Transcript
It's been working like every time. Something's been changed. It always works. Everything always works. I like that. That makes you sad live from your Collective size of anxiety. Oh, that's that's really existentially. Depressing. It's a business pants Friday show here at April 24th Studios featuring analysts whole matte mascardi. On today's weekly wrap-up, a CEO turnover bananza. Really so many that I had to leave one out a Texas. Bank hates Texas. yeah, kind of surprising and white guys continue fighting for Other white guys that's not that's less using that just seems to be the norm. Yeah. What is a white guys? What why why why do they only fighting for themselves? What is that our show today is being sponsored by free flow analytics and free flow, analytics.com, the only platforming board park Nixon's performance for free. We got a lot to get to actually. We're just go. Usually there's some like Preamble here you want to just start. I just play music. Let's do it. It's a good old-fashioned stories of the week for me. I picked just four old-fashioned. I would call these ESG stories really corporate governance. I don't know, it wasn't as outrageous a week as it as it. I mean, it has been. Yeah. Unless you read the actual news. No, no. I happen to reading the actual news and everything's shit show but like it's ongoing shit shows. It's I feel like there's not a new shitt show in the Bellas great. Well I mean the they fired the secretary of the Navy. That's seems disconcerting, I don't know. That guy seemed like make believed to begin with. He was like, some billionaire Trump donor was the Old Navy guy. Was recently complaining that a city in California was being taken over a witchcraft. Well that better that that's that is probably equal. That's what I mean, it's equal. It's the same, he wishes I wish the the administration of meritocracy put the secretary of the Navy was a guy who never even like been on a boat, right? Like so, whatever. By the way, the right wing witchcraft which is, that's just code for women, you realize? Yeah. Isn't it is just what we say? I thought that's what we said in the 1800s. Here we go, Apple names, John Turner's, a CEO to replace Tim Cook who will become chair now. But here's the, here's the headline, you're actually seeing mostly Apple CEO. Tim Cook is stepping down. That's what you're right now. Yeah, he's not, but I applaud CNBC for getting it right. He's so Tim, Cook is not leaving. He's staying as chair. John Turner's. Taking over the former swimming champ was been at Apple for many, many years. Yeah, I don't know. What is former swimming champion have anything to do with it? Why is that fortune? Does I didn't even, I didn't even investigate that one. I mean, you know what? He's more of a. He has more of a bob Bogger. Look, he's got a big square jaw. He's like a You know, he's he's got that look yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah. Do you think Tim Cook picked them? Because he's like kind of cute. I think that what they're saying is that it's a hard word, decision. I don't know. He's had a hardware. I don't know, I don't care. I don't know, I don't know. I don't have much to say about this, but I will say, It's not surprising that a company like apple would. Once again, pick an internal CEO as we keep pointing out, it's goddamn expensive to hire external videos. It's hard. Yeah. And why would a company like this need to To go to do anything else. I don't know. Here's the Counterpoint though. I want to make a boat and I don't know if you have anything to say about Tim Cook eventually stepping sideways into executive. Yes, I forget what that means. He's still gonna run the agenda of the oversight board. That looks over all of company management, including CEO, which he does an executive and he's not that old right Tim Cook. So that old know. He's not like, yeah. He's so like this American board member old not. So, if something within the first 18 months of tourists is, you know, is can't handle it. Tim Cook will come back. Because, as we already know, Trump loves them. And this is a lot of a lot of the trumpet about Trump. Trump said this week that Tim Cook called the kiss his ass or earlier this year. Yeah, anyway. Yeah. Go ahead. He handed him like a platter because I mean did literally basically do that. Yeah, which was sad. Here's the Counterpoint I want to say. And here's the, here's the CEO story. I didn't pick is that there's all a CEO change at Best Buy Best. Buy Taps Insider Jason bonfig as new CEO now. That is surprising because Best Buy seems to kind of suck though. I like my local Best Buy, but everyone hates Best Buy. It doesn't seem to do that. Well, the headline says, Corey Berry steps down now, She's actually stepping down. The lady is, doesn't get to keep her chair. She doesn't get to keep her board seat. She's actually leaving the company. I just thought that was interesting. Well, Probably because like, in 2020, do you remember Corey was investigated for like sexually harassing? Yeah, that's like the workplace romance or something like that. No matters for the the women that matters for the women that they can't make that person an executive chair, but she's actually leaving. So, that's the first story. Anything more to say about, I mean, we're not gonna add anything, I don't like, oh, I will say Arthur Levinson, you talked about Arthur Levinson some point in your life. Yeah. And the last proxy countdown. I think he's been a chair since 2011. I think he is now taking over as lead independent director, which makes no sense. So now you're going to have Tim Cook and art 11 sin, running the board. Right guys, been there since like, 1997 or something? Always been longer since 2011. So we've been there, he's been there forever. He was so he longed longed, you know, was part of the Steve Jobs, you know, boards. This is what my ultimately be Apple's failing, not to ever fail. Not suggesting to go to fail. But it could that they they keep the dinosaurs around. I don't know. I mean you don't need Tim Cook and Arthur Levinson. Maybe you add People who know about new things because their everyone suggesting that the reason why there's a CEO Reckoning this year is because some of the older dudes don't really get AI and they're kind of stepping aside or maybe they don't want to deal with it and I don't blame them. But but why keep our Tim? I don't know. Do you saying and you don't or you don't need either of that. That's true. But just started starting with one starting with one. