Transcript
oh, Seriously, do you remember this? No live from an ESG stained park bench. I hope it's a nice park. Hope is a nice bench. It's an all-new terrific, Tuesday edition of business pants, featuring analyst hole and spreadsheet. Whisperer Matt mascardi, how do you like that spreadsheet whisper? What is the spreadsheet Whisperer? It's an analyst hole, Matt mascardi on today's annual tug of war. Oh we're playing a tug of war game with lead. Directors, who still use flip phone's really called April 29th, 2025 the who do you blame game? Actually learn a lot. I learned a lot in this game mostly in my own personal research. This is the most one of the more research heavy research intents. Got it today. So I like I just got back from, you know, traveling I'm going traveling again tomorrow. I'm traveling all over the place. Yeah, did not heavily research. This episode plug, where you're gonna be end of this week, can you plug that? Is it pluggable? Yeah, it's pluggable open to the public, it's not open to the public. Oh, maybe it is. Maybe it is. 50/50 women on boards there in San Francisco. They're chapters having a talk to. It's it's very high powered people. We're going to show up and we're gonna talk about the meritocracy. I'm going to talk about power gaps on boards and how they work. We're going to talk about how do you use the data to get board positions and sort of like ask for things and boards to avoid? One of the things they want to talk about is like, how do we identify boards? We don't want to be on. That was fascinating, so much interesting stuff. So I got two things to say, first of all, if you're going to be At that conference or know someone's going to be there or maybe you live in the area and are now setting your gonna go. Go up to Matt and buy something for Christ 6. Buy something Become a client. Yeah, that would be nice. Just do that. The other thing I was gonna say is that, you know, it is these shows, I know they sound dumb and they sound hostile and they sound ridiculous. But it's it's these shows that that creates the R&D. that that formulates the data that Matt can bring to these lovely conferences, these stupid shows, maybe and today we come up with some nugget That will. Let's not like promise. Yeah, that's gonna happen. All right. Our show. Today is being sponsored by free flow analytics.com. Yeah. Lovely platform. Measuring board power connections performance for free. The hoodie blame game is very simple, taking headlines from really today, yesterday and through some heavy research modeling that we do coming up with a series of names, usually to, you know, to who that who do we who, can we blame for this story, right? Stuff happens. Stuff happens to be blaming everybody for everything that happens and you can't just blame and people and I say this, just a regular people. Regular folks, I say this to investors to high power, whoever you are, you can't just blame the company. You can't just blame the name of the company like, oh, I'm mad at alphabet. That doesn't get you anywhere. What is that get? You does a game anymore? Yeah, and just like blaming ribs for whatever. Your problem is, you like, get some specific. Can we keep this be more specific anyway? Let's, let's give me somebody to play. I got a good one and I will, I'm gonna ask Chris, this one that this story has already changed since it was first, I like that. I wrote this a few hours ago. It's already changed, but the reason It changed is kind of the punchline of the story. Anyway, it's like this is what we've been complaining about anyway but we'll get to that at the end. The headline is white. How blasts Amazon? Over tariff cost report, calling it a hostel and political act by Amazon. So Matt all Amazon wanted to do was show consumers, how much their the items cost comes from tariffs. They want and the one of the reasons why I chose this is that we have been long tinkering with an idea of kind of a nutritional scorecard for for companies, like putting labels onto products, putting labels onto companies and and trying to break down all the all the external costs. All the internal cost, it's a difficult Endeavor that we've never like fully. I figured out I would say have we figured it out? We're still working on. We've done versions of it. Let's just say, it's actually really hard. They don't want you to know where everything comes. Yeah, where it goes. And the reason where why we're struggling is because not not that, we don't have the information. We actually have all the information. If anyone wants to look at these scorecards, it's that we wanted to make a consumable version of it, that that makes sense without being a complete nerd without right. You know what I mean? Like, we want to be as easy as like. This is how much sugar is in your dumb candy bar, right? But that's not always that easy. But anyway, that's all Amazon wanted to do. They wanted to just tell you the name, the cost of the tariffs, which I think is actually great. I wish that every product I bought on the internet, had a breakdown of all the costs like