Introduction
LIVE from your ESG Hanukkah Jesus Bush, it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here at December 20th Studios, featuring AnalystHole Matt Moscardi. On today’s YEARLY wrap up: Everything.
Our show today is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for FREE.
Story of the Year (DR):
Exxon Sues Two ESG Investors [Follow This, Arjuna Capital] MM
Judge voids Elon Musk's "unfathomable" $56 billion Tesla pay package
Boeing
Boeing CEO says it was 100% his own decision to resign
Boeing CEO's tearful apology
Boeing pleads guilty to fraud in fatal 737 Max crashes, fined $243.6 million
Boeing names Robert ‘Kelly’ Ortberg as new president and CEO
Boeing factory workers strike for first time since 2008 after overwhelmingly rejecting contract
Trump’s victory adds record $64bn to wealth of richest top 10
The Murder of Brian Thompson, UnitedHealthcare C.E.O. DR
Goodliest of the Year (MM/DR):
DR: 2,000 senior women win “biggest victory possible” in landmark climate case
More than 2,000 older Swiss women have won a landmark European case proving that government climate inaction violates human rights.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled Tuesday that Switzerland had not acted urgently to achieve climate targets, leading victims, who are mostly in their 70s, to suffer physically and emotionally while potentially placed at risk of dying.
The women, part of a group called KlimaSeniorinnen (Senior Women for Climate Protection), filed the lawsuit nine years ago.
DR: Minnesota capital St. Paul makes history as first large U.S. city with all-female council
DR: Delta paying $1.4 billion in profit sharing payments to employees
DR: 42% of shareholders vote against BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's pay
MM: Stakeholders rule: U.S. bans noncompete agreements for nearly all jobs: MM
“30 million people, or one in five American workers are bound by noncompetes. It will take effect later this year, except for existing noncompetes that companies have with senior executives ‘on the grounds that these agreements are more likely to have been negotiated.’”
MM: Women > men: First NCAA women’s basketball championship surpasses men’s viewership: DR
“Iowa-South Carolina game averaged 19 million viewers, 24M in the final 15 minutes. Men’s averaged 15 million. Year of renegotiating for women’s basketball.”
MM: Porn figures it out: A Pornhub Chatbot Stopped Millions From Searching for Child Abuse Videos
Meanwhile…
“Google’s Search AI Recommends Changing Your Car’s Blinker Fluid, Which Is a Made Up Thing That Does Not Exist.”
Researchers Call for "Child-Safe AI" After Alexa Tells Little Girl to Stick Penny in Wall Socket
Google’s Gemini Chatbot Explodes at User, Calling Them "Stain on the Universe" and Begging Them To "Please Die"
Meta's AI Refuses to Show Asian Men With White Women
MM: Study: Playing Dungeons & Dragons helps autistic players in social interactions
Assholiest of the YEAR (MM):
Sam Altman
Sam Altman will return to OpenAI's board with three new directors
“Our primary fiduciary duty is to humanity.” -
So let’s summarize - we have a board with Bret Taylor (ex Twitter chair, Salesforce founder, worked at Google, worked at Facebook and created the like button), Larry Summers (grumpy grandpa Harvard who thinks women are unable to compete with men and was master of Harvard when Zuck founded Facebook), Adam D’Angelo (founder of Quora, former CTO of Facebook), Sue DH (who was on board of Facebook), Fidji Simo (who lead monetization at Facebook), and the only NON FB alums Sam Altman (the master and founder) and Nicole Seligman (who oversaw one of the largest hacks in history and has a history on boards of CBS/Viacom under dictators)...
Proxy voters DR
Disney Shareholders Are Selling Their Proxy Votes Online - IndieWire
A share of Disney is currently hovering at $118.
Buying the vote is currently valued at $0.20.
The current economic value to shareholder right value multiple is 590:1
McDonald's CEO Kempczinski to assume role of board chairman
Miles White named Lead Independent Director
Director since 2009 (15 years)
Connected to 58% of the CURRENT board
Has nearly 40 loops back to board members in the last 7 years alone
Was on the board for the disaster that was Steve Easterbrook
Miles is part of the Boeing American Board Other board history:
LIDs
There are 284 US large caps out of just over 600 with CEO/Chair combo, founder, or executive chair and a Lead Independent Director on the board - that’s 47% of US large cap boards
At 59% the LID has 10+ years of tenure
At 29% BOTH the executive AND the LID have more than 10 years of tenure - as in they worked together for a decade
Appointments, not elections
Number of new directors appointed from 6/1/23 to 6/1/24: 1,875
Average time between appointment and election: ~4 months
Thomas Gayner was added to the Coca Cola board and served 10 full months before he got a vote from investors - and they voted 39.1% AGAINST
SEC charge hinges on director’s lack of ‘social independence’
20% of every US large cap board is connected inside two degrees JUST FROM OTHER BOARDS
We just covered Parker Hannifin on our show Proxy Countdown and found that 100% of the board worked within 250 miles of one another, and 40% of them were from Ohio!