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. All right, the only thing I have to add to this story. Is, can we have more headlines that talk about John Turner's? The time he played ping pong at Penn because like, I don't understand these headlines that are like former swimming champ. He's 51 years old He, I'm 47. So he's only a couple years older than me, right? Yeah. And they're talking about the time he competed in college. Oh that was the Olympics. What are we doing? Like even if it was the Olympics and he competed in the Olympics, you compete in the Olympics when you're like 20 one. It was 30 years ago, like, can we he's basically done nothing but hardware and mechanical engineering, since we're talking about that time, he went for like, one of swim meet like, oh, how is that relevant to the headline? Oh, I'm gonna take the Counterpoint on this one. I'm gonna say once the swimming champion. Always a swimming champion. Oh okay. Yeah. Good for John Turner's. I guess there's nothing else to say about him the next story. Lulu. Next CEO change Lululemon names. Former Nike exec Heidi O'Neill a CEO. Now. Right from the right off the bat. And I will say as the Counterpoint, this did not happen at Best, Buy right off the bat. We're seeing headlines, Lululemon CEO pick. Heidi O'Neill faces skeptical, Wall Street in Lululemon shares, dive on new CEO pick as investors fear. She may not have chops to save struggle company. I mean, this woman is credited with transforming basically the entire women's business at Nike into a global Juggernaut and I would just reading reports that Caitlin Clark's sneaker. I mean, I know this is just one little anecdote, but her Nike sneaker was the number one sneaker worn by all NBA male athletes last year, I mean, I don't know. I seems, how do you know who's been at Nike for 25 years? She's done product creation, Branch strategy, marketing, Global operations. I mean, come on, really, this is where you going before you even analyze the situation. You're going you're you're going right for they didn't go after. What's his name? Jason bonfig and their and their Best Buy stock isn't exactly going up. They're not going after him and you look up bonfig. No offense. He looks like a dope. I mean, if we're honest, yes, the founder chip Wilson, chip chip Wilson, Mr. Massage envious. And what. Yeah, his career was, he was like he did. He worked in a snowboard shop like when he started and he ended up making basically women's yoga pants. Probably what, exactly what exactly are they talking about? Yeah, woman, who has a long story history night here at Nike? One of the Premier brands in the world, the probably making here and selling women. Sportswear does not have a long enough story enough career when compared to say chip Wilson who Once Sold you know, snowboard to somebody. What? Doing. Now, here's the funny thing about chip Wilson is that he's just constantly angry these days and of course, he's such a baby that he hasn't said anything yet about the new hire and and I always thought this is about control, but I'm not realizing that. And this is gonna, I guess this will sort of gel nicely with your stories coming up for as holiest. But he's just mad at ladies because I want to tell you something, where Marco Polo Lululemon. We care about this stuff. Well, first of all, you know, I this is I always yell about this 75% of. Lululemon's customers are women, right? And, and we see a lot of companies where this this is Extreme. But we see a lot of companies that sit in Industries, where women are customers, or their decision makers and they still have no women in charge of anything. But give a little lemon credit, seven of 11 board members are women including the new CEO and including the chair Martha, morphe the Committees, the audit committee, two of three are women including the chair, the nomination committee is 60% women, the pay committee majority women, including the chair. All, so, the CFO, the chief merchandising officer, blah, blah, blah. There's like four other Executives. I mean, Lululemon. If you want to invest in companies where women are firmly in control, this is your company. So this is why chip is so mad? I guess. Well, she's a MasterCard by all these poor chip. Chip chip said on checkered to actually to actual reporters. That Lululemon wasn't a brand for, for quote, everyone. You don't want certain customers coming in. He said, he said, quote, Whole diversity and inclusion thing, he didn't like and he thought that the people in the ads who were basically diverse people and you know, let's say a wide wait range of humans. That's what he said, looked unhealthy sickly and not inspirational. And I and if you like this is like the fact that all women seem to wear yoga pants across the world at this point, I don't know how horrific it is that like, women can't get out from under this. Like, if you look at pictures of Heidi O'Neill, she looks like a full figured woman, a regular woman, not some like he's been silent. Like, do you think chip Wilson is sitting there being like, we just hired a fatty, I'm upset by that? Like, no, he's probably, like, why would we hire the president consumer product and brand overseeing Nikes, Global consumer and product engine? That, what does she know? What does she know that right? Like that, I didn't learn in a snowboard shop when I was 17. That's the second Story, the week. I'm waiting. We're waiting chip. What do you have to say? He's, I love how the reports are. He's silent so far. Okay, here we go. Oil giant BP suffering. This is the headline. Oil. Giant BP suffers shareholder revolt. Over climate transparency at 10th Annual Meeting. It goes on to say that there are several over the election of a new chair. And resolutions that included dropping some climate disclosure obligations that we talked about this in the past. That these two resolutions were basically trying to erase decisions made by shareholders in the past and they both needed to get up to a 75% threshold of support to pass and they didn't even get majority, they both hit 47%. Okay. So I guess that's a It's a it's a statement. I guess it's a bit of a Revolt. Although, let's pull back and look at the bigger picture here. There were 24 resolutions up at the vote at. Yeah, they read the resolutions, I think. Yeah, no stole them. Now, last year, the, this revolt against the chairs are talking about last year, the chair, hell goon got 24%, vote against his chair vote this year, the big revolt against the new chair. Albert manifold was 18% again. Oh, and all the other directors looking at them right now. A 97% 96 percent, you know, blah blah blah. Like they I don't I don't know I wouldn't call this a Revolt you investors. Yeah. One who chose the revolutions that you didn't like specially at a non-us company? I mean there's no one else. And why do you think that the same board should be Quiet to stay in their board seat. If they do things you don't like it's weird. I don't understand it. It'd be like if irritated Congress, if like if