FRIDAY WRAP: Musk censors Ukraine's internet, Walgreens CFO sheds tears for shrink (not opioids), Adam Neumann still gets funded, an Hyundai's US child labor

LIVE from your favorite thawing glacier, it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here at February 10th Avenue Studios, featuring Ari the data queen, Jessie the money whisperer, BS-man Matt Moscardi. On today’s weekly wrap up: CEOs say dumb stuff; Ari likes gross food, Matt hates losers, and assorted Super Bowl chatter.

Story of the Week (DR):

1. BP vowed to help set the oil and gas industry on a greener path. Many who bought in now feel betrayed AB

1. When BP appointed Bernard Looney as CEO exactly three years ago, climate activists believed they might finally have an ally within Big Oil, after decades of deep distrust of the energy industry. Looney—Irish, from a poor farming family—broke the mold of Britain’s century-old company in more ways than one: He vowed to turn BP into a green energy giant, by drastically cutting oil and gas production and plowing billions into renewables.

2. Mr. Looney has said he is disappointed in the returns from some of the oil giant’s renewable investments and plans to pursue a narrower green-energy strategy. He has told some people close to the company that BP needs to do more to convince shareholders of its strategy to maximize profits in areas where it has a competitive advantage, including its legacy oil-and-gas operations.

2. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan Cuts His Own Pay By 98% Amid Layoffs

1. Share price immediately spiked from $76.24 to $84.38

2. On paper that’s a $184M gain (22,621,242x$8.14), per 2022 proxy shareholdings

3. Overall worth about $1.9B

4. 15% of its workforce

5. This is a big BS PR dance

1. Eric’s worth is not tied to pay; never has been

2. Made $1.1M in 2022; over 70% of which was for security

3. Ukraine war: Elon Musk's SpaceX firm bars Kyiv from using Starlink tech for drone control MM JS

1. SpaceX has limited Ukraine's ability to use its satellite internet service for military purposes - after reports that Kyiv has used it to control drones.

2. At an event in Washington DC on Wednesday, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell explained that Starlink technology was "never meant to be weaponised". She made reference to Ukraine's alleged use of Starlink to control drones, and stressed that the equipment had been provided for humanitarian use.

4. More NFL SuperBowl BS

1. Jim Trotter: “I’ve worked in NFL Media for five years. During those five years, we’ve never had a Black person in senior management in our newsroom. More concerning is that for a year-plus now, we have never had a full-time Black employee on the newsdesk. I asked you about these things last year and what you told me is that the league has fallen short and that you will want to review all of your policies and practices to try and improve this. And yet a year later, nothing has changed.”

2. Added Trotter, “James Baldwin once said that I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do. So, I would ask you as an employee, when are we in the newsroom going to have a Black person in senior management and when will we have a full-time Black employee on the newsdesk?”

3. Goodell pointed out that he’s “not in charge of the newsroom,” a cop-out to the fact that the NFL that he commissions runs NFL media and has the power to change hiring practices. He touted their work with NFL vendors and partners to increase inclusiveness but also said, “I do not know specifically about the media business. We’ll check in again with our people but I am comfortable that we made significant progress across the league.”

4. Goodell was of course asked about concussions, specifically the increase of head trauma this season (up 18%), and thought it was a good time to point out that injuries as a whole dropped 6%.

1. B.U. released the results of its study of former NFL players’ brains, and it’s not a number that the NFL wants talked about on Super Bowl week: Boston University study of 376 former NFLers finds 345 of them had CTE

5. Ten retired NFL players sue league's benefits plan

1. Ten retired NFL players are accusing the league of lies, bad faith and flagrant violations of federal law in denying disability benefits in a potential class-action lawsuit filed Thursday in Baltimore.

2. The men said they left the game with lingering physical or cognitive injuries that make their daily lives difficult if not excruciating. They also said they are not alone.

3. "They're a small fraction of the players who have been wronged by the NFL's disability plan. These former players deserve far more from an organization worth billions of dollars than a sham process in which there's no chance of success,'' said lawyer Chris Seeger, who separately has been class counsel in the $1 billion settlement of NFL concussion claims.

6. Meanwhile, Hall of Fame receiver Michael Irvin was removed from NFL Network and ESPN programming after an allegation of misconduct.

1. Michael Irvin sues accuser, Marriott for $100 million over allegedly false accusation of misconduct

Goodliest of the Week (AB):

1. Greatest deal I’ve seen so far in 2023:

1. Cracker Barrel is offering free food for a year to couples who propose at the restaurant on Valentine's Day

2. Walgreens CFO says he might have 'cried too much last year' over shoplifting, but retailers are locking down more and more products MM

1. Can you just imagine CFO tears for sale on ebay? Like Splash Mountain water, or “brady’s butt was here when he announced his second retirement” sand

2. A year ago, Kehoe told investors the company in 2020 and 2021 experienced a 52% increase in shrink – an industry term that refers to lost inventory, either by mismanagement or theft – compared to pre-2020 levels, attributing it to “organized crime.” 

3. But shrink at Walgreens recently has come down to 2.5-2.6% of sales from 3.5% in 2022, according to Kehoe, who said Thursday he was “quite happy” with current shrink levels.

