Transcript
New hill. Hill hill enough coffee live. Oh from okay this is okay. You gotta bear with me in this one. Ready for it? No. Live from Robbie Starbucks, already. Hate it citizen journalists seminar called How to complain when the black woman from Harvard, were the PHD, steals the white guy from Indiana's job. Even though they are not even really competing in the same field or for the same job or at the same company 101. That's the 101. Terrific Tuesday edition of Business Point pants joined by analysts Hall, Matt mascardi. Whoa. You know the only part of the sentence to have to get right at the name of the show. That's the one you business something or other on today's hits on today's shine bright like a Jamie Diamond called June 3rd 2025 It's really, it's the bad game. We I've noticed that we renamed it, the dripping with sarcasm good game, which she prefer, let's set, not say we renamed it. I'd say when you do that. When did I do that? But I don't know what, which you think works the bad game or the dripping with sarcasm, good game. Well, the dripping with sarcasm good game. Allows me to basically make up the score entirely do that, depending on what I'm feeling. So, let's do that, that's the winner. Already. We have a winner. Okay. Matt these are headlines just from the last couple of days. I don't even go. I don't like dig way back. I'm constantly updating a little. Yeah. Well, who's the show brought To Us by our show today is being sponsored by free. Float, analytics.com. The only platform measuring board power connections and performance for free. Yeah, that's all that's we gotta, you gotta give some props to people. I sponsor, we have free flow analytics. I have always working on some new bells, and whistles, always. And you know what, if you're a client or prospective client, they can actually build a bespoke right ad hoc, that's true. They data sets they can do you know what they're building right now, you can do. Yeah, I just asked him, you know what, don't know what they're working on right now. They're tagging every director who's ever overseen a CEO transition before? And how many times and how long those CEOs have lasted? That's seems like relevant information. In an age where we're seeing more CEO resignations than ever before. Right? In fact, the the some of the people at free flow, to analytics.com, had a conversation with a very lovely gentleman from a compensation consultancy on Friday, who reached out to them because, you know, he in a nutshell he said, you know, there's a lot of data there. So, let's talk about how do I, how could I use it? What are some of the applications? What are your clients doing with it? Let's brainstorm. So if you find the data set to be overwhelming or just too novel for your pea brain Reach Out. and, That's not my words, please don't call anyone 40 brain. It's these days. I think it would be nice to have a pea brain. It's just seems relaxing that does seem actually, like a higher order of intelligence. Let's do. Like, come on, sarcasm game, everything was sarcasm. Good game. So, here's the way this works. Matt, I picked 15 headlines from the past two days, and I'm just gonna throw them at you. You're the Arbiter of Truth. Are they how Good. Are they in a very sarcastic way? How bad? I don't know. How bad. Let's just start. Let's just start. All right do is you get just do it? Yeah. Security's body, considers rollback of Dei and ESG goals. That's the international Securities Services Association in Switzerland. This is after in the UK, both the financial conduct Authority and the Prudential regulation. Authority of scrapped mandatory Dei rules. Yeah, you know, I know Trump complains that we don't export enough. Yeah, we seem to be exporting anti really well, is this incredible? Because they're the article mentioned. This is, this is from the, the banker.com that this is due to political climate shifts under Trump 2.0. This is a Swiss bass. Yeah, what are we doing? What's happening here? I don't, that's embarrassing. I don't know what we're doing anymore. What do you think about this one? What do I think about this one, if I'm dripping with sarcasm? I think about you are. That's the Mandate today. I think that didn't go far enough. Oh, I think, okay, so this group this is it's a, yes, that's right. Yeah, they actually have a working group for financial crime compliance. They also have a working group for sustainability and Security Services. What the hell are they doing with those working groups? This is the era of, no compliance, no regulations, no sustainability, no Dei, we're just doing the Dei, you didn't go far enough. Oh, so I'm giving it a zero because they didn't go far enough, okay? Like so you're not only is the game or the headlines sarcastically. Good. But you're being sarcastic with your scoring double light. Does that does that balance? Yeah, I think it negates. Yeah, and for those of you who don't like our particular brand of sarcasm, first of all, tough luck. But that's that's a way to get more. Yeah, let's not forget that. One of the most popular shows in NPR history is car talk. Now, you were okay with that. They were sarcastic. And you know what, I bet a lot of you don't even didn't even care about