Weeking gender, bass, pursuit of other priorities. That's the, this is the language that's being used. And finally, This weird misogyny going on of all places, of course, a golf tournament. So the headline was at the PGA of America. The CEO is apologizing, I guess there is a player an Irish guy. I don't follow golf shockingly, roarie, McIlroy. So his, yeah, his wife was basically abused and taunted that beer thrown out her she was crying. It was really a horrible and I wanted to point this out. Here. Now, the CEO apologized. But the president Don Rhee, he took on, he took a different approach. He said, well, you have 50,000 people there that are really excited and heck, you can go to a youth, soccer game and get some people who are, who say the wrong things, he's saying that he said, when asked about the abuse against the player's wife, he says, yeah, I'm sure it, it happened. Rory understands things like that are going to happen. So again, this is where we where's, we're at? Like this is the, it is just like the 2025, right? It's just the last week. It was the blaming mothers and women for taking for making their kids autistic, right? It's just ongoing assault, but that's my first story of the week is the war on woman. Can women continues? This is a real fun way to start the show. Yeah. Way to kick us off. What could you have next? The next one is fake billionaire man. Baby retirements. Continue. In this time. This time A Spotify CEO Daniel X his turn. So he's not step down, step down. Yeah. So and I have I have a lot more to say about Daniel like, later in my later in the show. So maybe I'll just move quickly here, but But he's stepping down. There's two co-ceos taking over and of course, he's actually not stepping down, he's remaining his executive chair. In fact, he even said, I will be more involved in a typical us chair what, which, what two things are interesting about that. First of all, he suggesting that you that us chairs. Don't do anything, which is probably true true. Because the CEOs, he's not talking about the cases, where the chairs also the CEO, he's talking about independent chairs, right? Because as we pointed out, you shouldn't have CEOs on the board because it basically nullifies, the chairs role. I thought in the bylaws, the role of the independent board chair was to hang out with the CEO, had to be to Buddy up. I thought that was it. I didn't think there was any other thing convenient meeting where you hang out. Remember, Daniel was also the goofball who said that he was the least powerful person that Spotify. I remember he like he buried charmingly said that He was the least powerful person at Spotify. So anyway, the reason why I mentioned the story is because this, this keeps coming we and we keep seeing these these cosios taking over last week, we saw at Oracle under executive chair, Larry Ellison. He's also the founder now, we're seeing it Spotify so much that our friend, Lila Lila, Lila Lila maclellan coverage of this called the rise of the broken, CEO, at Fortune Magazine. Great alliteration right there. Yeah sighting some of our research, so thank you Lila. We love Lila although I hear she's leaving Fortune which is not good for us it's sad for us but I mean I'm sure she's happy about the next step in her career but I'm not happy about it because for I like the coverage for I'm waiting for another journalist like like Lila to like realize that there is, are there any information out there about directors, that suggests these things matter? I it would be nice. So that's the second story. Is this ongoing. I don't know what's happening. It's like these billionaire man. Babies are their, their, their, this is easy. It's easy to know what's happening because in this is just leave here. This is pioneered by Sergey. And Larry at Google, right? Like the founder of Google pioneered this, by stepping onto the board as executive chairs of the board or Bill Gates Executives on the board and disappearing from like, This means Daniel EK. No longer has to go to a press conference or like earnings call. He no longer gets asked like, you know, why you devalue? Why are you destroying artists lives anymore? You just have to deal with that. All he has to do is exercise his dual class voting power and make all the money right. Like that's he's it's a brilliant strategy and making cos is even more brilliant because who do you ask a question of nobody knows and look at the headlines like this from Barons Spotify. CEO Daniel Eck to step down the stock know, falling know. But that's how that miscarriage. And this, yeah, they have no idea. This look, get the free flow analytics data set. It's free. It'll all right, so the third story of the week, the seat, CEOs and Trump love affair continues this week. It's particularly galling to me. It's particularly, I hate this so much, so Trump and Pfizer agree to lower us drug prices. Exempt company from farmer tariffs, right? That's the most important thing there, right? He, he basically, he announced these tariffs that my any drugs made overseas. Yeah. Except that, wasn't it hadn't happened yet? I think he just sort of said it doing well. He's taking a ship, right. Like he's just like, I know but notice that Pfizer jumped into this because they're just concerned about themselves, right? And, and this is what they're letting happen. Partnering with Pfizer beginning in 2026, the federal government will have a website. Trump rx.gov Pfizer is signing off on this. I mean, I'm sorry. You can buy drugs through trumpets, all right, I mean, Pfizer. I mean I want to buy steak and water on it too. Yeah. I mean, I are you not serious people. I so I looked at the Pfizer board. Pfizer was interesting last year. First of all, 46% of shareholders said, no to say on pay at 5:30, which is a extremely high number. Um, and but unfortunately, the, the chair of the competition committee, James Smith, he received 93% support. So I don't really know what the hell is going on there, but, but