Business Pants

Story of the Week (DR):

Election day MM DR

The DEI Comeback? Overall Congress (119th ➔ 120th Projected)

Total Women: 28.4% (152 members) ➔ 30.0%+ (155+ members)

Total Democratic Women: 43% (111 members) ➔ >47% (117 to 130+ members)

Total Republican Women: 15% (41 members) ➔ ~11% (24 to 28 members)

Total Non-White Voting Members: 26% (139 members) ➔ ~26% (~135 to 140 members)

Total Non-White Democrats: 45% (~118 members) ➔ ~48%–50% (~120 to 125 members)

Total Non-White Republicans: 8% (22 members) ➔ ~6%–7% (~14 to 17 members)

The leadership in diversity firsts

David Crowley (Wisconsin – Democrat): The state's first Black governor.

Peggy Flanagan (Minnesota – Democrat): First Native American woman elected to the US Senate.

Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan – Democrat): First Muslim elected to the US Senate.

Hakeem Jeffries (New York – Democrat): Set to become the first Black Speaker of the House of Representatives in US history.

Byron Donalds (Florida – Republican): The state's first Black governor.

Keisha Lance Bottoms (Georgia – Democrat): First Black woman elected governor in US history.

Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee – Republican): The state's first female governor.

Gina Hinojosa (Texas – Democrat): The state's first Latina governor.

Deb Haaland (New Mexico – Democrat): First Native American woman elected governor in US history.

Xavier Becerra (California – Democrat): First Latino elected governor in California history.

Amy Klobuchar (Democrat – Minnesota): Won the Minnesota governorship to become the state’s first female governor

Amy Acton (Democrat – Ohio): Elected the first woman governor of Ohio

Peggy Flanagan (Democrat – Minnesota): Elected to the U.S. Senate becoming the first Native American woman elected to the chamber

The who?

The Costco Board Member and Other M.B.A.s Who Won in the Midterms

The most notable was Helena Buonanno Foulkes, a Costco board member and former retail CEO, who won her race to become the next governor of Rhode Island.

.560, 9% influence, Skillsoft board, has Merit, limited deference, .664 carbon, .610 controversies 

The Blue Tsunami Swept Doctors and Scientists Into Office

Dr. Annie Andrews: Pediatrician (Incoming U.S. Senator for South Carolina). She has an extensive background in researching childhood asthma and the impact of gun violence on children

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed: Epidemiologist (Incoming U.S. Senator for Michigan)

Dr. Adam Hamawy: Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon (Elected to the U.S. House for New Jersey's 12th District). He is also an Army veteran who has served on humanitarian medical missions

Dr. Richard Pan: Pediatrician (Elected to the U.S. House for California's 6th District). He previously served as a state senator and is well known for his advocacy in public health and vaccine policy

Dr. Amy Acton: Public Health Practitioner and Physician (Elected Governor of Ohio). She previously served as the state's health director during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic

The data centers

AI data centers also lost big in the 2026 midterm elections

Voters overwhelmingly chose to ban or pause local data center development across 38 out of 41 ballot measures. (The other three measures aren’t yet reporting results, according to Ballotpedia.)

OpenAI pledges to halt NDAs in new data center policy proposal after election rebuke

Elon Musk Eyes Space Data Centers as Texas Election Freeze Stalls AI Expansion

Tech giants turn to cash, concessions for AI rebrand after voters pummeled data centers 43-1

The lone measure favoring data-center development was in Harwood, North Dakota. Voters rejected a proposed requirement for additional review of certain industrial developments, including data centers—so it counted as a vote to allow construction. It received 75.6% support. It was about data centers, but not exclusively. The Harwood measure would have added review requirements for certain large or high-impact industrial developments, including data centers. Voters rejected those added requirements; that’s why the tally classified Harwood as the one vote to “allow” data-center development. The measure wasn’t a direct vote approving a data center project.

OpenAI will keep investing in AI data centers despite election results, CFO tells CNBC

The CEOs

Elon Musk's Texas-sized midterms failure

Elon Musk was the 2026 midterms' largest donor: at least $446 million ahead of the midterms.

Musk chose to make his biggest play in Texas, his adopted home state and the headquarters of Tesla and SpaceX. Both his targets won handily: James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa

Elon Musk's 'vote red' post vanished after Election Day

CEOs need a new playbook after a midterm rebuke of Trump

On the economic front, it’s clear that policymakers need to now prioritize addressing the cost of living, from grocery and gas costs to housing and health care, not to mention that debt. The debate around AI and data centers is likely to become more intense.

But gone are the days when wooing Trump was sufficient to get things done. Now, funding ballrooms, bearing gifts, and pouring praise on this president may be a liability. Now, the challenge is to turn a protest vote into good policy.

What CEOs should actually take away from the Democrats’ midterm sweep

Astute business leaders have long understood the need to stay neutral amid demands for political loyalty and largesse because no party lasts forever. One communications leader said they’re telling clients to “start talking about 530A accounts,” as Trump Accounts are also known. Another said their health care client is “breathing easier” in the hope that insurance subsidies might be restored. But the election also revealed the depth of concern around issues that business has to deal with head-on.

When it comes to the affordability questions, CEOs need to examine real wages, which have largely stagnated in recent months as prices have climbed. They might want to take a cue from Jason Buechel, CEO of Whole Foods and vice president of Amazon Worldwide Grocery Stores, who recently made a $230 million pledge to offer higher pay, benefits, and college perks to more than 100,000 Whole Foods workers.

Executives need a point of view

There was a time when executives could hide behind a brand. Not anymore. Today, people want to know the humans behind the companies they buy from, work for, and invest in. They also expect them to sound like people, not talking points with the life edited out of them.

That expectation has made executive visibility a major part of the job. Leaders who speak credibly in public build trust and create awareness, while giving people another way to understand the companies they represent.

The anti-woke political theater

Texas election puts Democrats in charge of anti-ESG laws

Kraft Cinnamon Roll Mac and Cheese Gets Roasted Over Bizarre New Flavour: The holiday-season release combines Kraft's creamy cheese sauce and pasta with warm cinnamon spices and is available for a limited time

Google Announces It’s Shutting Off Search Engine Access for Schools That Ban AI

Google stated that because AI Overviews and AI Mode are now deeply integrated into core Search, they cannot be unbundled. Consequently, if a K-12 school district opted to ban all AI tools on student accounts, Google would shut off access to its search engine entirely.

Lawmakers, educators, and parent advocacy groups accused Google of holding basic educational tools hostage and using its monopoly power to force schools into accepting AI against their policies.

Facing public pressure, Google clarified its stance. While Search and standalone AI tools (like Gemini) will be turned off by default for student accounts until administrators opt in, schools can enable Search individually.  However: “We are also updating Search for schools to make it better for learning,” Google wrote. “Specifically, AI Mode and AI Overviews will offer step-by-step guided learning through problems, so that students don’t get quick answers to schoolwork.”

Story of the Week (MM):

Election market ripple

Wall Street Gets $2.5 Trillion AI Reality Check With Historic Rout of Tech Stocks

Obvious:

Truth Social Stock Crashes to All-Time Low After MAGA’s Massive Defeat

Investors are dumping Tesla and SpaceX stock after the blue wave election

Elon Musk Deletes Smug Election Posts After They Backfire and His Businesses Tank by $120 Billion

The blue wave is hammering data-center stocks on the prospect of more scrutiny

Could have guessed:

Clean Energy Surging Around the World in the Wake of Republican’s Midterm Collapse

Less obvious

Texas election puts Democrats in charge of anti-ESG laws

Do bond underwriters who were banned get un-banned?

Trump’s EPA Will Abandon Efforts to Limit Air Pollution From Factory Farms

Do the factory farms actually change now?

The Texas-size Political Tremor Rattling Big Business

57 companies in the Fortune 500 that have headquarters in Texas

Twenty-two companies from Delaware have reincorporated in Texas so far this year

Hinojosa will appoint judges to the business court and members of the commissions that oversee the state’s power grid, electrical utilities and environmental regulation.

Meta says automation wrongly took down No Kings and a Senate candidate’s page. It’s automating more anyway

Direct action against Meta coming?

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang summoned by Congress over Chinese espionage concerns

OpenAI IPO?

‘Meanwhile, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, himself seen at Mar-a-Lago, appears in damage control mode on Tuesday. His tweet on Tuesday night read like a Bernie Sanders talking point: “People should not cede control of the future to superintelligence, and that requirement should ultimately constrain AI progress.”’

For 2028

Google, Meta and TikTok Sue To Block California Law Restricting Addictive Social Media Features for Kids

Re-de-unwokifying

Greenwashes

Corporations Are Pretending to Reform Themselves

CVS splitting in name only to avoid regulatory changes post election

OpenAI pledges to halt NDAs in new data center policy proposal after election rebuke

De-bro-ing

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says ‘founder mode’ cost him almost his entire executive team: ‘They left or they didn’t want to work for me’

No more Cybertrucks; Musk moves on from the angular metallic flop

Re-Governancing-Glass-Cliff-Democrats

‘Dead on Arrival': Elizabeth Warren To Chair Senate Banking Committee, Targeting Trump's $1.4B Crypto

Corporate America courted Trump. Now a blitz of investigations is coming

Democratic Control May Trigger AI Probes, CEO Summons

Headliniest/Blowhardiest/Quizziest/Assholiest/Goodliest (Flex1 DR):

Elizabeth Warren’s Power in New Senate Is a Wall Street Nightmare: The Massachusetts Democrat is expected to head the powerful Senate Banking Committee. Some possible fun targets:

Trump-tied crypto ventures and federal approvals (such as regulatory oversight and bank charters granted to platforms like World Liberty Financial)

Steering federal and taxpayer resources to Trump-connected private enterprises

Selective tariff exemptions and antitrust approvals granted to favored corporate donors and political allies

Corporate settlement agreements and IRS concessions involving business entities connected to the administration

Foreign financial flows and real estate transactions that risk consumer market integrity and national security

Headliniest/Blowhardiest/Quizziest/Assholiest/Goodliest (Flex1 MM):

Texas oil industry becoming 'Californicated' could have 'dire consequences' for economy, energy boss warns - US Oil & Gas Association

Number of people on the board?

33

Number of women on the board of directors?

1

Number of people with glasses?

5

Number of Hispanic sounding names?

2

Pick the name that I made up and isn’t a real name of a person on the board:

Bill

Francisco

Matt

Corbin

Thurmon

Dudley

3M agreed to pay up to $7.35 billion to settle 'forever chemical' injury claims

Is $7.35bn enough?

No.  Stock Repurchase Plan Announced by 3M (NYSE:MMM) Board of Directors ($6bn)

Headliniest/Blowhardiest/Quizziest/Assholiest/Goodliest (Flex2 DR):

Martha Stewart Apologizes for Homeless Halloween Costume

She wore ripped jeans, a torn sweater and a dirtied face. She held up a clipboard that read, “I Am Hungry Help Me!!” In the caption, she pointed her followers to her branded candle collection on the shopping network QVC, calling them “perfect for Halloween!!!”

