Transcript
Yeah. Oh it's Friday. Oh come on, it's lunch. Time Friday live from Harvard Square. Oh wow! The epicenter of the cold calling this, the cold Civil War 2.0, This page Friday show here at May 23rd Studios featuring analyst whole Matt mascardi. Whoo, I think it's the Civic War, not Civil War. What's the Cold War? It's a cold war and Civil War. I don't know what it is. On today's weekly wrap up. Fake anti-capitalist rhetoric. A big pile of hated directors. Oh and Buffet, missing shareholders, notice I didn't say Buffett not, I like that. Is that a pun? And I'm not big on puns, kind of because the king of shareholder meetings is Warren Buffett. But there's another, we have another type of shareholder meeting Story. Coming up our show today is being sponsored by free flow analytics.com. The only platform measuring board power connections to Performance for free. You know, I, I love them. I love their data. I use their data today. I always use it for the Friday show. I mean, I use it for every show, but like that. Today, in particular got some like, I went deep, I went, I did a deep dive today. Yeah, no, you're not. No, I'm not. Well, I, I enjoy the first part of your segments as holiest, but then I get depressed as it rolls for at the back, is you always wanted to just vote for the first one, you're just well. I think that that's really where your anger is strongest. So, maybe I, I just I'm in tune with the the authentic anger and you not the like I was saying anger. Well, I will say this week, the third one is really where I did the most work. So I usually bury the third, the third one's usually an afterthought in the first two or good, but this week, we're going for number three. Are we ready? Are we going to? Let's let's figure out the story of the week because otherwise I'm just, I can't prolong my anger. Let's do this, let's do it. Yeah. Oh, I don't mind angry too. I don't even know. Probably Oh, let's start off with right wing. Faux, populism! Oh, that's a favorite Topic. In a lot of circles. This is some I'm calling this fake anti-capitalist rhetoric. How about these? Two headlines, Matt one happened last Saturday. I believe Trump attacks Wal-Mart tells retailer to eat the tariffs and prices which is ludicrous itself, right? He based that partly on the fact that they had big profits last year. So I again like that's that's a deep dive into their analytics that was that was cracked team that got that data. And how about the other guy? The other crazy insurrectionist Josh Hawley from Harvard's and Josh Harley from Harvard. Oh I think so. He blasts Allstate CEO for making 26 million dollars last year. While company can't afford to pay out claims. So I work I guess we're gonna see a rise of this Matt. We're gonna see this like fake attack on the executive class even though they are simultaneously. Destroying all regulations, destroying all shareholder rights. Destroying everything. I don't know. Labor rights, like they're really right. Go ahead this week. You have the ability to agree with Josh Hawley, which I know, lots of investors want to do. Like that's I hear that a lot, but Allstate is up for vote this week, they're directors are. So, I'm just saying. And we pointed out in our proxy countdown show yesterday, that six of the directors from The Wall Street Journal top, 252 directors in the world in the US I forgot about this. Yeah six of the Allstate directors were on that list. Yes. And they're up for a vote and three of them fail to deliver TSR and like in their Jobs like they bat under 400 according to free flow analytics data, which means the average directors of 500. They're they're below 400, they're not good. So now is your chance to go. Josh, I agree. And we're going to vote out some directors, like, align yourself with Josh Hawley. For once, I mean, how about this, though? He first of all, CEO of all states name is Tom Wilson. He said, Holly said things like your sounds like you're running a system of institutionalized fraud, which is great, right? Because there is no mechanism out of fight fraud and yeah. Sure. Yes. With his party, right? They they're just mantling the ability to fight. He also said, I have to notice that your profits have never been better, so we're so we're Square back into the state holder. Capitalist Revolution is is taking foot again but only in a popular rhetoric right. There is no meat behind it. It's all theater. I mean, can we at what point like He did it happen. That Josh Hawley is now a Democrat. Basically, we call it as she Queen. We call him a. Yes, you drag queen. I like because this is just utter utter nonsense right under utter nonsense. I love that. I wonder. How many of those there are? That's that's everyone at strive, right? Like they're all yes, she's drag queens where I mostly hate this. Is that I think we talked about this in an earlier show, is that there are so many people on the left now who are not who are either giving in immediately to the Trump Administration or just refusing to watch the news anymore because it hurts their feelings. So, why don't you fight back? Why don't you fight something? Keep fighting your fight because they're not, they're not done fighting. They're not done with their lies. They're not done with their rhetoric. So what do you come on? Get involved. Okay. All right, that's my first or second story. And this also is kind of Matt is on the edge of this fake rhetoric because this comes from Fox News or Fox Business, whatever, same thing. This is their headline. Tesla CFO earns staggering 130, nine million dollar compensation package. That's their Word Stack. Wow. Which isn't news by the way. It's not that you can't really insert adjectives and that's not an objective reporting of his pay package. What I do. Agree, staggering is staggering is a measurable number, right stagger. So let me point out some things about. First of all, do I have to go over the list of all the the things that Tesla is failing at first annual sales decline in a decade last year. A Chinese automaker byd. Surpasses Tesla and European sales. Know you know this is the sales plunging in California. Yeah the CF I don't care right. Like Tesla LED all automakers with the recalls last year. Yeah there is reputation is falling into the gutter 95th Place. Now out of 100 and a new axio Harris, top 100. So here's the thing that really irritates me about this. First of all, it's a PayPal package. That is just it's like the United Healthcare, their, their new Boomerang CEO. Who was just getting options. This guy Vibe. Vibe, Tunisia. I apologize for destroying that name although everyone destroyed. My name is a kid too. So I don't really care. He's getting only equity. None of its Performance Based. It's all just it's just it's 80% options. 