you wanted some, some thing at a Congress and everyone you will elected voted against that thing and then you vote for them and got angry at them at the same time. Like what do you doing like this is the Point. It's completely irritating, is that we are trying to say, it's more than irritating. I mean, I, you know, listen, if you're a fan of both of our shows, listen, please listen to the proxy countdown on this week. We're gonna cover in depth like, at Adobe, for instance, nearly nearly voted down, pay 49.5%? No. And then the pay committee averaged about like I don't know like 8%. No I I don't think of New York Mellon, 45%, no on paid the average about 5%. Now only a broadcom. Do they kind of get it right 34% know on pay and pay committee chair. Harry. You got 26% now. So that was a close, that's close. But what the hell? What the hell really? I'm just fascinated by the fact that we think it's a try. Like, only in this fear, we will happily trade athletes. That underperform, we will happily, you know, vote again in like a congress person or political thing. What about, but what about a coach like a coach could lose their job over like a bad decisions in a playoff series or something? We, yeah, we literally fire coaches who are in the finals and make one bad decision. Like we will do, we will go to Great extremes to show how angry not winning. Be angry. Yes, Captain. The corporate democracy. Right? Where we fundamentally think that? It's aggressive to vote against people like it's a protective class? Yeah, it's a protected class. But there you go. I don't know. I mean, and this, this ruins our narrative, too, because when you have people like CNBC calling this a revolt, It's like that doesn't ruin that that doubles down on the I guess, but I mean that's what engine number one was remember, engine number one, was a shareholder Revolt at Exxon, where they put three directors on the board and those directors were oil. Exactly. I know. But like I know about that one is irritating, is that, that was a mini Revolt except the people they chose, were, were pointless. The whole thing was Point, everything Point list, shocking. It went that far, honestly. Yeah. Anyway, the fourth story of the week, keeping in a very kind of not boring but old-fashioned stories I like that. None of these are like politically angry Netflix although this one tweaked me Netflix. Authorizes. 25 billion dollar, share buyback 205. Wait a minute billion dollars. They just raise the rates to I know, increase their revenue. Well, thank you, 25 billion dollars. Thank you for providing the perfect segue for me so it's populist math time, 25 billion dollars, Netflix employees roughly 16,000. People, is that right? Did I get the right information? This isn't seem like a lot. Yeah, it sounds. Does it so that they could have given every employee a bonus of 1.5 million dollars, which really? Yeah, that would have been a nice. I mean, that's a big bonus. That's a nice. That's a nice holiday. But why not? I mean, why not treat your workers, right? I'm gonna give them all 500,000 bonus and still had plenty of money left over for the could have conversely. They could have hired 250,000, new people at 100,000 dollars salary. I mean they could have like anyway there's a lot of talent out there. They all got fired for AI now. Here's where my pulse math suffered a little bit. Now I was thinking like, Okay. What about a? What about a like a dividend to their customers? What about a little bit of a kickback but they like Kickbacks, they have 325 million subscribers globally. That's way too many and so that would only work out to if I did my math, right? It's only 77 dollars per person. Which is something, but that's great. Okay, you know, people will take it but, but they've, they just raised the price to, like, 30 something dollars. so, They could they could lower the they could stop that. I don't know. I don't know if 77 dollars gonna throw people but it's something. But how about this? Final one the social impact Estimates, including from HUD. That's, you know, that's the US government agency suggests that ending homelessness in the US. and ending homelessness in us would cost roughly 20. To 30 billion dollars. So right, right there, right at home, imagine the Goodwill. Okay, I have push out the press release. We're doing a buyback and then two days later like, you know what? Actually, no. Fuck these BuyBacks. We're gonna end homelessness, you know, the thing that all you babies complain about all the time, you don't care about the people. You just you don't like how it inconveniences you seeing homeless people. We're gonna we're gonna help those people. We're gonna get them home's. Wow. All right, good that we could. So here's the thing. I just I'm sorry I I'm gonna Be the dead horse. Ish, yeah. 25 billion. Oh yeah. Well, yeah. Go ahead. I forgot to tell you the impact on shareholders, but I can do that after your point. Well, the The rate raise they said they needed to spend an extra two billion dollars on content and so they are raising the rates in order to spend that money on content for us to watch, right? They raise their rates by 3.9 billion dollars. We didn't show four weeks ago but why are you making us pay? Why can't you just do better at what you're doing? You're already making us pay a lot, but listen to the numbers, you raise the rates so that they earn another 3.9 billion dollars. They said they only needed to spend two billion on content so they pocketed 1.9 billion dollars. But why do you have to raise the rates at all? When you somehow have two 205 billion dollars to give back to shareholders why that's you, you know, the math there, that almost 10 times. What you need what you needed for the content. You didn't have to raise rates at all. You could just made the content two billion dollars if you announced a 203 billion dollar buyback and said a 25 billion dollar buy Check. Do you who's upset you and then you didn't raise rates. What are you think of it that way you could have just done 23? I mean like what is that fucking difference? That's nuts. You basically just made me pay as a Netflix subscriber directly to shareholders because you were willing to fucking like just spend the money. You had. Yeah. You made us pay and you you continue having a homeless homelessness in the United States did both. Now here's the simple math of this if you don't understand. Sure bye box. So if Netflix successfully retires about 6.4% of shares, right? And then the market stays the same Their stock price should math. The matically. Rise about 7% to compensate for the reduced Supply. This is the this is the math that I'm being told by our the smarter people here. Now if that price so if the stock price jumps just 7%, Here is the on paper. Well, jump