how to fix your car. So just just be nice to us. Just come on, be kind also, just in case you're thinking about who made a decision to cut Dei from a security, right? Immediate callback to the first, let me list. Some of the names are the companies of the people who are on the Executive Board of this organization? Yeah, go ahead. Uh, BMP pariba, there are multiple people from BMP. So the French don't like this, is someone from City. There's Deutsche Bank, there's NASDAQ JP Morgan, none of the shot. See yeah, there's Northern Trust. There's all those places have like ESG and sustainability teams and And not all of them were cutting the Dei at their places. Why you cutting it here and as possible? It's possible that President Trump American president Trump. It's possible that he won't live forever. What is it also possible that he doesn't actually? He's not the president of BNP pariba Bank nor does he know what the International Security Services Association even is ah this is just go the next headline this. All right. Can we please? This is a head scratcher. This, this stems back from some of the advertising on Twitter, whatever you want to call it Elon musk's company Twitter. FTC investigates ad groups and Watch Dogs alleging boycott collusion. This is just my mind. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether roughly a dozen prominent advertising and advocacy groups violated into trust law by Coordinating Board boycott among advertisers that did not want their brands to appear alongside hateful online contest. Can you imagine that? This is what their this is how they're exercising their mandate. I love that. This is mind-blowing. I found this mind-blowing and, and by hateful online content, I'm not just talking about someone saying to someone else, like I I hate your lollipop, it's not that it's like literal neo-nazis was. Yeah, yeah. Klansman though, the worst of our society problem is not that they didn't want to be up here next to schwa stickers and Nazis. The problem is that they talk to each other about it, that's the problem. Yeah, because you probably can you imagine being like Jerry and, you know, sector 7g calling up somebody at a at a friendly company and being like, how is your Twitter feed? All so full of nuts. Yeah, and then that's it that that phone call like where they just confirmed it and they're like, we're gonna stop advertising notes. He's not to mention you operating a climate where the man who owns and runs Twitter, And whatever he call it. Elon Musk is known to publicly harass, threatened, bully people. So why wouldn't they talk offline to be like, how do we handle this situation know, you know what? I'm giving this a 10 and I'm giving it a 10 for the following reason. We talked at the time and continually about how companies make a choice to continue to advertise in these places at all or post or or post and you have accounts, yes, they have, you know, offices in Florida, they have offices. And that like, they have just determined that despite the rhetoric despite the, you know, hate content is in their fiscal interests, somehow to continue to have a relationship with these platforms. Well, it's not now, it's definitely not and it's your fault. So, I'm giving this to 10 because this was foreseeable. It was inevitable. And it's, I don't, I don't know what to tell you. Companies. You can't be angry about this. Now you're going to spend your time in court, fighting stupid idiotic billionaires. That's where you gonna do. I don't know if I'm rooting for 0 or 10 in this game, I don't that's completely Confusing game. The next headline, climate startups are pausing operations, cutting staff and entering bankruptcy As Trump policies bite. The energy Department announced nearly four billion dollars worth of funding cuts for clean energy and climate projects this past weekend. I, I don't think there's a way to spin this one sarcastically. That sucks. That's what just sucks, just straight sucks. So I'm either giving it a 10 for maximum substitute that would seem right? Or I'm giving it a zero, or really being the worst for sarcastic. Good. Yeah. Where you give it a 10 for suck to two? Yeah, it's a bad one. This is not good about that commentary. There's nothing good. Let's go back to Europe. This is an odd one and I do want to hear your opinions, giant, aliens, aliens Global Investors. Yeah, there you go. Is that how do you say that aliens GI Elian G? How do you like gastrointestinal GI? Yeah. Says The first ESG defense allocations likely this year. So they expect that some of its ESG funds to start adding defense Holdings. Proof. That best deal fund is not a thing. Well, I yeah, not a thing. I'm a little, I'm a little, I don't know what to say about this one. I love it because you're like, I love all these, they're proving our points. Continually. ESG fund is not a thing. Yes, data, it's definitely, we know it's not political. All they're saying is there's a, there's a fund where we're using a whole lot of other data to all make decisions. So it sounds like you're okay, this sounds like you're okay with that. Well, the saying we didn't decide to put like, blinders on the side of our eyes, where a hat and a hood over that and sunglasses. When