20% sure, to stock Here's the thing that irritates me, Matt is that. I don't know if Tesla is paying a game because they're just angry at everybody. But they're one of the few companies that has not even released a proxy statement in over a year. So when you go to the proxy section the SEC, there's just nothing there. Right like that. Nothing in the past 365 days. And this information wasn't, in fact, hidden. Not only in a 10K but in an amendment in an amended 10K from April 30th 2025 so I don't know what kind of game Tesla's now playing. They just they're trying to hide information from shareholders. I don't know what they're up to. It's annoying. I Tesla, you're super annoying people. They had a proxy last year it was last year but typically you see one within calendar year. It was I think they released it in that because they that was the the giant pay package is just it's just over a year, okay? Like so why don't this, why are they putting this information in 10k? Hey, you don't usually see the summary compensation table in the compensation philosophy all within the amended filing. Nobody uses. A 10K a so this was a fun way to get higher, that's fun. I thought that Elon was like Mr. Full free speech disclosure, dude like what everything else in with the Tesla CFO who's seeing 139 million? With no performance, strings attached, as granted to him by Robyn denholm who also has made more than 700 million dollars with basically no strings attached. She just cast out share of the board and every other committee on the board, right? Yes. She just catch on another 30 million a couple weeks ago. Yeah. Oh, thank God. She was running out of money. What I want to know is there were reports just like two months a month and a half ago about Tesla's missing 1.4 billion dollars from its balance? Yeah. Well whatever isn't that the only thing the cfo's got to do? Like like he's the guy who's got to look under the carpet and like field between the couch cushions and stuff that maybe Josh Hawley can find it. Oh, he's A fraud sniffer. ESG drag queen. I don't like this story of the week. That's the second story of the week. Third story that we come calling scared, bro, dictatorships. I wasn't gonna pick this story, but the more I looked into the more kind of made me upset headline, is Duolingo delete, its tiktok and Instagram posts amid AI backlash. So, CEO Lewis Vaughn on posted a memo on LinkedIn last month that got a lot of press describing plans to make the company. AI first saying they're going to gradually stopped using contractors to do work. The AI can handle saying, hey headcount will only be giving if a team cannot automate more of their work. He also said that there may still be schools in our AI future but mostly just for child care. This guy's a real genius, I guess everything he knows about education, too. So what happened was they had a very they have a very active social media World, their their their fans got really upset, the people got upset, there was a huge amount of backlash. So do a little took down all their, they took down their accounts, they just wiped Everything clean, they just gave up And then pour and then the spokesperson said. Here's and then, finally, a spokesperson said, quote, let's just say we're experimenting with silence. Sometimes the best way to make noise is to disappear first. And here's why I picked this story, Matt, because this is yet another dictatorship yet another. This is a bro dictatorship. Yeah. Another example of a company that is afraid of any kind of input, any kind of a counterbalance of oversight. This is led by two co-founders CEO, Lewis Vaughn on and and chief technology officers severing hacker. They control 83% of the board influence, including a free flow analyst.com. They come, they control, 76% combined voting power, but not because they own the most shares, Matt God forbid, it's because their class B shares are entitled to 20 votes. Oh, there it is. It's just all made up nightmare the I'm just more and more sick, Matt, it's only these bro. Dictatorships who don't even officially own control of their company who have control of their company. I'm just sick of. And they're, and they're the ones telling us that like, oh, you know, we're not, you know, we're not gonna need schools anymore, the teachers will just be there to like, change diapers, and let's, let's Implement dual class shares as Federal voting policy. I think, I think there should be, I think we might as well. You know what? If we're gonna embrace it, let's embrace it. If we're not gonna care, the investors are like so casually indifferent to have who actually runs the company whether or not they have any stake in the game, we know whether or not, they can deposit somebody who sucks at their job. If we don't care about that, then let's hand out to a class shares everywhere. Like maybe life should just be dual class shares. You know what? Matt here I agree under this principle. Okay, the founders Founders always get the control and shares. They always Get the dual Clash here, the benefit. Right? So why don't we why don't we revert back? Why don't we get the 13th and colonies in the United States? Oh, I love this. They get dual class shares and I'm looking at you, like Massachusetts Connecticut Rhode Island, like, for instance. So we're gonna give them a dual class shares. Let them control the company right country because I'm sick. I'm sick of what we're getting right now. I mean, with the exception of New Hampshire, who might be relegated, who might be a Founder that had was forced to liquidate, but the I think that's the way it should work. It's a founding colonies should get dual class shares for every federal election. Yes. And then and then we'll see what happened. Then we'll see if people don't actually like dual Clash shares. Oh, because the majority of these founding colonies are in fact it currently what they referred to as blue States. Oh the woke ones, the blue States. All right, that's the that's the third story of the week. This craziness over. A Duolingo? I just love it. They're, they're, they completely dominate their company and yet they're hiding from their leader. There's their upset because they, because they're saying that we're gonna fire everybody for AI in there, just, and now, they're running scared. It's just so stupid. Last Story, another one that gets me irritated, and I'm calling this category, the worst kind of suck-ups. This is awful to me. Verizon ends Dei programs. All right, diversity goals, as it seeks approval, for Frontier, acquisition, follow-up headline. Verizon dump Dei, and then Regulators cleared, its 20 billion dollar Frontier and this, and this, and this is a month. After T-Mobile did the same thing from April T-Mobile announces Dei changers in pursuit of of lumos. So, a day after T-Mobile said, it would end its Dei practices, the FCC gave a green light to T-Mobile's deal with eqt, for fiber operator, lumos, whatever that means. And now Matt, this is from yesterday, AT&T, although, I don't know what's gonna happen here. AT&T CEO, John, Stankey is not yet showing his hand on yet on whether he plans to dial back. Dei initiatives to gain approval for its big new fiber deal to acquire Lumen Technologies. So Let's hope map. That AT&T will be the only one that doesn't backed out, but I feel like it's gonna back down, right? I mean, look, Uh, just as a reminder all, can you please all happening at the three? Biggest cell phone providers in the United States just in the last month? Yes, I can believe that. Like, look, we covered in our proxy. Counter two weeks ago. Hans vestberg? Who's yes, CEO of horizon. Absolutely. You know, I have to credit where credit's, due hands Vesper is the guy who wakes up every morning and writes his mood on a scale of, like, zero to five, right? Isn't he has a spreadsheet for the last 11 years or something with his mood on it. So I love that day but his mood must be jolly right now because he's basically like there's no accountability for him. He's on the BlackRock board and we talked about how he's the one of the worst performers on the BlackRock board. We we suggested voting against