how much of the workers getting? How much is the CEO getting whatever? What however you want to break it down? How many glasses of water? This cost me? Yeah, I want to know it all too. So I, this is kind of a weird one. Matt, I'm asking you Who do you blame for this? And because this seems like a cool move by Amazon. So but I'll let you kind of handle the game here. I got some options hoodie by put do you blame CEO Andrew Jesse right after all? He's the quote, unquote boss. He not he's the CEO of Amazon. He must be in charge, right? Right. Except but not that. Yeah. But because maybe but but okay, but here's what I'm thinking, maybe he feels emasculated, right? Because technically speaking, he only has 6% of influence according to our data. Jeff Bezos has 67% and so maybe he needs to lash out, I mean he's been reading the reports that Bezos and Trump or buddies now. So maybe he's mad at Bezos. Maybe he wants to put a stamp on things which I love. I love you for that Andrew, Jesse. He also has the lowest batting average of the board at 3:08, so maybe he's mad at our data, right? Good. And I, and I gotta add something to unlike traditional CEOs. He doesn't actually get like a big fat total summary. Compensation package like his buddies, like his peers like Brian Cornell over at Target, you know, he's the CEO who hates DUI, he gets 20 million dollars, the eBay CEO, Jamie Iona, he gets 22 million dollars but poor Andrew Jess. He only gets like a million dollars because because because he has 275, but it takes a nerd like us to figure out how much that he has so much money waiting for him, because the total summary compensation number. Makes him look like a loser. So maybe he's angry about that. So that's the first person I blame, maybe it's CEO. Introduce it, maybe he's mad. So he's fighting he's got once me. All right. Give me somebody else to how about Jeffrey Preston Bezos. That's how he's listening in our database. That's just Bezos. He's the actual boss, right? He's the executive chair. He's the founder. He's a former CEO and, you know, he's a superstar. He's a superstar CEO. He has 67% of board influence and Matt, he's so cool that he hangs out with people, like Katy Perry, he owned a newspaper. Matt, he even sends penis Rockets into know, to know where he just said. It's true. He did Rockets to know where do nothing. They just went up. And this dude is so impressive that he has according to his bio on the proxy name. He has two funds. F, u, n d, two funds named after himself like the Bezos Earth fund and the Bezos day, one fun. I don't know how that man. This guy is awesome, right? He's just cool. So he's just what what the data suggests is that he is all the is the executive Charities, all the influence on the board. But then again, but what's confusing here is that he's a buddy of trump. So why would he do this? But maybe he's who you blame the other person? I was gonna blame was a board member and former Pepsi CEO Indra, Nui. Because after all, after all, this is probably a Dei problem, right? Anything that goes wrong in America is either blame a woman or a person of color and Indra think think the Lord is both of those things. Wow, winning on all counts. She's also the chair of Amazon's audit committee which is tasked with stuff like operational, risks, and legal, and Regulatory matters. So, you know, she's like she might be one of the people to blame here and you know what, Matt, you know what I learned about Indra. She's also involved with very wokie kind of d. E, i e shit, stuff like science. She's the trustee of a Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, she's into stuff like, Math. She's a member of the dean's advisory council at MIT School of Engineering. She's into stuff like art. She's the trustee of the National Gallery of Art and she's into stuff. Like giving a shit about people like stakeholder, a capitalism stuff, she's the director of partnership for public service so you know, she's very woke. She's so I'm not, I'm not a fan of anything you're saying. Okay, so who do you blame, who do you blame? Well look like not to bury the lead here since, you know, the story has changed but you're out. Well, figure out who to blame. Ya is to fix. Watch who will apologize is right. And in, if I just went straight with the data, it'd be bezo. Bezos is the guy you have to blame because he's the guy with all the power as much as we'd love to pin this on the woman of color, that would be a real win, which I'm sure in the apology of Bezos. Gives one he would probably say, I apologize for injury, right? Like that that's what he would say in the, I don't know how she got there. Yeah, Andy jassy is just he's collateral damage, he's nothing, there's nothing going on. I'm going with Bezos. I mean, he's the as I gotta tell you anymore. Now, I'm gonna update the storks and now, I think maybe you're wrong. I may be think I am, right? That it may be is Jesse because here's what happened. Matt. Is that literally an hour after I wrote the story? This is based on this morning's headlines. Amazon, I'm reading from