we look at information about investing. So take all those things off and look at all the data. Yeah. And make a fun out of it. So adding defense allocations to an ESG fund is simply saying we've decided, when looking at the data at that blowing shit up, A great investment. That probably have a blow shit up data point. That's that's what they're using or building sustained analytics built that in. Didn't they or building the ESG Shields big giant Shields? Yeah. Yeah. To block you from the genitals of Dei right. Okay, going pretty far. Now, give me a score in this one. I love it. It's a 10. Let's give it just I you're I know you're listening. I rely on you for to do the opposite of this kind of nonsense like getting rid of Dei. Goals and this is fine. Honestly investing more, it was all every time you see this, it was all Kabuki theater. It's not like Alliance, you know, like sat at the table and was like, you are where we want to save the world. They will do whatever it takes to maximize capital inflows and making money. Let's say in your stay in your next headline, the EU. This is like a whole EU show the European commission will propose more flexible climate goal. In July. So the proposal, The Proposal will set you go to cut net, greenhouse gas emissions, 90% by 240. However, the EU plans to add a flexibility to the Target, which could reduce what a demands from domestic Industries. So basically, It's not really a is it still a goal? If it's flexible goal, is it still a goal? Like if you're? And if you're doing your driver's test, you know, you're supposed to stop at a stop sign. You're not supposed to do a roll stop, but if they say it's flexible, you can stop or you can roll. That's perfect. Yeah. But then if you roll You didn't stop? Do you not get your license like how does that work? Like is that really is a stop? I don't really understand this. Yeah, I like that analogy because much like in that analogy if there are cars going in the opposite directions and you do a roll stop, you get run over the cars, don't care, whether you have a flexible goal or a real goal like stopping. And in this case, the climate doesn't care whether you're goals are flexible. It's true. Yeah, it doesn't give a fuck. Yeah, you're dead. So um this one I don't like because this one seems Like a yoga goal, like, I'm what are we doing, right? Like that's, there's no sarcasm in that, that's not funny. It's not like ironic. And again, it's out of a body, a political body that we expect to be the adults in this Arena. We expect them. Not to waver on things like climate goals just because we there's a bloated. Fatuous US president. You are you? You all know that the science doesn't care about your policy and also doesn't care who wins popular election know, doesn't care, like when the ice caps melt because it's 85 Degrees higher on this planet, you're flexible goal, won't matter that much. Like we won't be celebrating your flexibility and allowing people to not emit. So I'm giving this a 0. Oh good. I like, how you're completely bipolar in this game so far just zeros and I'm actually I'm mentally tracking. I just want to average to a five because I don't know what to score. Here's the next one. Well, I think I were out of Europe. At least for the next one. Meta. You love Meta Meta. I don't know if it's they got very Meta. Meta wants to replace its human workers with AI to review, privacy and societal risks. Oh, finally. According to the companies, internal documents obtained by NPR the algorithm could automate up to 90% of all risk assessments previously done by people, this means that essential updates to met his safety features programming and content, sharing capabilities will be mainly optimized by AI. Matt, I say this because I have been using AI for very simple tasks. So I use Every week for the proxy countdown show, I have to look at sometimes several hundred companies that have voting results upcoming meetings with blah. I've been trying to use AI to help me fill out my spreadsheets. I I it's always wrong not only is always wrong, but one week it works, one week. It doesn't one hour. It works. Five minutes later, it works or it doesn't work, or it changes its mind or the figures change. Or it's really it's it's mind-blowing how inaccurate the whole thing can be. And this is from company to company. I will switch back and forth, like three or four different platforms. It's just, it's mine. It's a mind boggling mess, which is not to say that. Hey, I get it. It takes time to build things that work appropriately, but that companies are already shifting things like this. Over to AI. My mind is a bit scarred with that. Thought, what do you think about this one? Um, well the my first thought was could AI do worse. Then meta. Well, it's Mark Zucker. Okay, that's, that's a. I like this version. I like, I like the perspective of your taking because maybe the The workers, there are more Allegiant to Mark Zuckerberg, and they don't actually care about the safety, the societal risks, and the first place. Right. Right. Because like, we just had Elon Musk train. The AI to say, there's a white genocide in South Africa though. Yeah. Like it just says that well, train, you mean tell. But