him there, he's the CEO of Verizon and Verizon support. This is what we wrote. Quote Verizon's board has returned to 38 and TSR as a group. A Vesper has flatly underperformed. This is a deeply underperforming board. With zero directors, batting over 500 on TSR or controversies despite two of the directors being on just the Verizon board. This is a pattern and it's consistent. We talked about how all of these directors are highly interconnected with one another at Verizon. This is like, This is this is this is a endemic. This is this company's badly run. So the only way they were going to get through antitrust anymore was to suck up and drop Dei something they didn't care about. Anyway, I none of this is that surprising. It's also like Will somebody stand up, horribly transactional? Yeah, it's horribly transactional. Which I guess is the just be clear with the train, actually, we just traded basically training. Highly qualified black people for buying another company. Yes, exactly. I mean it, Effectively didn't we didn't we stop that roughly around when slavery ended, we stopped horrible treating, like people of color like an asset that we could just dump and trade like, that's what we're doing. That's what we're doing now. And really it's it's mostly bad for me personally because I just spent the last three months of my life dismantling my whole shopping program by so I'm completely out of Target. Now, I've completely moved everything over to Costco which is I love Costco. I got a minute, but it's a nightmare because it's so busy all the time. That's my first problem. The second thing is, I unfortunately, am I a customer of Verizon? Yeah, I am too, and, and I and I'm doing some research. I have no where to turn if AT&T buckles, which we know they're gonna Buckle, because this is what you do. T-Mobile know I'm saying, T-Mobile already in April. They they got rid of their Dei listening to the show. Matt, I just told you so that's the, can I just say that another use of the free flow? Analytics.com data is this wonderful data point that we have, which is the, what is it called? The diversity, the gender influence Gap, A which tell us what the gender. So, if you got this, let's say, you have a board with 10 people on it. Three of them are women, that's 30% of the Border women now, we'd like to think, oh, great. That's you know, like there's, there's some women on this board. There's a little bit of diversity, what free flow analytics, measures the power or responsibility or influence of each director individually. So if the three women are 30% of the board but they only have 10% of the power on the board or the influence on the board that is a gap, an influencer gap, of minus 20%. Effectively, what free flow analytics is saying is you've achieved diversity without inclusion. You have people there like body count, but they actually have no responsibility or power to actually influence outcomes. So, case in point, Verizon communications has a minus. 15% gender, which is Big. That's big. So there you go. So they are so like nine or ten percent. There are already indications that they didn't care. So, you, this is a company, you could have already been engaging with Uh, this is a foreshadowing to the one of my upcoming stories for goodies of the week is that you can already be targeting directors to vote in and out, based on some of your investment philosophies, you don't have to be waiting for. Josh Hawley to shout or for Verizon to dump Dei. You can actually be using the data if you flow, analytics.com to make investment philosophies and decisions, even before that. So my options are basically for different assholes like you did ask Holy Week, what you did not intentional. That's not and you didn't even include the Harvard story, which broke last. How do I? I know your covering that an asshole. I will cover it so we don't because I don't I try to stay away from a squarely, like, a political Zone. I don't know. I know there are a lot of directors from corporate entities that sit on these ivy league boards. And just, you know, University boards in general. But Don't know that it really fit into our Zeitgeist for story of the week. Well we'll come back to them out of these assholes which are the right wing faux populists, Tesla CFO and Tesla. In general, more or less. I'm gonna skip Tesla in general like paying their CFO 140 million and tracks stream, free compensation. Yeah, that's how their competition Community. That's how it works, right? Like that's about the amount of money, that's probably more money than they made on Cyber trucks. Last year, like those shity cyber trucks. Yeah. Um, scared bro, dictatorships. That seems like I mean like that's seems like every week it just do a lingo stories kind of fun because it's just like you don't see first of all it's It's a fun backlash against AI friendly CEO and all. So, it's like fun. It's funny because they erased their posts. But yeah, I could see what that would be your story the week. I think I'm down to Verizon and the transactional trading black people for a like a telecom company special as an industry. Trend. This is a trending in the industry. It's like super scary. It's like how many black people do we have? Like when you're done dropping your Dei programs and you've run out of like black people to trade, what are you trading? What do you throw in the volcano next, right? I mean like like we just I guess we're just gonna throw in all the women next, right? Like Paris saying, I find it horribly embarrassing. So between that and right wing faux populism, which, I know, right wing faux. Populism is not like a new thing but Trump basically telling Walmart to eat the terrorists And companies knowing that tariff. So the driving reason for having to raise prices, Like it is such naked. Horrible craftiness, right? Like it is, like, Trump is saying, like, I'm an idiot, but I don't want you to tell anyone else. I'm an idiot, right? So you're going to eat my idiocy and you're gonna make you look better. It is stakeholder capitalism, is it not? Isn't that what I mean? We know political it is. Okay, hello, I'm sorry, but we had doing it because he cares that somebody's gonna have to pay more. He's but isn't the whole anti ESG moving that we've been suffering through the last few years. Isn't the all about hands off our precious Corporation, don't do anything. That is not just shareholder first, not say that. What they say the whole thing is just that's the thing. The thing is like you've been doing what they say but not what I say now do what I say instead like It's between those two. I in the spirit of asshole. Holdiness, I'm gonna go with Verizon ending DIY because it's not that they ended d e. I it's how they're ending d e i so transaction. Why there is nothing worse like it. I don't know how many people of color, listen to this podcast. I don't, I don't know. We all know how many people read those people in general. This is I think I think we have three listeners so maybe one of them or two of them are all three of them. Are people of color? You have to ask yourself? Am I willing is my future career? Because mostly what they're dropping is targets for hiring is is training programs. It's it's stuff that basically inclusion programs, we're talking about our gender influence. Yes, lest we forget ramaswami came on this show to tell us the reason why there aren't a lot of black CEOs in the Fortune. 