Who would you elect? Zuck vs. John Arnold, Boeing now vs. Boeing before, driving a Tesla vs. driving anything, and Howard, Susan, or Peter Buffett

WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE/VOTE FOR?

1. Home Depot co-founder, GOP donor Bernie Marcus dead at 95. Berne endorsed Trump in November… 2023 and said two years ago that “Nobody works, nobody gives a damn. Just give it to me. Send me money. I don't want to work — I'm too lazy, I'm too fat, I'm too stupid. We used to have free speech here. We don't have it. The woke people have taken over the world. You know, I imagine today they can't attack me. I'm 93. Who gives a crap about Bernie Marcus?”  WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE?

1. Lead “Independent” Director Gregor Brenneman

1. CEO Ed Decker already on board

2. Doesn’t have to sit on any committees (all other independent directors sit on at least two)

3. $380,000 in pay last year to meet 11 times; one of two directors who didn’t even give to charity as part of the board’s matching charitable contribution program

4. Has an actual voice that matters (14%); CEO has 25%

2. Director Gerard Arpey

1. $315,000 despite low pressure (only 3% influence)

2. No leadership rules: sits on Nominating Committee with four other directors and FInance Committee with 5 other directors

3. Doesn’t even have a “Real” job: says he has been a partner in Emerald Creek Group, a private equity firm since 2012. Prior to his retirement in 2011, he served as CEO of AMR Corporation

1. Emerald Creeks’s website is a picture of an orange grove. In the “news” section of the website the last listed event was from November 29, 2011: Arpey Joins Emerald Creek Group

2. Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes.

1. Meta will allow U.S. government agencies and contractors working on national security to use its artificial intelligence models for military purposes.

2. Meta said that it would make its A.I. models, called Llama, available to federal agencies and that it was working with defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Booz Allen as well as defense-focused tech companies including Palantir and Anduril.

3. Meta’s move is an exception to its “acceptable use policy,” which forbade the use of the company’s A.I. software for “military, warfare, nuclear industries,” among other purposes.

4. WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE?

1. Meta Platforms Emperor Mark Zuckerberg

1. 72% influence; 61% voting power

2. World’s 4th richest person: ~$200B

3. Blah blah blah

2. Meta director John Arnold

1. 1% influence

2. Member on only one committee (Audit & Risk) with 4 other members

3. No other directorships; only have a BA

4. received an $8M bonus from Enron just before the company filed for bankruptcy; the largest cash bonus ever distributed by the company. Known as "king of natural gas”

5. You work at a place named after you (Arnold Ventures) and you’re still just the co-founder and co-chair

6. Your board appointment was announced on Valentine’s Day

7. Pay will be roughly $500,000 annually. He also received two initial equity grants worth $1.4M

8.  In 2007, Arnold became the youngest billionaire in the U.S

3. Boeing Union Approves New Contract, Ending Costly Strike

1. Leaders of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers district in Seattle said 59% of members who cast ballots agreed to approve the company’s fourth formal offer and the third put to a vote.

2. The new contract will raise wages more than 43 percent cumulatively over the next four years, an improvement over the two previous offers. The first proposal would have raised wages just over 27 percent.

3. The deal also includes a $12,000 ratification bonus, which is four times as much as the bonus in the initial offer, and productivity bonuses.

4. However, Boeing refused to meet strikers’ demand to restore a company pension plan that was frozen nearly a decade ago.

5. Bank of America analysts estimated last month that Boeing was losing about $50 million a day during the now-ended strike

6. WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE?

1. Current CEO Kelly Ortberg, who inherited a mess

2. Or former CEO David Calhoun, who got to step down when he felt like it and got $98M in total summary compensation since 2020

4. Kroger Finalizes $1.37 Billion Opioid Crisis Settlement

1. Under the agreement, which wasn’t an admission of wrong doing or liability by Kroger, the company agreed to pay about $1.2 billion over 11 years and around $177 million over a six-year period, each in equal installments.  WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE?