for their bigger shareholders. Van Guard part Pockets 2.5 billion. BlackRock 2.1 billion, Fidelity 1.4 billion and even Reed Hastings a single dude, Pockets, 140 million dollars. Yeah. For a decision that he is responsible for because he is still the chair and founder of the board. I mean, that is ludicrously Ludacris anyway. This is the stuff going on. You want to vote? Oh, fashioned. I like good old-fashioned ESG stories. Um, I I'm not gonna vote for John Turner's. I don't turn it. Even the name, who would vote for any? Yeah. John Turner. I'm sorry like everybody covered it for a million stories and it's so disingenuous because Tim that's just stay in there, right? Like that's nothing is just dumb. The whole thing. Is this one of these let's head a Saying like I don't like apple needs a new Cowboy, there's a picture of Tim Cook with a cowboy hat on and turn it so they still addiction. Yeah. They sell a device that were all addicted to that's schools across the world. Now are like shit. These are so bad. We have to start Banning these. This is how much hand held this. Super computer that allow you to put dog years on your photos. I I'm not going to vote for a BP because it wasn't a shareholder Revolt. It was like and also it it's a UK based company where everybody is different, anyway, right? Like the expectations about the environment and shareholders are all different anyway, which leads me with Netflix and Lululemon. I'm going with Lululemon. Yes, it works with what I'm going to talk about later and that's the point. Yeah, I'm on. Yes. You're right though, self-referential. I know that and notice that once again. Sorry you got played off. Yeah. Play it off but I'm gonna stick This one in here, once again, this should be the only show you go to for your business news because as everyone is like obsessed with nothing happened, right? I mean, that's when we turn this, we've known about succession plan for a while. He's not going anywhere. There's no one covering Lululemon. I mean, they're not covering this. I mean, they're just, they're just obsessed with one. Okay, anyway, let's go good list. I've got two I have one. I'll go first, let you let you wrap it up Loop. Tanza. This is one of many headlines in this realm. Making me absolutely thrilled Lufthansa cuts. 20,000 flights to save fuel amid Iran. War price surge. Yeah. Greatest. This is like The best thing since covid. And it's a shame about war had to do this, but, you know, I'll just say, I'll take it. Now, when I read this, I did read the story that you United CEO. I think it's, I can never remember that Scott Kirby. I think is United Delta and well, yeah. And I saw that at Southwest maybe. But I was basically said in the earnings call the other day that when the war ends, United has no plans to reduce the price. What? Yeah, because they're gonna fucking pocket, the difference, right? When prices come down, they've what they're seeing is that people will buy it, no matter what, because they you got to see Grandma. Alright. Just like Netflix. There is this strange addiction to air travel, too? It's like, like, at some point. The American Consumer has to wake up and say, you know, we don't have to do these things. We don't have to keep spending. You can explore other things, or less, poor and broke all the time. If I didn't fucking keep my Netflix subscription when they raise the rates or keep flying, when I don't need to write, like, it'd be great. But no, that's not what we do yet. What do you have? All right, I got you. I just this headline. The onion says it has again, struck a deal to take over Infowars. Wait, okay, we covered the years ago. I so, first of all, I didn't really know. The onions still exist. I'm glad about that. But second of all what happened, they tried to buy all the Alex Jones weird content. They, they tried to buy his just the judge said, no. And the judge said, like then there was a wonderful. Worst says, it wasn't a fair auction and then it went back and it got taken away. And now they actually have it. Why? No? It's Jones. Lost his mind on. Why did they get to claim? Ask for fairness Court of law, when they're like, they pretend the most heinous things happen. Well, I just this is the only right, like, they love a good court of law when it's not pointed at them. Um, but yeah, but now the onion is should have Infowars and Alex Jones hates it. So you gotta like that. Do we know what they're doing with that content? They're gonna make a man, they're gonna make us satirical version of a conservative news Outlet. Like it's not just the Trump Administration. I mean, we need that. What are you satire ring right? Like imagine this is satire right guy who's never been in Navy or knows how to drive ship runs Navy, right? Like it's yeah it's like richest man in the world CEO you know raises chainsaw to say he's going to Fire Fox and Friends hosts should lead Department of Defense. Right? Like what are we doing? Look, we're clearly not at the Statue of the Union, but this is what we ran into here. For those of you who Or might be new listeners to us. We used to have a whole slew of satiric. Yeah I was all entire yeah but we kind of ran into this existential wall of like how it's become its own thing. I mean with with people like Elon Musk you know everything that goes on and Sam Altman. Whatever it's like how do you satire something that's already horrible satire, it's tough, it's tough. Well, the next one is not that higher. This one's real um, Texas Capitol stays Incorporated in Delaware. After shareholders, reject dexit vote. This is not all right, so for anybody who doesn't know what it, what the decks it, which most people, it's most corporations are actually Incorporated in Delaware and they already very corporate friendly because it's Court super for like a long time, it's been very corporate friendly shareholders like it because the laws are very clear but it's it's easy to incorporate, it's fairly cheap. It's just a place that everyone incorporates In fact Delaware is basically made their name in the corporate. The only thing happened to Delaware, right? That's it. It's just like a guy who just stamps corporate documents all day long. Well, other states have basically said, posting a musk musk had a ruling go against him in Delaware about his pay. And they, they said, his pay was basically ill gotten because they didn't disclose these deep ties called. Hey, I don't know. Is that hey getting billions of dollars that pay? I don't know what I mean. What's making Technical and say, hey, but after that musk launched a note, no one should dig baby more. And because he has so much money, Texas, just listened to him, well, and he a social media company and can broadcast this terrible voice. Stupid thoughts come. Yeah. And so everybody