Charlotte what was pretty, pretty angry but here's some of the Maybe this will give you some insight into why all corporations are just doing Trump's bidding. Because this is just a protected class of just like CEO buddies. Here are some of the some of the powerful board members of Pfizer former Vanguard CEO and chair Mortimer. Tim Buckley, right? Yeah. How about this one open AI board member and former meta board member Susan Hellman, former Gates Foundation, former Deloitte CEO Joseph echeveria. Adobe CEO chair. Shenton, new Narayan. Former Goldman Sachs Vice chair, Suzanne, or Johnson, the coke, CEO and chair James Quincey. That's Coca-Cola, former State Street Global advisors, CEO, Cyrus Sarah, and the African compensation committee chair James Smith. Who was the former Thompson, Reuters CEO. So they're not gonna push back. I mean, this boards not gonna push back, whatever, CEO and chair, Albertsons at Pfizer, I guess this Board, just gonna do. I mean, I'm sorry, but I find this to be a bit of a disgrace. I mean, well, look, if you're James Quincey, The, you know, the Coca Cola CEO. Don't you want to announce Trump dot gov where you're saying, you know. Sure. Spare team laced, fizzy water through the government, through government. Your own take care of your own company. Don't think about America. I don't think about the stakeholders don't think about what Trump is doing. Just just worry about yourself and you're just describing, capitalism know, it works, doesn't self-interest, doesn't have to. That's the the third Story, the CEOs and Trump over here. The fourth is Elon Musk back in the news, kind of fighting for attention this week, we he's kind of dropped out for a while. So let's see him back here are some of the headlines that we call it. Nice to see him back. There's something that we collected. Elon Musk speaks out on controversial, one trillion, dollar PayPal package. He said it's not about compensation. He actually said this, it's not about compensation but about me having enough influence over Tesla to ensure safety. If we build millions of robots. Yes, a long track record. Incredibly safe thinking scary. This is though, but why do we want a private sector asshole? I'm sorry. But why do we want this idiot monster? To be building millions of robots in the first place. Like what? Like what Future. Do we have lying ahead? Where the billionaires are building the robots? Like, how many of the robots do you think like, like like like my neighbor's gonna have? Do you think it's like these robots? I hope they are. I hope they have a lot because they might need to play defense. I don't know. What was aren't they just personal armies. You're just building a person. Yes. I mean, the government and the billionaire. CEOs are gonna have all these robots. Like, should there be a should we have an 11th Amendment to the Bill of Rights where we add like the right to bear rights? Like because I mean what the fuck what is happening? I mean this is just ludicrous to me. Other headlines me, Elon Musk Elon Musk makes history as first person ever to hit 500 billion dollar net worth Milestone. But but it's not about compensation know. It's just about because he has 500 billion dollars that he could tap and spend only about that. It's about robot safety. New evidence links. Elon Musk to Epstein Island. Yeah, but there were no robots there. That's why he got linked Elon Musk Calls, Wikipedia to woke, announces his own gracias on turbo and finally, the cancel Wars of 2025 continued, Elon Musk implores people to cancel Netflix over a canceled TV show. I guess that it was a, it was a TV, it's not even on anymore, but it has been on for each other, but there was like a trans person in it. Is my takeaway. I don't know. I think, I think so. I think the opposite, why shouldn't say a person a character, right? No, it was an animated show and I think it like it was like about conspiracy theories in the government that but they were real. And and it got canceled, it got decent reviews and it was fine, but it was like expensive of making nobody wanted, it really. So I think they canceled it but now they've sud. Surgeons because Elon Musk saw it, I guess. I don't know if he saw it like, Thursday or what. I don't know what the deal is. He incredible. We're just looking for something to be angry at blame. We're going to shows for three years ago. That nobody watched to be angry that it's not on the air anymore. What do we doing? We got no time his, he's posted on Twitter X saying that Netflix was smuggling transgender woke, agenda into your kids. Again, this Tesla George. It was an adult animated show. What kids, what do you even Tesla board? Here's yet another reason to fire your CEO. I mean, this guy is not good for other world. Anyway. And finally, I, this is not really a story of the week, but I had to, I had to point this out, just because maybe I'll just call this, like, more CEO, asking, or more just stupidity, or this is from deal book. I always pay attention to deal books from New York Times because I love it when they just have stupid stuff in there. So they had a section today, where they, they talk AI with CEOs. It's a corny. It's a corny little segment. They do different from Business Insider. Whichever one is not of, is this is what I hope someone from deal book, richest out to us. I would, I would love to talk to anyone, but this is talking AI with CEO, William Stone of ss and see a major investment fund administrator and transfer agency. I don't know why that means, but this is a, you know, a large cap company. They asked him. how do you personally use Ai and the CEO said This is all quote, from the CEO said, I'm interested in horse racing and I owned horses who that I use AI to track how they're doing. There are all kinds of Statistics, like how far can they travel before? Their performance starts to deteriorate, if they're in Kentucky. Can they go to California? Can they go to New York? Wait, that's it. That's what he