500 is because of critical race theory. He effectively said there's been a disadvantage system that doesn't put people in a place on average to have as much success story. There, white, male counterparts, right? That's he said that effectively here. I mean, with that from opportunities to succeed, essentially, I'm agreeing with Vivek, right? You won't hear that that often, but in this case, now we are taking away the things that level the playing field or attempt to Level the playing field as a bargaining, chip to buy something that makes Hans vestberg. Lots of money that makes shareholders lots of money. that's it straight up like it's it's it's it's a one-to-one, transaction, your future and your career, and a Level Playing Field for you traded for Money right over there. Just some money, that's it. That's where we're at. That's a horrible. Horrible future. I don't like this you know that but a lot of these happy a lot of these m&a deals don't necessarily work either. It's not like it's not like it's guaranteed success that buying Frontier. I mean it may very well be dollars for Frontier Frontier. You know, is the last person that that does like plug-in phone? So like, very well might pay out on the long term but it might not. That's the crazy thing. It's not like it's a, it's a done deal, right? It's like a done it. Yeah. Oh, can we move on? So let's move on. All right what do we have next we have good lists good oh good list which I'm looking at the good lists. Well I don't know how good these really are. Maybe we failed. We did have a good game earlier this week on Tuesday so if you want to hear some actually good stories, Go download that episode, listen to it. But mine, the both of these stories seem a little tongue in cheek. But mine, my story really accentuates the goodness of our product maybe of, of data of director data, maybe. I don't know. Here's the story. Most us Executives. Want to remove at least one director? According to a survey from pricewaterhousecoopers. Yeah. Let's listen to some of these stats. Listen to some of these. 93%. Oh, that's basically a full. That's basically all that's all you said they wanted at least one director to be replaced. Matt, that's not enough children. Want people tonight, that's enough. 78%, which is basically still all of them said two or more should be one place 50. Half of them said that they're worried about directors, performance being diminished by their Advanced age, of course, you know. Again, like how do you quantify performance 4715 Advanced age? That's true too. Half are also worried about directors serving on too many boards and how about this one a third of them believed their board only a third, only a third of them believe their boards have the right skills and expertise. So think about that. Think about that only a third. Yeah like don't they largely choose them right. Like it's Course. Yeah. Like, well, it doesn't have America CEOs involved America. It's even hard to find especially the Fortune 500. It's often hard to find companies that were the CEO is not also setting the board agenda by being the chair. So, is this goodly as for you simply, because it's so shockingly. Stupid. Matt, I hear pushback all the time, especially for you who to do the most talking, God bless you to potential clients. And clients is that a lot of them are just a little bit uncomfortable with the notion of of voting in or out directors that they hate her love. And I'm here to tell you that it's okay. Even though people at the companies hate their own directors, like okay. That that's that's one of my options for us to say quickly, you don't have to be so negative about everything people, you don't have to purely. Look at it as oh, I don't want to vote out Dave, because you can also be looking at it as I have a very qualified. I'd candidate Julie, who actually? I am. I am offering to put on the board. You don't have to be negative about everything. Can we start with Dave is sucks that his job and shape here, I'm just saying like there's a actual there's a better version of this where we're actually making the company better, but go ahead, you know. I so I ironically I totally agree with that because framing wise investors seem to need that hug before they're willing to to like make any sort of decision about directors but if this were a sports team you absolutely would not need that. You would absolutely. Do we ever say that we're not actually getting rid of the worst player on the team? We're just making a slot for me a better player. Know we say you're underperforming, we're sorry, we have to let you go. Right? Like, we are making a slot but we are making a slot by cutting somebody. We can't use like, you're a nice guy, but it's just not working out. Sorry that you don't have to feel bad, you don't have to hug them on the way out and say, like, this is just to give Julie a shot, right? Like, it's Just all be okay. A cutting under performance. Well, it's weird too. In this age of anyway. I mean, Mass layoffs. And I mean, they can cut 10% of their Workforce, pretty easy. But that's a whole nother story. All right. Go ahead. What's your guys? I, I've only got one and it's a headline was byd. Overtakes Tesla in Europe. For the first time, that's more bad news for Elon Musk. The goodly is now that I don't know if this goodly, but now I'm full on rooting for China. I oh, I never did before but I'm not alone in this. Here's another headline from this week. Jamie Diamond says oh good. Jamie Diamond says, I love it. Jamie dimon says he is a red-blooded American Patriot capitalist. He said that before actually. Yeah no then he was a full-throated. Okay, red blooded capitalist but he sees how China's hustle is paying off. What is there? Single person doesn't think that Jamie dimon is a red blooded American Patriot that does seem to be like the that's like I have a Black friend. Like I what it's like a weird qualification everywhere like right before you say something that contradicts that he runs one of the it's not the most famous American Bank, I don't know what, what else he could be. But by the way, let's not forget that it wasn't that long ago in the 70s, I believe were the the revolution of Japanese cars, kind of took over America. People were hesitant, let's not forget that the Japanese fought, you know, on with the axis, during World War Two, there were our enemies for a long time. But what happened? Very kind of well, maybe not so slowly was that Americans realized? Oh, these cars are better, they're safer, they're cheaper. So yeah, why can't we have a nice car from China? What's the difference? I don't know. I'm really annoyed that I would like one of those good list because we're gonna come back to yours. Anyway, I find let's just call it yours. Let's move on. All right, that's That's standing for your standing up with only two of us voting. I don't know. Who cares could be a tie. It could be a tie. Could be a tie. All right. I got four know. I got three. Yeah we're already winning and the first one. See I just cut one, that's how I said, expectations and bring it back. The first one was really short and you're not gonna like the first two, really? Anyway, I might the first one. Shareholders lamenting the rise of virtual meetings. Yes, they want their buffets. They want their their breakfast. But here's the headline shareholders. Lament, The Rise of virtual annual meetings. That's that was the headline. You just said that? I know. Well, I didn't say the headline. I