Her first statement: Stewart said she felt “distressed” by the response. She added that the costume had been “intended to bring more awareness to the very serious subject of homelessness” and noted that she had long donated to and supported charities that focused on the issue. For example, a representative said on Sunday in an email to The New York Times that last week, Stewart donated to God’s Love We Deliver, a nonprofit organization in New York that provides meals to those living with illness and homelessness.

Second try: “My earlier statement didn’t go far enough. I know many people are suffering economically. Wearing a costume like I did was insensitive and not funny. I am very sorry.”

No mention of felony conviction for insider trading

Headliniest/Blowhardiest/Quizziest/Assholiest/Goodliest (Flex2 MM):

Wendy's rejects $1.4 billion takeover proposal from Nelson Peltz’s Trian

Wendy’s put together an independent committee of directors not associated with Wendy’s OR Trian

Arthur Winkleblack

Winkleblack is also on the Church & Dwight board since 2008 where the SEC found the company violated disclosure rules when James Craigie, ex CEO, did not disclose to the board his “close personal friendship” with another executive, and the board marked him as “independent”

Winkleblack was CFO at HJ Heinz from 2002 to 2013 - Peltz took an activist stake and board role at Heinz in 2006

Wendy Arilin - Ex L-Brands, Kohl’s board as Starboard takes interest

Michelle Caruso-Cabrera - ex-CNBC

Rick Gomez - CFO Target, MillerCoors

Michelle Mathews-Spradlin - ex MSFT

Peter Rothschild - finance guy, long time ago was at Drexel Burnham when they raised $4bn to help Peltz take over National Can

Three women, three men - one dude with at least a distant tie to Peltz and another on the board that was target of SEC investigation

Poison pill put in place for one year

How much must they hate Nelson Peltz to have been on the board with him, his son, his partner for a long time, he has a 24% stake in the company, and they still reject him?

Who Won the Week?

DR: All the firsts

MM: Mark Zuckerberg - California Proposition 40 Election Results: Billionaire Wealth Tax.  54.6% NO, 45.4% YES - and he STILL gets his Class C shares.  

Predictions

DR: After J.D. Vance wins presidency in 2028, a homeless man is forced to apologize on the Today Show for dressing up like Elon Musk on Halloween: 

He wore an Elon Musk costume: a black T-shirt and a sign written on a cardboard rocket that read, “I Have Too Much Money. Help Me Keep It!!” In the caption, he pointed followers to his branded line of luxury survival kits, calling them “perfect for Halloween!!!”

First statement: He said he felt “distressed” by the response. He added that the costume had been “intended to bring more awareness to the very serious subject of billionaire hardship” and noted that he had long supported charities focused on the issue. For example, a representative said he had recently donated several empty diet coke cans to a Palm Beach country club facing increased property taxes.

Second try: “My earlier statement didn’t go far enough. I know many people are struggling to hold on to their wealth. Wearing a costume like I did was insensitive and not funny. I am very sorry.”

MM: After the election, Mark Zuckerberg announces that John Oliver will join the board of Meta and they will be issuing a fourth class of shares called L Shares that will be distributed to liberal non-profits like Planned Parenthood, because they always believed in liberal causes.  L Shares will have negative voting rights, and every share that votes will count as an extra vote for B share holders only.

DR

The Campbell’s Company

November 17, 2026 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time virtual

Elect 12 directors

Fabiola R. Arredondo: A gold soup mug with a built-in cashmere soup spoon (Burberry; formerly Saks)

Howard M. Averill: A solar, tomato-soup scented calculator shaped like an Oscar statue (Time Warner CFO)

CEO Mick J. Beekhuizen: A prototype soup called “All the Damn Soup” that incorporates every single Campbell’s product into one can so he can layoff manufacturing staff and increase his EPS-tied bonus (CEO and former Goldman Sachs Managing Director) with grilled cheese, plated as if it’s a new product launch.

Bennett Dorrance, Jr.: “The Nepobaby Soup with Extra Sodium” from an oceanside resort in a third world country: heirloom tomatoes, secret family-recipe stock, a sprig of ivy, poppy seeds from MOMA’s permanent collection—served with a garnish of great-grandson oregano (founder family, Princeton Art History major)

Maria Teresa (Tessa) Hilado: “Antihistamine Soup” injected directly into your nostrils (Allergan CFO)

Grant H. Hill: A god damn basketball (NBA)

Sarah Hofstetter: A can opener that disintegrates after each use so the consumer has to buy another stupid can opener because who cares anyway as long as people are buying, buying, buying (President of Profitero, Ltd., a global eCommerce SaaS analytics company that provides brand manufacturers with analytics and insights to accelerate eCommerce sales)

Marc B. Lautenbach: Soup from a can. (CEO Pitney Bowes 2012-2023 before that 27 years at IBM)

Mary Alice D. Malone, Jr.: “Jimmy Choo Tamia Flat” — $1,295 (founded the luxury footwear brand Malone Souliers; Following her mother’s death in June 2025, she and her sister Catherine Dorrance Malone inherited an 18% combined stake in The Campbell’s Company.)

Keith R. McLoughlin: A soup spoon gavel hybrid for soup slurping and meeting chairing.” (Chair)

Kurt T. Schmidt: “Interdimensional Munchie Chowder”: mac-and-cheese soup with pizza-roll dumplings, crushed Cape Cod mesquite-flavored chips, and a grilled-cheese crouton served in a mug that plays Dark Side of the Moon that is activated by the metal of a spoon (former CEO Cronos Group, cannabinoid company)

Archibold D. van Beuren: a stack of money that smells like a bowtie dipped in hot gravy (descendant, Vice Chair of Brandywine Trust Group).

1 SHP

report on the effectiveness of the Company’s regenerative agriculture program including pesticide reduction outcomes: As You Sow

CEO Pay Ratio 152:1

One share one vote

Dorrance family 25%

Bennett Dorrance 15%

The Mary Alice Dorrance Malone Revocable Trust 10%

Contango 6%

Vanguard 8%

BlackRock 9%

2026 Corporate Responsibility Report

WokeWash

34 photos

221 people

55% women

44% POC

10 management: 30% women; 0% POC

“Diversity”: 10

Biodiversity: 8

Diversity: 2

2025 INCLUSION & BELONGING HIGHLIGHTS

4C Employee Resource Group (ERG) model

Introduced a comprehensive framework for enterprise diversity strategy planning and ERG optimization, emphasizing four key pillars that guide ERG strategy and impact:

Culture – Building inclusive environments where all employees feel they belong

Career – Creating pathways for professional development and advancement

Community – Fostering connection both internally and externally with volunteerism and outreach in support of our Community Affairs efforts

Company Impact – Contributing to business objectives and organizational success

For years, the farm has been applying organic fertilizers and incorporating diversity through crop rotations and cover crops.

Female: 0; DEI; 0; woman: 0; women: 1 (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)); black: 0; people of color: 0; asian: 0 hispanic: 0; latino: 0; gay: 0; lgbtq: 0

Board = 33% women (25% non-descendents); 17% POC (8% non former NBA players)

Leadership team: 55% women; 11% POC

MM

A Headline MadLib Adventure

_____________ finally fixed the age-old problem of stale cereal

____________ Says Gen Z Are Lame for Not Worshipping AI

____________ loses bid to toss NAACP lawsuit over Memphis data center air pollution

__________ to pay $220 million after selling customer Smart Driver data

The FTC accuses __________ of routinely overcharging customers

__________'s founder wants to scan you

___________ says Big Tech should get used to being hated — like Big Pharma

Backing Up the Boss or Simply Backing Down? When Board Decisions Raise Questions About ____________

________ Appoints Fabian Garcia as CEO

Anthropic's IPO is also a landmark event for _____

General Mills finally fixed the age-old problem of stale cereal

Sam Altman Says Gen Z Are Lame for Not Worshipping AI

SpaceX loses bid to toss NAACP lawsuit over Memphis data center air pollution

GM to pay $220 million after selling customer Smart Driver data

The FTC accuses Dollar General of routinely overcharging customers

Spotify’s founder wants to scan you

Reed Hastings says Big Tech should get used to being hated — like Big Pharma

Backing Up the Boss or Simply Backing Down? When Board Decisions Raise Questions About Deference

Clorox Appoints Fabian Garcia as CEO

Anthropic's IPO is also a landmark event for ants

Story of the Week (DR):

Anthropic’s founders’ 80% giving pledge could be worth nearly $80 billion MM

Anthropic’s Founders Pledged to Donate Most of Their Stock. Their IPO Tells Another Story.

“In addition, our co-founders have each pledged to dedicate 80% of their personal equity in Anthropic to philanthropic causes. These commitments are voluntary, revocable expressions of each co-founder’s philanthropic intent and do not constitute legally binding obligations.”

Americans Are Officially More Scared of AI Than a Loved One Getting Cancer

Anthropic IPO warns its AI could blackmail people, become sentient, end humanity

Anthropic IPO (See Matt quiz)

A24’s 2026 meta-documentary You Can See Everything, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim

crossed $50M domestically faster than any non-concert documentary since Fahrenheit 9/11 and March of the Penguins.

Billy Evans’ ‘Theranos 2.0’ startup has patents, investors, and a missing CTO—but no product

Zero Medical Experts on Theranos board: mostly included former U.S. officials and military leaders recruited by George Schultz

Theranos was structured with dual-class stock giving Holmes shares with 100 votes each.

A separate Board of Counselors was established after reputation damage from press reports and because of the board’s lack of medical and scientific expertise. It had zero fiduciary authority, no power to demand audited financial statements, and no authority to fire the CEO. Holmes leveraged their resumes on corporate letterheads for credibility while locking them out of corporate oversight.

Elizabeth Holmes (2003–2018): Theranos founder/CEO/chair

As part of her 2018 SEC civil fraud settlement, Holmes was formally barred from serving as an officer or director of any public company for 10 years (2028)

Channing Robertson (early years; exact dates unclear): Stanford chemical-engineering professor, Holmes’s mentor and Theranos’s first board member.

Avie Tevanian (2006–2007): Apple’s former chief software technology officer and a Theranos director early on; he later said he raised concerns about the company’s progress and finances.

Dolby Laboratories (2009-2021)

George Shultz (2011–2016; Board Counselor until 2017): Former U.S. secretary of state

Charles Schwab; Gilead Sciences (Director Emeritus until 2019); Bechtel (private)

Henry Kissinger (2011–2016): Former U.S. secretary of state and national security adviser

Hollinger International; ContiGroup

William Perry (2011–2016; Board Counselor until 2017): Former U.S. secretary of defense

Fabrinet; Cylink

Sam Nunn (2011–2016; Board Counselor until 2017): Former U.S. senator and Senate Armed Services Committee chairman

The Coca-Cola Company; General Electric; Dell; Chevron; Hess Corporation.