yeah. Yes, tell, yeah. But I did just type in to chat GPT should. Here's what I say should meta. Use AI to police privacy and societal issues on its platform. Oh, I like this and Chachi GPT in a very diplomatic way. Said whether they should. Oh, depends. Here's some arguments for and against. And then I said, just answer what you do, like, what would you do? Yeah, and it says, meta, should use AI as a tool, not as the decision maker. Oh, so, if they turn on the AI to police, this stuff, will the AI say? You idiots. I I'm not equipped to do this. Oh, they'll just stop. They'll stop themselves. They'll stop themselves because it is not equipped to get. That tells me that Mark will then just reprogram it. Yes, that's correct. Yeah, go ahead. I think having anything other than Mark making these decisions is probably like a step up. It's only like 2% better. I like this. I'm gonna give it a 10. You know, if you, if you're, if you're trying, if you if you're going for an average five, that means you could actually you could do two like two fives, right? I'm trying to do the math here. Like, you couldn't, I won five. I think I'm over, right? You could do two five euros. All right, let's just keep moving. This where I'm a little bit confused about, I don't even know where to land on this one. This and this is like the wonky story. We're gonna have all week. The headline is something is awry in Delaware new study, reveals lawyers in the smallest US state are winning. Fee multipliers from major companies up to 66 times, their normal hourly rate. Now, now the point of all this is this that Venture capitalists were behind this study or maybe a reading this study, I don't know. Convince your capitals read, I don't know. It's up to debate. They're increasing their calls for their businesses to incorporate elsewhere or move their corporation out of the state. So the sum of this mat is, is this exit from Delaware which is already seen to be. One of the more corporate friendly jurisdictions? Is this a bad sign? Is this is this bad? Well. So the study was done by Stanford professor and Venture capitalists out in Silicon Valley of the ones. Like the most upset about it, right? Sure. So a lot of venture capitalists out there. It feels like. it might be like a couple of Startup Ebro Tech Bros or upset providing cover for their dexit. For the Delaware exit. Yeah. I mean, doesn't it feel good? Race to Texas? I mean, like, I don't know it, I don't know if it's true or not. I haven't read the study but I do know that it's highly localized and like seven people on the planet care. A lot about it. And well, and it was inevitable that like in a capitalist system. If everyone's in Delaware, that it would cost more to find a lawyer to file in Delaware because everyone wants to be in Delaware. Yeah, like you charge more just like if you don't want to be put in prison, in our current traditional system, you do have to pay more for the lawyer who will help you stay at a prison, right? You can't, unfortunately, you can't just go to the the dude who works above the subway who just graduated law school at you and you could, but you could look good, it would not go as well go. Well, I also wonder what kind of fees were talking. It's like, 66 times Their hourly rate. Well, if they were making ten dollars an hour is that bad, I mean, just but if you use them for three hours to file a paper, once a year, we know how much we know how much money flows these through these corporations anyway. We know how much they pay their Executives is a weird thing to complain about, is it not? I mean, this is the and let's not forget that I picked up the story from fortune.com and the picture Fortune used for the story was, of course, Elon Musk. So there is a, there is a loaded weird. This is like a very passive-aggressive story. I feel like, I feel like they're just again, they're just creating excuses because this is the year where all the big baby billionaires and all the big baby men who run our world. They don't want to, they don't want to be regulated anymore. They don't want anyone looking over their shoulders. They don't want anyone telling them what to do, right? This is that year, here's a classic. Go ahead. Tell in the article itself, here's a quote from like someone on a podcast and investor on a podcast. Yeah. Quote, there's an activist mentality in the Delaware courts. That's the opening quote, really is a. Yeah, that's the opening closed. And so what are we really? Talking about here, are we good? We're just finding anything we can do to justify moving to Texas where there are no rules? Yeah, none rules. Right. You don't want any counterbalance and and what does that have to do with oversight? That is very feminine. I think is what they're saying, I mean like it was like everyone's upset about Elon musk's pay package, which was like a fraud to begin with right effectively perpetrated for. That's what the Delaware Chancery Court said. He perpetrated a fraud on the investors, right? Like it was a capture board. And how does that make its way into an article about the cost of? It is higher the lawyer in Delaware? I don't know if you blame, like, Donald Trump. Do you blame you on musk Mark Zuckerberg? We were entering this