said. Don't they have Microsoft Excel? You could do that. I don't know. What do we do it? What do we? What are we doing? I don't understand what are we doing. Why are you wasting space on this bullshit? Like I don't know what happened and seriously when asked the question, could you think of a more CEO douchey thing to say that I track the horses I own? And there this is what they're well, this what they're doing with, but don't worry, I'm sure he'll promise like all the others that when they die, they'll give away 95% to their Children's Foundation. Literally talking about like, AI, destroying humanity. And this out of contract ass is getting airtime idea. Control to, like, do what he could do on a spreadsheet. Try have fun with those stories of the week. What do you think? All right, so to recap, we've got war against women, we've got man-baby retirement, fake, retirements, the CEOs, and Trump musk fighting for air and just dummies on Deal book, which I can't use dummies on deal, but it's not just for me that just a troll. I'm triggered by very few things. Usually, it's either Jeffrey Sonic, Phil at Yale or deal book. Those are the only thing in the musk one that I find interesting is that his, his net worth at 500 billion dollars and I don't know how many times I have to remind people. We did a Tesla analysis of the PayPal packages and it's and that's a plural that we put on social media. It's free. You can just find it. You just email me if you want it. And one of the things that we play now, Is that he's not asking for a trillion dollar pay package, he's asking for an extra trillion because he's going to be worth 1.7 trillion. If all of the things that he says, he's going to do happens. So he's worth more than a trillion dollars even then and it strikes me that he's already worth 500 billion. How much more do you fucking need, right? Like, how much like it? I guess, maybe he's right that it's not about compensation. It's about control because power need more trillion. You don't need more than the 500 Franklin. We don't need millions of robots. We don't have it and no one needs a robot so you could just stop doing it. What we need is investors actually vote against the board and get him. Get him and his brother and everybody else off of it. Let's have a chance this year to do classify that board for Christ's sake. Yeah. Um, let's start, let's start somewhere people. Let's, let's I know everyone's concerned with like, you know, shareholder and shareholder value. And all that. What about, what about the idea that we're, we're just investing in companies that just do nothing for us. They just gonna be the thing about shareholder value is if you put all the AIS on the interweb and you have them trade, the stocks, you actually can disconnect shareholder value from anything real anyway, right? Like it's all, make believe, but I'm not gonna give musk more are I don't really care this round table. Anyway, it's only been six years. Remember, their purpose of a corporation. Where are they about this? They must hate this right. They retract, that they actually, they officially were trying to think they backed off of it. They thought they just, I thought they just ghosted. It. I didn't know. They actually officially I know. I think they disowned it. They were like, no, no longer. Write that leaves CEOs and Trump. Fake billionaire, man, baby retirements, and the war against women. I think the war against women is an ongoing story more. Than the story of the week, but it's really hard not to choose it with that. Trump Hague Seth Quantico speech. They were fucking unhinged. I mean, everybody's if you've what you watch three minutes of it and you're like, ah, this is the least, professional least, interesting. Most unhinged thing, that's happened so far in a total. That's why it's universe and that's why I think it's okay for for CEOs, not to immediately, jump in bed with Trump when it just because it benefits your company like, you know, I mean, he's attacking your whole industry and I know you're meant to compete with the people in your industry. But Pfizer, I mean, what about getting together and forming a coalition and trying to fight back against. This is just jumping right in the bed with this, this no problem. My problem with it is, they are all spiders, are other ways, they're all other ways that what he voting for all man, babies, the horrible war and women. It's it's down between, Mean the fake retirement or the, the war on women. I'm going to give you the war on women as an option when we get to my section. Anyway. So I don't skip that and maybe you can do it. I'm going with Daniel Eck because let's applaud Lila. The rise of the broco CEO. That's, yeah. First of all, not only because you, that's why you care. That's why we're. Um, but what, what I like about it is that someone's finally getting the The Narrative, right? What Lila's wrote about is she's getting the narrative, right? Because the headline that he's stepping down, is the same headline where Target CEO? Brian Cornell is stepping down. They're wrong, they're wrong stepping down. Oh, if anything, they're still getting their, their keeping their shares. Probably getting the same money as executive chair. Yeah, they're not going anywhere else. They make as much as an executive and they have all the shares still. What he already said he's about here. He says he's gonna be more involved in a Typical us cherries. He's already telling you. It's already stupid. So I'm going with that one. All right. Oh, come on. There we go. That's the first time you've ever screwed up a Sonic. I'm proud. I don't screw up anything good list. I've three. All right, let me let me go first and I'll let you get on a roll. Mine is Gavin Newsom signs law cracking down on AI industry. I one of the reasons why I like this one is, this is from futurism, is that they spelled his name wrong in the headline, Gavin they call them Gavin Newsom, Only only, I like that AI wrote the headline. So, this