said there. Yeah. Look You guys vote in favor of directors at a 96% rate. 96% is the average, four vote. Well, they don't want to be rude, they don't want to be rude. They Lament The again, the the hummus. Do they love the hummus, what questions? Would you ask them that? You aren't getting to, that would change the way you vote on anything. Historically, investors have voted on average, 96% in favor of a director. Now, obviously they've Cheryl the polls that are non-binding that they all can vote on but how having a virtual meeting Actually doesn't make a difference because you don't vote the votes that you have in any way that suggests you're getting anything out of the face-to-face meetings. So did you miss the FaceTime where you could have voted 97% in favor of them or social creatures that they wanna, they want to enjoy hummus with their friends? Like what questions do you want to ask? Like what do you want to ask him? Can we get a list? Can some investor listen to this show? Send in a list of the questions that you would ask at an AGM that could change your vote. I don't want to listen to questions that you're just curious about like what do you do about AI. But I mean a question like you would ask a set of directors or the management of the company that question and it would change the way you vote. Because the reality is none of you voted against anything for the most part. Like, that's not true. Just one of us just want to be there, but come on what. Okay, all right, that's number one. Number two. I'm not voting for that one. By the way, I know you're. You should think about it though. Number two. Shareholders, who are to vote against directors? This is okay theme, right? Like because you brought this up, 90% of us Executives, desire board, member replacement survey finds 49% of directors, think directors themselves. So shareholders. This is the situation you're in 93% of Executives. Think that a board member should be replaced. And as Damien said, more than 70% of them think at least two or more, at least two or more. Now, we're getting up to a full like 25% of the board. Basically, the most two or more, meanwhile, 49% of directors, think another director should be replaced. So you have basically half of directors, think the someone the other half should go and 70 plus percent of Executives. Think two or more directors should go. Could you just grant them their fucking wishes just choose one and if you can't choose one, I'll do it for you. I like the directors actively on two or more boards who have served on at least three boards in the last seven years, I felt that I'm just straight up by performance, this is usually free flow analytics data, I just look for, did you, are you below average on earnings, TSR and controversies, do you underperform? And so you've had multiple years across multiple boards to do just fine right to just be average but somehow you are below average. Everywhere you go. So you're not just worried about diminished performance. That comes with age. You're just worried about just bad performance in general. I'm just like you've had years to perform. You have done it. Okay I there. Were 66 options to choose from in the US. Just looking at this quick filter. This is a quick filter and they included people like Randy Wise and burger at Valero Energy and on the Carnival board. He's on multiple boards. Now how Robert Johnson on Spirit Aero Roper, and Spirit Airlines are Arnold Donald who's on four boards right now, Salesforce B of a GE vernova and MP materials. If you don't recognize those names investors shame on you. If that sounds like random directors Johnson has been on the boards for 18 19 and 14 years respectively. Robert Johnson has been on boards for more than 14 years the boards. He's on why isn't weisenberger 14 and 16 years Donald's, been on B of A for 12. These are people who have been around. They're 10 years. They've had plenty of chances to perform they've proven. They're not really good. At overseeing performance. That's what they're not really good at both them out, they don't even want to be there. Somebody else to say, can we get rid of these people just say you don't have to be that excited about it anymore because everyone because they the the board agrees, the executives agree, everyone agrees everyone agrees, get rid of somebody. Yeah, it's unbelievable that we're in a position that we can't get them out. Matt. We were on the proxy County which we recorded yesterday. Otis worldwide. 61% of shareholders, voted against say on pay. 61% said no to their pay plan and yet they supported on average 98% support for the directors. That's like They supported it. They supported the, the exact directors who wrote the policy that they all hated. Like, that's craziness. That's crazy talk. No, forget you can. I'm just using performance numbers to give you a filtered list. That that gives you the ability to go to these companies and vote these people out knowing full, well that both Executives and other directors agree with you. Like, well, actually the only engagement question you should be asking when you go meet with a board, if you meet with a board, if you're a big enough investor to like get on the phone, call meet with the board, you're sitting there and you're doing your engagement questions. You're asking about like what's your AI strategy or how you dealing with carbon and climate change or like, you know what about this, major merger acquisition, whatever you got, all your questions, you are analysts, have written them all out. You know, you had your, UBS AI clone analysts. Write down your list of questions for you. You're sitting in front of that human being. You're asking him question by question, asked them as the last question, which director would you vote out in this room? If you were to vote somebody out, can you imagine like quietly asking the directors, like, hey, just at a curiosity, if you had to pick somebody for us to vote against, who would it be? Yeah, you don't need more than that, because they're not. You know, you know what, I'll make it easier for them, they don't even have to say the name. They can just look at the director. Bottle and spin it in the middle of the thing. And Round the director. They vote them out. No, that's not how ISS would do it. We have, we actually have data that would support a logical decision. So that that where you thought that was good list. It totally triggered. Me and why on Earth are these shareholders? Not voting. I'm just saying, it's good because if you ever get, if you ever get in a conversation again, with a potential client, you could just say, look I I hear your concerns but I just want to show you that. I want to show you the survey. Yeah. You don't have to say, you don't have to call an idiot and I'll call him an idiot. Yeah. Um and number three my number three asshole a week. Oh no. Harvard board members wait the board Harvard board members yeah at the board of Harvard. People who went to Harvard or currently sitting on corporate boards. Oh, I have this misread. It must be a lot of people, right? I pulled all the data from free flow analytics. The headline is DHS Bard Harvard from enrolling International students. So the Trump Administration is targeting just Harvard. They want to revoke their nonprofit status. They're now not trying to not allow them to have international students, which are a quarter of their student population. And this is because these directors, these very rich business, people have let Bill Ackman, be the big fat useless mouthpiece for heart for Harvard alums, right? Like he's the guy who gets Claudine gay fired, he's the guy who's who's basically saying the Trump Administration should attack Harvard? He firing a black woman is a feather in your cap. If you're a Bill Ackman type, right? Because that's the, that's the, the meritocracy fire the anti-air. And I am wondering, where the hell are the rest of the Harvard alums with money? Standing up and saying this is not cool. Nothing about this is cool know. So I looked America. I mean it's it's it's a two-pronged attack. Yeah, there are 2,173 companies in the free flow analytics database, that have at least one director, who attended Harvard? That's incredible. 