MAGAISM/BRO CULTURE CRONYISM/CEOs RULE!/ELONISM
I am deeply ashamed': Larry Summers to step back from public commitments after new Epstein emails
Senator Elizabeth Warren: “[Summers] cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers and institutions — or teach a generation of students at Harvard or anywhere else.”
And an unidentified Trump administration official told Politico that companies and organizations should end their association with Summers.
The former Treasury secretary, along with Bill Clinton and the Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, are among the Democratic figures whom the Justice Department is investigating over Epstein ties — at President Trump’s behest.
Economist Warns That Trump’s Investments in the Tech Industry Could Crash the Whole Economy
Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato, a University College London economics professor:
“I think the kind of capitalism Trump has is crony capitalism.”
“I would describe crony capitalism as Mafia-like. You’re showing your upper hand. You’re handing out favors to some. But then divide and conquer. Picking and choosing without a particular strategy.”
She argues that the Intel deal is poorly designed because it doesn’t have any conditions to incentivize the company to be build new products, while the government simply acts as a passive investor.
All SNAP recipients required to reapply as Trump admin cracks down on fraud: 'Business as usual is over'
SEC to Allow Companies to Block Shareholder Proposals
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it will not express opinions to requests from companies asking to exclude shareholder proposals from their proxy voting materials during the 2025-2026 proxy season, effectively allowing companies to avoid voting on issues proposed by investors such as climate, sustainability and diversity at annual meetings.
Elon Musk is set to make more than every U.S. elementary teacher combined
Washing Post: Bezos
White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia: World’s richest person wanted to ‘purge’ propaganda from Wikipedia, so he created a compendium of racist disinformation
STAKEHOLDERS RULE!
‘We’ve probably made housing unaffordable for a whole generation of Americans’: top real-estate CEO on the real cost of Covid economic firefighting
Sean Dobson, CEO of The Amherst Group
Ford CEO says he has 5,000 open mechanic jobs with 6-figure salaries from the shortage of manually skilled workers: ‘We are in trouble in our country’
CEO James D. Farley, Jr: $24,861,866; 253:1.
Ford Family Executive Chair William Clay Ford, Jr. 20,379,912; 207:1
$519,845 for personal use of aircraft
$1,394,538 for security
E
Only 16% of Large Companies on Track for Net Zero
Missing at U.N.’s Climate Meeting: American Executives
WOKE DATA
Disney ditches 'diversity' and 'DEI' in business report for the first time since 2019
Nearly half of LGBTQ characters AXED from TV amid Trump-era rollback of woke DEI initiatives
According to Deadline, around 41% of the 489 LGBTQ characters that were on the small screen this year will not return due to series cancellations and endings.
AI
Jeff Bezos is putting $6.2 billion—and himself as co-CEO—behind a new AI startup
Project Prometheus
Vik Bajaj: Stanford
OpenAI accused of ‘consistent and dangerous pattern’ rushing product to market that is ‘inherently unsafe or lacking in needed guardrails’
The nonprofit Public Citizen is now demanding OpenAI withdraw Sora 2 from the public, writing in a letter to the company and CEO Sam Altman that the app’s hasty release so that it could launch ahead of competitors shows a “consistent and dangerous pattern of OpenAI rushing to market with a product that is either inherently unsafe or lacking in needed guardrails.”
Sora 2, the letter says, shows a “reckless disregard” for product safety, as well as people’s rights to their own likeness and the stability of democracy.
OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the age of AI, CEOs quietly signal that layoffs are a badge of honor
People Are Having AI “Children” With Their AI Partners
Eli Lilly CEO says he has 'at least 1 or 2 AIs running' during every meeting he's in
David Ricks: Ricks said he doesn't like OpenAI's ChatGPT for science-related questions — "It's too verbal," he said. Instead, he prefers Anthropic's Claude and xAI's Grok.
Still, he has to be careful to watch for hallucinations, an issue the frontier model companies are still trying to tamp down.
The CEO of $2.2 billion AI company Turing can’t live without ChatGPT, swears by his Kindle, and has only taken 2 weeks of vacation in 7 years
Jonathan Siddharth; Stanford
STUPID
The CFO Centre names Natalie Garfield as new CFO
Heinz goes all-in on Thanksgiving leftovers with squeezable turkey gravy
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MAGAISM/BRO CULTURE CRONYISM/CEOs RULE!/ELONISM
I am deeply ashamed': Larry Summers to step back from public commitments after new Epstein emails
Senator Elizabeth Warren: “[Summers] cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers and institutions — or teach a generation of students at Harvard or anywhere else.”