is the first AI safety and transparency law in the US. I think it's kind of early days to know if this is gonna be good or bad, but it's a start. I've already seen headlines suggest I've already seen headlines suggesting that this is exactly what the tech leaders would have. Wanted that the penalties for this unfortunately are really low but it does force a disclosure of the the Safety and Security protocols at these AI companies. But it's a start, at least, I guess. I feel like I've been begging for this for girls. Anything. I've been begging for this for 18 months, so I guess I have to apply this a little bit, right? I mean, the first time do this, I think it's good. But I also don't think that the Disclosure by itself this solves anything there has to be accountability. Well, sure. Holders have been paying attention and people and people who are, you know, regular people consumers have to pay attention, but the big lesson from ESG to me. What, where the universe Data where we came from, right? That you did all the G. I did es and G. We were in the data, we were just swimming in data. The big lesson was, we kept asking for more and more and more and more disclosure, but investors didn't change their behavior very much. We currently, because consumers can consumers can and I don't really they don't read the disclosure else, right? I say, yeah, I was gonna say there's a, there's a headline this week met a says, it will not allow users to opt out of targeted ads, based on AI chats. They won't let you opt out of that. So I'm thinking as a consumer, Deleted it but no one does everybody's using but I'm saying you're right, but you're right but that's closer is important. I just think that that people need to know what's going on. Places disclosure is only as important as the accountability is that you use that disclosure, right? Like this closure is nothing by itself. What requires a countability, what if we took away? Like Sam Altman's, like 8th, Hawaii house, or something like, I'm for that work. Yeah, I'm sure that. All right, let me do my three. All right. Number one and this is the winner FDA approves. A new generic abortion pill. How did that happen? I don't know how that happened. Number one but I don't know. I I think it's not get stuck by this. I don't know this. I don't know what's happening. It must have been long in the works. No one talked about it and then they just kind of announced it and now like what so why don't they approve generic everything pill. That solve the the high drug prices problem that would if you all of Pfizer's portfolio of drugs and said now, they're all generic, guess what high price is gone. Everything's generic I mean I only buy generic pills now. I go to my Hannaford and I not Thailand all right, because you autism. Yeah, I give it to women. Yeah. Oh, that's that is the winner. But keep going. Here is the other ones. Activist investor wants targets. Brian Cornell completely out. I like this, the best. I love the way fill me in here. It's not, we're not just voting them off. The board out as a CEO, too. Uh, well, Cornell stepped stepped down. All right. He's a chair, right? He's the chair. So we're gonna vote him. Wait. Okay, so he's the executive chair still, they want to blow him off the chair of Target, and the accountability board, an activist investor. They actually filed to shareholder proposal seeking to get him out entirely now, that's like activist investor but it's a shareholder, it's interesting because he's an executive. He's technically an executive of the company. So, it would be interesting to see. Of course, Target would not, they won't even listen, if the voters, say vote him out but I would be interested to see what would happen in a situation like that, because he's an executive like you're basically firing him. Yeah. Well, that is your right as the owner of the company. Hey I'm shares in the comments. I'm for do it for it. Yeah. And then I chose this one because there was one line in this story. There's a story about how Tesla, there's a pop-up while you're driving your Tesla, if it, if it takes that you're falling asleep, God the pop-up comes up and it says in order to stay focused, you should enable full self-driving. Oh God, okay. But but this this Article was actually in futurism. It was a real full self-driving. Yeah, it's not, well, that's what's great about it because there's this one line in the article, a futurism, it says, quote nonetheless, the automaker labels its most advanced driving modes, full self-driving, while its CEO and chief over promissor. Elon Musk explicitly says that they do in fact drive themselves seemingly every other week. I like the chief over promising. Yeah. I feel like that should be a little, which, which should be fraud. I mean, in my from my yeah. But I like, I like that. Somebody said it without like saying the word fraud, I like that. So those were mine. So it's a generic abortion pill for clearly it is correct, right? And clearly, let's just move on. Show moving. I changed up this week. Oh, you permanent change, or just a weekly know, I think this is this week. I'll see if it sticks but there was a period when I was doing these and when I'd start with a data point and then I'd work my way backwards. You remember that? And like, I like to change up. There was a lot of work. Whatever it was too much work. This one is instead of as holiest of the week, we're gonna go with Biggest Loser, you know. I might like this because I'm I'm, it's what's really happening. Every week, is that? My story is of the week. Basically are a bunch of assholes. Yeah, I know, maybe we don't need double assholes. We double asshole. So now we could just lose the most biggest victim. Yes sir. Yeah, go for it. All right, first up us, women. He already talked about it. That's already. I don't like this broco CEO military, women, basically. We're we're turning back the dial to 1990 Uber and this next assault. But there was this one too. And