CNBC Amazon later. Clarified that the plan to show tariff. Surcharges was never approved and is not going to happen. And and then they also say that Trump personally called Bezos on Tuesday morning, to express his displeasure. So I'm actually thinking that Jazzy came up with this and then Bezos stepped in to be like, no, no, no, no, you don't run this company, get, you know, get off your CEO, high horse, right? Why why? I mean. Why would it you can't? Why would anyone care if you put this on the product? I don't know, like, tax on the product they have and people notice prices going up. I mean, they're not lunk heads and they know about the tariffs, so they the good not blame the tariffs anyway. So, you know, I don't know. This is like, unbelievable. I wonder what it would be. So said, look, this is just, I know the Amazon is an easy example. I know that you don't necessarily need our data to know that Bezos controls Amazon but it's the only day to out there in the entire Marketplace of this kind of data, whatever you call ESG data. I don't know what it is. That puts a Quantum. It quantifies his power on the board and again, proving once again that this is not Andy Jesse's company, it's Basil's company, it was never okay? But I'm saying telling him that but only free flow. Analytics.com can quantify that it's not Jesse's company. No other. Data providers know how to quantify that is. I'm just selling you. I'm just telling you. All right. Do you want me now? I'll give you someone to blame right? Ready? Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Wait, did I get that right or wrong? I think you got it wrong. And right. Okay, good. Okay. I love a good game where I get it right then wrong. All right. Yeah, here's the headline. I saw. All right. Novavax appoints Charles Newton to board of directors. What's novavax? So novavax makes covid vaccine like that sounds like a less used covid vaccine. They're working on their at the end stages of a up, you know, like an annual update for flu and covid. That sounds woke too. Yeah. They also make a malarial vaccine that's like a particular way, this all sounds very sciency. It is very science. It's like there so. But here's the thing about Chuck Newton, Charlie Chuck Newton who they just appointed the board sounds like a Red Sox fan. He was just, he's got a background from B of A Merrill. Credit Suisse Morgan, Stanley and Lehman Brothers. She's okay, so he's a Yankees fan. Okay, he is now the CFO of a Pharma company. Oh, so CFO. So his investment banking experience was in like biotech and Pharma. So, okay, he's got As education and business administration. And I love when they're embarrassed when directors are embarrassed about their undergraduate degree, they actually don't list with the degree. Is they just say a Bachelor of Arts? Yeah, from the college, right? Like they don't say this is a new theory of yours that you think that they're embarrassed by Chuck Newton's degree. Well, I don't think the companies, I think the directors themselves are embarrassed to stay out loud. What they got a degree in. So do we know what? He got a degree in? He got an MBA. Yeah, that's but that's cool, right? He listed that one out. Not only do you list it out. He spelled out like a master and business of administration from Tuck at Dartmouth. Yeah, I don't like the whole thing because NBA sounds like you get that online but if you spell it out it's on serious. As if he was angry, that Charlie Munger would get upset. He wrote Bachelor of Arts from Colby. Oh, my daughter goes. Yeah. Does that mean he studied poetry or something? What did he study? I'm guessing it. Was it was, it was like the works of William, Carlos Williams, and then pivoted into Investment Banking. Because otherwise, wouldn't you write like everybody else on this board wrote down, like I got a business degree. Yeah, things like environmental science and stuff. So that's not very that's too woke. Maybe. So this is who got put on the board. Chuck Newton a finance bro. With a a background, he's probably embarrassed about and I'm just about that. So, you're asking me, who do I blame for him going on the board of We blame for him for him. Chosen, is he one of the options is he? One of the choices? He's okay, he's not really choices. Do we blame ya current CEO of novex. John Jacobs who, as of before, like, you know, five days ago, when he got appointed John Jacobs had the highest influence of the board at 23%. Oh, you know, easy to blame that guy that guy has a background in business background in finance, and he's a CEO. Of course, a biotechnology company, that makes a lot of sense. Okay? So, would it be like, Finance, bro, to finance, bro? Right? Like, you know, the CEO like to choose the people. He knows he's comfortable with that. You know? They both have Finance econ, backgrounds, like they can hang out. Yeah. Bar and talk like inflation, right? Like, you know everything and John's a new, a pretty. He's a pretty newish CEO, so I could see him wanting to start to bring his own Bros on the board. Right? Right, maybe. Maybe. It's