Corporate Gossip

The demon living inside Les Wexner's head brings us into the Victoria's Secret gremlin lair! Adam and Becca go back to the early 2000s to tell the story of the rise and fall of this retail behemoth and the corporate crooks who drove it into the ground.

CW: Sexual Assault, Suicide

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Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro & Ed Razek's creep club

16:30 - The toxic culture inside Victoria's Secret

25:00 - Les Wexner's childhood & mommy issues

42:00 - Jack Fucking Welch shows up!!! The fall of Victoria's Secret

Links:

Selling Sexy: Victoria's Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon

'Angels' in Hell: The Culture of Misogyny Inside Victoria's Secret

The Mogul and the Monster: Inside Jeffrey Epstein's Decades-Long Relationship With His Biggest Client

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On a chilly October night, I like to cuddle up with a good ponzi scheme. It's my comfort fraud <3

Links:

'Do You Believe I'm a Scam? Haha' Tai Lopez became YouTube famous promising men they too could own a Lamborghini. Then came the alleged Ponzi scheme.

Tai Lopez's RadioShack Ponzi Scheme

Read the SEC complaint

This Clown Is Still Around

its always the guy you suspect the most

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CW: Suicide, Sexual Assault

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No game developer would even think to create a dungeon troll as sinister as Bobby Kotick. Bobby's life is a video game where gobbling up cash is the mission and when it comes to retribution there is no side quest too small!

When the WSJ drops a bombshell report about years of sexual harassment and toxic culture at Activsion Blizard, will Bobby Kotick finally run out of lives? Or will he respawn in the form of a trash goblin who gets bonus points for punching down?

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Time Stamps:

00:00 - Background on Activision Blizzard

09:30 - Bobby Kotick meets Daddy Wynnbucks and becomes an adopted nepo baby, starts game publisher Activision and develops expert level skill in suing people less rich than him

29:30 - Blizzard origin story, early reports of sexual harassment

51:00 - Activision Blizzard merger, Bobby Kotick turns the company into the Triangle Shirtwaist factory while board members look the other way

56:00 - Bobby Kotick completes the CEO right of passage - bending over for the CCP!

60:00 - The lights come on and everyone realizes Bobby Kotick is a little dungeon troll

Note:

Activision Blizzard denied any wrongdoing, and the settlement confirms California Civil Rights Department (CRD) could not substantiate those claims. As part of the settlement, the CRD withdrew the claims related to harassment from its complaint.

Links:

Play Nice (book)

'Scorched earth' and big profits: How embattled gaming titan Bobby Kotick outlasts his opponents

At Blizzard, groping, free-flowing booze and fear of retaliation tainted 'magical' workplace

Blizzard Sets Off Backlash for Penalizing Hearthstone Gamer in Hong Kong

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Knew for Years About Sexual-Misconduct Allegations at Videogame Giant

A group of Activision workers say their C.E.O. should step down.

Parents Say Sexual Harassment at Activision Blizzard Led to Their Daughter's Suicide

Listen to the full episode on Patreon. Join today at the Murdoch's Mates level and get FOUR bonus epiosdes every month plus the Corporate Gossip Book Club and group chat!

In this episode:

Brian Niccol TRIES HIS HARDEST to get us to like Starbucks again as he tries to escape the living ghost of Howard Shultz.

I also went to the Charlie Javice Sentencing yesterday - my report starts at 48:15. 7 YEARS!!! I was shocked - I was certain she'd be sentenced to no more than 5.

Links:

Starbucks is closing more stores and laying off 900 workers

Starbucks CEO's turnaround isn't happening fast enough for Wall Street

Howard Schultz says he is a big fan of Brian Niccol's 'brilliant' Starbucks revival strategy

Starbucks enters the protein wars with test of new drink option

Starbucks to use AI to track inventory, free up baristas to connect

Starbucks seeks to slash million-dollar store upgrade costs

Write to Starbucks Corporate: https://customerservice.starbucks.com/sbux

Starbucks Customer Contact Center: 1 (800) 782-7282

Charlie Javice Sentenced to 85 Months in Prison for Fraud

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It's the quintessential American company - gaslighting the public, twisting regulators by the balls, and killing consumers in the name of shareholder value! This story is a smorgasbord of deviance - lies, fraud, corruption, cults, and a very sweaty CEO. So put on your lab coats and take out your popcorn as we dive into the pharmaceutical trash heap known as Johnson & Johnson - and yes, we're going to talk about Tylenol.