this is the kind of headline that no one would think of when you're thinking about us women, Losing right for us at free, float media except for us a free float. KKR, appoints former Eaton CEO Craig Arnold to board of directors in independent seats to 11. We've talked about Craig Arnold before. Yeah, go ahead. So this is the kind of announcement that we see all the time. In fact, I think in the last two weeks you pulled the 180 of these now like, it's just announcement after announcement, somebody joins a board, someone leaves the board, whatever, there are two things to point out. Number one, Craig, Arnold's a dude. And number two, he was appointed through an increase in the board size. They increase the number of independent seats dilution effect. The result was there were 29% women on the board if we're just counting genitals. Now there's 26% all just by increasing the size and adding a woman to the board. This is we cover this in proxy countdown all the time. This is the primary methods that we're seeing Women get pushed out of corporate boards. They are not being asked to resign, they're not being fired. They're not being targeted. It is much more subtle. It is. Let's add a board seat and put a man in it. Then when the woman retires, we replace them with the man. Or let's when we comes time to review our committees, let's make sure the women have kind of shitty or committees, the Committees. Nobody wants to be on like the lady committees like sustainability. Sustainability. All the ones? Yeah. The audit, the ones. You get the work. Really hard on. Yeah, you're gonna work really hard on paper, like, the shrill woman on the audit committee. Like, what? That again, like, that's the one you can ignore. These are very subtle. Very clever ways that corporate board figured out, except this is the value of us. I'm going to to our own horn again, that when they're not subtle, is when you, when they you, when you tag them week after week, and you realize that there's a collective action happening, right? There's a little only when you look at one headline. And the reason why I chose this as a loser of the week is because this headline all popped this week share of female execs at Major Japan firms, rise to 18.4%. That's pretty remarkable. Yeah, so in a Japan where literally women have had no rights in the history ever the country. I remember when we are seeing women rise slowly, we saw women on boards report for msci and Remember, the lack of women in Asia was so glaring and horrible despicable that I used to say to my boss is, like, what can we yell at them? Can we put in there? Be like, no? No, we don't want to offend Asia, you know, like this is just the cultural over there. Someone's just call it, but it was so bad that it, I always made me mental. And even there, even, they're turning the corner in a positive. I will say this, in defense of the sort of low participation of women in corporate boards in Asia, which is still goes to this day in Asia, they do not have the problem where they have in Scandinavia where they have in the US and Australia and Canada all these like, like, you know, we love women on our boards countries in Asia, the women on the board have power equal to their representation. Meaning in Japan, when a woman gets a board seat, she's not put like in the as a member of the audience in the room closet to be quiet and bring everyone. That's you have data support that the data free flow analytics data, which you can see when you do an average of the gender power Gap, across the country, what we found, what the data says is that these Asian countries like even like in the Philippines and Indonesia, there's very very few women but those women where they exist have power equal to their representation very low representation and not as like power equal to it. In countries like Norway in Denmark and Sweden where they mandate 40% women on the board. Those women end up with 20% of the power by getting shit committee. Assignments are no committee assignments. They are never made the chair of anything. They are guideline. They have lower Oaky women washing. Yeah, it is brilliant. Like of like, way to sideline women. So when I see a headline that says like this week, you know, women Executives in Japan are on the rise. Even if slowly, while I'm comparing it to the Department of Defense, head of the Department of Defense saying, we got to go back to 1990 when women couldn't be in the military. It's it's absolutely shocking. So he's looser number one. You us women what else to go? Biggest Loser number two, spineless companies. Yeah, fiser. Two headlines here. I didn't even include Pfizer. Here's the headline. Disney's image tanks among Publicans Democrats After Jimmy Kimmel controversy. Oh, both basically. You flip flop like fight. You were fucking spineless to begin with Bob Iger and now nobody likes. You literally no one. No one likes you. I think Republicans slash Democrats covers everyone, doesn't it. Everyone hates them. Yeah. How about Cracker Barrel drops, firm behind ill-fated logo change, they're desperately trying to say it wasn't our fault. Now that's just like Cracker Barrel. Let's just dumb that you're like you're I know you leaked that to the press or maybe you even had like even you maybe put out that press release that's just desperate. This CEO said it was years of extensive research they did with come up with that like new logo just be fair with it. You moron to be fair I will say this the new logo did suck. I will say of course it did. It was all the company. It was stupid. But like you know, that that company I read just yesterday that the company that they fired was founded by Scott Galloway, Yeah wop. All right. So spineless companies. Number three. Biggest Loser investors. Well, you always say investors for everything. No, but this is investors because loser, this is an asshole. This is a loser. Here's why. US states are shedding shareholder protections. That's an advantage for Canada. That