time to bring my Bros right, I like that. Do you bring blame the new board chair and nominating committee chair Margaret McLean. Oh she okay. She's the board chair, she just became the board chair at like five days ago, she's inheriting the role from James Young, who left the board chair position with 16% influence. The likelihood is that Margaret McLean will be the most influential person on this board. She will be board chair and head of the nominating committee. At the same time, she probably have equal. Or more influence than the current seat. So the former CEO is leaving the board, too. He's leaving? Yeah. Okay. That's gonna increase her influence. Absolutely. Do we blame the fact that someone may have thought there was too much science on this board and we mean we needed more, you know well or Finance people according to our data was is there too much? No it's not at all. The actual pharmaceutical science research on this board. Young was it had a background in science and chemical science and pharmacology now that he's gone. There's only two actual scientists left on the board of now people. Okay. Yeah. Six of the board members have Finance backgrounds, one person is a lawyer. Okay? But lawyer, you can see, you know, John Jacobs being like it was really annoying to have like three sciency people on this board, it would be much better if we had a bunch of Finance Bros. Yeah, that'd be much more fun. Because they're trying to they're trying to sell shit, they don't care what it is, they're just selling right last year. In fact, they had an activist who still owns a stake in the company, the shock Capital, who was like doing activist things until they signed a deal with sanofi last year. And then the activist was like, we withdraw our activism, we like that deal, you signed okay? So you know deals, right? Like deal make it let's get deals. Yeah, so too much science. Let's too much you guys doing all the biotech? So I would blame I got it right, right. Okay. That's a bit of a sarcastic choice but I still like it. Yeah, okay. Well, how about this one? Do we blame Dei? Well, as 2025? Yeah. Is we played choice for everything, the by their SEC disclosure. So I looked at every single board member and I'm going to say, however, crashed to sound. When I look at the nine board members, they are all very white looking, okay? I looked at I actually looked not just at their picture on this website. I look them all up on their LinkedIn. I looked to see if like they had a background like, join the Hispanic biotech Alliance or the or whatever. I tried to find any information. I could they just look straight up like a bunch of white guys. One white people, right? They did say in their SCC fighting last year. That they had seven men and two women. And they had one person who was two or more races. okay, well I will say this that according to the I'm looking at the data here, the demographics of gaitersburg Maryland, where novavax is headquartered Is 33% White. 33. So it's 13% black. 15% Asian. 36% Spanish. So I don't know. Yeah, that doesn't match up. That's sounds a little. Well, here's the weird thing to me, because in the filing, it says two female seven male that's nine. And that's the that's the gender identity in the demographic background, they have two options white or two or more races or ethnicities. Yeah, it says the two women are white, the Seven men are white and then it adds a one. Yeah, that says, two or more races underneath that by counting just some basic math. According to this, they have 10 people for the demographics. Oh interesting. But nine people for the board. Yeah, interesting. So I don't know what that means, but that sounds woke by itself just so, you know. Charles Newton. You think that's white? Yeah. You think it's woke to have? I don't know where you're going with this one, but I don't have to blame Dei for something. Okay, true, yeah, okay. Doing here, the reason why I bring out the demographic did is that clearly, they're not drawing from the non-white population where the company's headquarters. So so maybe we blame d e. I for not for what for not. Getting in the boardroom maybe we blame them for. I don't know how I don't know he blamed Dei just in just in general just somewhere. Someone diverse I mean frankly black people aren't don't even get malaria. So like you know right I don't know if a vaccine you need to sell verifiably. True. Yeah. What else can we blame here? The last thing we can blame is investors themselves because maybe they're trying they're putting Chuck Newton on this board because he's an investor background. Like he's you know like they wanted more of those investors on the board because last year this is a classified board and I not you don't see this that often. But last year the new board chair. The woman who just got promoted like yesterday to be board chair. Margaret McLennan. Yeah, the resounding like backing she got from investors last year. She got 52% vote for was there. So there's an activist investor with Drew his activist competition. Before the vote 