basically was a rush to the bottom and Texas was saying like, oh, we're gonna strip most Shareholder rights out and make it really a friendly for corporations and companies started moving. Well, in this case just gets us to this headline. Yeah, the company in question is a company called Texas Capitol, right? And Texas. Capital shareholders said, no, you cannot reincorporate in Texas. Texas, Capitol rejected redoes, domestication to Texas. I love you, not only that, but they, there was another proposals trying to raise the ownership threshold, to submit a share, the proposal. They wanted to put all the way up to 3%, or million dollars. Basically saying you have to be a rich share owner to. That's the actual Texas Rule and they said, they said no to that. So what what Texas Capitol wanted to do is actually put itself in Texas? I that, when you read the actual like proxy, well, actually shows like, yeah. The difference between Texas and Delaware, one of which is that that shareholder threshold to bring Cheryl and they, they basically said, oh, it's, you know, it's fine in between Texas and Delaware. But then see proposal 5, which was the one that was like, but we also wanted to make it not fine. You gotta think Texas Capital Bank shares because that their proxy should be a textbook because they you're right. They compare everything about this. I mean, they lay out everything about the difference is between Texas and Delaware begging. You know how the unanimous unanimously support the blah blah, blah blah, but you know. So the sharers also rejected, there was a procedural vote. A proposal saying that if we don't get what we want from these first votes, give us more time to convince you. It. No, no. See here. I'm serious. I didn't see that. And they, and they said no to that, 70%. Yeah, I mean, yeah. It's a little it's it was a funny. I mean, like they actually in the proxy they said we reached out to, you know, 60% of our shareholder like share model, right? Yeah. And they were they were very you know happy with our idea about Texas. Well so not clearly, not yeah, so I love that. That's obviously the winner for. That's definitely the winner. Let's go to asshole's. Oh, All right. I want to move quickly through the assholes this week because nothing new nothing's knew about these assholes. First up white guy, victimhood, Obviously this is new. This is this is a new territory for us, but I saw this headline that you pulled I can't even read it out loud. The disfavor. This is a quote, the disfavored groups. Number one, obviously would be white males, Ron DeSantis is still signing, Auntie d. E, i legislation. So he might be right if he's listening to this show Rhonda Santos. He said, quote The disfavored groups. Number one, obviously would be white males, right? So I had to do some math because white males are 70% of all governors. So you're just talking about, not just men, you're just talking about white. I'm talking about white men, right men. Wow. Specifically what that? They are 70% of Congress. That's no, that's bad because they are because Governors are Governors are one thing. But Congress is literally supposed to be a representation people population of the people that 70% of Congress, 60% of Us corporate boards, okay? And 31% of the US population. It's not high. I didn't realize that high 30% white dudes. They have double the representation in every powerful body in the entire country. Well, you forget getting one other key stats. If I can do like a quick math here, 46 divided by 47. They have 9 Percent of every US Presidency. Yeah. Rock, You Know, Barack ruined it. But Brock did break it, but still a dude, if you know closely, I mean like if you listen to Rush Limbaugh, you should count him 50% right like as a white guy, right? Oh, that's yeah. But here's what I realized when I was doing this as holy and I remember we do my math. Yeah it actually gave me a little bit of Hope. Go ahead. Because I realized what percentage of Dei programs? Ron DeSantis is signing. Antide legislation, what percentage of Dei programs were implemented or designed by white men. Oh interesting, if white men have all the power. Well, that's right. They represent you tell me what and what you didn't, you actually, what you didn't tell me, was you told me 60% of us, boards were white men. What about the CEOs and chairs 90 90% of CEOs, of the Fortune 500 or away? Yeah. That's, that's not good. That's bad. But but that's where it gets fasting to me, write the d. I programs that were signing legislation again since we're all Built and implemented. They had to be built and implemented. By the white guys who have and had the power. So when we read the story like last week we were told we talked about White House says Dei policies cost to US economy by promoting unqualified managers, White House. The White House said that White House. Yeah. The White House says, right? Doesn't that mean If you take away Dei policies cost US economy, forget the fact that literally, it's horrible math. They it's make-believe all the metrics are stupid and make forget all that. Let's just say that, that means white men who implemented Dei policies are bad for the economy. Are we saying that are we actually saying that? The that white men, who run, everything? Who did who implemented Dei did it clearly badly? Because they don't they're white guys. They don't know anything about inclusion and diversity. Anyway, to begin with, are they to blame? Are we supposed to get rid of all the white guys who did that? Isn't that what we're supposed to do? You know what it makes me think of is this this ongoing idiocy, this Donald Trump telling us that the 2020 election was stolen, why? He was President. Yes. Yeah, what I mean? Like the old? No. No. But think about it, the US federal election was stolen while he was watching over the US federal election. It's his fault. If it's true, which is clearly not, but it's the same thing. What you're saying, right thing, if you are signing antidepresseur long enough to see Dei actually become a thing, much less even if I don't focus on you, if I focus on the fact that historically, everything is run by white male. Then what you're saying is the people disenfranchising white, males are white males, that's what you're saying because that's the only way it could be. How about this there's got there's this is so almost 24 million people in Florida. Slightly more women than men. Time and looking at the racial demographics, only 24.7% of Florida is white men. And this guy is going to bat for white men, isn't he? The governor of the whole state? It's three quarters, not white men who he's fighting. I don't wonder why you could say that the disfavored group is white men. And the problem is Dei, is if you ignore the fact that the