Boeing Investors
Lawsuit Against Boeing's Board Seeks Accountability for Safety Failures
Bill Ackman
After his wife is outed as having plagiarized (lightly?) in her dissertation, he posted on Wednesday a 4,200 word post defending his wife, detailing his personal trauma…
And now, the part that only billionaires can do because the rest of us asshole poorsies don’t rate…
I reached out to a board member I knew at BI, and to its controlling shareholders, the co-ceos of KKR, and to Mathias Döpfner, the Chairman and CEO of Axel Springer
I reached out to Joe Bae because he is Co-CEO of KKR
I reached out to Henry Kravis because he is KKR’s representative on the board of Axel Springer
I called a board member of BI that I knew, but not well, on Saturday
“After spending a lot of time over the past few weeks looking at and thinking about the definition of “plagiarism” (and some cited examples), I agree with you about it. Academia needs to narrow the definition.
I made one request. I asked him to publicly disclose that Axel Springer had launched an investigation of the story, and he said he would have to get back to me on that request.
Billionaire Bill Ackman Accuses The Walt Disney Company Of Leaking Shareholder Votes Amidst Nelson Peltz Proxy ... - That Park Place
Meritocracy
J.M. Smucker's CEO says the family-run business is a 'meritocracy'
Alex Edmans
The anti-ESG, racist-veiled-as-meritocracy crowd noticed an ESG prof keeps saying “DEI” and “lies” in the same posts
Strive puts him on a webinar called “DEI May Contain Lies” - Edmans seems to not know or acknowledge the fact that Strive votes explicitly against women on boards at a 2:1 rate versus average REGARDLESS OF PERFORMANCE (we have the data to show it)
Elon Musk is lashing out at MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos' ex, for donating billions to charities for women and minorities
“Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse' should filed be listed among 'Reasons that Western Civilization died’”
Texas is using Boeing's troubles to expand its war on DEI
“Documents that Spirit relies on to substantiate its claim that a diverse workplace improves product quality.”
“Produce all meeting minutes of Spirit’s Global Diversity & Inclusion Council(s). Meeting minutes is defined to include any document that memorializes the agenda or discussion of any meetings held by these groups.
Target to pull LGBTQ-themed items from some stores during Pride Month, Bloomberg News reports
Meta created an AI advisory council that’s composed entirely of White men
Pat Collison, cofounder of Stripe
Nat Friedman, ex GitHub CEO
Tobi Lutke, CEO of Shopify
Charlie Songhurst, angel investor and ex-MSFT
Tractor Supply’s Customers Cheer as It Dumps ESG, Says Survey, Microsoft reportedly fires DEI team — becoming latest company to ditch ‘woke’ policy, John Deere Cuts 'Woke' Programs, Moves Jobs to Mexico, Harley-Davidson Sparks Boycott Call for Going 'Totally Woke'
Larry Ellison Will Control Paramount After Deal, Filing Shows
David Ellison looked like he was buying it, but filing shows Daddy Larry will actually control 77% of National Amusements, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, when the deal is completed
Tyson's finance chief is out of the job. The Tyson heir got the gig at 32, making him the youngest Fortune 500 CFO
The interim CFO Curt Calaway will now be the ACTUAL CFO, but I’m not sure he’s the right fit because he only had 11 years experience as an auditor followed by 18 years experience in finance at Tyson.
Matt Gaetz, Vivek, Elon, Tulsi Gabbard, cabinet appointments
White men
The value of male influence on boards in the US:
Small cap, a man’s influence is worth 1.7x a woman (women occupy 28% boards)
Mid cap, a man’s influence is worth 1.7x a woman (women occupy 31% boards)
Large cap, a man’s influence is worth 1.6x a woman (women occupy 33% boards)
Mega cap, a man’s influence is worth 1.8x a woman (women occupy 36% boards)
Bumble and Hinge Let Creeps See Your Exact Location
men can now make the first move, and the company is now run by a man - men coming out on top at last!