52%. That's, in fact, the entire classified the class of this, for, for last year, was the new board chair, who just got promoted. Got 52%, this is crazy. The PHD, who one of the two people who actually have Science Background got 58% and a guy from a Family Foundation. David Mott got 53%, what do we know why? They're so angry, the investors, 35% of the shares are owned by State Street Vanguard BlackRock, and shock Capital, who was the activists, and they owned about 7%. So shocked, Capital did not clearly move, the vote just by themselves. They must have convinced ISS and glass Lewis at the time or something, but maybe they didn't know investors. Paid attention when shock Capital was like, oh we give up the proxy fight because you signed this deal and the investors still all voted against these directors. I don't, I don't really know what the problem was but the the obvious problem would be I Guess the, as of 2021, the stock price was $290. And today it's about seven dollars. I I'm guessing that's where their angers that's from, that is entirely because most of their business comes from vaccines covid. And flu. Yeah, that's an uncomfortable time to be selling vaccine. Not a great time. Nobody cares about it anymore. Look, so yeah, blame here, you know? I would typically jump to this to the CEO or at least someone with the highest influence or maybe even investors because they seem to be do nothing. But you know what, I think investors had it right? So Margaret. What's her name? A Glenn actually? Well she joined the board in 2020. So this was before the the stock price is high. So she's been there throughout the whole run here. Yeah and she got I mean that's kind of shocking. I mean she she should have resigned. I mean I mean I love I have been bitching about for a while now that even 10% votes against is a, is it kind of a shopping resignation? Like that's pretty shocking, I mean, but when you get up to 2030, like forget it, you're gone. That Margaret took 52% support and still accepted the chair position that's Brazen. Mark, I blaming her. Absolutely. Wow. All right. Oh, that in a way, your blaming Dei then the first I guess I am. Yeah, probably so yeah, probably. So that's that's that's, that's embarrassing. Here's a call to all directors. If you get I'm gonna be fair to you. But if you if you get 30% or more votes against you should resign Okay. I like that. I like this role. Yeah. Like this role. I like this role. All right, so now, your turn, oh, somebody to blame back to the world of trump. Why, here's the headline Trump world's Laura, Loomer. I don't really know who she is the color of far right activist? I know she's another one of these Stooges. She's a Robbie Starbucks. She's in control conspiracy theorist not. Yeah, she takes aim at a woke Lockheed Martin and it's two trillion dollar F-35 program. So she's lashing out against Lockheed Martin for being woke. Which means that I'm guessing every Trump fan every Republican probably agrees that Lockheed Martin is well. She said that Lockheed this is the company that makes weapons. Yeah. Well, there's another Park. Yeah, lot. She said that Lockheed is quote, increasingly obsessed with pushing a woke agenda. Bombing stuff is a woke up again. Yeah. And not only that that in January as soon as Trump took over, it's completely scrapped. Its d e, i program. So I don't know where this Looney bird is coming from. I don't know what she's talking about. But who do you blame for this story? Good question. Yeah. Do we blame the Lockheed Martin's? 2025 proxy statement that mentioned diversity. Five times. That's a lot of times. That is a lot of times, I'm starting to blame it now. Yeah, allow if you, you know, if you do your due diligence, I should, I should add that. All five of those instances were in the anti-woke. Anti shareholder proposal introduced by the bondsman Family Trust. So the the company itself is totally out on diversity. They're totally out on DPI. I don't know what Laura lumos talking about, but but there is an anti proposal there but it's says Dei in it, it's weird. How does this proposal even Exxon has no proposals, they're suing their shareholders. How does this proposal? Even get on? How do they even vote on this? Lockheed said, in its to say its opposition to this proposal said? We already publicly stated following that Trump took over the, we got rid of our like we anything to do with affirmative action is gone like where they announced, they probably saying this, like we're out on Dei. So I don't. How does this get to a vote? I don't know. Know I love, I would love for like conservative media in this this country to pick up on the fact that they said diversity five times the proxy statement with no context around where that came from. I love that as the news story, the second one who do we play in the second one. Is how about the three-headed white guy leadership group which represents 53% of influence quarter now? Analytics.com that includes blames CEO, chair James Taylor and his 24 million dollars and pay a leading independent director and nominating