1000 companies, you know, 9,000 companies in our databases, that's Global, right? Like, that's like Malaysia, right? Like that's everywhere, 848 of the companies are non-us companies. So, like there's almost 1000 companies that are outside of the US who have people who went to Harvard. Those are the international students, just stopped allowing think about that, just alone in the lunacy from the the fake populist rhetoric of the Trump Administration that they want to. They basically want to diminish American influence. They want to diminish our voice corporate corporate wise worldwide. Oh yeah, go ahead. Well 4% of all Global directorships not directors, directorships, Are held by what we know are Harvard alums, that's all we know, right? Because the data is not, unfortunately, that is not a required data pointed to disclose. So we were relying on these directors and companies to give us that information, they're not required to tell us where they went to school and In the US, that number is more than doubled, 9% of us company, directors credible. One in ten directors is from Harvard in the US, that's crazy. The average Network Power of a Harvard director is 6.2 trillion dollars Network Power, being their friend, like how much market cap their friends and their friends of friends control, right? So the average director globally is 2.6 trillion in Network Power, Harvard directors are two and a half times that they have two and a half times. The power of an average director, they have 13% average influence compared to 11% for everyone else. On average, 38% of Harvard, directors are measured in our database as having Merit on paper, where 20% of non Harvard directors do and it's driven by the fact that they went to Harvard. It's driven by the fact that nearly 2/3 of them have core industry knowledge on the companies where they sit and more than half of them ended up being company. Leaders CEOs board, chairs lead, independent directors, where only 19% of non Harvard directors have core industry knowledge and less than half of them are leaders, right? Like these are on boards where we have race and ethnicity data. For Harvard directors, which is 1600, Harvard directors, 28% of them are non-white. Very high compared to only 16% of non Harvard directors, who are non-white? It is insane. Yeah, you have a diverse cohort, a more diverse cohort. I should say, of highly intelligent very well. He very powerful people. Yeah. Who are not saying shit about what is happening. Where is there should be a slew of press releases from these human beings. Just saying, like, did Harvard, not help you get where you were like, you didn't meet anyone at Harvard helped having the Harvard, you know, You name on your resume, didn't help you get your first job. Is there no culture of Harvard where you care about other Harvard people, I hated Harvard. I currently don't like Harvard. I didn't go to Harvard. I don't like Harvard, but this is madness that somebody needs to stand up some calories know. And by the way, no one cares about what Matt Who Matt likes and doesn't like, I don't care if you liked or didn't. Like, but the fact is these, Harvard people are everywhere and Bill ackman's. The only one whose out there saying Harvard is like, like a shit hole that needs to be like what torpedoed? What are you talking about? Harvard is set up. Like 9% of us company, directors, ships are in part set up because Harvard existed, the name Harvard gets people indoors, right? They have more power, more money, more friends. They're more diverse than every other cohort. I went through, I went actually went through the effort to take the top 50 last names that are most commonly Jewish last names to just test whether or not the anti-Semitism Trope at Harvard. Like whether or not it manifests outside of Harvard, where we see like there's less Jewish people from Harvard, then in the general, US directorship population. Unfortunately, the data sucks so much, I couldn't tell but the reality is I have to believe that Harvard is actually a net benefit for these people, you know? Well, this is the sad. This is the sadness of this, all this rhetoric which is under the guise of. There's anti-Semitism at these places, right Columbia, Harvard. But every every institution they're attacking, the Trump is attacking is hurting Jewish people because that the Jewish people have a very strong presence academic, institutions, including the IVs, very strong presence in Sciences the Arts. I mean, so he's just attacking the very people that they're pretending to care about. By the way. No one really buys that the Trump Administration or I don't care about Jewish people anyway, but well, I don't pretend to know whether or not Harvard is anti-Semitic or a systemic bias. I think the little ironic that we are not worried about systemic bias against black people, but only systemic bias against Jewish people. Well, but yeah, you say, we are talking about the Trump Administration. I'm talking about the administration, like, I don't, But also like the colleges, I'm sure there are systemic bias. At colleges everywhere you go to Texas, A&M is like discriminating against somebody right? Like that. There's systemic bias everywhere. That's the point. That's the point of like Dei, it's to eliminate systemic bias, it is the level of the playing field. So the grand irony is, we're worried about a systemic bias at the expense of all the other systemic biases. That also exists regardless of that. It is interesting. The point. It's interesting question. And it's one of the reasons why we call directors of protected class, right? Because because borrowing from the other story, where we have a 93% of executive say that they should replace at least one director. 