White men who are mistreated at work are more likely to notice and report harassment against coworkers
Airline says it's testing a booking tool that lets women select seats away from men
A Brief List of People Elon Musk Has Challenged to Combat and Then Chickened Out of Actually Fighting
Why men get more credit than women for doing the same work, according to a business school professor
As a case in point, consider the experience of Joan Roughgarden. Joan transitioned from male to female during her tenure as a biology professor at Stanford University. When Roughgarden’s colleagues perceived her as a man, they took her competence as a given. After her transition, though, Joan found she had “to establish competence to an extent that men never have to. [Men are] assumed to be competent until proven otherwise, whereas a woman is assumed to be incompetent until she proves otherwise,” she recalled. “I remember going on a drive with a man. He assumed I couldn’t read a map.”
Elon Musk Suggests That Government Should Be Replaced by Dudes With High Testosterone
Problems associated with artificially high testosterone levels in men include:
low sperm counts, shrinking of the testicles and impotence
heart muscle damage and increased risk of heart attack
prostate enlargement with difficulty urinating
liver disease
acne
fluid retention with swelling of the legs and feet
weight gain, perhaps related in part to increased appetite
high blood pressure and cholesterol
insomnia
headaches
increased muscle mass
increased risk of blood clots
stunted growth in adolescents
uncharacteristically aggressive behavior (although not well studied or clearly proven)
mood swings, euphoria, irritability, impaired judgment, delusions.
MEN AS AN INVESTABLE ASSET CLASS?
This isn’t a joke - there are 69… yes, 69… US companies with zero women on the board and another 10 that have women with 0% influence
Nathan’s Famous hot dog board - 10 directors, 1 woman, 9 men… female influence on the board = 0% according to FFA data
ZERO people of color
Insiders own 30% of the company (all white dudes), but the largest external manager GAMCO/Gabelli (14% of shares) PMs are all men that hold Nathan’s - men holding men!
Oglethorpe Power is my new favorite MANCOMPANY - the board:
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says women founders say they can't go 'founder mode' like men and that it needs to change
Headliniest of the Year
DR: Elon Musk's $46 billion payday is 'not about the money,' Tesla chair says
DR: Google Helpless to Stop Its AI From Recommending Glue on Pizza
DR: Jamie Dimon says
DR: ESG is Coming For Your Toilet Paper DR
DR: X global affairs head Nick Pickles resigns
MM: Anti-woke:
A definitive list of woke and non-woke foods - New Zealand Herald
Beans = woke
Baked Beans = not woke
Potato chips (salted, salt and vinegar) = not woke
Potato chips (any other flavor) = woke
Spaghetti = woke
Canned spaghetti = woke
Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) = woke
Quinoa (pronounced quin-oh-ah) = slightly less woke but still woke
MM: Cybertruck:
Maine Man Alarmed When Everybody Mocks His Cybertruck, Flips Him Off MM
The Cybertruck faces another setback as it recalls more than 11,000 vehicles over its giant wiper
MM: Meritocracy
NASA Praises Boeing's Stranded Starliner for Managing Not to Explode While Docked to Space Station
MM: Awesome:
Police Warn Residents to Lock Down Houses as Dozens of Monkeys Escape Research Facility
Who Won the Year?
DR:
Claudia Sheinbaum Elected as Mexico’s First Female President
e.l.f. Beauty
The Shareholder Primacy podcast with Mike Levin and Ann Lipton
Shitheads (re: Robby Starbuck, et al)
Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, the first woman to lead Delaware's Court of Chancery
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL!!!!!!
Anyone who wants free director data - we lifted the paywalls on freefloatanalytics.com, so you get 80,000 active directors globally, influence metrics, and four performance metrics for every single one. Suck it ISS.
MM:
Proxy voters
FREE FLOAT ANALYTICS IS FREE for 80,000 current directors with some performance metrics
Our clients
From the Gates’ Foundation’s asset manager to Fidelity, Free Float’s clients get it ALL - historical data, knowledge maps, connectivity data that includes now non profit boards, we’re working on lobbying data, diversity data, and all packaged with expert findings and ad hoc research directly from us
Damion
Never has he been more credible
Capitalism
Knowing WHO runs the world is much more important than knowing WHAT runs the world
Non profits moving companies
We worked with a half dozen non profits this year who needed data to influence companies - and we gave it to them, so much so we’re starting a non profit of our own to donate data to and through
Predictions
We’ll start 2025 with a Predictions show and look back at lost year’s predictions