committee chair, Thomas Falk who's been on the board since 2010. But somehow he still independent or the longest tenure director, David Beret, who he's been on the board since 2008. I love that. The longest tenured guys, the guy after the guy from 2010. Yeah. So could you could blame them Okay, I'm gonna take one of your tactics Matt since this is a woke Dei issue, why don't we blame the black guy? Oh well I mean that's a clear win, right? Oh wait, never mind. There are no black people on this. Oh yeah, I tried, I really did I tried, but there must be a woman somewhere. Okay, there you go. That's my other choice. How about we blame a woman? And we did have a Deborah Reid Clague. And while she has no leadership roles on this board, she does sit on the board of caterpillar, which is one of the first companies. Get rid of its Dei policy. Although that doesn't. How does that feel? Laura, luma's Theory. I don't know. Finally Matt, what can we blame investors? Because according to Laura Loma, this this company has been a problem for years. So investors must be acting accordingly. Although, according to msci, data average, director support, since 2015 has been roughly 95%. So I know in the story, The reason why they talk about Lockheed Martin was like, their developing A Jet Plane like a fighter plan as they do as they do. That has had massive, delays and cost over guns and all sorts of problems. And it just seems like when a company sucks. They just say it's woke. Yes, that's a new way. Yes, literally no evidence. In fact, do you want to hear? So lucky is one of the more connected groups. Oh, I bet of companies, like in terms of their directors, here are some of the companies that these these directors who are currently on the board. Here are some of the other company boards that they sit on. They include the Aerospace Industries Association. That makes sense. You know, how about the American petroleum Institute? Okay, caterpillar yeah, chevron chevron. Yeah, defense industry. Initiative on business ethics and conduct. Now, there you go. That one seems woke except that that's the CEO of the company. It's on that. So um, Halliburton course Halliburton. Yeah. Does anybody ever said Halliburton was woke? Uh I'm sure they could figure out a call at work. Yeah. National Association of Manufacturers, World, business, Chicago, United States, Steel, Occidental Petroleum. This is the least Locust like a bunch of Ben and Jerry's. Yeah, this is literally the most traditional American board. I could think by a mile by a mile. I don't like any of these options. Who do you blame for this? I you gotta, you gotta, you know, what a non-existent black guy. Yeah, no. I know I'm gonna blame the mention of diversity five times. Yeah, that that's a lot. Only explanation, right? Like that is that is the level of research that goes on. When you call somebody woke that, that basically, it was The anti-walk Proposal that added the word diversity to the proxy so that they could say they mentioned diversity. 5 times its woke is a perfect reasoning. That's a motive. So just great, it's just great, political theater in general, you're yelling at the company that has already scrapped his Dei policies you yelling at it for its Dei. Paul says he's got it last year didn't like was actually no, it was right when Trump took over because that's you know, that that's That's how they do, right? That's that's all right. You got anything else? Yeah, I got one more for you. I got one more. Yeah, go ahead. All right, I'll go first. All right, here is the headline I saw. Sam Altman. Says, open AI will fix Chachi pts annoying, new personality as users complain. The bot is sucking up to them. Well okay what they're complaining about that? I don't mind people sucking up to me. Well apparently When you talk to the chatbot, it now showers you with praise constantly. I like that. Yeah, I need that. I know one Praises me. I I'm gonna start using it. Yeah. So if you if you're writing things like what do you think about this or like can you give me? You know, like when it says like hey handsome, here's what I think. No, no, even when you say things like, I want to make a code that, you know, will wash my windows, right? It says things. The first things that says are that is one of the greatest ideas I've ever heard. I'm gonna tell you that fabulous. I've been using Chachi PT a little bit recently. I don't, I never happens to me. I've never seen that. It doesn't actually like you. But it does that the new model? Because it probably because, yeah, because you fed in a lot of our show scripts and it knows how much I hate Sam Altman. So that's right. It's not praising me. Yeah, go back. Here's the line. From the article, the fortune article covering this quote chat. Gpt's, new personality is so positive. It's verging on sycophantic and it's putting people off. That's what they're saying, it's cleaning. Oh, our life is so dumb. Yeah, go, do we blame for? Go ahead, a big fat choices. Blame Sam Altman. Yes. For being a big fat, Trump suck up. Yes, basically like every other