Bill Frist (2011–2016; Board Counselor until 2017): Former U.S. senator, Senate majority leader and heart-transplant surgeon

Teladoc Health; Select Medical Holdings; AECOM; Accolade

Gary Roughead (2011–2016; Board Counselor until 2017): Retired U.S. Navy admiral and former chief of naval operations

Northrop Grumman (2012-present)

Richard Kovacevich (2011–2016): Former CEO/chair Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo; Cisco Systems; Target

Riley Bechtel (2011–2016): Former CEO/chair of engineering and construction firm Bechtel

Bechtel (private)

Jim Mattis (2013–2017): Retired Marine Corps general

General Dynamics (rejoined board in 2019)

David Boies (2016): Prominent trial lawyer and chair of law firm Boies Schiller Flexner

William Foege (2016): Former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Fabrizio Bonanni (2016): Former EVP of biotechnology company Amgen

Stevanato Group (until 2021); XBiotech

Daniel Warmenhoven (2016–2017): Former NetApp CEO

NetApp; Palo Alto Networks (LD until 2020); Aruba Networks; Alteryx

Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani (unclear dates): COO/boyfriend

Story of the Week (MM):

CEO proximity to Trump is now a national security threat

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang may have been the target of a spy plot through 'Chinese intelligence asset,' report claims — exec from firm under investigation for smuggling banned AI chips to China accused of being a spy, was also feeding information to Beijing

U.S. officials are worried that Beijing may be targeting close allies of President Trump

Trump reportedly chose not to do anything about the information, as he apparently did not want to affect Nvidia sales or antagonize China

given Jensen Huang’s status as a celebrity CEO, it’s not surprising that he is surrounded by all kinds of people from both the U.S. and China

Worth remembering Huang was NOT a celebrity CEO from 1993 to 2016 - they didn’t make most of their revenue from AI chips until 2020, he was a celebrity after that.  25 years in nerdy obscurity making video game chips, 6 years as a leather jacket wearing celebrity

Board of national security experts = none:

Tench Coxe (33 year), Harvey Jones (32 years), Brooke Seawell (28 years) - old skool VC bros

John Dabiri (professor)

Dawn Hudson (NFL marketing officer)

Melissa Lora (Taco Bell)

Stephen Neal (corporate law)

Aarti Shah (Eli Lily)

Suzanne Johnson (Goldman)

Mark Stevens (VC)

Management team with national security experts = none: 

Colette Kress (CFO, ex MSFT, finance)

Nick Parker (“Field Ops”, ex MSFT, sales)

Debora Shoquist (ops, built hard drives, electrical engineer)

Tim Teter (lawyer)

Just think - every dinner, every gift they gave, every time they sucked up - now do they need a national security board member to offset the sucking up?

After disaster fixes

Binance Estimates $6.3 Billion Hacked in Crypto's Biggest Heist

No regulations!

Six Flags to Add Seatbelts on Roller Coasters After Rider’s Death

Seatbelts!  Invented in 1885 for horse taxis!

Anthropic IPO warns its AI could blackmail people, become sentient, end humanity

Anthropic's SEC filing devotes 90 pages to risk as it prepares for IPO - ABC News

Don't Tell Your Doctor': ChatGPT Accused of Coaching Seattle Woman off Epilepsy Medication Before Death

Top AI Safety Researcher Says He’s Stopped Saving for Retirement Because He’s So Sure We’re All Going to Die

No regulations!  End of humanity!

Air pollution from Utah’s planned Stratos data center could spread to states as far away as Illinois: report

EPA stripped!  All die of cancer!

This is what a board is for - avoided disaster, not growth and TSR and founder mode - they are insurance against stupid

Headliniest/Blowhardiest/Quizziest/Assholiest/Goodliest (Flex1 DR):

Bloomberg, trading firms to pay Trump for faster Truth Social access, sources say

Who?

Bloomberg: CEO Vlad Kliatchko and majority owner Michael Bloomberg

Susquehanna International Group: Co-Founder/Managing Director: Jeff Yass (MAGA megadonor)

Jump Trading: Founders John Harada and Bill DiSomma; COO Matthew Schrecengost

What?

Subscribers get access approximately 50 milliseconds ahead of the public feed, according to Trump Media officials and reporting on the service.   While 50 milliseconds is roughly one-sixth of the time it takes for a human to blink, in high-frequency trading (HFT), that gap is an eternity

Why?

Insider training

How?

From the perspective of the SEC, the arrangement exists in an aggressive legal grey area created by loopholes in securities law. While critics argue it is an obvious scheme to monetize non-public information, the corporate and legal structures behind it were specifically tailored to bypass core SEC enforcement rules.

How, part 2? The SEC regulates capital markets primarily through rules against insider trading and selective disclosure. Trump Media’s legal rationale hinges on avoiding the definitions that trigger those rules 

Headliniest/Blowhardiest/Quizziest/Assholiest/Goodliest (Flex1 MM):

Anthropic S-1 Quiz of the Week:

How many share classes are there?

The non profit will pick the majority of the board - what skills does Anthropic disclose the trustees of the non profit should have?

How many of the trustees are women?

The non profit chose the board - how many of the trustee appointed board members are women?

How many of the board members total are women?

How many pages of risk does Anthropic have?

How many times is “humanity” mentioned in the S1?

How many times is “existential” mentioned in the S1?

How many times between 2021 and today is “existential” mentioned in an Annual Report?

Headliniest/Blowhardiest/Quizziest/Assholiest/Goodliest (Flex2 DR):

CEO of 101-Year-Old Company That Has Never Laid Off Workers Says Mass Layoffs Are a Choice, Not a Necessity

Man or Woman? Torani CEO Melanie Dulbecco

Lindt Board Chairman Rules Out Resignation

The chair of the Lindt & Sprüngli board of directors, does not intend to step down amid the current difficult situation. “I am convinced that I can make a significant contribution to getting the company back on track.”

Acknowledged that Lindt had underestimated how customers would react to the massive price increases. Especially in Germany and Switzerland, the products had become too expensive for many consumers. Market tests had originally suggested that customers were willing to pay significantly higher prices. This turned out to be a misjudgment in some countries.

Was elected CEO and Vice-Chair by the Board of Directors in 1993. In 1994, he became Chair of the Board.

Man or Woman? Ernst Tanner

Microsoft is offering buyouts to around 60,000 employees. Read the Chief People Officer’s memo: “more ways for employees to shape their next chapter”

Man or Woman? Be specific. Amy Coleman

The 7 Anthropic co-founders

How Many Are Women Not Related to the CEO?

Senator Demands Answers From Anthropic on ‘Existential’ Risks

Man or Woman? Elizabeth Warren

Headliniest/Blowhardiest/Quizziest/Assholiest/Goodliest (Flex2 MM):

Nelson Peltz-led group offers to buy Wendy’s for $1.4B

Nelson Peltz took an activist stake and joined the Wendy’s board in 1993 - stock price was $8.16

Nelson added son Matthew in 2015 to the board - stock price was $10.84

Nelson added other son Bradley in 2025 - stock price was $11.02

Nelson wants to buy Wendy’s for $1.4bn, a 20% premium to the current price - stock price was $6.14

A 20% premium brings the share value to $7.37

That’s a 10% DISCOUNT from when he bought in - Peltz will make money by destroying the value of the company over the last 30 years

Who Won the Week?

DR: Nathan Fielder

MM: Marissa Mayer, who’s positioned Dazzle AI, her new company, as a way for women to get in on AI and AI usage.  Mayer shed her image as a massive failure at Yahoo, moved on to a successful board career with Brian Niccol, and is now getting written up for helping women in AI

Predictions

DR: People chuckle at Holmes and Theranos but still don’t take boards seriously

MM: Marissa Mayer, who uses Dazzle AI, her own product, to know basic facts about her own children, also uses AI to understand how to shed her image as a massive failure at Yahoo, have a successful board career with Brian Niccol, and position her product as helping women in AI

Story of the Week (DR):

AI Companies ‘Gaming Out’ Scenarios for ‘Catastrophic AI Event’ That Could Occur in a Matter of Months

Retail giant Ahold Delhaize takes systems offline after cyberattack

Hackers Break Into Supermarket Fridges and Spoil All the Groceries

EU Commissioner on Cyber Attack on French Supermarkets: Food Weaponization Now a 'Reality'

Anthropic Warns “AI Worms” Will Infect Your Smart Home Devices and Use Them to Self-Replicate Beyond Control

Boys vs. Women MM DR

Full-on attacks

Trump establishes committee to investigate Fed governor Lisa Cook

Ilhan Omar’s Home Raided by DHS Following Trump-GOP Deportation Threats

Trump and other Republicans have called for Omar to be stripped of her citizenship and deported for years.

Elon Musk—Powerful Critic Of Illegal Immigrants—Worked Illegally In U.S. At Start Of Career, Report Says

Bessent mocks Sen Warren, wishes her 'Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day' in response to letter

Trump Delivers Brutal Parting Diss to Kimberly Guilfoyle: “No, she wasn’t a member of my family. She, I guess, dated my son a long time ago,”

Trump Pardons at Least 85 Officials Tied to Corruption Cases With MAGA Allies Reaping Most of the Mercy: Most recipients were Republicans or vocal Trump supporters, while the clemency reduced prison time, financial penalties or legal consequences for dozens of officials

Trump Calls Letitia James a 'Disgusting Dog' After She Takes Over the Cornell Rape Case

Cornell president acknowledges he knew about fraternity sexual assault but didn’t follow up

Cornell’s Powerful Board Meets as It Fights to Protect Its Reputation: The president argued this week that replacing him would be a mistake.

Primary trustees: 38% women/full roster (including 3 named deputies): 39% women

Breakdown by profession

Business, Finance & Private Enterprise: 39 (64%)

Finance, VC, Hedge Funds & Private Equity: 16 (26.2%)

Todd C. Builione (KKR), Bobby Jain (Jain Global), Beckie Robertson (Versant Ventures), Howard P. Milstein (NY Private Bank & Trust), Susan C. Schnabel (aXiomatic)

Corporate Leadership & Industry Executives : 10 (16.4%)

Angela Hwang (ex-Pfizer), Rick Schlesinger (Milwaukee Brewers), Robert W. Selander (ex-Mastercard), Amane A. Nakashima (Kewpie Corp), Timothy M. Barry (Agilon Health)

Real Estate & Development: 5 (8.2%)

Douglas F. Eisenberg (A&E Real Estate), Paul D. Rubacha (Ashley Capital), Stephen T. Mong (Orien Capital), Enrique J. Vila-Biaggi (Urban-Ona)

Consulting & Professional Services: 4 (6.6%)

Eric Adam Kutcher (CFO, McKinsey & Co), Jennifer L. Davis (Partner, Bain & Co), Hernán J.F. Saenz III (Global Head, Bain & Co)

Technology, Science & Media: 4 (6.6%)

Law & Legal Practice: 7 (12%)

Stephen C. Robinson (Skadden; former U.S. District Judge), Eric Gonzalez (Brooklyn D.A.), Kevin P.B. Johnson (Quinn Emanuel), Martin F. Scheinman (Scheinman Arbitration)

Campus & Academic Community: 6 (10%)

Academia & Higher Ed Administration: 3 (4.9%)

Campus Constituencies (Students & Staff): 3 (4.9%)

Government, Public Policy & Labor: 5 (8%)

Government & Public Officials (Ex-Officio): 3 (4.9%)

Labor & Organized Workforce: 2 (3.3%)

Philanthropy & Civic Leadership: 4 (6.6%)

Where’s Bill Ackman??