70, what 6% replace at least two directors and yet we get constant pushback to, oh, we can't replace directors like that would be rude. But so, but this, this protective Clause is 9% of Harvard directors, you're saying that? Why do they fear? Talking back. Why do they fear opening it out? Well, but I'm saying, did they fear it? Because they know they're part of a protected class like this, like they don't want to leave. This Brotherhood is the Brotherhood more important than the rights of their, this educational University. You know what I mean? Like, what what it, why why won't they open their mouths? Do I don't understand it. I don't understand it. You can't get voted out of the of the board. Like, you could take a dump in the center of the deal like the boardroom table, what I'm saying, no investors gonna vote you out is that this is such a rarefied protected class that they cannot lose their jobs. They cannot get what up, but that that is, why that won't open them because they have such fear of leaving that brotherhood like that. Don't know. The most important thing is that Brotherhood, right? I mean, like why does it work in the reverse, right? Why does Bill Ackman get to say whatever the hell he wants? And it doesn't cost him anything. Like it doesn't cost him anything. Well, this is the cow. This right? Like the only example we're seeing of this recently is Target which targets the only company that has has that they're saying that as losing business because of their robot of Dei, they're the only ones, so targets losing business, not because the rollback of Dei alone. They're losing business because they ping pong. All because they have no Viewpoint, right? Like they effectively were like we're just gonna sell something and make as much money on like pride month as we can. We're like Bud Light. We're gonna give a trans person a beer can because we're just gonna sell everywhere that we possibly can and ping-ponging back and forth by saying like, oh, no, we don't actually like trans people. Or oh, we're gonna hide the pride stuff in a blocked room in the back where we're going to take it out of some stores. Because those people near there might be offended by them. Means you have no Viewpoint and frankly, even if Target went back to Dei, Know lost everyone. No one would believe it. The problem is the Ping ponging but my point is, what do these directors who went to Harvard, what do they feel like they have to lose to stand up for Harvard? I don't know that. That's what I understand. Even, if half of them said something or 20% of them said something, but do they feel like it's the equivalent of Bud Light, giving a can of beard, or to a trans person? Is that what they fear? They fear like that, the, the, the Trump people gonna come after them, or they fear. They're gonna lose their light. Like, what are they fear? I don't understand. I'm sure. But, but if, if that is the fear, we're already in a full dictatorship, right? Like so you either stand up and you say something because we're not in a dictatorship and you and you can't, I you sit down and we are in a dictatorship. I hope that there are any. I know we have there's some evidence of like some journalists who listen to these shows and certainly some, some Executives at some companies. I hope that they pick up on these data points that you've just presented because this is an important part of this puzzle and reach out to Matt. If you want to use some of this because this, this is a very important part of this fight. This struggle With Harvard versus the Trump Administration. Is that the amount of corporate power that comes just from Harvard alone? Should be enough to quell this immediately and somebody should be pointing out this Brethren of corporate power. Right? Because they because again like everything else that we complain about on these shows in our company is that they just are allowed to remain nameless and faceless like they you know, if a guy dribbles the basketball off of his foot in a big game they will Hound him for weeks forever but these guys they get to hide forever and they should stop hiding and now would be the time to come out. You have a I mean that the data you are referring here is an incredible amount of collective power. 9% of all us company directorships are held by people who came from Harvest. That's incredible. It's been director. That's incredible person, it's it. I hope some other when you look at other news agencies You can pick up on this day. I didn't even go into nonprofit directorships, right? Like what non-profits these Harvard public directors, who went to Harvard what nonprofits, they sit on or their connections to their boards. Or like there's so much power and influence or this doesn't cover like law firms with, you know, Harvard Law, people and I have no idea why you're all like we should have a press release signed by a thousand Harvard alums on from public companies. Saying this is not okay. The fact that 850 companies, non-us companies have a Harvard Alum on the board, right? Like those boards, boardrooms unmatched should be saying we value the the abilities and the the the the cashier and the, the influence and power and and networks and and and and intelligence of all these people from Harvard, like we use them in boardrooms, we value it. What do we doin'? Those are my three. Those are three, so you've got recap shareholders, lamenting the rise of virtual meetings. No shareholders, afraid to vote against directors, maybe everyone agrees with them. They should vote against them and Harvard board members. One tough to call the assholes already that maybe they won't sit silent. Oh, I know they will Harvey's been under attack for six months. That's true. That's true. And Bill Ackman got Claudine Gates fired. Where were you then? Come on people because of handling us how she sensibly. Essentially handled a student protest. Which I mean there have been student protests. I mean that at universities forever in America that's come on. One of the great things. huh, I'm struggling in this one because you know what? I don't know. I You're right. I mean, if you, if you dial it back to to win Biloxi and started this, this charade of a fight and maybe you're right, maybe why haven't we heard their voice? I mean, why haven't we? I mean the reality is, is that Other than this data set that you've just accumulated, they probably don't have a means of exercising Collective power, right? They don't have a LinkedIn group where they should or Facebook group, whatever there's good club and Ever every major, that's true, they can take and talk to each other. But imagine if we could assemble that group today, like all nine like, right? Like that's that's an amazing and that group could just go right to the White House and it would be wonderful, it would be a great I would protest. I would like yeah. But I feel more comfortable calling them assholes because because but you're right, they're not going to do anything and they should so I'll call them assholes. Go. Oh, I gotcha, I got you to do something. Well, I want to do. Yeah. Just it's a confusing list of assholes this week. And and the shareholders who are afraid to vote against directors, that's every week. So I don't know if I can, I don't know. Now, they just have evidence that like, no one want. No one wants someone to be their true, right? Like so what are you doing? Just can you, can you grant them? Their wish? All right, Let's do. Let's get show headline. He is Winners predictions. For the show takes on its seventh hour. Um, I have one headlines, so I'll go first, it's easy. Chicago, Sun-Times Prince summer reading list full of fake books. Wait, what? Reading list. Did they just have ai write the list? Yes, and you know how many fake books. Matt, a full 2/3 66% of the books were made up books. I can't believe that with real author names including the examples, Tidewater Dreams by Isabel Allende. And the last algorithm by Andy Weir, wait, they made up two thirds of the books were made. I mean, this is crazy. This is crazy today. So, so the job was give me a list of Summer books to read and someone wrote that GPT, I recommended list of books. I mean clearly and asked a reader to do and then they just printed it, they didn't even check if the Box existed. No, wow, I love that. That's why. You know, I was gonna ignore the story at first because I thought like, oh