WOKE WEDNESDAY: Charlie Munger RIP, we were right on OpenAI, and a business news headline Who Wore It Better game

Live from a post-Thanksgiving shame-shack, it’s the ESG Industry’s ONLY weekly woke data podcast, featuring AnalystHole Matt Moscardi! In today’s ESG bloat called November 29, 2023: The business world loses its most famous sidekick and a stupid game! 

Our show today is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only ESG data platform to measure real board influence and diversity power gaps

DAMION1

1. Charlie Munger big dumb thoughts:

1. Charlie Munger, who died Tuesday at the age of 99, told CNBC's Becky Quick  the one thing he wanted to do before he died was catch a 200-pound tuna fish.

2. "I regard Alibaba as one of the worst mistakes I ever made"

1. Munger's Daily Journal quadrupled its holding of Alibaba stock in the third quarter of 2021.

2. But Alibaba's share price just kept slumping amid China's flagging economy post-pandemic and intense sector competition. The stock has lost about three quarters of its value since it hit its peak in October 2020.

3. "I got charmed by the idea of their position in the Chinese internet; I didn't stop to realize they're still a goddamn retailer. It's going to be a competitive business, the internet — it's not going to be a cakewalk for everybody."

3. Here's how much Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has lagged tech stocks over the last 20 years

1. If you had put $10,000 in Berkshire Hathaway stock 20 years ago, you would have about $65,300 today. If you had put that same money in the Nasdaq, you would have $110,700.

4. Best quotes

1. "I've done almost no exercise on purpose in my life. If I enjoyed an activity like tennis I would exercise, but for the first 99 years I've gotten by without doing any exercise at all."

2. On the 2008 financial crisis: "The bubble in America was caused by some combination of megalomania, insanity and evil in, I would say, investment banking, mortgage banking" 

3. On the US not banning crypto transactions: "I am not proud of my country for allowing this crap – well, I call it crypto shit. It's worthless, it's crazy, it's not good, it'll do nothing but harm, it's antisocial to allow it… I think the people that oppose my position are idiots"

4. Munger was a fan of donuts (in moderation), peanut brittle, and Diet Coke, and he avoided exercise as best he could, he said.

5. Munger once funded a $185 million windowless dorm at his alma mater, the University of Michigan. In 2013, Munger donated $110 million, part of which was spent to construct the Munger Graduate Residences.

1. "You never saw a happier bunch of students," Munger told CNN about a visit he made to Munger Graduate Residences in 2021.

1. Luiza Macadeo, a former resident, told CNN in 2021 that she had a bad experience isolating in her windowless room during the COVID-19 pandemic: "That was probably the low point of my experience here," Macadeo said.

2. But Munger Graduate Residences is probably going to be the only dorm featuring Munger's windowless design. The planned dorm at UCSB was scrapped after its design was panned by students and faculty members, according to a story from The Architect's Newspaper in August.

6. Greg Abel (3%) is CEO successor

1. Munger (3%); Warren (66%); Susan (3%) and Howie (3%)

2. As it stands today: 

2. OpenAI junk

1. OpenAI unlikely to offer board seat to Microsoft, other investors - source

1. ChatGPT owner OpenAI is not expected to offer Microsoft (MSFT.O) and other investors including Khosla Ventures and Thrive Capital seats on its new board, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

2. Ex-Google researcher says there's more chance she'd go back to Google than join OpenAI's board

1. One name that's been floated to join it is ex-Google researcher and AI ethics expert Timnit Gebru.

2. However, Gebru told Wired she found the idea "repulsive."

3. The new OpenAI board has drawn criticism for its lack of diversity, as it's currently comprised of three white men. One name that's been floated to join the board is prominent AI researcher Timnit Gebru.

4. Gebru, who was fired from Google in 2020 after writing a paper that pointed out biases in AI, shared her thoughts about joining OpenAI's board with Wired on Tuesday: "It's repulsive to me."

5. "I honestly think there's more of a chance that I would go back to Google—I mean, they won't have me and I won't have them—than me going to OpenAI," she added. "I just feel like the person on the board would have a horrible time because they will constantly be fighting an uphill battle," Gebru said.

3. Mark Cuban is selling majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks to the Adelson family

1. Adelson, the largest shareholder of Las Vegas Sands, is selling $2 billion worth of company stock.

2. The company said in a filing that Adelson would use proceeds to buy a sports team.

1. Roughly 41 million shares; Adelsons still own roughly 352 million shares of Las Vegas Sands

3. Cuban still owns a stake in the team and will run basketball operations.

4. Adelson is selling $2 billion worth of Las Vegas Sands stock, or roughly 10% of her stake, according to an announcement from the company. The proceeds will be used to buy a professional sports team, the casino company said in a filing Tuesday.

5. Adelson and her family are the largest shareholders in Las Vegas Sands

4. President Of UN Climate Summit Planned For Oil And Gas Deals Behind The Scenes: Report

1. “If the allegations are true, this is totally unacceptable and a real scandal,” Greenpeace International said.

2. The president of the United Nations’ annual climate summit planned to use the talks to lobby dozens of countries and business leaders to increase exports of oil and gas, according to leaked documents obtained by media outlets this week.