favored group of white men, that set the Dei policies in place disfavored, the white men, right? Like the whole thing, the whole, in the end, what I actually just thinking about this got me to was, How painful we keep arguing on the merits of like Dei and saying, like, oh well, like I didn't know, like like we don't actually, we don't actually talk about like where they say, you know, we were returning to the meritocracy because the Dei I go out and I try to build a meritocracy. That's why it's a directors. But like, you know, I was watching The New York Times opinion piece today on where Desiree you are was arguing that like I is discriminatory and destructive and I was thinking to myself no data support but like the Conversation that they had and that piece was all about like the merits of Dei or the lack of merits of Dei. And I was thinking to myself, what is missing from? This is the fact that almost every Dei policy was implemented. By a white guy. Well let's be fair to every single one. I mean, isn't basically everything in the history of the US been created by a white guy, can you say like, how can you argue the merits of a system that the people who built the system, have no incentive to build write or think about or execute? It's like I got in an argument on LinkedIn, five years ago when people were like, you know, why doesn't Black Rock support more diversity on boards and I was like, have you seen their portfolio? Managers, they are 90% white men. Why would they support more? This is the major problem with his argument is that it's, it's all in feeling's world. The whole anti feeling the whole antei. Anti-wolf world, never presents hard day to you. They can, they refuse in our unable to Define merit. They don't give you the numbers of what other than the the wink wink. That when white men ran the world, it was better. That that's all, that's all they have. But this is the problem that we have. When people ask, like, free float and looking at board members to prove that it adds out because the burden only goes in One Direction, it only ever goes, you can't prove the negative. I can't prove that Dei is good or bad. When the only people who have ever made a Dei program were white men. And the only people to implement it have been white men and the only people to scrap it, have been white men and the only people measuring it have been white men and there aren't any like like situations in which a non white man implemented Dei at scale enough to actually have a study that matters. The problem is we're basically studying what white men do about everything. We were studying what white men do about diversity, what white men think about Alpha and Boards. What white men think about like what the Time train should run what white men think about AI. Everything is just what a white guy thing. But it's an impossible situation anyway because there's not even enough like you talked about 90% in of CEOs, in the Fortune, 500, a white, dude. So we don't even have enough data to support what what women could contribute in Alpha. That's why I tell people like Just stopped listening to that. Just just so there are times in history where you have to just blow through someone asking you about Alpha. Someone asking you about, you know, returns. Sometimes you just have to burst through that honestly. I mean, I never never gonna appease them. You're never gonna satisfy them. I was talking to somebody locally about the West Hartford town budget and they said, one of the, one of the things they said was, well, we're spending, you know, like a whole bunch of money on this diversity and inclusion office. That has no obvious output that increases test scores. And I was like, test, what the fuck are you talking about? First of all, that's not the point of the office. Like, has there ever been a situation where, like the end the entirety of the school board and the administration and the schools himself are run by people who are A non white men. Yeah, and if there is no, yeah. What's the? So you're defining the what the outcome should be. As a white man. Implementing a program about diversity with no knowledge about what the outcome is supposed to be, right? Like doing and anyway. All right, I could keep going with that but I'm gonna censor myself at this point. That's keep going. Number two, White guy manifestos. Oh more. Yeah. All right. We didn't talk about that. There was a Tech Pro Manifesto this week that I was gonna, yes, right. And I just I'm sick of them but I know. I'm that's why I'm sick out. Palantir published a mini, Manifesto calling some cultures, harmful and middling and said, Silicon Valley. Has a moral debt to the US, is the headline. What is that means? That sounds like not see is what does that? Well, they basically said Silicon Valley should be involved in defense given how much this country's given them they should be involved in the defense of this country? Wait, okay I'm confused when he's when he's saying that some cultures are harmful and middling. Is he talking about himself but there are army in the world out. He did not mention himself because that's actually the common that's the real perception of what's going on. I'll say I read the entire Manifesto. I I it's it speaking. Of man feeling's. These Tech Bros are so insistent that we listen to everything? Well, they have God complexes. That's I don't, is it God complexes. I feel like they were just never listened to as a child like, no one ever validated them. Like, I've got, like, Bobby Sue rejected. You on the, at the dance in the Middle School like that? You didn't get laid enough and kind of college, but but they, but they get to control the narrative because, you know, we talk about all the time in the show about like, who are the billionaires are now, who control the media companies, like they get to constantly control the narrative that that their their statements and pinning matter the most like right. They matter why do they feel like so compelled that they get hurt because like I'm sure there are many books written about their narcissism. Right isn't narcissism because I feel like it's just pure like like it's the economics of Virginia. Well this culture rejection, you're right. But this culture also celebrates that like the dominant position in society that well that whatever I mean that's What I'm saying and the media like is run by the same people. So it's like a loop. It's an ongoing Loop. Like he sat down and he wrote a Manifesto. How do you know we sat down? Well, I don't you're right. He could have stood up, he could have been hanging upside down standing standing. One of the things I don't mind out of the tech world, I kind of like standing desks. They're kind of cool. Did they invent that? I didn't. Well, you could put a computer