wow, like a couple of titles were wrong like, you know, because I, I told you this before, but starting to use a little bit to help me with some of my research, but it's not just Dawning on me. How often it's wrong. Yeah. It's very rock. You can ask the same question five times in a row and it'll spit out different answers. So you do Need to do your own research on top of their research. But two thirds of the books were made up two thirds. How do how could you even get that wrong? I mean, all the AI has to do is like, look at the New York Times bestseller list and just take five of the books, like that shit does sometimes is there anyone who works there? Who's read? Like well that's the problem is good. Read I couldn't find a journalist who likes to read anymore. So, that's my headlight. What do you have? I have three. Um, the first one I yeah, one is just maybe laugh. The first one was by the dip you're twice as likely to do that. If you're a man and I well that's what I thought, nacho dip because like I went you know that probably and there's this headline, women outperform men as investors statistics show, so the men are buying some sort of dip but it's okay. So what I thought it was Smart to buy the market dip, is that not smart? I don't think the smart thing to do is to like you, you invest a little bit every single month and you, you don't make sure it's in low-risk Investments and you don't get carried away by and you don't get carried away. See, and what they do is, they're like, oh, the Market's down. I'm gonna take all my money. Oh, yeah, and buy Bitcoin. Well, the Market's down. And yet more proof that, that men are just as emotional as women, but we get babies, but here the other two, um, anthropics, new claw model, blackmail, an engineer having an affair in test runs. I love, understand that one. I love that. I love that and I just laughed out loud. When I read this Pitney, Bowes a points activist investors as new CEO. That's a new one. I just love. It don't be just gave up. They were just like, you know, you know what? I'm not even gonna fight. You just take the company. Just yours, this is a weird one. It reminds me like a corporate Raiders, like Bain Capital Mitt Romney. No corporate Raider wanted to be the CEO of the company, right? That's what makes it so funny. It's just like and the picture of the guy doesn't help it get. Less funny know. He's like a slickster Curt wolf. He literally looks like he was just shot out of jail back. Yeah. And 1988 like. Yeah, Wall Street movie Central Casting Wall Street movie? Yeah. Those are my three headlines. We don't need to vote on those. You want to get out of here with winners and predictions. Yeah, let's do it. Do you got a winner? Unfortunately, I hate to say this but I'm taking this category. Seriously this week my my winner is Sam Altman. I hate all this. Based on this headline, I saw from futurism.com, Sam Altman tells staff plan to plan to ship. 100 million devices. That see everything in users' lives. Know this is because open, AI is buying iPhone designer, Jony Ives AI devices start up for 6.4 billion dollars. So this this journey guy, I guess he's the quote unquote, Jessie turned who turned iPhone into the drug that it is he got the world addicted on these stupid Apple products because of his cutie design. Now Sam Altman's, buying his company. And now, they want to Vices that basically are going to know everything about. They're calling this essentially, the first, the start of a Black Mirror episode coming, true I I from a business perspective, he's a he's the winner. I I mean, it's on, it's on people, it's on like anything you're saying. Yeah. Um I also took this category seriously and my choice of a winner was Bud Light. Oh, because thanks to one trans Beer Drinker, all it took was one, everyone shot their Bud Light cans and avoided this This is the headline beer is the latest source of hazardous pee fuzz or forever chemicals, according to worry about scientists. So Matt this suggestion is not that they stopped drinking beer, they just dropped drinking, Bud Light. I'm just saying that, but like was the most popular beer and I'm sure someone was a new FIFA field beer. However they not know. They went to like Freedom beer from like a guy's garage, right? Like there's probably less they don't have ever chemicals in those things. I'm just saying the trans beer drinkers. So the winner is the winner is Bud Light. Oh, cuz Bud Light saved us. By being open, by by being like even do. I don't like saved us from. Pifas, you mean they handed a? They handed a can of beer to a customers. What they did. Yeah, I mean even know what we're talking about this Blood. Okay, moving on predictions, I'll go first. Yeah, I got one. Again, this is based in real life, this is actually happening to me, so when AT&T gives up, its Dei program to the Trump altar, because the headlines suggesting that, as of yesterday, they're not, they haven't given it up yet their Dei program, but you know, they're going to, they will haven't yet. Well, they have it because they can bargain with it. So then I'm done because I'm trying to shop around my cell phone plan. I can't do Verizon anymore because they gave up DUI T-Mobile, gave up DIY last month. AT&T is about to give up to EI. That's the American market. So, what I'm gonna have to do, is I'm gonna buy, I'm quickly gonna go buy some string, I'm gonna empty two, can't touch you and make some hummus, and I'm just gonna start some other new phone company, that's Chan's. And that's literally your best idea and I get hummus out of it. Yeah. Because it's so much hummus that you're gonna get. Yeah, I love what. All right, I have not as quick one. Go ahead. Since this is going forward, this is deadline Anti-Trust cops. Say BlackRock other fun Giants may have hurt Cole, competition, there's a lawsuit coming out of Texas, and some conservative states that they hurt competition by colluding to kill Coal Company, right? It should actually read company owners as companies they own to do stuff. That's really all they were doing that and outstanding. My prediction BlackRock will launch a new investment vehicle. Called pick your own damn stocks. We don't give a damn LP in which clients can pick their own Investments and their Auto enrolled in a proxy, voting program called whatever the fuck ever in which voting and engagement or assigned directly to every board chair. I like this, that I think is the future like future, despite the fact that they want, that Corporate America is screaming that they want to get rid of after board. Yeah, no one likes the board but does not qualify. We don't like them. We want new ones. But whatever, would you invest in your own? Damn stocks, yes. Give a damn, yeah. Absolutely, I think player research, started. Whatever the fuck ever as their proxy voting policy that they don't have the date anyway. So, however, here's how they vote anywhere, that's his little rollers. I'm here, Alice told Matt McCarty, we are free float house our week in review. Come back next week, we've got a show on Tuesday, we got a show on Friday, we got the proxy countdown on Thursday next week, it's a busy proxy, we're gonna show in the works too but we're older Prime is on Wednesdays and we got a new show, okay? Say much about it because it's not totally, we won't be the host thing. Look, if you're looking to join the free flow, media network of podcasts reach out, but until then keep listening and goodbye.