And an unidentified Trump administration official told Politico that companies and organizations should end their association with Summers.
The former Treasury secretary, along with Bill Clinton and the Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, are among the Democratic figures whom the Justice Department is investigating over Epstein ties — at President Trump’s behest.
Economist Warns That Trump’s Investments in the Tech Industry Could Crash the Whole Economy
Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato, a University College London economics professor:
“I think the kind of capitalism Trump has is crony capitalism.”
“I would describe crony capitalism as Mafia-like. You’re showing your upper hand. You’re handing out favors to some. But then divide and conquer. Picking and choosing without a particular strategy.”
She argues that the Intel deal is poorly designed because it doesn’t have any conditions to incentivize the company to be build new products, while the government simply acts as a passive investor.
All SNAP recipients required to reapply as Trump admin cracks down on fraud: 'Business as usual is over'
SEC to Allow Companies to Block Shareholder Proposals
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it will not express opinions to requests from companies asking to exclude shareholder proposals from their proxy voting materials during the 2025-2026 proxy season, effectively allowing companies to avoid voting on issues proposed by investors such as climate, sustainability and diversity at annual meetings.
Elon Musk is set to make more than every U.S. elementary teacher combined
Washing Post: Bezos
White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia: World’s richest person wanted to ‘purge’ propaganda from Wikipedia, so he created a compendium of racist disinformation
STAKEHOLDERS RULE!
‘We’ve probably made housing unaffordable for a whole generation of Americans’: top real-estate CEO on the real cost of Covid economic firefighting
Sean Dobson, CEO of The Amherst Group
Ford CEO says he has 5,000 open mechanic jobs with 6-figure salaries from the shortage of manually skilled workers: ‘We are in trouble in our country’
CEO James D. Farley, Jr: $24,861,866; 253:1.
Ford Family Executive Chair William Clay Ford, Jr. 20,379,912; 207:1
$519,845 for personal use of aircraft
$1,394,538 for security
E
Only 16% of Large Companies on Track for Net Zero
Missing at U.N.’s Climate Meeting: American Executives
WOKE DATA
Disney ditches 'diversity' and 'DEI' in business report for the first time since 2019
Nearly half of LGBTQ characters AXED from TV amid Trump-era rollback of woke DEI initiatives
According to Deadline, around 41% of the 489 LGBTQ characters that were on the small screen this year will not return due to series cancellations and endings.
AI
Jeff Bezos is putting $6.2 billion—and himself as co-CEO—behind a new AI startup
Project Prometheus
Vik Bajaj: Stanford
OpenAI accused of ‘consistent and dangerous pattern’ rushing product to market that is ‘inherently unsafe or lacking in needed guardrails’
The nonprofit Public Citizen is now demanding OpenAI withdraw Sora 2 from the public, writing in a letter to the company and CEO Sam Altman that the app’s hasty release so that it could launch ahead of competitors shows a “consistent and dangerous pattern of OpenAI rushing to market with a product that is either inherently unsafe or lacking in needed guardrails.”
Sora 2, the letter says, shows a “reckless disregard” for product safety, as well as people’s rights to their own likeness and the stability of democracy.
OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the age of AI, CEOs quietly signal that layoffs are a badge of honor
People Are Having AI “Children” With Their AI Partners
Eli Lilly CEO says he has 'at least 1 or 2 AIs running' during every meeting he's in
David Ricks: Ricks said he doesn't like OpenAI's ChatGPT for science-related questions — "It's too verbal," he said. Instead, he prefers Anthropic's Claude and xAI's Grok.
Still, he has to be careful to watch for hallucinations, an issue the frontier model companies are still trying to tamp down.