loves out there, sucking up to the Trump Administration loves him. Do we blame Sam Altman? Oh, I like this for having an insipid techbro personality, Desperately, Seeking Fame, and intention of everybody on Earth. So yeah, one way to get everyone's attention is to just say like, oh I think you're great. Yeah, I think you're amazing like pay attention to me, right? Do we blame Sam Altman? For firing the board members that didn't suck up because yeah, I don't like, there's no counterbalance. Yeah, they stop sucking up, it's over. Yeah, it's over right? Or do we blame Sam Altman for putting himself on the board and surrounding himself with other suck-ups? Okay. See what I did there. Yeah, I only give you one real option. I'm gonna go with. No, I didn't want the option here. I'm going to go for the Sam Altman. Number two for having input Tech bro, personality. There it is because The heart of this. There's some combination of. Oh yeah, the obvious is greed, right? I mean, these people are making astronomical levels of money and they're buying half of Hawaii, that's one of the issues. But it's the other thing. It's this desire for for, to be immortal, for fame for attention. I don't know why they all seek it so heavily. But that's, that, that's the thing. That seems to be screwing up our, our world now it's just the amount of attention these people. See, yes. So well, so desperate for attention, in fact, it there was another headline that you pulled about how Mark Zuckerberg said that college is no longer Preparing People. I saw them force or whatever and actually education expert, Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, even that felt like like I need validation for having dropped out of college being like up a man flake middle schooler who dropped out of college. I need to validate the fact that I dropped out by saying that people who In college to learn stuff. I mean, can you imagine and imagine idiocy of that statement? Yeah, I mean no matter what you're studying. Well, first of all, most us colleges have some kind of core requirements that cover Math Science and Humanities. But but just the statement alone to suggest that an extra four years of intense learning with some of what the world's, like best teachers, not only with some of that surrounded by incredibly smart peers from all across the world that somehow that's not a valuable exercise for your, for whatever you do as an adult. I, I it's thought mark. It is magical that like, like, four months, five months, six months ago, all of these CEOs and Tech Bros. Were endorsing and sucking up to Trump and now there is a massive move. Have you noticed headline after headline like trickled in with all like inside terrorists inside all the hair designs covering like the CEO says stuff. Warren Buffett said he never asked about a college degree. Mark Zuckerberg saying College, doesn't prepare you for anything musk said College was a fraud, like, your teal hates colleges heal hates College. There is a the Trump administration's. Obviously going to war with every Elite institution that it can find that doesn't do what it asks. There is very clearly, the CEOs are backstopping, a move against learning shit. Now that's what we're doing. We're fighting learning shit to be fair. To Mark Zuckerberg is probably because, you know, 90% of students that come out of who are educated probably. Don't want to create horrible companies, that ruin and rock are brains, like meta platforms. So I'm sorry, I got to the part of college where they taught me basic ethics. And you get there yet. I'm sorry about that. Oh, really nuts. All right. Good choice. I got one more. Can I wrap up the show? Yeah, let's wrap up the show before it goes. 700 hours. Here's the headline. Start Starbucks Union. Don't forget. Supposedly, there's still kind of a struggle, a worker Union. Struggle at Starbucks. You know that I they they thought that Brian Nichol would help solve. This is still kind of going on. Here's the headline Starbucks. Union rejects companies recent offer of it at least 2% annual pay raise. Wow. Two. So not only were that were the latest proposal. They were guaranteeing annual races of at least 2% but there were, there were no other not no, no other things like changes to health care or just that. That's all. That's what Starbucks offered just a minimum 2% raise. So who do you blame for this? Who do you blame for the union? Rejecting it. Do you blame the union for being greedy? Right. Because according to the data, the company pays its Baristas about 19 dollars an hour average way too much. So that's that's 39,000 dollars and 500, 39,520 dollars per year or 2% raise Matt would result in an increase of 790 a year, go out. So what turn that down right here? Yeah, it's 790 dollars. That's before taxes, of course. So do you blame the union? Do you blame an investors? Because average directors support at Starbucks has been 96% over the last two years. A despite all the turmoil at Starbucks. I mean we talk about Starbucks all the time. I mean and this is even an investor class that supported