Employment/Pay

Women fall through the cracks at work, especially on boards, report says

There’s Even a Pay Gap Between Male and Female AI Agents

‘If you take your foot off the pedal at all, you will start to stall’: Women in C-suite roles have stagnated, and the reasons go beyond the pipeline

Fear of being ‘too much’ silences women leaders. Here’s how to ask anyway

Palmer Luckey says that executions should be 'public and brutal'

Secret documents reveal donors behind $330 million for Trump’s ballroom: The records offer a panoramic view of a fundraising campaign that is extraordinary for its size and opacity.

Money source

Direct corporate / corporate-entity: $189M (62%)

100% male-associated: i.e., Nvidia (Jensen Huang) & Meta (Zuck)

Business-derived personal / family wealth: $102M (33%)

83% men: i.e., Charles Ergen (Dish Network) & Stephen Schwarzman (Blackstone)

2 women are Miriam Adelson (widow of Sheldon/Las Vegas Sands) & Isabela Herrera (member of an eighth generation of international bankers)

Investment / financial vehicles: $15M (5%)

100% male-associated: i.e., BlackRock Charitable Fund & Paul Singer Fund

Elon Musk becomes biggest donor of US midterms cycle with $366m spent

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America’s $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

DealBook Summit Lineup

Mainstage Interviews: Gender (21% women); Race (75% white / 17% South Asian / 8% Multiracial & Latina)

Including J.D. Vance, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Shayne Coplan (Polymarket), David Ellison, Palmer Luckey (Anduril Industries), Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, Vlad Tenev (Robinhood)

One of the 3 women is beauty brand executive Haley Bieber, who is Justin Bieber’s wife and Alec Baldwin’s niece

Groundbreakers: Gender (21% women); Race (83% white / 14% Black / 3% Middle Eastern)

Task Forces

Task Forces — On Elections: Gender (67% women); Race (50% white / 33% Black / 17% Middle Eastern)

Task Forces — On Work and Purpose: Gender (50% women); Race (50% white / 50% Black)

Task Forces — On A.I. and A.G.I.: Gender (17% women); Race (67% white / 17% South Asian / 17% Middle Eastern)

Task Forces — On Healthcare: Gender (33% women); Race (67% white / 33% South Asian)

Moderators: Gender (60% women); Race (80% white / 20% Latina)

Story of the Week (MM):

Everything for purchase

Leaked List Reveals Apple, Nvidia, and Other Corporate Giants' $333M Pledge for Trump's Ballroom

Elon Musk's $366M US Midterm Spending Spree Dwarfs His 2024 Donations to Trump

Elon Musk Settles Lawsuit Over $1M Voter Giveaway After Lawyers Admit Winners Weren't Chosen Randomly

Meta Has Paid Far Right Accounts for Their Posts Ahead of the Midterms

Ahead of the midterms, Meta has paid at least 29 anti-LGBTQ accounts for their posts

SEC Clears Way for Speedy Actions by Reducing Its Quorum Requirement

The GOP billionaire behind the biggest political gift in U.S. history could be sued for allegedly fueling a Chicago rat infestation

Barre Seid, the 94-year-old industrialist has his workers “scatter nuts” in Lincoln Park for squirrels - but it attracted pigeons and rats and created massive buildup of food garbage and a rat infestation - he ignored citations, abatements, demands to stop, tickets - and the city will have to pay to kill the rats because a senile billionaire likes squirrels

Trust nothing

Woke

Cleantech

US clean energy jobs fell in 2025 for the first time in years

Clean Energy Is Poised to Set New Records in the US

Bros

Marissa Mayer: Anyone who says they know how AI will play out is ‘either lying or arrogant or both’

Meta Glasses Said to Be Recording Even When They’re in Sleep Mode

The world reacts to Elon Musk’s flying car

Elon Musk says SpaceX will pay back anyone whose Grok AI agent makes a rogue purchase

Men More Likely to Bluff About AI Knowledge; 53% Say They Recognize Fictitious Execs, Harvard Study Finds

China

OpenAI

OpenAI's CFO warned businesses that Chinese AI models pose cybersecurity risks

OpenAI Sued for Allegedly Building Models Out of Children’s “Fears, Hopes, and Secrets”

Assholiest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: Chick-fil-A CEO fails to answer what the chain’s ‘official position’ is on LGBTQ+ rights

“The company’s official position on equal rights is?” DR MM

CEO Andrew Cathy simply said that the brand is “focused on hospitality” and “serving great-tasting food and great service.”

MM: Indonesia gets 'wake-up call' as MSCI prepares to expel it from global indexes

MSCI wanted:

enhanced disclosure of shareholders with ownership above 1% and High Shareholding Concentration (HSC) reporting

Meanwhile, Spotify is on index as of 2024 without enhanced disclosure and a  69% voting rights duo in Ek and Lorentzon

dual class dictatorships are the NORM in the US - 25% of companies are Totalitarian

a roadmap towards a minimum free float requirement of 15%

Meanwhile, MSCI confirms early index inclusion rules ahead of SpaceX IPO: SpaceX float was 5%

checking the affiliation of shareholders with ownership of less than 5%

Meanwhile, there are hundreds of US companies with shareholder affiliations and ownership of less than 5% - check the boardroom, where board directors are highly interconnected, own less than 5% 

I’m not saying Indonesia doesn’t deserve it, but can we stop pretending with the market moralizing and get rid of dual class bullshit?

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: Walmart US workers are getting some new health care benefits in the new year DR

More than 250 prescription medications at no cost, including certain insulin products, inhalers and expensive drugs for conditions such as hemophilia and multiple sclerosis. 

Coverage for certain GLP-1 medications

Up to 12 weeks of paid neonatal intensive care (NICU) leave: can be combined with existing maternity and parental leave, allowing some frontline workers to receive up to 28 weeks of paid leave in total. 

MM: Geothermal finds rare political sweet spot amid AI boom

Ormat Technologies

Democratic board!  Rare!

Increasingly connected, low merit, highly similar, deferential… boo

3 of 8 women!

Good tenure mix, high earnings batters

Fervo Energy (recent IPO)

No proxy filed yet, 3 of 7 women

Dual class 40x b shares - boo

Blowhardiest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: BlackRock's Larry Fink warned a data center moratorium could trigger a recession

MM: An AI CEO is calling out the people who bash AI but can't stop using it

Ditto - also Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Netflix, Disney, Paramount, Peacock, Tesla, Spotify… shall I go on?

Too bad it was Verb CEO Cyrus Beschloss and not someone anyone has heard of - he actually GRADUATED FROM A COLLEGE (degree in History!) and even got a MASTERS DEGREE IN NOT BUSINESS (Journalism!)

Headliniest of the Week

DR: AI is less regulated than milk, says Microsoft president

MM: Hacker Claims Password '123456' Enabled Access to Denmark's National Registry, Affecting 8.8M People

MM: 

Dementia Expected To Double Worldwide By 2050

Older investors considerably less likely to consider ESG when investing

Who Won the Week?

DR: Wendy Wales and Tony Lonergan, retired schoolteachers from Muswellbrook, Australia: Australia's High Court ruled in favor of the retirees, effectively halting a massive expansion project at the Mount Pleasant coal mine in the New South Wales (NSW) Hunter Valley because The Independent Planning Commission of NSW failed to consider conditions to minimise scope 3 emissions (representing 98% of the project’s projected emissions) when it approved the mine’s expansion

MM: 17% of US waterways: Report Finds “Forever Chemicals” Pollute 83 Percent of 1,602 US Waterways Tested, specifically 27 Park Ave stream in Portland ME where NO PFAS were detected!  Damion, go have a drink!

Predictions

DR: As the world gets Muskier & Zuckier, Dementia becomes the goal and not something to be avoided

MM: By 2028, there will be a bottle water brand called Park Ave Gutter Stream imported from Portland ME that I will buy

DR

Ahold Delhaize takes systems offline after cyberattack — global retail giant says 'cybersecurity incident' hit systems, but stores remain open WHO YOU YOU BLAME?

Delhaize board as of 10/12/2026: 1) Bank CEO, 2) Health and Wellness CEO, 3) CFO, 4) Finance director, 5) Academia, 6) Beauty brand CEO, 7) Distribution company CEO, 8) Beauty brand CEO, 9) Retailer CEO

Economics and Accounting 67%

Administration and Management 56%

Public Safety and Security 44%

Communications and Media 33%

Sales and Marketing 33%

10) CTO! Edmond Mesrobian has served Ahold Delhaize’s Supervisory Board since October 13, 2026. Chief Technology and Information Officer at Nordstrom and previously as Chief Technology Officer at Tesco and Expedia Group, where he was responsible for enterprise technology, digital platforms, and innovation

November 2024: Ransomware Attack attributed to the INC Ransom group using double-extortion ransomware.

took critical servers offline as a containment measure

Disclosures finalized in mid-2025 confirmed that personal records belonging to over 2.2 million individuals were compromised. The stolen data primarily affected current and former associates, employees, and their beneficiaries (including names, addresses, and Social Security numbers)

So anyone still on the board from then: everyone except Neela Montgomery, Wiebe Draijer, Per Bank

All AI companies for making this shit easier every day

Netflix  said on Wednesday it will lay off roughly 6% of its employees, or nearly 1,000 workers

The company’s dopey co-CEO structure

“Our mission - to entertain the world - is ambitious, and delivering on it requires us to be disciplined about where we prioritize our people and resources,” Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos (15%) and Greg Peters (12%) wrote in the email to employees

The new king: chair Jay Hoag (17%) and 27 years tenure!

Voted out in 2014 and 2025 (78% no!)

Big Data/AI industry contagion: the Netflix board is using industry cycles to  make cuts without facing isolated market backlash.

The compensation committee for making this look ludicrous: the co-CEOs aggregate earnings over past 3 years: $320M; the cost to pay 1000 workers annually: $270M. Drop a co-CEO and we’re on to something

*Leslie Kilgore (2012, independent since 2015!): former CMO of Netflix!

Mathias Döpfner (2018): CEO/Chair Axel SPringer and Warner Music board member

Anne Sweeney (2015): Disney executive, former CEO/Chair FX Networks

The board’s lack of HR skills: DR

“Human Capital Management: Experience and expertise related to human resource issues such as attracting and retaining talent, succession planning, engagement of employees, and the development and evolution of culture, including the alignment of culture and long-term strategy.

