FRIDAY WRAP: 23andMe board resigns, Tyson food’s “smart beef” lawsuit, anti-ESG law killing proxies

Introduction

LIVE from your ESG smokeless peach pit, it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here at September 20th Lane Studios, featuring ONE of your favorites: AnalystHole-man Matt Moscardi. On today’s weekly wrap up: Nike goes Back to the Future, Chief Kneeler Jamie Dimon yells at young people, Evil Tech CEOs continue to be, um, evil, and directors who love a free ride 

Today’s show is brought to you by freefloatanalytics.com - everything you ever wanted to know about who runs public companies, all free.

Story of the Week (DR):

1. Nike CEO John Donahoe is out, replaced by company veteran Elliott Hill

1. Hill retired from Nike in 2020 after a long career with the company, but the board and Executive Chair Mark Parker asked him to come back, citing their many years of working together

2. Nike co-founder Phil Knight said that he: “couldn’t be more excited to welcome Elliott back to the team” and that “We’ve got a lot of work to do but I’m looking forward to seeing Nike back on its pace.”

3. Nike welcomes new CEO with $27 million payday

2. 23andMe’s independent board directors resign MM

1. In response the CEO said in an SEC filing: “I am surprised and disappointed… We will immediately begin identifying independent directors to join the board.”

3. Masimo CEO Joe Kiani ousted from board after proxy fight; Politan wins two seats

1. Single class; 9%

4. Federal Reserve cuts US interest rates for the first time in four years

Goodliest of the Week (MM, pretending to be AB):

1. Tyson Foods Sued Over Emissions Reduction Promises DR

2. Tucker Carlson plans to start a nicotine-pouch company after deciding Zyn is ‘not a brand for men’

1. He “joked” on a podcast it’d make your genitals “enhanced”

2. The company (owned by Philip Morris) put out a statement saying “nope”

3. He said “you’re a bunch of liberal drones” and that they donated to Kamala and they’re good for “your girlfriend or something” because it starts with Z

4. They do not donate to Kamala, they donate more to GOP

3. Jamie Dimon tells Gen Z to stop wasting its time on TikTok and read books instead

4. Cleanup Group Says It's on Track to Eliminate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Exhausting-est of the Week (DR, pretending to be JS):

1. Secret Service Probing Musk’s Post About Threats to Biden and Harris

2. GOP 'woke week' advances package of anti-ESG bills

3. F.T.C. Study Finds ‘Vast Surveillance’ of Social Media Users DR

1. Meta, YouTube and other sites collected more data than most users realized, a new report by the Federal Trade Commission finds.

2. The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday it found that several social media and streaming services engaged in a “vast surveillance” of consumers, including minors, collecting and sharing more personal information than most users realized.

3. Due to AI fakes, the “deep doubt” era is here

4. Billionaire Larry Ellison says a vast AI-fueled surveillance system can ensure 'citizens will be on their best behavior'

5. Sam Altman may be in his villain era, but no one seems to care

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. Data:

1. We have access to 10,429 companies in the Free Float Analytics database

2. 4,565 of them are tagged as “Totalitarian” companies - companies where a single person (founder or founders, controlled companies, dual class) owns the majority of influence

3. Those boards have 19,872 directors that are wholly independent - not family, executives, or insiders

4. The number of those directors that quit in protest of the fact that the founders do whatever they want: 0… UNTIL YESTERDAY

5. So here’s a short list of assholes who have way more reason to quit:

1. Robin Washington - on TWO Totalitarian boards (Salesforce, Alphabet)

2. Brad Smith - on TWO Totalitarian boards (Netflix, Amazon)

3. Meta

1. Marc Andreessen

2. Andrew Houston

3. Tracey Travis

4. Peggy Alford

5. Tony Xu

6. Robert Kimmitt

7. Nancy Killefer

8. John Arnold

4. Oracle

1. Awo Ablo

2. Bruce Chizen

3. George Conrades

4. Jeffrey Berg

5. Leon Panetta

6. Michael Boskin

7. Naomi Seligman

8. Rona Fairhead

9. Wick Moorman

10. William Parrett

5. Tesla

1. Joe Gebbia

2. Kathleen Wilson-Thompson

3. Robyn Denholm

6. Full list available as a data drop!

7. Bonus asshole - do you think he fucking matters? Republican lawmakers issues warnings about ‘far-left’ Facebook board billionaire John Arnold

2. Data

1. High school only graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed as college graduates.

2. Typical earnings for bachelor’s degree holders are $40,500 or 86 percent higher than those whose highest degree is a high school diploma.

3. Median lifetime earnings are $1.2 million higher for bachelor’s degree holders.

4. Even when adjusting for sociodemographic data, graduating college is a big fucking deal

5. Asshole: Sam Altman and the “whatever dude, just BE a billionaire and it’s cool” college dropouts

1. Sam Altman tells high schoolers dropping out of college wasn’t a big deal

3. Data

1. Roll back ESG To Increase Retirement Earnings Act or the RETIRE Act DR

1. The guy who wrote/sponsored the bill - Rick Allen of Georgia - also happily tried to amend the constitution to ban gay marriage (his argument was a bible passage, and said anyone who votes for it is going to hell), sued to overturn the 2020 election, and failed to disclose his stock holdings, and wouldn’t you know, he’s on the energy and commerce committee and his biggest contributors are a local Caterpillar dealer, the Koch Brothers, the National Chicken Council, and a lumber company

2. Killing proxy voting by paperwork!

1. “maintain a record of any proxy vote, proxy voting activity, or other exercise of a shareholder right, including any attempt to influence management”

3. ESG piece of this is nothingburger, calling it ESG is strictly political theater for Blackrock’s seven ESG analysts and the guy running HUD’s ESG Program (Emergency Solutions Grants Program) to get confused

1. “Notwithstanding paragraph (A), if a fiduciary is unable to distinguish between or among investment alternatives or investment courses of action on the basis of pecuniary factors alone, the fiduciary may use non-pecuniary factors as the deciding factor if the fiduciary documents [why]”

4. But because investors have basically ceded the alternative democracy to companies, this will cement it - rather than using your vote, you were happy to gamble so conservatives in the US are taking away your right to vote by making it so onerous you don’t bother at all

1. “The fiduciary duty to manage shareholder rights appurtenant to shares of stock does not require the voting of every proxy or the exercise of every shareholder right.”

5. This replaces the “Prudent man standard of care” section on fiduciary duty which basically says you have to invest prudently… 

Headliniest of the Week

1. DR: ESG is Coming For Your Toilet Paper

2. MM: Real Madrid’s $1.9 billion stadium cancels all concerts because the music was too loud

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: 23andMe for pretending to look like independent director heroes (when really this is just about the share price)

2. MM: Anne Wojciki - finally she can conduct a board meeting in a bathrobe if she wants!  No more fake listening!

Predictions

1. DR: New CEO of Southwest Airlines will NOT be a…. Woman.

1. My initial hunch was this was a great Glas Cliff CEO moment but then I looked at the 15 companies in this article: Long-Term Returns of Paul Singer’s Activist Targets and of the 15 companies cited her, including Juniper Networks, PayPal, Alcoa, and NRG Energy, all 15 of the companies are run by… dudes.

2. An article in June reported that Paul Singer is under scrutiny for gifting conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito an undisclosed private flight, donated $10 million in June to the Senate Republicans’ top super PAC. I wonder who he’ll be voting for in November??

2. MM: John Donahoe, newly retired, joins the board of 23andMe because he’s used to an overvoting founder and hey, who cares, right?