The CEO of $2.2 billion AI company Turing can’t live without ChatGPT, swears by his Kindle, and has only taken 2 weeks of vacation in 7 years
Jonathan Siddharth; Stanford
STUPID
The CFO Centre names Natalie Garfield as new CFO
Heinz goes all-in on Thanksgiving leftovers with squeezable turkey gravy
RIP shareholder proposals (or views), Marc Benioff needs an off switch, and hot women hate cybertrucks
Business Pants
55 minutes 39 seconds
1 month ago
RIP shareholder proposals (or views), Marc Benioff needs an off switch, and hot women hate cybertrucks
Story of the Week (DR):
Blowhard CEOs:
Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman says you can't 'build something extraordinary' working 38 hours a week
Sam Altman Says If Jobs Gets Wiped Out, Maybe They Weren’t Even “Real Work” to Start With
Marc Benioff Says Trump Should Send Guard Troops to San Francisco
Ron Conway skewers Mark Benioff in board resignation after 25 years: ‘I now barely recognize the person I have so long admired’
Peter Thiel says he warned Elon Musk to ditch donating to The Giving Pledge because Bill Gates will give his wealth away ‘to left-wing nonprofits’
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Says There's a 'Heightened Degree of Uncertainty'
Best Buy’s CEO says growing spending power gap between affluent and poor ‘keeps me up at night’
Billionaire bosses like Jeff Bezos and Reid Hoffman denounce work-life balance—and some think working nonstop is key to success
Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber says she would consider adding an AI agent to her board of directors
Plaid CEO says 'it's inevitable AI will drive our financial lives'
Perret graduated from Duke University (BS, Chemistry, Biology) and previously served on the board of trustees
Verizon exec tells unemployed Gen Z they can always volunteer to stand out in the current bleak job market: ‘No one’s going to say no to free work’
chief talent officer Christina Schelling
Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock says the robotics company is building 'a new species'
Adcock received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Florida
LendingTree founder and CEO dies unexpectedly in weekend ATV accident at age 55
Douglas Lebda: Chair/CEO, 20% shares, 78% influence
Lead Independent DIrector Steven Ozonioa: Chairs Audit Committee and Chairs Compensation Committee; now the longest-tenured director (2011)
SEC To Discourage ESG Shareholder Proposals MM
Glass Lewis to End Share Voting Guidance Opposed by Republicans
Glass Lewis & Co. is ending its decades-long practice of providing recommendations for shareholder votes after receiving criticisms from Republican leaders for promoting pro-environmental, social and governance issues.
Starting with the 2027 annual shareholder season, Glass Lewis will no longer give a “house view” on how investors should vote, according to a paper released by the firm.
Instead, the firm’s more than 1,300 clients who oversee a combined $40 trillion will be making their own decisions on corporate resolutions.
Glass Lewis had previously given voting recommendations for more than 30,000 annual meetings on everything from executive pay to climate goals. The research firm said 55% of US investors voted based on its guidance. In Europe, about a quarter followed the house view.
Meta removes Facebook page allegedly used to target ICE agents after pressure from DOJ
Duke University Has Officially Ended Its Full-Ride Scholarship For Black Students In Need Of Financial Assistance
Board of Trustees (34: 14F20M)
Duke President and Students (4):
Vincent E. Price, President, Duke University
Andrew Greene
*Sydney Hunt
Rickard Stureborg
God people from the same church (2):
*Gregory V. Palmer – Retired Bishop, The United Methodist Church
*Connie Mitchell Shelton – Bishop, United Methodist Church
A journalist who also sits on the board of an insurance company (1):
Ann Pelham – director of Canal Insurance Company since 2004
Business Bros (27)
Adam Silver – Commissioner, National Basketball Association
Mary T. Barra – Chair and CEO, General Motors Company
Eddy H. Cue – SVP of Services, Apple
Amy Abernethy – Co-Founder, Highlander Health
Melissa Bernstein – Co-Founder, Melissa & Doug; Co-Founder, Lifelines
Michael J. Bingle – Vice Chairman, Silver Lake Group
*Lisa M. Borders – CEO, LMB Group, LLC
Tim Cook – CEO, Apple
Nancy-Ann DeParle – Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Consonance Capital Partners
Andrew H. Dillon – Attorney and Shareholder, Nathan Sommers Gibson Dillon
Anne Faircloth – President, Faircloth Farms
*Grant H. Hill – Chairman, Hill Ventures
Kathryn A. Hollister – Retired Partner, Deloitte
*Karen M. King – Managing Director & COO, Silver Lake
Garheng Kong – Founder & Managing Partner, HealthQuest Capital
Thomas H. Lister – Retired Senior Partner and Co-Managing Partner, Permira
Sharon Marcil – Managing Director & Senior Partner & North America Regional Chair, Boston Consulting Group
Patricia R. Morton – formerly of JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank
David R. Peeler – Senior Advisor, Berkshire Partners
J.B. Pritzker – Governor, State of Illinois (public official, but also billionaire businessman)
Michael G. Rhodes – CEO, Ally Financial
Nancy M. Schlichting – Retired CEO, Henry Ford Health System (corporate/health system executive)
Michael R. Stone – Firm Partner, TPG (private equity executive)
L. Frederick Sutherland – Retired EVP & CFO, ARAMARK Corporation
David S. Taylor – Senior Advisor, Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC
Jeffrey W. Ubben – Founder & Managing Partner, Inclusive Capital Partners
James C. Zelter – President, Apollo Global Management
Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):
DR: CEOs get something right?