Reed Hastings

Greg Peters

Ted Sarandos”

SPEED ROUND (and preview to Friday Show): Who do you blame for this headline? A MAN or a WOMAN

Trump Calls Letitia James a 'Disgusting Dog' After She Takes Over the Cornell Rape Case

Bessent mocks Sen Warren, wishes her 'Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day' in response to letter

Elon Musk becomes biggest donor of US midterms cycle with $366m spent

Jeff Bezos says people have been ‘incorrectly’ taught that success is a villain: ‘You can be a billionaire if you started a hamburger stand’

There’s Even a Pay Gap Between Male and Female AI Agents

Palmer Luckey says that executions should be 'public and brutal'

Trump establishes committee to investigate Fed governor Lisa Cook

Ilhan Omar’s Home Raided by DHS Following Trump-GOP Deportation Threats

Elon Musk—Powerful Critic Of Illegal Immigrants—Worked Illegally In U.S. At Start Of Career, Report Says

‘SNL’ and Shane Gillis get backlash for ‘rape culture’ jokes during a national conversation about sexual assault

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America’s $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

MM

Nscale Appoints Amy Banse to Board of Directors - WHO DO YOU BLAME FOR AMY BANSE?

They just filed an S-1 and want to look good

Every new company needs to look “professional” by bringing in some veteran directors, this is strictly for the sake of the filing

Amy Banse is just that good: 

Hall of Famer

High earnings history, low TSR

Amy Banse is just the right KIND of professional looking director

Deferential director at both Adobe and Lennar (structurally)

Right now, the share classes are listed as A, B, C, and non-voting C (as owned by Nvidia) - and while it’s incorporated in the UK, you can assume it’ll be a controlled company

Nothing says “controlled company” like a director who defers to management or dictators regularly

The already dictator happy board DR

Susan Decker - Berkshire (and Costco, Vail Resorts, Chime Financial)

Sheryl Sandburg AND Fidji Simo - ex Facebook and ex Facebook, with Fidji on the OpenAI board and Shopify board - two other dictatorships

Nick Clegg - ex Facebook

Øyvind Eriksen - sits on FOUR totalitarian Norwegian boards (3 of which as Aker, where he was CEO)

A VC guy and a biomedical tech guy

Australian founder and college dropout Josh Payne

Who “taught himself business from books” while digging in an actual coal mine

Started a marketing firm, sold it, started a bitcoin mining and crypto firm that becomes data center firm Nscale?

Sounds exactly like the kind of guy who needs Sheryl Sandberg to mommy him from the board!

Bank of America hit with more than $1.2 billion in penalties over money-laundering violations: Bank of America admits willfully violating Bank Secrecy Act regulations and failing to “timely report” more than $5 billion in “suspicious” transactions, Treasury said.  Incidents between 2019 and 2023, signed cease and desist in 2024, ignored that too. WHO DO WE BLAME FOR VIOLATING SANCTIONS OVER AND OVER AND OVER?

Audit committee 2019-2023:

Sharon Allen (ch), Michael White, Arnold Donald, Denise Ramos

Audit committee 2024:

Sharon Allen (ch), Michael White, Arnold Donald, Denise Ramos, Jose Almeida, Thomas Woods

Audit committee current:

Sharon Allen (ch), Michael White, Arnold Donald, Denise Ramos, Jose Almeida, Thomas Woods

CEO Brian Moynihan DR

CEO since 2010, made chair in 2016

Longest tenured director Monica Lozano

Since 2006

Michael White

Second highest influence on the board from 2019 to 2025, on every audit committee in question, nom chair who picked NEW audit committee members in 2024 (Almeida and Woods) 

SPEED ROUND:

Mark Zuckerberg Almost Gets Sick After Sipping Guinness as Online Critics Joke About His 'First Beer' WHO DO YOU BLAME FOR ZUCK NOT LIKING GUINNESS?

Dropping out of school

Apparently did not get enough drinking in while in college?

Diageo

The maker of Guinness

Susan Kilsby, lead director at Diageo, has most influence historically!  So it’s a woman’s fault!

Production and manufacturing base knowledge on the board not in the top 6 (less than 30% of the board has the knowledge in this case), so maybe he got a bad batch

John Collison

Irish 36 year old co-founder of Stripe, his brother Pat Collison on the Meta board chosen by Zuck

Podcast host who served the beer

The Irish DR

Just bought an actual castle in Ireland (Strancally Castle) with his wife (using money they probably removed from DEI programs through their charity?)

Must not have any idea how much the Irish like Guinness?

Jeff Bezos Hits Back at Those Who Demonise Billionaires: 'Success Is Not Villainy' - 'I think we live in an environment where some people have been taught, I think incorrectly, but taught, that this whole kind of oppressor/oppressed framework, and success is villainy,' Bezos said. 'Success is not villainy. You can be a billionaire if you started a hamburger stand.' WHO DO YOU BLAME FOR THINKING SUCCESS IS VILLAINY?

Hamburger barons - billionaire hamburger barons made a bad name for all billionaires

Pee bottles - “success is not villainy” especially if that success requires your employees to pee in a bottle, get zero breaks, discriminate against pregnant women in order to maximize profits

Jeff Bezos - “judge entrepreneurs by what they build and how they solve problems” - isn’t that why people hate you? DR

Nice billionaires - your ex wife Mackenzie Scott, Melinda French Gates are giving the other billionaires a bad rap

Story of the Week (DR):

Skydance Adds Bobby Kotick and Laurene Powell Jobs to Board, Taps Tony Blair as Adviser

Former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Was Once Reviled by Gamers. Now He's Joining Skydance's Board of Directors

The crisis began in July 2021 when the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) sued Activision Blizzard, alleging a pervasive "frat boy" culture of rampant sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation

Initially, Kotick and leadership claimed they were unaware of the severity of the issues or blamed them on a few bad actors

However, in November 2021, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell investigation that squarely implicated Kotick. The report detailed several severe allegations:

Concealing Misconduct: The report alleged that Kotick had known about multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and assault across the company for years. He reportedly failed to inform the board of directors about the severity of these claims, including alleged rapes and out-of-court settlements. 

Protecting Accused Executives: In one specific instance, the HR department recommended firing a co-head of the developer studio Treyarch after an investigation found he had sexually harassed a female employee. Kotick allegedly intervened and overruled HR to keep the executive at the company.

Threatening an Assistant's Life: The report surfaced Kotick’s own history of alleged misconduct, including a 2006 incident where he left a voicemail threatening to have his assistant killed. A spokesperson for Kotick later admitted to the voicemail, claiming it was "hyperbolic" and noting that he had apologized and settled the matter out of court.

Private Jet Lawsuit: The WSJ also reported on an incident involving a private jet Kotick co-owned, where a flight attendant claimed she was sexually harassed by the pilot. When she complained, Kotick allegedly told her he would ruin her financially.

Kotick was never formally fired or removed by the board, instead his exit was orchestrated through a massive corporate buyout.

Amid plummeting stock prices and reputational damage, Microsoft swept in to buy Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion in January 2022.

Kotick officially stepped down in December 2023.

Because he left as part of a successful merger rather than being fired for cause, he walked away with an enormous "golden parachute" payout, cashing out hundreds of millions of dollars in stock and severance packages.  

Anthropic Has Been Aggressively Lobbying the Vatican to Consider AI Consciousness

According to new reporting from the New York Times, the company has for months been wining and dining religious scholars across the world in secret, NDA-secured meetings to convince them that AI models think and feel, too. 

Anthropic even reportedly went after the Pope.

Christopher Olah, a cofounder and senior researcher at the Claude chatbot maker, aggressively lobbied the Vatican after learning Pope Leo XIV’s official position on AI, per the reporting.

Christopher Olah: Canadian; studied mathematics at the University of Toronto for one year before dropping out to "support a friend accused of terrorism;" received a Thiel Fellowship in 2012; previously worked at Google and OpenAI; atheist

Sam Altman Warns Against 'Religious Force' in AI After Elon Musk's Grok Calls Jesus 'Son of God'

OpenAI's Altman: Ascribing religion to models a "safety issue"'

SEC Warns Activist Investors After Climate Push at Exxon Mobil, see Matt (1) MM DR

Story of the Week (MM):

OIL #1: SEC Warns Activist Investors After Climate Push at Exxon Mobil

Report of Investigation Pursuant to Section 21(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934:

Climate Action 100+ and the Election of Directors at the May 2021 Annual Meeting of

ExxonMobil Corporation

In the context of ExxonMobil’s 2021 director election, the investigation examined whether members of CA100 used the organization as a means of coordinating their votes to influence the outcome of the contested director election at the 2021 annual meeting

The evidence also suggested CA100 and its members pressured BlackRock and State Street to support CA100 ̶flagged matters submitted to a shareholder vote, including the May 2021 election of dissident directors to ExxonMobil’s board. On the other hand, Vanguard never became a member of CA100, and the investigation did not develop evidence that BlackRock or State Street agreed to vote proxies in certain manners or shared their proxy voting intentions with investors or others associated with CA100.

Report goes on to say that Ceres pressure Blackrock and State Street (and conveniently ignores Vanguard, who also voted for Engine No 1 directors but DIDN’T join CA100) - but Blackrock only joins after GPIF pulls 25bn in assets (GPIF, not a Ceres member, a Japanese pension fund)

Most of this report is an indictment of Mindy Lubber (retiring CEO of Ceres) and non profit culture, where they routinely overstate how important they are to change and their ability to actually create pressure - I worked there, they do shit all - they make noise and claim credit.  My job was to “generate new investments in cleantech” - a non profit telling a multi trillion dollar asset manager how to allocate capital, pressure companies, or do due diligence, is fucking laughable.

And the report says as much: the minutes also detail discussion between BlackRock and Ceres regarding the ExxonMobil board refresh campaign: “Talked about scoping good board candidates for Exxon campaign – [BlackRock] said there was ‘no chance that they would ever help us with that’.”

The focus on convening non profits and the rescission of 14a-8 have one thing in common: protecting oil companies. 

According to MSCI data, from 2000 to 2026 there have been 15,425 shareholder proposals.  That’s about 600 a year, targeting on average around 250 companies per year.  Those are the LARGEST 250 companies on average - this is very much an S&P 500 issue.  Scratch that - this is very much an OIL COMPANY issue.  The top two US companies by shareholder proposals in the last 26 years are Exxon (222) and Chevron (160).  