on it. So, Here's some of the things he had to say, post-war neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone, okay? That What? I just like that in his manifest so there's Oaks cars no punishment. Yeah, no forget punishment, forget anything. Why does Alex karp need to say anything about what? Germany and Japan? Why does he do not States? He's not like a Statesman. Or like, why is he even weighing in this anyway, must do well, like, unfortunately, he's already happening. Japan has a very like, right wing Prime minister happens to be a woman now and, and she's actually now ramping up. She's now starting, they're starting to sell like lethal weapons. And yeah, I don't like that Alex karp thinks, he knows what Germany and Japan must do, right? That's my problem. Well, he's a brilliant man. He needs a way in on all this. The culture almost Snickers at musk's interesting Grand narrative as if billionaires ought to Simply stay in their Lane of enriching themselves, any curiosity or Genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorned. I don't think it's the only available anymore. No, listen. What is he? Kind of? He's just a fucking asshole and I don't want to hear he's worse. He's actually worse than a fucking asshole. He's not like you're, you're gym teacher, who was an asshole. He's much worse than that. But listen, there's more proof this week that he's just not what he says. He is this guy developed grok. It was his big. AI moment at one of his dumb companies. Yeah, another failure. No one ever talks about how their AI progress is a serious thing because the guy is, you know, he's a middling guy. Speaking of middling just this week. There is it SpaceX? One of his companies is buying an AI company for like help 25 billion dollars or something like that. Because once again he's not he's not the founder of Tesla. Well, he he also he bought into things. He buys into things, he put off the road, put that off and he admitted that full self-driving is not accomplishable finally, like he basically said, like we don't have the hardware to accomplish full self-driving. Yeah. After promising for years and stating that it's, it's been accomplished like what is that was Kirk think there would be thinly. Veils failed scoring, which again I think is much more. It's not bailed. It's not thin to a man. With Who Was Not Elected, who had no political mandate stepped in to a role that he didn't deserve and just willy-nilly fired. Good people with algorithms with. He, I remember he hired children with no experience to help them do that. He doesn't understand the score. I don't up with Snickers. That musk's interesting Grand narrative what we Snicker at and it's not so much Snicker as getting outraged, dad is his big fucking lie. That is a problem. Grand narrative is a way you say lies. His fucking face off. Congratulations. Carp. You're defending Germany, Japan. And the guy from South Africa, congratulations. How about the ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far, too much talent away from government, service. Okay, don't even get me going on, this? Isn't that a man who For a business model exposes private people. Yeah. Not only that sells it to the government but he said that right after using an example of the CEO, who just went in there and just Just yeah people. Yeah. And then finally, believe it or not, there are people who do things Not to chase wealth. They actually believe in something else. I know that is like Beyond he's a man. Look. You're recognition of saying, he's a man who believes in something. I like I believe in something I'm not, but imagine picking a career or life passions, that don't have huge pay checks, imagine that Alex, I know. It's just like mind-blowing to you don't stop, stop snickering. All right, telling you are reaching himself, finally, we in America and more broadly. The West have for the past half century, resisted defining, National cultures, in the name of inclusivity. So we just hate Solomon says he's saying, what are we doing? What are we doing? You know, that that the, you actually know that the national culture of the United States is inclusivity, its democracy inclusivity equality. It's written in there, and he is literally saying, That we have resisted defining a national culture because of inclusivity that makes a fucking sense on its face much less. The fact that it's just openly racist at some point, right? Like, at some point, we're just like, get not to mention you trace back to the history of the economic power of America. It has a very murderous and troubling start, you know, not not stealing people from their homes in the west, but from Africa, of course. But you know, let's go. Far, be it far be it for me to tell somebody else to do. But here's a piece of advice. If you're a white guy sitting down to thinking you, I should write down my thoughts in some sort of Manifesto. Just don't, please don't have to write in your journal and then bury a journal. Yeah, finally white guy philanthropy. I think I know where you're going with. The I saw a crazy headline from Bezos this morning. Yeah, it's open. It's back to back, headlines. Okay. And that's all I'm gonna say about, The Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, Bezos donate 34 million in fashion grants. What is that? What do you mean fashion Grant? They gave 34 million dollars from the Bezos Earth fund to sustainable fashion. Great, we need that that's important. Where maybe the other headline I saw was Mackenzie Scott has donated more than 26 billion dollars, but it's barely made a dent in her net worth because of the power of Amazon chairs, think about 20 billion. But think about donating money for sustainable, fashion, when you're, you're company that you got rich off, is is contributing to the, the worst, fast-fashion crisis, fast-fashion. Yeah, it's right. It's the most backwards thing. Not to mention the fact that he Bezos has donated, as much as Netflix's buying back shares, don't call her Quincy Scott, that's her. Mackenzie Scott, what is your vote? I gotta go right to the top on this one. White guy, victimhood, that Ron DeSantis is a Still. despite the fact that look, I don't you know I don't want to jinx it and I'm praying their power is taking a major, you know, Punch in the face. But this like weird white guy. Maga movement seems to be crumbling a little bit at the moment to Santa's. Just stays in that lane. He's gotta love them. You gotta love this guy. He's consistent. He's consistent now. Let's do headlines. Winners predictions. Get out of here. So we can do another show right after this countdown. I'm gonna go quickly. Oh no, I'm gonna try to go quickly. I I just got I had a bunch of blow hard headlines, that got me going this week and then I had a weird and