has the musk. This is the musk effect that the what they call it dexit running to Texas run Nevada and looking for places where to read read domicile. So that there's no shareholder protections removing my minority shareholder Protections in favor of Lourdes. The largest shareholders who basically are already in bed with all of these companies to be getting with like investors. You're losing you lose in that transaction? You prove that stuff and you still lose everything. Yeah, pay attention. How about preparing the board for 2026 more than half of directors want to hear replace survey finds that that's the best half of directors, which around the room and what one of those people gone. So you know what's more than that? If half admitted that, you know, it's more, you know, it's more. Yeah. Because that's the half said it. Yeah. Which means Investors, you big fucking loser. At least. And by the way, vote someone out, and to be clear, according to the survey, it's at least one of their peers should be, at least one. That's correct. At least one. That means more than one in some cases or many cases, I love that. You know, the rate that investors vote out the directors, who they don't know that, at least one of them. So the average board size for a large cap. Us company is about nine to ten right, which means about 10% of every board one person. Should be voted out. According to directors, ten percent should be your turnover rate, a voting out people who are incompetent or shouldn't be there. Investors you big fat, fucking losers, you vote out. 0.2% of directors, I don't know math very well but that's a 9.8% difference. I think about your voting out, no one you use. None of your rights, you're getting them up taking away and you guys are big losers because you can't even spot the shit directors that are working there on your behalf. And then I saw this one. Yeah, this headline. FedEx shareholders, elect, Richard Smith son of founder, Fred Smith to board of directors contact. Can I to be on here? Super nerdy for this second. So I went to the FedEx proxy. The the only time that they tell you that he was that founder. Fred Smith is, is his father, is there the very opening of the proxy? You know, that I always have a little corny letter, they write to share and there's a big Dopey signature beneath it from one of the executives. The only time they list in that paragraph that Fred is his father, but nowhere else not as bio know where they even mentioned. That some of Fred's, other family members that work at, but actually the only time they say it right in the letter, but not in the body of the text, not anywhere. I find that to be really weird. Like, I don't know, I find that right isn't FedEx like a dual class company, too and Fred Smith owns the. I don't remember if I don't know, if it's one of the companies that got rid of that but they that used to be the case, I'd have to look that up. I do know that Richard Dick Smith got the lowest vote total for as a result. So he was elected because you don't need the son of a Founder. You don't know what do we do, you losers, you big fat losers. Why would, why would more than any of you? Why would more than nobody said investors vote for Richard Smith on this board. Do you need? That is that record. Is that? Requirement that we nepo baby every board that's ever had a founder. Like we laughed when we openly mocked Adam Newman. Who at wework, wanted his wife to run the board, the company. If he, if he were to die, we openly mock that when they put that in the registration statement and you vote in the son of the founder at FedEx, FedEx is a large mature company. We do not need the founder there at all. They're not special anymore. They were special 40 years ago when they founded it. So investors big loser, Next big loser. You ready for this? Yeah, it looks like before we move on, it looks like the FedEx is currently one share. One vote is it? Then Fred Smith must I must have in my memory that he owned a lot of the no shares or something. I mean I could be wrong because it was 64% in Florida. Well found he owns more than 5% and he's a Founder. Um, so yeah, he has and outside vote. Um yeah, the state of Fred Smith controls currently over 7% of the vote, which is very high for a company of this nature. But yeah. Keep going, keep going next one. Next big loser. The climate. Oh, it's a big week for losing on climate. Yeah, I don't like this new BP chair. Urges faster, pivot to oiling. Gas. What even mean pivot to oil and gas aren't we already there know what they do? Yeah, what is Hibbing? Yeah, pivoting Duke Energy, backs off Renewables after North Carolina, Cuts climate call of course. Yeah. Good for you. Duke Energy for having conviction. Congratulations North. In fact, they decided to go back to Coal was one of the things they're gonna go back to for the people who live on the coast of North Carolina are thrilled about that. Trump Administration cancels nearly 8 billion in climate funding to Blue States as mad at Blue States. Yeah, that's Vote or rich or what's his name? Russ vote Maga comes for that. I love this headline, Magica comes for the woke Pope. Yeah this is after one after pontiff blesses block of ice in climate change. So now even the pope is woke. The Catholic Church, you know, the most on the organization organization, you still can't be a female, Pastor Pete, hexes know must be loving them, right? Like dial, Camp clock back down to zero, ad can't be openly gay, can't be a woman, can't be gay, can't be a woman. Can't be in the clergy, right? Yeah. That's the woke up. Never had a they've still never had a pope from Africa, I believe, right. They've never had a black pope, right? And then finally open ai's, new data centers will draw more power than the entirety of New York City. Said I don't like that. So climate big fat fucking loser this week and then finally you know last option Everyone else is. Okay. Now you're just getting silly. Well, look, I don't know