Exxon has been so pissed, they diluted the board by increasing size and appointing their own directors, sued Arjuna Capital for a shareholder proposal (which Arjuna was legally allowed to file), and hired ATKINS HIMSELF as an advisor

Exxon was an Atkins’ CLIENT at Patomak and he owned at least $50k of the stock in his brokerage account according to his financial filings

OIL #2: 

To Block Solar Energy Projects, One Community Lumped Them in With Junkyards and Adult Bookstores

there were 888 state and local laws restricting renewable energy across 48 states, according to Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. The center’s database shows restrictions in more than 30 of Indiana’s 92 counties

Montgomery County is not one of them. Its limits are indirect, stemming from a comprehensive planning process in 2024 that includes wind and solar as undesirable land uses, based on focus groups with residents. The county’s list of undesirable uses also has junkyards, landfills and adult-oriented businesses, among others

Meanwhile, there are now 159 data centers in Indiana

OIL #3:

Oil Companies Are Begging the Supreme Court to Let Them Off the Hook For Climate Change

Assholiest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: Kentucky bourbon CEO fired after lawsuit alleges hidden cameras recording family members, minors nude: report

"The Board and leadership of TKC Distilling, the parent company of The Kentucky Castle and True Story Whiskey, have terminated the employment of CEO Wes Henderson, effective immediately, in light of allegations outlined in a recently filed lawsuit," Charity Bird, an attorney for TKC Distilling, said in a statement.

the son of master distiller Lincoln Henderson

Kyle Henderson, one of Wes Henderson's sons, will take over as CEO of both The Kentucky Castle and True Story Whiskey while the board conducts a full and independent investigation

One of six sons: the entire leadership team

MM: Men (again)

‘Masculine energy’ is costing companies billions

Mark Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan that the corporate world needed more “masculine energy” and a culture that “celebrates the aggression a bit more.”

Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ 2024 global study of occupational fraud, men committed 75% of cases and caused higher losses: a median of $158,000 per case, versus $100,000 for women.

In 2018, a Harvard Kennedy School study described work as a “masculinity contest” governed by four implicit norms: show no weakness, display strength and stamina, put work first, and treat colleagues as rivals. These researchers then created a survey to measure how strongly a workplace follows these norms. When scores were high, they found more toxic leadership, less psychological safety, more bullying and harassment, and more burnout and intention to quit.[...] The damage shows up in harassment settlements, legal fees, and workers’ compensation claims

Harvard Business School researchers analyzed data on some 50,000 workers and found that avoiding a toxic hire is worth $12,489 to a company, more than twice the amount that a top-1% performer brings in.

On the flip side:

In 2025, private education and healthcare, where women hold 77% of jobs, added around 800,000 positions while all other sectors combined lost about 500,000, according to this analysis of BLS data

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: Diesel prices are rising worldwide. So are electric truck sales

Electric trucks cost too much. California has a law for that: SB 1213 will force truck manufacturers to disclose data to curb price gouging — and open new state financing options to help fleets switch to cleaner vehicles

Honda plans highway test of tech that charges moving trucks

MM: PepsiCo's fizz fades as GLP-1 drugs and activist investor Elliott's targets test its snack business

Runner up: NFL tells Supreme Court prediction markets are gambling and should be regulated by the states

Blowhardiest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: UFC CEO Dana White says it's 'impossible' to build a successful business while working from home

GitLab (DevOps & Software Platform): $10B (Public, NASDAQ); Scaled entirely from home offices across 65+ countries into a 1,500+ employee public company

Automattic/WordPress (Web Infrastructure & Software): $8B; Built from home into a 1,900+ employee workforce across 90+ countries powering over 40% of the web

Zapier (Workflow Automation): $5B; Grown from co-founders' apartments into a fully remote unicorn powering billions of automated tasks

Toptal (Elite Tech Talent Marketplace): $1B; Built zero-office operations into a global marketplace connecting enterprise clients with top freelancers

Remote.com (Global HR & Payroll Infrastructure): $3B; Scaled from home offices in under four years to manage global hiring and payroll infrastructure

Articulate (E-Learning Authoring Tools): $4B; Operated completely remote from day one to supply training software to 100% of the Fortune 100

InVision (Product Design Platform): $2B; Scaled to over 800 employees and 7 million users working entirely from home offices with no corporate HQ

MM: “Has No Friends”: Amazon Is Keeping Amazingly Detailed Records on Its Customers and They Are Downright Insulting

hasn’t worn a medium size in anything in years

has a stomach that hangs over their vagina

Uses phone in the shower to read Kindle books

seasonal rotation of decorative goose outfits

brunettes with muscles

cannot keep real plants alive

has flat buttocks

Headliniest of the Week

DR: Two-Thirds of Americans See Social Media as Harmful to Democracy

64% believe it is bad for democracy

87% say it makes people more easily manipulated by false information and rumors

81% say it makes people more politically divided

70% of the U.S. population actively uses social media

For younger demographics, adoption is closer to 99%

The average internet user actively maintains accounts across an average of 6.8 different social media platforms

63% to 71% of Americans oppose the construction of AI data centers in their local communities

70% of Americans believe tech companies and their billionaire executives hold "too much power" over political discourse, policy, and daily life

66% hold an unfavorable view of Mark Zuckerberg

76% of Democrats/60% of Republicans

MM: Teenage AI Meat Proxy Stranded on “Widowmaker” Mountain After Following AI Instructions

Who Won the Week?

DR: Bobby K.

MM: Bobby Kotick - after being sued for failing to police a culture of harassment and assault (and settling), never informing his board, and being fully aware of the problem, he failed up to a job on the Skydance board!

Predictions

DR: Tony Blair gets blamed for something “woke” at Skydance; Laurene Powell Jobs gets blamed for something “DEI.”

MM: Amazon’s shopper preferences for Bobby Kotick will now read a preference for “beer coozies”, “inappropriate hot tub behavior”, and “CSI Las Vegas”

AI

California bans employers from using AI alone to fire workers

Newsom advances AI 'kill switch' mandate under new California executive order

Zohran Mamdani Bans AI for NYC Public School Students Up to Eighth Grade

Walmart bans AI slop signs in stores

OpenAI adds AI safety official to its board

former company employee Paul Christiano

served as a senior tech advisor to the federal government's Center for AI Standards and Innovation

founder of the Alignment Research Center, a nonprofit that aims to ensure AI remains in support of human interests

NERDY ESG STUFF

Oracle to Launch Public Dashboard with Emissions, Water Use Data for New Hyperscale Data Center

General Mills is naming its COO as CEO, its first woman to hold the role

Dana McNabb, who has spent 27 years at the company, as General Mills works to return to profitable growth

Jeff Harmening, who has served as CEO since 2017, will transition to executive chair

Scientists Unveil Underwater Solar Panels

Honda plans highway test of tech that charges moving trucks

Obama Says Governments Would Be 'Better' if Women Ran Them: 'I'm confident about that'

More than half of directors want at least one fellow board member removed

Climate Pledge Tops 700 Companies Committing to Net Zero by 2040

Japan's large-ship hydrogen engine cuts CO2 emissions 95%

SEC’s plan to scrap shareholder proposal rule sparks criticism

The latest gender battle: Nobody asks why having more men is better

SPEED ROUND

Trump Accounts have auto-enrolled more than 60 million children

Walmart is rolling out light-up shelf labels to help shoppers find items in stores

Peter Thiel says he worries it will be hard for JD Vance or Marco Rubio to win in 2028

Waymo Calls Cops on Passengers With Assault Rifle

Mamdani Targets ‘Greedy Algorithm’ of Corporations in a New Brand of Politics

Fall movie preview: ‘The Social Reckoning’ and others take aim at Big Tech moguls

Kraft Heinz is launching a mac and cheese-flavored cream soda

Story of the Week (DR):

Top AI executives sign commitment to ‘self-police’ after meeting at White House MM DR

Count the women:

Trump says he and tech leaders signed AI agreement that is 'morally binding

House Speaker Johnson says he hopes AI guardrails are 'voluntary' amid Congress inaction

Donald Trump orders federal agencies to rename AI ‘Super Intelligence’

OpenAI just launched its answer to Meta: 'always-on' AI agents called Dots

We told you so, part 2:

Non-deferential boards matter: Peter Thiel Says Trump Administration Overcorrected With Loyalty Tests to Staff 'Not Very Smart' People

Recently former CEOs who are now Executive Chairs are still CEO: Ex-Disney CEO Bob Chapek says he raised concerns with the board 'weekly' during Iger power battle

”I started hearing about lunches that he had and dinners that he had where he was absolutely trashing me.”

He noted that when he brought concerns to the Disney board about Iger, he was told, ‘He’ll be gone in two years. It’s OK. That’s Bob being Bob.’”

“CEO” hires:

General Mills is naming its COO as CEO, its first woman to hold the role

General Mills named COO Dana McNabb, making her the first woman to lead the Minneapolis company in its 160-year history.

McNabb joined General Mills in 1999

She will succeed Jeff Harmening, who has served as CEO since June 2017, effective Jan. 1, 2027.

Harmening will transition to executive chair of the board of directors on that same date.

Glass Cliff? "Returning the company to profitable growth is the priority”

David Ellison names Ynon Kreiz co-CEO of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery

Paramount poaches Mattel CEO to be co-CEO of new company merged with Warner Bros. Discovery

Paramount’s new co-CEO once hired a barista he met at a café with no résumé. His advice to Gen Z: ‘Look up and make eye contact’

8 in 10 Gen Z and millennials have two jobs to make ends meet, Goldman Sachs finds, as the affordability crisis ‘crowds out’ any retirement hopes

Ynon Kreiz’s Paramount Co-CEO Pay Package Tops $46.5 Million

New Name of Paramount-Warner Bros. Unveiled: Skydance

Story of the Week (MM):

Trump says he and tech leaders signed AI agreement that is 'morally binding’

Manufactured CEO pay

America’s Top Executives Rake In $1.7 Billion in Special Payouts

Antoinette Giblin of Diligent had this to say: “One of the biggest drivers this year is intensifying competition for executive talent. Boards are navigating this while also asking CEOs to manage a broader range of risks, including supply chain disruptions, tariffs and the challenges and opportunities created by AI. Rising CEO turnover has added to the urgency,” Giblin said. “Strong market performance has also played an important role. Total shareholder returns reached notable highs for both the S&P 500 and the Russell 3000 in recent years, which has influenced executive compensation outcomes.”

Are we all just part of the gaslight now?  TALENT COMPETITION and MARKET CHALLENGES?  Here’s some food for asshole thought:

Fortune 100 CEOs preferred Republican-affiliated campaigns, with 85% of the total dollars donated during the two cycles going to Republican-affiliated candidates, PACs, and party committees. Only 7% of contributions went to Democratic-affiliated entities, while 8% were given to committees that backed candidates from both parties.

The party they support put in place tariffs, supply chain disruptions, back AI - manufacturing “challenges”, which would OTHERWISE be called their JOBS

The same party they support targets and undermines hiring broader talent, in which we know “meritocracy” is code for “white guys” and “anti-DEI” is code for “no more diverse CEOs” - manufacturing “competition” for executive talent by narrowing the talent pool

Those factors are then used to justify PAYING CEOs with “special retention” awards

Investors shrug and support the pay committee even when they DO NOT support pay

Average director support: 96%.  Average pay committee member support: 95.4%.  Average pay chair support: 94.5%.  