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Pics from today's episode

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Twin Cities Comic Con

Studio Govan

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Timestamps:

00:00 - History of J&J

12:15 - Busting the myths of the 1982 Tylenol cyanide murders

24:00 - Tylenol, liver failure, and the cost of doing business

38:30 - FDA <3 J&J

46:00 - The J&J credo on opposite day (Risperdal kills nursing home patients and gives young boys breasts!)

01:08:00 - Oops! Extra Asbestos (J&J Talc based baby powder)

Links:

No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson

Dose of Confusion

How Independent is the FDA

Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos lurked in its Baby Powder

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Hear the rest of the episode on Patreon

TW: Sexual Assault

Wallstreets skankiest trash goblin, Jamie Dimon, has had the worst week EVER after a mind-blowing investigation was published by the NYT last week. Some truly flabbergasting revelations had us asking, can Dimon widdle baby his way out of this one?

Links (please DM me if you need a gift link!):

How Jeffrey Epstein Used the Billionaire Behind Victoria's Secret for Wealth and Women

How JPMorgan Enabled the Crimes of Jeffrey Epstein

THE TALENTED MR. EPSTEIN

Why Didn't Vanity Fair Break the Jeffrey Epstein Story?

"She Was Shaking Uncontrollably": Powerful Men, Disturbing New Details in Unsealed Jeffrey Epstein Documents

Senators Call for Hearings About JPMorgan's Ties to Jeffrey Epstein

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What ever happened to AOL?! We go all the way back to 1999 (home video included) and meet Steve Case, the CEO of, at the time, the largest technology company in America. High on his own supply, he wrangles Time Warner CEO Jerry Levin into a business noogie and manages to destroy a third of a TRILLION DOLLARS in shareholder value almost instantly.

TW: murder

Pictures

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Thank you to today's sponsors:

Aster + Lupine

RainBao Food Truck

Links:

Stealing Time (book)

Fools Rush In (book)

There Must be a Pony in here Somewhere (book)

Gerald M. Levin, Time Warner Chief in a Merger Debacle, Dies at 84

How the AOL-Time Warner Merger Went So Wrong

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We're back with part two of our series on Open AI (we're done after this one for a while). Everyone's making everything up all the time and no one has any idea what will happen in the future. In this episode, we cover the wild claims made about AI and AGI and how those predictions are being used to justify environmental destruction and human exploitation. Also Sam Altman stands on his tippytoes.

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Today's sponsors are Darling Beasts, a book by Michelle Gable and The Talent Spot

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Pictures from this episode

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Links:

Empire of AI (Book)

'There was all sorts of toxic behaviour': Timnit Gebru on her sacking by Google, AI's dangers and big tech

AI is draining water from Areas that need it most

Small Oregon county reckons with fallout from data center scandal

Arizona city defeats massive data center project over water, energy concerns

Behind the AI boom, an army of overseas workers in 'digital sweatshops'

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Ty Haney is back at Outdoor voices, the cult athleisure brand she founded. Can she successfully suck us all into her time machine back to 2014? Or will this brand's death rattle be loud enough to convince the brand's private equity investors to LET IT GO!???

In this highly-requested episode, we figure out how the once beloved brand got so weird and shitty.

Links:

Outdoor Voices Became A Staple For Millennial Cool Girls Thanks To Its Chill Aesthetic. Employees Say They Were Drowning.

Outdoor Voices Founder Ty Haney Has Moved On. Mostly. Three years after her dramatic exit as CEO, she still has some things she’d like to say.

How Outdoor Voices, a Start-Up Darling, Imploded

Ty Haney is Elon Musk's Reply Guy

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CW: Child Sexual Assault

Meet Sam Altman, one of the most powerful men in tech (also maybe evil Pete Buttigieg??) and his posse of boy pests. We take you deep into the bunkers of Silicon Valley to Sam's inner circle to figure out how he became so rotted. Was it insecurity? Napoleon syndrome? OR SCURVY INDUCED PSYCHOSIS ???

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Watch on Youtube

Today's sponsors are Brick of Chicago and Neurorenew PT

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Pictures from the episode

Submit a good news story by email to our good news correspondent [email protected]

Links:

You look like a thing and I love you (Book)

Empire of AI (Book)

The Worst Hard Time (Book)

Sam Altman Is the Oppenheimer of Our Age

Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny

Sam Altman on His Plan to Keep A.I. Out of the Hands of the "Bad Guys"

Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

Know Your Rights Virtual Workshop