then I have something weird. I want to tell you. After that, here my blowhard headlines, I'll just gonna read them without any comment, Sam Altman. Opens up about the molotov cocktail attack on his home, quote the way and thraki talks about, open AI doesn't help. Nvidia, CEO says that AI agents will make workers busier than ever. They'll harass and micromanage you instead of taking your job. Oh, McDonald's. Boss on abuse claims, I don't want to talk about the past, Nvidia CEO. Jensen Wong says, you won't lose your job to AI. You lose it to your coworker who uses AI clever. I feel better about that. I think it's a mistake is the quote, Delta CEO Ed Sheeran refuses to call it artificial intelligence because it scares people. Oh, AI will boost productivity. So Snow won't have to backfill open jobs. CEO says, I didn't like any of those. Yeah, those are my and then I left one out. Which is that Ken Griffin? I saw that one. Yeah, so he's, he's calling. So the new mayor of mum Donnie who was, you know, you know, he was a clear Victory. I mean, he wrote and talk about someone who doesn't represent just the white guys in New York. So he is trying to introduce attacks on these rich people's like other homes and, and Ken Griffin has this. Obscene, it's like, 260. I didn't even know this was possible in New York City. Live in New York used to live in New York too. Yeah, it's a I think it's a penthouse, it's 25,000 square feet. Yeah. How Well. It's harder than the public library but your average home. Look at my neighborhood where people have like their own yards like like 2000 square feet. I don't how was up possible? Yeah, it's it's like a building worth of stuff. Anyway, Ken Griffin called it. I'm Donnie, you know, trying to fight back and get some tax money for the people calling it shameful. So, anyway, that's that's the last. But here's what I want to say this too. I'll again, I'll try to go quickly. I got all excited because I thought I saw this woman named Jessica chutter. I'm gonna call her chutter because I just like, it might not be how you pronounce it, but I was just making jokes to myself, Nutter chutter butter, or whatever, but, I thought that she was appointed to two different boards in the same week and I because I just misread things, I was going so quickly because it said Morgan Stanley. Biotech Banker Jessica cheddar joins tectonic board and then I saw tectonic therapeutic a point just to shut and I just got confused. I didn't realize that therapeutic anyway you know I made a mistake. I built this whole story around it. I thought I was being so clever and I was like oh screwed up so disappointed. So just for fun, I did a Google search. She actually was she a few weeks ago? She was appointed to PTC Therapeutics. Oh yeah. She was appointed to boards in like a Wheeler just like a shutter gettin' it, getting it done, right? I just so is so weird that we're not allowed to make a case with data to vote against directors and yet like it's totally normal to just like throw people on board whether they're busy or whether they know what they're doing. It just like so weird, we're not allowed to have any point of view on this. Anyway, I just think you like the name chutter. I do that. I just like that. I quit, I mean, how about the fact that she was? Anyway, no one's interested. Go ahead. I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep my short Apple knee. Apple's new CEO needs to be a cowboy, but can he with Tim Cook? Still there. You mentioned this headline. Cowboy, what? I just thought the cowboy part is stupid and Tim Cook. Still there is stupid. What is what is making iPhones have to do with being a cowboy and and why? And again, I guess the point that 90% of CEOs are men just like we this it's okay still like I guess he was called Cowboy. Yeah, I'm a cowboy and I'm Maverick. Oh, come from I don't, I said Yahoo was like who's still biggest waist aggregate? They steal. That's from anyway. Keep going, what's yours? The other one I saw this headline. I thought, oh my god, did I miss? This is amazing. SEC imposes, strict nine year cap on Independent directors. But other countries, other countries have secs at the Philippines, an iPhone for that. A million times I fall for that so many times the Philippines and its, they actually, it's called the Securities and Exchange Committee in the Philippines. And the only thing that gave it away was like, they're acting chair, was somebody with a Filipino name and I was like, that doesn't seem right. I thought it was Paul Atkins and then I was very upset. All right? Winners winners. I'm just sticking with Jessica shutter. Oh, two, two board, placements, within a few weeks and in the corporate world you don't even have to be elected. When you start in the board, you just start on the board. Even though there is even though, there are annual meetings where we're getting elected, supposedly investors, get to weigh in. You, you don't have to, you get to start without the election. I like that. Right? To the whole system. Yeah. Well, I picked the Philippines because we're both riding our headline jokes, go ahead. Yeah. Because the corporate boards in the Philippines will no longer be allowed to have I look this up this is a real person, Edward Sylvester. Yeah, who's a board member at West America Bank Corp. Okay, who he was born in 1938 and he's been on the board for 47 years and he's tagged as an independent directors at West America Bank Corps, the Philippines will never have that again. Yeah, that's so the Philippines wins well predictions. Nobody ever talks about Jason bonfig again? Just do you remember, who Jason bonfig is the new CEO of Best Buy? Yeah, because he's a guy. He's like a bald guy. No One's Gonna No One's Gonna just the guy. They're not gonna get any attention notes in a care. What my prediction is that Edward Sylvester, the independent director at West, America Bank Corps. Steps down as lead. Independent director where he is leading to my director. Lead independent director there. Yeah. And takes the role of non-executive advisor to the lead independent director emeritus of West America Bancorp. Says it was the rise of AI that required him to step down for fresh blood. That's what I'm expecting. A joke from the office that the non-executive advisor to the lead independent director Emeritus. Yeah, that's and, and it's like a joke that for people at CI might think it's funny. That's all we got. Here we are free float. Come back. Momentarily. We're gonna record the proxy countdown. So you'll get that today too. One more serious side to the world, there was a shareholder Primacy this week that talked about Tesla again, to issues a Tesla and the open litigation there. So go, listen to that and otherwise we'll see you next week until then good. Bye.