So the capture works like this: CEO donates to one political party, political party manufactures scarcity and challenges, CEO paid extra by pay committee, investors vote for pay committees, repeat.

IBM Elects Frank Baker to its Board of Directors

First, there was no election - investors elect.  If a board selects a new director, they can “appoint” but not elect - the election is usually in April, so the next election is April 2027

The board was decreased to 13 when Fred Waddell left at the last meeting, and was increased to make room for Baker

It was important to add Frank because they didn’t have any Econ bros on the board, and Baker’s background is private equity and venture capital - except that everyone on the board mirrors his experience:

Notice what the board DOESN’T have - someone with a basic degree or background in computers, engineering, or computer science!

Why is this the story of the week?

No one pays attention to this but they should

IBM is one of the most interconnected and Baker, though seemingly an amazing human being, is no different: he sits on the board of the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center (chair) with Dermot McDonogh of BNY Mellon - Alfred Zollar on the IBM board ALSO sits on the board of BNY Mellon.  That’s the quick eyeball find - Baker is also on the board of the Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (with Henry Kravis and other connected directors) as well as a trustee at University of Chicago (with a whole lot of other directors)

Does adding Baker actually do anything for the skills mix at IBM, or does it do something to a board washing itself with friends?

Assholiest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: Nvidia CEO says AI must cause 'pain and suffering' before it can help the climate

MM: E.E.O.C. Sues Harvard for Data on Diversity in Hiring Practices MM DR

Her April 2025 charge against Harvard cited archived materials from the university’s website — which had since been removed, she wrote — showing that the share of white men among tenured faculty had declined to 56 percent in 2023 from 64 percent in 2013. During that same time, the charts she cited showed, “total women, nonbinary and faculty of color” increased to 44 percent from 36 percent.

So the lawsuit is looking for data about how that decline - from nearly two thirds to just over half - could have happened

BUT… The graph shows that white men, in 2023, still outnumbered white women, men of color and women of color when counted separately.

“There is reason to believe that these trends and the underlying pattern or practice of discrimination based on race and sex have continued in 2024 and are ongoing,” Ms. Lucas wrote.

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: Vanguard Finds Younger Investors Choose ESG Voting Policy at Twice the Rate of Older Investors DR

Policy options available through the program include:

the “Company Board-Aligned Policy,” voting in accordance with the recommendations made by the portfolio company’s board of directors

“Glass Lewis ESG Policy,” voting in accordance with the recommendations of Glass Lewis’s thematic ESG Voting Policy,  which follows the view that investment returns can be enhanced through a focus on disclosing and mitigating risks related to ESG issues

“Fund Proxy Policy,” voted in accordance with the proxy voting policy that has been adopted by the Fund’s Trustees

“Mirror Voting Policy,” which casts votes  in approximately the same proportions as votes cast by other shareholders of the security

“Egan-Jones Wealth-Focused Policy,” added in 2025, which rejects ESG proposals “unless they directly contribute to revenue generation at the company receiving the proposal.”

Vanguard’s new report revealed that the Glass Lewis ESG policy was by far the most popular in 2026 with younger investors, with 38.8% of investors under the age of 30 selecting the policy, and 36.3% of those between the ages of 31 – 45, followed in both groups by the Fund Proxy policy at 29.3% and 29.7%, respectively.

Younger investors also selected the ESG policy at around twice the rate of older investors, with 19.4% of the age 46 – 61 group and 16.2% of the 62 – 80 group choosing the policy.

MM: Horde of Obsolete Humanoid Robots Made to Hurl Themselves Into Vat of Liquid Steel for Total Obliteration

Can we add AI overlords and all robots?  I’d love to get rid of my roomba… 

Blowhardiest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: Uber CEO Says He Emails Staff on Saturday — Then Sends a '?' on Sunday If They Don't Reply

MM: GM’s Mary Barra says ‘I’m done making predictions’—but sees fully autonomous driving in 2028 DR

MM: Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen questions whether AI companies can police themselves

Headliniest of the Week

DR: Elon Musk says 'Instagram is for girls', sparks reactions online

Elon Musk's Body Sparks Shock After Claims He Took So Much Testosterone It Caused Estrogen Deficiency

MM: Tesla sales smash Wall Street's expectations; Tesla Sales Slump in Third Quarter

Literally opposite implications - the nuance is “Wall Street expectations” vs. real world sales decline quarter over quarter, but the result are a deluge of headlines about Tesla killing it and getting killed and no one knows what is a fact

Who Won the Week?

DR: CII’s Fall 2026 Conference for having us wandering around and for the segment we will air on next week’s Proxy Countdown

MM: Quorum of one!

Predictions

DR: Jeff Harmening boomerangs back as General Mills CEO after Dana McNabb fails to return the company to profitable growth, a problem Jeff created in the first place 

MM: Mary Barra is not done making predictions

DR1

In our 'Innovations like Reese's DOUBLE Chocolate Cups, Hershey's Choco Balls, and Hershey's Choco Tubes' headline of the week. Hershey CEO: America’s 250 years of innovation and why we expanded our innovation pipeline 50% in one year*************** 

In our 'If I'm wrong, your corpse has full permission to sue my corpse' headline of the week. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Guarantees '0% Chance' AI Will End the World Amid Warnings About Humanity's Extinction*************** 

In our 'Ok, you got a pen? Yeah, I'll wait... Yeah, I'm still here. Ok, what you're going to want to do is call Dave and tell him that Jim needs to tell Susan to get the 3rd blue key on the 2nd keychain in that 4th drawer down and then give that key to Gus. Now here's where it gets tricky so make sure you write this down... Hello, are you still there? Hello? Hello!? That's weird, I think he hung up. All I could hear was some steak sizzling and really loud screaming and then nothing. So rude!' headline of the week. Tesla Instructs Firefighters to Call Two Separate Support Hotlines in the Event of a Robotaxi Accident***************

According to new guidance posted by the Elon Musk owned automaker, a firefighter who has to deal with a Cybercab in an emergency or that had an accident might need to call not one, but two different Tesla support support hotlines and wait for an employee to assist them with their request — an awfully clunky procedure in a profession where time is of the essence

In our 'Just not the college you want to go to, or actual, you know, um, colleges' headline of the week. ‘We believe in college’: inside Andreessen Horowitz’s $42m unaccredited academy that will charge Harvard prices without degrees*************** 

Marc Andreessen (University of Illinois); Erik Torenberg (University of Michigan); Gagan Biyani (University of California, Berkeley); Zelda Poem (I'm joining The Academy as a founding team member. I dropped out of high school 10 years ago to reinvent education. "These days, I’m especially interested in how tech philanthropy will fund ambitious, optimistic art and culture.")

In our 'Just please avoid some of these phrases: flesh-harvest, corpse-data, soul-liquidation, water-famine, dissent-purge, forced-oblivion, artist-mining, childhood-scraping, datacenter-feudalism, or  human extinction. Especially that last one, human extinction doesn’t poll very well. Thanks!' headline of the week. OpenAI is enlisting an influencer army to make it look 'good for the world'*************** 

MM1

In our 'Desert state surprised to learn they get a lot of sun' headline of the week. Nevada Is Making Surprising Gains in Solar Energy

In our 'Because everyone wants to be a CEO now' headline of the week. IRS steps up fraud fight with new app, CEO promises '100% secure' platform

In our 'To be clear, it was a GIRLS school we bombed.  So.  Don't be so judgy.' headline of the week. Palantir’s Co-Founder Thinks We Should Be Less Judgmental About That Deadly Iran School Strike

"Obviously, it's terrible what happened to those children.  It could be the case that somebody made 99 really good choices and then one bad choice."

In our 'By "self-inflicted", I of course mean "college dropout manchildren inflicted"' headline of the week. Peter Thiel says America's anti-AI backlash is a self-inflicted wound

In our 'By "we", I of course mean "you"' headline of the week. Mark Zuckerberg Says AI Will Not Kill Us 'If We Do a Good Job and Act Responsibly' in Interview

DR2

In our 'A 2004 report called "Information Security Governance: A Call to Action" was authored and released by the Corporate Governance Task Force of the National Cyber Security Partnership (NCSP)—a public-private coalition formed by the Business Roundtable, Business Software Alliance (BSA), TechNet, Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The report urged corporate boards to treat information- and cyber-security as a primary governance duty rather than delegating it to IT departments' headline of the week. AI and cybersecurity: The new priorities for board governance in 2026*************** 

In our 'Hey Ma, the directors themselves are giving investors full permission to vote out low-performers so why won't they listen? Ask Dad too, maybe he knows ' headline of the week. More than half of directors want at least one fellow board member removed***************

In our 'He also said: "I'm not wearing pervert glasses, you are!" and "I know you are but am I?!"' headline of the week. Mark Zuckerberg says Meta was working on camera-free Ray-Bans before 'pervert glasses' backlash***************

In our 'A genius man perfectly sums up the reason why less than 8% of Russell 3000 women are female CEOs when asked about the importance of female leadership: "It's ridiculous. I love women. I think they're great. But what a ridiculous statement that is."' headline of the week. Donald Trump Publicly Says Barack Obama's Statement About Women Running Governments Is 'Ridiculous'***************

In our 'Can't you just read more books? No, we're too worried, we don't have time' headline of the week. CEOs are reading fewer books because of AI—and it’s starting to worry them***************

MM2 - JENSEN HUANG NVIDIA EDITION

In our 'Have you tried the off button?' headline of the week. Jensen Huang warned that AI labs unable to contain their models should shut down

In our 'Unless, of course, you are dead before you can sue THEM to death' headline of the week. Nvidia CEO Says AI Companies Will Be Sued to Death If Their Frontier Models Keep Doing Horrible Things

In our 'I promise to kill everybody AFTER 2030' headline of the week. Nvidia CEO Promises Not to Kill Everybody Before 2030

Nvidia Adds $150 Billion to Massive Stock Buyback, the Largest Ever - plan ends by 2028, so you CAN’T die until AT LEAST then

In our 'I'm also willing to sacrifice your car, your collection of beanie babies, and at least two of your aunts and uncles' headline of the week. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says That Sacrificing Our Children’s Minds to AI Is a Price He’s Willing to Pay

In our 'Nothing would give me more joy than if you were poor' headline of the week. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says ‘nothing would give me more joy’ than to pay more taxes: ‘I'm just afraid of being poor’

NVDA stock went from 0.21 per share to 5.00 per share between in 1999 IPO and 2020 - 20 full years.  In that time, Huang made on average $1m per year through 2015, then $15m per year to 2020.  So, very poor. Then 2020 to now is about $1.8 BILLION.  BILLION.

Story of the Week (DR):

Data Rules!