how to do this. Look headlines. Okay. And tell me that everyone else is in a big loser. This week. Yeah. Godfather of AI says we're barreling straight towards human extinction. Yes. But by AI helps us like write better emails. It helps us like with our horse at our horses are resources. So just slow down, just slow. Horses are better. I can try them better. Yeah. Don't worry about the extinction yet. Let's just like write better emails. Open. AI says it's worried about doomscrolling addiction isolation and slop matized feeds. Yeah, this is one of my favorite because I love when you say open, I mean, Sam Altman. I love what. Yes, I love. This is like the new. Jamie Diamond says like Sam Alton's worried about something. He always said worries. Jamie, dimon says and yeah. And yet Sammy boy is a building. A data centers that are that needed the same amount of power as the entire city of New York, which is roll out that roll out those money. Oh, City, I'll tell you this, it's big. It's a lot of people. To live there you already mentioned meta won't allow users to opt out a targeted ads based on AI chats but you didn't mention Larry Ellison. Once predicted citizens will be on their best behavior amid constant recording. Now, his company will play a key role in social media. He's referred to watch you. He's also being referred to currently as the shadow president of the US. And then finally the wealth of the top 1% reaches a record 52 trillion. Maybe this is why else not losing. Yeah, maybe this is why you must needs more money because he's too many people are catching up to him. You know? If he hits that trillion dollar Mark, he will represent like 2% of all of the one percent. All right, just stop. All right. This is exhausting me. Who should I just loser? Women spineless companies investors climate or everyone else. This is the year of the war on woman. I shouldn't say this is the year I mean it's been unfortunately. It's been going on for a long time. I thought we had turned a bit of a corner so this is what this is where my focus is. I'm focused on on these stories and and yeah so I'm gonna say women us women. All right, I will concur even though I don't get a vote. All right, let's do headline. Winners predictions. I'm so glad we can depress our audience of two. You know, I feel he basically if we have any new listeners is that even possible. Does anyone know about us? No, we don't advertise. We don't do social media. I don't even know how anyone would know about it but I will, I will say one thing, if you listen to some of our archives from, like, five years ago or whatever, we didn't always used to be like this, the true this world has changed, the world itself has changed dramatically. So it's not completely our fault. We used to, we used to just talk about like, oh, a lead directors, stepping down like, stuff like that. But you know what? The world's gone nuts. The world's not here we used to do something called March sadness where we actually as a joke. Pitted companies that like against each other in a in a tournament and it was just jokes about headlines that we read and what ever was March Madness. We would draft companies, we do brackets. It was fun. Now we're too depressed to do anything like that. Speaking of which Speaking which my head As the week. Speaking about the billionaire man-baby called dropouts are getting rich off their social media empires. 94% of gen Z, youth report, experiencing regular mental health challenges. How about that? I don't like that for headline. And you, for all those that are parents, we know this to be true there. I there is not a single one, no one in my house. None of their friends are not experiencing mental health challenges. It is, it is everywhere, it is unbelievable, really unbelievable. It's it's an escapable. Yeah, it is. Um, and well, this one, I think, is a much better headline than that, because that made me feel bad, but this made me feel giggly Police pull over waymo to check for drunk driving, you know, wasn't there. And I love that, that you were talking about where they pulled over one of these car companies. And they could, there was driverless they couldn't give it a ticket. Yeah, so a waymo did a illegal U-turn and they pulled it over and then They it like, they went over there and it was a driverless car and they were like, what do we do? Who do you give a ticket to the board chair or something? Like I just love that. I think it's fabulous. Actually, I am waiting for the day where we can sue an AI like Sue, like the entity and just the CEOs and owners of social media companies, can I do that? Who have is a winner of the week, okay, I'm gonna slow this down a bit because this is really getting to me. So, my winner of the week, of course, is Daniel Eck. And I have, I have a bit to say about Daniel so Spotify. Sorry, I just EO, I just want to point out something about this guy. So first of all, this is the dude who got rich by devaluing artists and a bunch of other things. But I'll just sum it up by there. And you actually mentioned that earlier and this is what he's doing, he's doing what everyone else does in this field, he's using he's taking that well then he's using his billionaire ego to create a vanity money spending company. He created one with his pretentious name called Prima Materia, which means the formulas Prime Evil substance regarded as the original material of the Universe. I mean, already this like, right? Like already, I'm out like I know, like, I'm out on you like you suck, but Prima Materia, says it wants to partner with exceptional people to build companies that leverage technology to help solve meaningful problems for society. Daniel, you don't have the expertise to do this again. You got rich, ripping off artists, like who are you to even know what the meaningful problems are for study. But anyway, he said up this company. This is a, you know, an active company. In fact, they they're in the news because they invested in a in