1. CEO and Chair Rodney McMullen since 2014

1. $94M pay since 2019; ; holds $350M in Kroger stock

2. Pay ration 502:1;  median associate for 2023 was $31,302; received $600k in dividend payments in 2024

3. 92% shareholder support

2. Nora A. Aufreiter, chair of the Public Responsibilities Committee that met a whopping 3 times last year; served on our Public Responsibilities Committee for nine years, the last four as chair

1. Director Emeritus of McKinsey & Company; retired in 2014 after more than 27 years with McKinsey

2. $321,000 last year; holds $3M in Kroger stock

3. 98% support from shareholders; 99% last year

4. 2% board influence despite having served for a decade

5. Elon Musk and X are epicenter of US election misinformation

1. False or misleading claims by billionaire Elon Musk about the U.S. election have amassed 2 billion views on social media platform X this year, according to a report by non-profit group Center for Countering Digital Hate.

2. The platform is also playing a central role in enabling the spread of false information about the critical battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the presidential race

3. WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE?

1. Someone who drives a Tesla

2. Or someone who drives literally anything else, including the vehicle from this headline: Guy makes “dodgy e-bike” from 130 used vapes to make point about e-waste

6. Southwest Airlines names Rakesh Gangwal as board chair following Gary Kelly's retirement

1. The airline brought in the co-founder of India's largest carrier Indigo to its board in July despite criticism from Elliott Investment Management at the time.

2. Gangwal bought Southwest shares worth more than $100 million last month before the airline settled its boardroom feud with Elliott in a deal that allowed CEO Bob Jordan to retain his job by making bigger board-level concessions.

3. Co-founder IndiGo Airlines, former CEO and Chair at US Airways Group; served on the boards of CarMax, Office Depot, OfficeMax and PetSmart

4. WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE?

1. Rakesh Gangwal 

2. Former Southwest CEO and Chair Gary Kelly who remains on the board at Chairman Emeritus

3. Now longest-tenured independent director Douglas Brooks

1. No leadership roles; owns over $2M in stock; made $305K for board service last year

2. (iii) while serving on the Board, free travel on Southwest Airlines for the Director, the Director’s spouse, and the Director’s children, as well as 50 one-way flight passes annually that may be used for free travel on Southwest Airlines on an unrestricted basis, and an additional 50 one-way flight passes annually for use by qualified charitable and 501(c)(3) organizations;

3. (iv) subsequent to Board service

1. a lifetime privilege of 50 one-way flight passes annually that may be used for free travel on Southwest Airlines on an unrestricted basis;

2. lifetime free travel on Southwest Airlines for the Director and the Director’s spouse

3. if the Director is deceased, free travel on Southwest Airlines for the Director’s spouse for the lifetime of the spouse

4. $75,000 cash when he retires

7. Barry Diller calls timing of The Washington Post’s non-endorsement a ‘blunder’

1. To Barry Diller, a friend of Amazon  founder Jeff Bezos, the decision for The Washington Post not to endorse a candidate in tomorrow’s presidential election was “absolutely principled” — and poorly timed, he said Monday

2. Which Barry Diller directorship would you vote for?

1. Expedia Group (27%)

1. Chair and Senior Executive $7M

2. More influence than CEO Peter Kern

3. Nearly $2B in equity; about 49% in voting power

2. The Coca-Cola Company (8%)

1. $12M in shares; $300k annual pay; 3 board committees

3. MGM Resorts (9%)

1. One committee no leadership; no board pay; IAC owns 20% of MGM equity ($2.3B)

4. IAC (65%)

1. Chair and Senior Executive $3M

2. 43% voting power; $650M equity

8. Let’s end in Omaha, where the small Nebraska district may decide our next president: Warren Buffett skipped endorsing a presidential candidate this election as many CEOs retreat from politics. WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE?

1. America’s cuddly rich man Warren Buffett, 93 years old and currently 7th richest in world at ~$140B, who doesn’t even have to take a stand.

2. Or nepo babies Howard Buffett and Susan Buffett, who sit on the Berkshire board and will be inevitably looked at as failures when the company loses its luster after daddy dies.

Or non-Berkshire director and nepo baby Peter Buffett who, after dropping out of Stanford University, used the proceeds of his inheritance from his grandfather to pursue a career in music