3. In new role, Bernie Sanders demands answers from interim Starbucks CEO JS DR

1. first target is Howard Schultz, the interim CEO of Starbucks who has aggressively fought his workers’ efforts to unionize.

2. Sanders and the 10 other Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee sent a letter to Schultz on Tuesday demanding he testify at a March 9 hearing on his company’s compliance with federal labor laws. If Schultz ignores or refuses the request, Sanders said, he’s willing to use the committee’s subpoena power to force him to appear.

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. Spending money on losers DR JS AB

1. Marc Andreessen spent $350m on this: Adam Neumann talked about Flow for a full hour, and we still don’t know what it is

2. While Google, Alibaba, and Microsoft are deep in the AI chatbot wars, Meta is still working on legs for Mark Zuckerberg to the tune of $11bn

2. Declaring victory

1. Disney proxy fight over for Iger, Nelson Peltz claims victory

2. Disney Plans to Reinstate Its Dividend and Cut 7,000 Jobs. The Stock Jumps.

3. Populist math:

1. 7,000 employees at around 65,000 per year = just over $455m

2. Disney has 1.8bn shares outstanding

3. $455M/1.8BN = 0.25

4. If the annual dividend is equal to or near 0.25c per share, THE EMPLOYEES WERE FIRED TO PAY OFF INVESTORS

3. Josh Hawley, for making me agree with you

1. Sen. Josh Hawley wants to create a legal age for social media

2. The age should be 75

3. The only one who should oppose this is Matt Gaetz

4. Alternative legislation:

1. Social media executives’ kids should be forced to be on their own social media platforms a minimum of 4 hours a day with no parental filters

5. Also, I agree even HARDER because of this: Microsoft's $69 billion Activision takeover could harm gamers, British regulator says

1. WHY ARE WE WORRIED ABOUT GAMERS NOT HAVING ENOUGH CHOICES OF WHICH THING TO BLOW UP BUT NOT SOCIAL MEDIA MONOPOLIES AND DUAL CLASS DICTATORS

4. This thing:

1. Daniel Cameron Calls on GOP Field to Take Anti-ESG Pledge for Public Pensions

2. A PLEDGE!  AN ANTI-ESG PLEDGE! Why stop there?  Why not a pledge not to review any medical studies or data before surgery?  Or maybe a pledge to close your eyes and plug your nose before you eat every meal so as not to discriminate against certain food groups?

Exhausting-est of the Week (JS):

1. Christianity’s Rebrand MM

1. “He gets us”

2. A group that includes wealthy Christian boosters is using the biggest megaphone TV marketing money can buy on Sunday, the Super Bowl, to spread the word with two new ads that proclaim “He Gets Us.”

3. They hope to counter the notion that religion is used to divide people, spending about $20 million to reach more than 100 million viewers at a time when the nation’s Christian population — and religious affiliation of any kind — are in decline.

4. I don’t see how wildly overpaying to get this message out will get people thinking about how unifying this slogan or idea is

2. Child Labor: Hyundai in talks with U.S. Labor Department over Alabama child labor AB JS

1. The company is taking corrective actions after a Reuters investigation found children as young as 12 working in hazard-laden Alabama factories linked to the automotive giant

2. A spokesman for the company said they are putting several new measures in place to ensure noncompliance doesn’t happen again- among them: Hyundai said it will roll out new employment training programs throughout its U.S. supply chain, validate identification documents for job applicants, set up anonymous tip hotlines, and discourage the use of third-party staffing agencies. Reuters found those agencies sometimes placed underage workers in the suppliers' plants.

3. Littering- are people seriously still doing that?? DR

1. 10 most littered, single-use plastics in the US:

1. Cigarette filters

2. Plastic film (non-food)

3. Plastic film (food)

4. Expanded polystyrene (other than food)

5. Non-film plastic food packaging

6. Beverage packaging

7. Expanded polystyrene (food)

8. Single serve wine and liquor

9. Plastic bags

10. Water bottles

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: KenDoll Bob Iger

2. AB: Medicare

3. MM: Nelson Peltz, because he said so

4. JS: 

Predictions

1. DR: Dan Schulman stepping down at PayPal but will remain on board.

1. Because of this they will not hire external superstar but an internal hire that Dan can potentially control and then boomerang.

2. Despite the fact that the 3 lowest board influencers at PayPal are women, PayPal promotes CIO Archie Deskus to CEO (formerly CIO at Intel/Hewlett Packard/Baker Hughes/Timex/United TEchnologies/Ingersoll-Rand

1. maybe fulfilling another prediction (SouthAsian female CEO)??

1. Can’t tell… LinkedIn mentions limiting working proficiency of Indian language Gujarati

2. 3rd party websites list her as african american

2. AB: Business Insider will run a bunch of headlines next week “Man loses car, cat, and dog after Super Bowl online gambling”

3. MM: There are 22,500 distinct first names of directors globally active today

1. Unadjusted for alternate spellings - ie, Jon vs. John

2. For first names with at least 50 people, the first name with the highest median influence on boards globally is Adam with a 12% influence (75 names)

3. I predict that Adam Neumann is funded entirely because his first name sounds powerful, and Adam becomes the most popular baby name in 2023.

JS: Humans, in our greedy human fashion, will over-forage dust from the moon to try to save the world from climate change, actually worsening climate change