Hellsing, which I shit you not literally builds weapons, they things like military strike Jones. Yes, the CEO. The former now, former CEO of Spider-Man, meaningful problem for so heavily invested in military, strike Jones, just like the idiot's over global, that's a meaningful problem for. So he didn't say good, he said, Meaningful. The other big investment they have is something called Nico Health, which they call the Apple of health care, which means, I'm already out on it, because it's obviously just made up nonsense. They charge users 300 pounds an hour for preventive, screenings like mold check. So again, Dr. Daniel EK, now is doing the work that that doctors. So what Matt? Why go see your doctor? When you can just hook up to Daniel X. Mold, checking machine for something that regular workers can't afford anyway, so just go do that. So, anyway, that's 300% personal. With Daniel Eck. In fact, he also has a criminal past including stealing cars and some drug convictions. Now, he was accused of hiding, his real role at Spotify during its IPO. In fact, I got out all of spotify's IPO listings with the SEC. And yes, right. You don't see Shaquille Khan's name anywhere. Despite the fact that he has been publicly just described on the internet and various articles as these following things, right. These are all the things that Shaquille Khan has been called. The head of Special Projects Spotify. An advisor to Daniel Eck a personal advisor to the Spotify CEO and investor in Spotify. A founder of Spotify, consigliere of Spotify second in command, in a prominent public role at Spotify. But again, they swallowed his name and he's because they didn't want to scare off investors. He is now the co-founder of this stupid, premium material, also Khan. He cites Mark Zuckerberg as the American leader he admires most. But, but here's so, here's my true winner of the week. It is a, it is Daniel Eck who really could be any of the billionaire, man babies. Who decided? Because they, they got lucky forming a nap that degrade the world. Now, they had the richest to, to become doctors and build bombs, or whatever, whatever they think benefits Humanity. Whatever is governance gonna be the app that degrades the world. Can we make those riches at least exhausted? By these guys? Really, I'm just, I have a much simpler winner. Yeah. Sorry. I had to get Out that my chest. Thank you. It is Ron sugar. Oh Twice. He's on the apple board of directors. Yes never heard. One of your favorite, one of your favorite videos of Northrop Grumman. He's been on some of the, he's on the Uber board. He's, he's on sorry, another powerful boards, another pointless company, um, but he's twice on the apple board. Had them waive his age limit because the app was an age limit. He's why he why wrong? You just gonna wave it anyway. Yeah, I saw this headline and I knew everything was gonna end up A-Okay. When he finally gets off the apple board, probably this year. Dr. Ronald sugar and Gilman Louie. Join Ursa Major's board of directors. It is a rocket company. Know it is, they do space rocket and more rocket. We are and he's still on the board. So Ron sugar, congratulations. Getting another another board role. I think it's like it's 12th in our database. He was a doctor. What is he? What does he have a doctorate in? Do we know. Yeah, he's a, he's like, a legitimately, you know, like qualified guy when it comes to, like, engineering engineering engineer. But like good, for how many boards does a, dude need to be on and how many of them need to be some of the worst companies on the planet Chevron Uber Charlotte? I mean, what are we doing here? What are we doing? Like, I don't really he's awful. He reps. Some of the most heinous companies, I can think of. Yeah. All right, predictions, my prediction. I basically, I had to give you my heat, my winner of the week of Daniel, like, just to set up this dumb joke here, my prediction, Daniel X Prima Materia. Which I just talked about leads a 600 million euro series. D, strategic financing round for moodify a new app, called moodify and AI supported app that will quote on quote and depression by pushing algorithmically optimized, dopamine ads 24/7. Think tiktok for sadness. Did you just make that up? But but yeah, it does sound real unfortunately, doesn't it? That's a scare creepily real. Yeah, Daniel listening. Go ahead and steal the idea because you probably will anyway, because you're gonna come up with something that doesn't benefit Humanity. All right, I have I have an easy one after reading this headline, Apollo Global Management, director, Pauline Richards resigns, from board. The board actually drops from 15 people to 14. It's now four women and ten men Marc Rowan, who's the CEO and chair owns 63% of board of influence according to free flow analytics. No one really matters. But I predict that Pauline Richards, will be replaced by a male director to get them from 33%. Female to 27% female in one fell resignation. That's my business is a really, this is a really serious prediction. You have here. That's a real prediction. Yeah. Real. I don't make many real predictions. That's all we got. That's his name. I don't even know that we're free. Float go to free. People analytics.com. Go check that out because it's free and you get independent, ESG, journalist, whatever. We don't even know what we get the Z in your inbox, which actually allows you to read all the things. That we're covering every single week. Also go check out Cheryl older privacy by Mike Levin and Lipton. It's another podcast. It's about the best mandatory arbitration. It was a deep deep dive into what that is why it matters? Even if you hate like law and lost stuff. If you like Capital markets, it's good and go go check out our other podcast proxy countdown which is where we're more serious, right? Like we just did Um, sure covered gambling lines for the future of 2026 proxy season. So it sounds more serious, doesn't it? That's it. Come back next week until then good.