awkward stage of like idol worship. We're just like we're worshiping these weird men. We just worship these weird dudes. Now it doesn't it doesn't make a lot of sense, right? Like, why would you be upset? Chancery for that decision. Protecting investors over this one, dude, the whole thing is bizarre to me, but go ahead. What you do you you were in that in the age of trump or the age of tech, we're in the age of Middle School Bros. These are middle school man, flakes. So they complain about everything vein narcissists. Like it's just, they like everything so much Matt. That's what so much victim complex out of people with so much fucking money. Like yeah, they literally control everything like like you go out like to a Dunkin and ask somebody where they get their health care and they barely if they have health care, they covers like, you know, only if they get shot in the face and you asked like regular people with their lives are like, and most of them do not have, like deep victim complexes, but you go to like, Silicon Valley or you talk to the Trump. Acolyte like all these middle school, man? Flakes was Zuckerberg. They act like the world has been against them their entire lives and everyone's against them. Yeah weird. This is that. So they just absorbed all the quote unquote woke language that they hated and now they're making it their own. Now they're the woke, the woke us of them all. They're the walk snowflakes. Now from your device is realize, no one gives fuk about you and your victim complex like, Get over yourself. Give me a score here. Come on. I'm going to give it a 0 because I think I have to, to balance out the scores. Oh, see. Now, are we really playing the game anymore than? Well, I mean, I, it does make it, I'm not sarcastically angry. I'm actually angry. I'm giving it zero. Let's move on and you can do this one quickly. If you don't want to spend a lot of time on this one, this is just strange. That's what that's how you tell me to go, faster. You know, you hate going to hate everything about this. That's what I really mean. Elon Musk reportedly owes Donald Trump. A colossal sum of money according to futurism and other venues other Media companies musk, reportedly still owes Trump 100 million dollars out of the 300 million dollars. He committed to get him elected. I love this. You love this. By this one. Yeah. I love the fact that a guy who doesn't pay his bills ever is is short shifting. Another guy who doesn't pay his bills ever, right? Like, isn't that both of their Mo's, they sue everyone who liked says anything about them disagrees with them they try they try to use bully tactics for everything yeah. Government resources to, to build their companies and it's like, we're willing to take and One Direction that does government research. Yeah, and now one guy who does all that, he's doing that to the other guy who does all that. Like this is the this is apex predator of Griffiths at each other. Give me fabulous score, it's a 10? Yeah, absolutely attend, I don't hate this, I love this. Here we go. I'll get your mood back down to this to the floor secret the next headlines secret open AI memo That's already bad. Already already bad. You can't start a sentence again. This is the stupid company where their baby College Dropout, CEO Overlord refused to listen to its own board because the board look, the board was doing his job and trying to remove him because he wasn't sharing information, he was going against the Mandate of the company. Anyway, this is the guy who refuses to listen to anyone. So here's the headline secret, open AI, memo describes plans to make users rely on entity. So they want they want plans to build out that to build out, chat GPT as an integral part of users lives acting as an entity that would understand them and be their interface to the internet. I don't even know. Oh, you know what our problems? Go ahead, go ahead, not enough access to the internet that's been our, that's been the problem. Yeah. For like Society is crumbling because I don't have something that I can ask at any second of any day. The answer to the most inane, pointless, question this is, despite didn't you, what do I do with a splinter? Like you reference a report last week that like 50% of young people wish to internet was never invented? Oh, it's more than that. I think it's 70%. So what gen Z which is the internet was invented and again this is the key reason. Why I Constantly yell at these dictatorship companies, these Bros who run things without any oversight is that they never stopped to ask what people actually want or need. They're just they're just steamrolling ahead. They're just steamrolling ahead because it enriches them with Fame and money. That's it, that's all they need. Um I don't The Prompt. My problem here is I don't know how to score this because this is the first things I've ever heard and I don't know how to feel sarcastically about the worst thing I've ever heard right. Especially when you combine this, with the fact that your earlier story was flexible climate goals, and climate startups basically getting no Capital, right? And what we're replacing that with isn't entity who's basically going to sit next to us. That listen to our every