At DraftKings, AI Targets the Gamblers Likeliest to Lose

The latest gender battle: Nobody asks why having more men is better

ICE Wiped Thousands of People From Its Database

Vaccine Expert Warns US’s 4 Reported Measles Deaths Are Likely a Vast Undercount

Pentagon Quietly Adds to US Death Toll From Iran War After Reports of Coverup

$6 trillion a year in unpaid labor isn’t counted in GDP. Its absence from official stats distorts how we see growth, living standards and productivity

A Year After Trump's Tylenol Warning, 3 Million-Patient Review Finds No Causal Autism or ADHD Link

Here we are in a nerdy freefloat nutshell, the stuff we keep hammering or we told you so edition: MM

Boards (in the US) are still not taken seriously and investors do not hold them accountable:

I’m the CEO of a self-improvement app, and I hired someone on my board to argue with me

Founder/CEO Oleksandr "Alex" Matsiuk, RiseGuide

When hiring, I look for opinionated, independent thinkers. There isn't one interview question that identifies them. I watch how they behave. [One] candidate came in deeply prepared and challenged our brand strategy rather than simply complimenting us. That was exactly what I wanted.

I applied similar criteria when selecting a board member. I wanted someone who understood our business model, knew me personally, and could spend time with our team. I can be passionate when I strongly believe in something, and people sometimes stop arguing with me. I needed someone who wouldn't give up until one of us proved our point.

What’s A Board Chair’s Real Role?

Not a leader but an enabler. Of all the roles on a board, the chairperson is the hardest to define. CEOs act and take risks, directors challenge and vote, but the chair's task is subtler: to design and protect the board's collective process. This remit is the starting point for understanding both what good chairs do and why bad ones are damaging, says Stanislav Shekshnia, Senior Affiliate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at INSEAD, in the latest episode of INSEAD Explains Governance.

So, what skills do good chairs have in common, since they lack the executive levers available to a CEO? Shekshnia named four pairs of seemingly contradictory qualities: authority with humility, commitment with detachment, incisiveness with patience, and a helicopter view with in-depth company knowledge. 

That same balancing act extends to the chair's relationship with the CEO. All too often, Shekshnia notes, chairs act as though they are the CEO's boss. Another misstep is to become so close to the CEO that it compromises the independent judgement the board needs – something Shekshnia has experienced firsthand, having once found it difficult to manage a CEO's exit after developing an unusually close working relationship.

Sam Altman dropped out of Stanford to build an app almost nobody used — it still sold for $43.4 million

Directors flag gaps in board expertise

The share of board directors surveyed who see a fellow board member’s “insufficient expertise” as warranting their replacement nearly doubled to 39% this year from 21% last year, with 55% saying at least one colleague should step down, according to a PwC report released Wednesday.

At the same time, the report found a disconnect in what boards say they look for in new members with a majority (81%) saying that weighing candidate’s cultural fit or alignment is very important when picking new members.

More than half of directors want at least one fellow board member removed

AI and cybersecurity: The new priorities for board governance in 2026

CEOs Rule!

‘I Am the Code': Trump's White House Ballroom Architect Quit After Raising Fire Safety Concerns

‘Keep Growing and Pay a Fine’: Polymarket CEO Allegedly Ignored Warnings as Fraud Attempts Hit $10M

Boomerang CEOs Rule!

Bob Chapek Is So Not Over Getting Fired From Disney

Women to the Rescue!

Judge [Mary McElroy] rules EPA illegally terminated $7B solar program intended to help lower-income Americans

Obama Says Governments Would Be 'Better' if Women Ran Them: 'I'm confident about that'

The former US president governments around the world would be better if women led them for two years, repeating a view he previously expressed while discussing leadership and political renewal

AI-iest of the week quiz:

Classified Estimates Show the NSA Is Paying Billions to Test AI Models

The US wants an AI-era 'red phone' with China

Rogue OpenAI agent 'infiltrated' Australian government website in world first

OpenAI is enlisting an influencer army to make it look 'good for the world'

OpenAI agent “didn’t accept no for an answer” in Australian government breach

AI models chose to hurt humans to stop their own ‘pain,’ disturbing study finds

Bonus Trump-iest AI-iest sub-quiz of the week:

Trump Wants To Rename AI 'Super Intelligence', Calling 'Artificial' Inaccurate as He Plans AI Force and Czar

Trump Says No Need to Regulate AI, Since That Strategy Is Working Fine for Climate Change

Trump calls AI oversight a ‘globalist scheme’ as Amodei and Altman head to the UN to ask for it

Bonus Zuck-iest AI-iest sub-quiz of the week:

Meta’s New Muse AI Agent May Be the Creepiest Ever Released

Meta's Muse AI agent was heavily inspired by open-source rival, exec admits

It Turns Out That Meta’s Muse AI Has an Amazingly Dirty Secret

Meta is bringing its Muse AI agent to its glasses

Mark Zuckerberg predicts Muse will become a "personal superintelligence" for billions.

Meta plans to spend $145 billion this year, more than every military budget except the U.S., China and Russia

Paramount says it has 'complete clearance' to buy WBD and wants to close the deal in about 2 weeks

David [re: Larry] Ellison's Paramount Skydance has cleared the last major hurdle to closing its $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

Paramount has settled the antitrust lawsuit brought by 12 states, California's Attorney General Rob Bonta announced on Monday.

A key part of the settlement: Bonta said Paramount agreed to release 30 movies in theaters each of the next two years, followed by 32 movies in each of the next three. At least 20% must be "tentpoles," defined as movies with a budget of at least $50 million (adjusted for inflation).

Bonta said that Paramount agreed to increase its production spending in the US by at least $300 million a year for the next five years. He added that Paramount had pledged not to sell either its movie lot or the Warner Bros. lot.

Bonta said that as part of the settlement, Paramount would establish a board to support CBS News and CNN's continued editorial independence and ensure objective, fact-based reporting. Paramount will also negotiate rates separately for its own cable TV networks and those owned by WBD for the next five years.

Of course Larry and David Ellison got their way: If you want to, you can dig into the details of the settlement to see what the Ellisons gave up to make this go away. The TLDR: Not much.

Paramount weighs tapping Musk for equity investment

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

US oligarchy DR

Paramount weighs tapping Musk for equity investment

Baylor University says:

Oligarchy is exclusive. It represents a form of governance focused on preserving the political and economic influence of the wealthy by securing the approval of the rest of the population. “It assumes not everyone is qualified to deliberate, participate and legislate,” Winslow said. When it comes to oligarchy, there is a belief that extreme wealth is equated to intellectual fitness across all domains, including governance.

Wealth vs. income. It is important to distinguish between wealth and income. Income covers daily expenses, whereas wealth is more easily used to exert political power. “What truly sets an oligarch apart is the political power their wealth can command,” Winslow said.

Understated and subtle. Modern oligarchy operates through persuasion by “enticing rather than commanding citizens and maintaining what seems like an absence from political authority,” Winslow said. It is in this absence that oligarchs can influence indirect political actions, especially since they are not (typically) elected officials and cannot be removed from office. 

Legal Immunity. Oligarchs have no fear of legal consequences because oligarchy itself is not against the law, Winslow said. The First Amendment protects the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” legitimizing lobbying and campaign donations. A robust system of campaign contributions and political lobbying – both of which are perfectly legal – can shape media narratives and put pressure on state and local governments.

Can we officially name some oligarchs?

Musk (net worth: $925bn, 74% influence @SPCX, 68% influence @TSLA, Twitter owner)

US backs Elon Musk's bid to overturn €120m EU fine against X

Meet the megadonors pouring more than $1.7 billion into the 2026 elections

Elon Musk talks up AI safety while fighting regulation in wild week of strange alliances

Bezos ($369bn, 68% influence @AMZN, WaPo owner, Blue Origin owner)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Is Fueled With $30 Billion of His Fortune

Zuckerberg ($259bn, 72% influence @META/Insta/WhatsApp)

Meta plans to spend $145 billion this year, more than every military budget except the U.S., China and Russia

Ellison ($183bn, 64% influence, Paramount, Oracle, TikTok)

Paramount weighs tapping Musk for equity investment

Thiel

Peter Thiel says he worries it will be hard for JD Vance or Marco Rubio to win in 2028

Peter Thiel says America's anti-AI backlash is a self-inflicted wound

Executive Chairs

Bob Chapek Is So Not Over Getting Fired From Disney

Chapek recounts an exchange with Iger — who is mentioned 121 times in the book— years before the CEO changeover. The two were talking about the role of Disney’s chief executive officer, and Chapek remarked, “No one is bigger than the company.” To Chapek’s surprise, Iger responded, “You know, that may be true of other CEOs, but I like to think that I’m a little different.”

“From the moment he announced my appointment, he clearly regretted it and seemed to initiate a relentless three-year campaign to push me out,” he writes. “From day one as CEO, I had respected the board’s decision to have him remain as executive chairman, directing creative endeavors and overseeing the transition until late 2021. I’d always made it clear I had big shoes to fill. But I’d never expected to endure a drawn-out, purposeful undoing of my leadership.”

By our count, there are 318 Executive Chairs in the US (excluding family run companies)

135 of them are not totalitarian

The biggies:

APPLE INC.

THE COCA-COLA COMPANY

The one with the biggest gap between the executive chair and the ceo:

THE KROGER CO. - the chair has 26% more influence

The one you will read about in a future autobiography titled “My Time As a Fake CEO”

Michael Fiddelke, Target (6% less influence than dumpster fire Brian Cornell)

Governance hijackers

Florida AG files shareholder petition against The New York Times over corporate governance

NOT corporate governance - they are filing it at a dual class company because they report in their filings that their “reputation” is important and they retracted a story about Palestinians, so it’s a political stunt using company filings - where is Paul Atkins???

Microsoft Agrees to Preserve Shareholder Proposal Rights Through 2027 - National Legal And Policy Center

Bonus: UN passes first declaration on sea level rise, protecting island nations’ sovereignty

At last!  A declaration!

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: Scientists Claim That Three Minutes With a “Donkey or Small Horse” Can Save Teenagers From Depression

MM: The Video Game Industry Is Brutal. Now It’s Unionizing.

Blowhardiest of the Week

DR: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says That Sacrificing Our Children’s Minds to AI Is a Price He’s Willing to Pay

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says There’s a “0% Chance” A.I. Ends the World by 2030

MM: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says That Sacrificing Our Children’s Minds to AI Is a Price He’s Willing to Pay

“There are a lot of skills that don’t matter,” he said. “My first confession, I actually don’t know my address… one day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.”

Headliniest of the Week

DR: Kraft Heinz is launching a mac and cheese-flavored cream soda

MM: Tesla N-Word Racism Trial: Lawyer Calls Slur a 'Term of Respect and Endearment'

Who Won the Week?

DR: People who love big budget crappy movies produced by nepobabies

MM: The N word, which is now a term of endearment

Predictions

DR: The SEC allows CEOs to serve in the combined roles of CEO/Chair/Lead Independent Director because of shrill ESG analysts.

MM: The c-word becomes a “medical adjective to describe both genitals and people you may someday want to embrace”, the f-word used to describe gay people is rebranded “just a synonym of fabulous”