3. Dubai is preparing to host the 28th Conference of the Parties, or COP, this week, which will see hundreds of world dignitaries and envoys meet to discuss the growing threat of a warming world. The president of COP28 is Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, or ADNOC, which provides about 3% of the world’s oil.

1. 30% of influence at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company

2. Also 31% of influence at First Abu Dhabi Bank

1. A bank that features one female director with 0.2% influence

4. COP28 starts tomorrow, November 30, in Dubai

MATT1

WHO WORE IT BETTER

The rules are simple - I read two headlines, and rate who wore it better.  There is no scale, there are no rules for what “better” is, this game is stupid and you should treat it thusly. Here’s an example: 

Who wore it better: paying your horrible workers or paying to keep shareholders happy?

• GM says union labor deals will increase costs by $9.3 billion

• GM initiates $10 billion buyback, boosts dividend and reinstates 2023 guidance after UAW strikes

• Stat sheet: 

• Blackrock owns 10%, Vanguard owns 8% of shares, Mary Barra owns 4.2 million shares and 20% of company influence

• Employees get 5 weeks of vacation, 2 weeks of parental leave, and Juneteenth

Ready to play?

Who wore it better: antisemitism or being Peter Thiel’s bro?

• Elon Musk's X may lose $75M by year's end amid advertiser flight: report

• Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain implant startup, quietly raises an additional $43m

• Stat sheet: 

• Twitter shareholders got $44bn to bail and allow it to become X

• Neurolink has raise $320m so far, lead by Founders Fund and Thiel

Who wore it better: the accidental on purpose death of humanity or Larry Summers?

• OpenAI staff reportedly warned the board about an AI breakthrough that could threaten humanity before Sam Altman was ousted

• The OpenAI Drama Has a Clear Winner: The Capitalists

• Stat sheet:

• Bedrock exec questions, without evidence, if a former OpenAI board member is a Chinese agent because he was super upset about some stuff

• Brett Taylor orchestrated the $44bn takeover of Twitter when he had 14% of board influence

Who wore it better: a $10bn Earth Fund grant or a $1m annual docking fee?

• Renewable exec on ‘relentless consumption’ driving the climate crisis: 'It seems as if people are behaving in a way that we would never tell our children to behave’

• Jeff Bezos’ Superyacht Is So Gigantic It Needs to Be Docked Next to Oil Tankers

• Stat sheet:

• Bezos maintains 69% influence over the Amazon board

• Bezos has allocated $1.6bn of the $10bn Earth Fund (Mackenzie Scott has given away $14bn so far)

Who wore it better: mental health or Mark Zuckerberg?

• There is no 'smoking gun' linking social media use to mental health harm, a study using data from over 2 million people found

• Meta deliberately designed its platforms to hook children by exploiting their psychological shortcomings, court documents claim

• Stat sheet:

• Zuck has 72% influence

• Zuck has 72% influence

Who wore it better: having no women or making money off black people?

• Gender diversity ‘isn’t happening quickly enough’ in private assets

• US minority-owned businesses have $1.3 trillion growth potential, JPMorgan says

• Stat sheet:

• The average gender power gap for companies in the US is -10.2%, so on average women have 10% less power than their representation in the room

• The average DIVERSITY power gap for companies in the US is -5.8%, so on average people of color have 6% less power than their representation in the room

Who wore it better: nepo baby or daddy says so?

• Antoine Arnault Steps Down as CEO of Berluti in LVMH Shakeup

• From 2022: LVMH's Bernard Arnault restructures holding for 'long-term family control'

• Stat sheet:

• The Arnault’s own 70% of board influence collectively

• Marie-Veronique Belloeil-Melkin owns 0.2% of board influence, only sits on this board, and is connected directly to no one else in the board room - make her CEO!

Who wore it better: academic hand wringing or dual class shares?

• In a new paper, we contribute to the ongoing debate by highlighting a range of factors that may erode the seemingly entrenched managerial control of founder-CEOs in both private and public companies. We use the term “ousted” in a broad sense, referring to scenarios where founder-CEOs, despite having carefully fortified their control, choose to resign amid pressure. Uber’s Travis Kalanick and WeWork’s Adam Neumann are both well-known examples, but there are also less-publicized examples like Peloton’s John Foley, Pinterest’s Ben Silbermann, and Blue Apron’s Matt Salzberg. These cases illustrate that contrary to the perception of founder-CEO entrenchment as an insurmountable barrier, there is a complex interplay of financial, legal, and personal factors.

• Mark Zuckerberg opposed banning plastic surgery filters, despite their alleged harm to teen mental health, because it would be 'paternalistic,' lawsuit says

• Stat Sheet:

• Out of 2,447 publicly traded US companies, 646 of them - 26% - are totalitarian boards with founder/CEO/chair combos, dual class shares, or family ownership.  ONE IN FOUR.  On average, those boards are 20% connected to one another (compared to 15% for other US companies) and bat, on average, 0.435 for TSR (compared to 0.436 for all other US companies).  So the same TSR for total control.  That sounds totally surmountable.

• Mark Zuckerberg owns dual class shares