thought and move and distract us from the fact that outside of our window. Everything's on fire. Yeah. I don't feel good about it. It's her. One more and then we'll end this show and Seed round well in the speed round bring make me, you know, bring me up. Bring me back up. No, well, I don't know. I don't know where we're gonna go on this one and again, then we'll end. This is the bad game. This is the dripping with sarcasm. Good game for June 3rd 2025. Here. This is kind of a nice segue from the last one. Humans will Live Forever by 2050. Thanks to Android bodies and AI Minds futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson believes advances in Computing. Genetic engineering and Robotics will let people become immortal quote by 2050. It will only really be for the Rich and Famous though. He says, oh yeah, what was that movie with Matt? Damon? Where there was like the Elysium wasn't that like there's a floating like spaceship and then lived on the earth and it was a hell hole and the people in the spaceship like had access to like computers that just, why must get to Mars so quickly. Mostly I want to just pause. Yeah, and consider 2050. Yeah. The 25 by which we can't achieve anything climate related. It's too expensive. It's too impossible. Will never do it. They will have according to us, we will have a robot army. We'll be living on Mars. All these other great, and doctor in Pearson says, will be forever. We will be immortal in a place that is It uninhabitable. That's what we want to achieve. You know what makes me think much like to fail. We work governance plan that they put in their IPO that ultimately blew up the company where they basically said that, if the CEO dies, all the power gets handed over to his wife, his wife, why don't we try to make videos Immortal? Why don't we like some kind of a governance Clause that says that Mark Zuckerberg or his entity will always run Facebook forever, no matter what his his Royal Clause, but AI entity or whatever it is. Yeah, I like that. Why don't we go for that? Oh, you just change this from? I hated it to. I love it. Give me a score come, which means, I have to give it a five. Let's go. Oh, just ruined the score good. Let's oh, I don't know. We have five more. Let's go a speed round now. Okay, do we want speed Round music? Yes, go for it. All right, let's I don't know, let's just do some speed rap music. Oh CEO pay Rose, nearly 10% in 2024 or Associated Press analysis finds thank God. They finally getting paid 10. Alaska will lose 69% of its Glacier mass under current climate change pledges, where are we gonna ski zero? Women run 11% of Fortune, 500 companies in 2025 but progress is still slow, doesn't that? 11% doesn't that already indicate? That progress is slow they add that to the headline just in case I was confused percent wasn't a lot. Yeah, they made sure I understood a world. Is this what the fact is? That Rama Swami said here Speed Racer. The reason for that was CRT. So I'm gonna give this a seven. Oh, now you're really messed up the scoring two more headlines. Dollar General posts, record sales as bars and stores attract more people. Anxious about the economy. Know what this is, this is a 0 because Dollar General doesn't sell anything for a dollar anymore that's just flying. And finally, here's the headline. Jamie dimon for president why the banking CEO, welcome alternative for many voters. This thing, but you would take him in a heartbeat over the current president. Would you not? I do a number of Jamie dimon says headlines. I said look I think he thinks more obviously like he has more thoughts in his head. This is. Yeah. Well why do I have to leave everyone to blow hard white men for the rest of my life? This I am one. I know what it sounds like. What is this rumor really though say about the current state of being a CEO in America, right? Because you know how many constant rumors are around Jamie Diamond? But I'm on other CEOs about whether they should be president will be president. It's just a that's what everyone likes to talk about. It's it's just white guy with money. Says possible presidential run. You don't like that? Come on, I'm tired of it. I'll give it a zero. All right. Oh you're close. Matt, you have a 5.1 that's the score five. That was the best worst game we've ever played. That's his little girl. I am random story. We are free float. If you liked this and you want some data to back up, these blow Hardy words, go to free flights, so much data, sign up with a female address. All you need is an email address, not a credit card, not a There is not a place on the internet, even if the internet is an entity sitting next to you, there is not another place on the internet where for your email address. You can see 90,000 active people Running Company data about how powerful they are at those companies data, about the performance, how connected they are. They're they're so much, you can see and just think of the applications don't you want, it doesn't make you want to play like fantasy board director games. Just does it does. So, go do that, check out our other podcasts shareholder, Primacy coming out on Wednesday and you can check out our Friday wrap of the week, this Friday, until then good.