the new CEO. Brian Nichols ridiculous 96 million dollar PayPal package which included a 5 million dollar. Cash handout a devilishly perverse. CEO pay ratio of 6,666 to one man. Six six six six six six to one. That's very Satani, not to mention that he's getting complete, use of of the Starbucks private jet to travel between his home and Starbuck's. And on top of that, Matt, he's getting 25000 dollars in personal non-commercial. Supported this PayPal package is just kind of dumb, right? I mean, but so do you blame investors or how about the how about the CEO? We're talking about Brian Nichols, he's a good, he's a guy. So wonderful that they scrapped their independent chair nonsense and they gave him both titles. He's now the CEO and the chair that that's a policy. They haven't had in a long time. But this guy, he's got quite an ego. He needs to, he needs to run his own board. So do you blame Brian Nichol or finally? Matt, do you blame lead independent director and nominating? Many chair Jurgen Vig nude store. I mentioned him. Because he's the only director that gets any votes. Again, he's averaged over 10% votes against over the past three agms. And Matt his favorite drink. According to the proxy is the caramel, macchiato with that has 33 grams of sugar, and the American Heart Association recommends that women consume no more than 25 grams of sugar per day. It's not a woman. Okay, but I'm just saying get that, but we can, we can still blame him for for endorsing drinks. That maybe are giving women diabetes or I'm just saying, I'm giving you options, who do we play like DUI? Like the the raise that they're suggesting comes to two dollars and seventy six cents per day, which my God, that's not enough for a drink. It can't even buy it. And don't forget and Brian, Nicholas. You one of his first initiatives to get rid of all the discounts on drinks, all the coupons that you can get through the app, he doesn't like that. He Got rid of all that. A two percent raise. Yeah. You know, tariffs on the biggest producers of coffee. He went up like 40% right? Like I how do you how do you even justify in a negotiation? Yeah, we thought about it. We think less than inflation is fair. And how effective in the year you're offering this in his very own proxy statement. He has a CEO pay ratio higher than I've ever seen 6,000 666 to one. We always joke that if it's higher than if its 365 or higher. It means CEO is making the average pay of the worker on the day one. I mean, he's making it in like I haven't done the math but he must be making it like in the first two minutes, right? I mean, the year. Yeah, I mean, just that's just, yeah. I think the only answer here is investors and I think, right? It could it could have rejected that paper proposal. Well, let's say, the investors elected the board that picked Brian nickel. Right like and they refused to not elect them. They constantly re-elect them and they approved the very high support very high support. Yeah, 96% support I mean It. So what do you expect from a guy who you just gave everything? He possibly could have asked for including Like remote work from Southern California to the Seattle headquarters as the CEO. And I know they say, I read, I read the whole thing, it says they fly. He's spending time most of his time in Seattle and a temporary residence until he gets build, some place to flying back and forth and they're just gonna pay for this temporarily whatever get over it like a CEO who you are giving a 6000 666 to one pay ratio too. Should live where he works. 96 million dollar PayPal package. I think he could afford his own flights, not to mention that, that they completely Consolidated power on him. So they they basically Force the removal of Melody Hopsin. She had been one of the most, the most important people on that board for, for a long time and they Consolidated the roles of chair. Something that hasn't been done there in a while. They did all this for Brian. 790 dollars a year that's before taxes, isn't it? That's the four Texas. And to be fair to anyone who's gonna complain, it's 700, I'm gonna be precise, 790.40. Wow. Yeah, I was rounding down. So All right, I love the. Who do you blame game? I feel like Dustin game. It's too much information, too many facts. It's the only way to actually figure out who we should play for stuff. That's all we got. That's his little Raul's. I'm your Analyst at McArdle. We are free float. This Friday, I am out. So Damien, it's up to you whether or not you're gonna round out the week. I saw my all my stupid, their thoughts, no one needs to hear my thoughts. But otherwise everything goes back to normal next week. Well, yeah, we're gonna have a proxy countdown. Next, all kinds of stuff are Tuesday and Friday show. We've got Cheryl the Primacy, Mike Levin, and Anne Lipton actually if you missed it. I was on shareholder Primacy. Last week. Yes. Where we talked about proxy season and this being the season of the the activists activists winning this year. That's that's the Temple of the year. Go check that out until next week. Goodbye