Mark Cuban Urges Companies To Share Stock Options With Employees Amid Rising CEO Pay Gap
Home Depot founder Arthur Blank donates $50 million to Atlanta’s historically Black colleges and universities via foundation
Howard Schultz said he's Worried — 'with a big W' — about AI
He drew parallels between the speed at which social media progressed, how regulation around social media lagged behind, and warned that AI is on the same trajectory.
MM: Ron Conway skewers Mark Benioff in board resignation after 25 years: ‘I now barely recognize the person I have so long admired’ DR
MM: Houston American Energy Declassifies Board of Directors MM
Assholiest of the Week (MM):
Marc Benioff DR
Marc Benioff Says Trump Should Send Guard Troops to San Francisco
Democrat, Republican - is there an off switch for billionaires?
He said it at the Dreamforce conference - the Salesforce conference where they talk about AI and stuff
In 2023, he threatened to take the conference to another city because of homelessness and drug use in the city
At the time he made the threat, he was worth 8bn
POPULIST MATH
There are an estimated 8,000 or so homeless people in SF
The median home price in Oakland is 800k
If he bought EVERY homeless person a house, including the children, in cash, he would still be worth 4bn today
He posted this last night - “safest Dreamforce ever” with a picture of him and a cop… so, national guard?:
Maybe he meant he needs the National Guard at Salesforce’s offices: Salesforce linked security breach fallout escalates with qantas leak - an estimated 1 BILLION records were hacked
The labor con job
Verizon exec tells unemployed Gen Z they can always volunteer to stand out in the current bleak job market: ‘No one’s going to say no to free work’
Yeah, just work for free, it’ll be good for you!
Gen Z’s misery is real: Most workers in this economy lack a voice and are stuck in low-quality jobs, a massive Gates-backed study finds
Yeah, but just work for free!
There’s a shocking disparity between how high-income and low-income earners feel about the economy
Why? Working for free is like, really good for your resume and gap time!
Sam Altman Says If Jobs Gets Wiped Out, Maybe They Weren’t Even “Real Work” to Start With
Right! Your work was fake, so go work for free! Starving is much realer than your job was.
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom Vetoes Bill to Protect Kids From Predatory AI
Sam Altman
Sam Altman says OpenAI isn't 'moral police of the world' after erotica ChatGPT post blows up
Headliniest of the Week
DR: Divorced Tesla Fan Admits That His Cybertruck Is Repulsive to Women
DR: Lay’s drastically rebrands after disturbing finding: 42% of consumers didn’t know their chips were made out of potatoes
MM: DirecTV screensavers will show AI-generated ads with your face in 2026
I mostly find it funny that DirecTV still exists
MM: Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show Is Back to Featuring Hot Women After Failed Woke Rebrand
Now women of every size and color can be reminded how ugly they are because finally Victoria’s Secret’s won’t put them on a runway
Who Won the Week?
DR: Ugly or non-ugly women who divorce men who own Cybertrucks
MM: Men without cybertrucks
Predictions
DR: Glass Lewis rebrands itself simply as Glass
MM: Sam Altman is elected Moral Police Sergeant
Business Pants
MAGAISM/BRO CULTURE CRONYISM/CEOs RULE!/ELONISM
I am deeply ashamed': Larry Summers to step back from public commitments after new Epstein emails
Senator Elizabeth Warren: “[Summers] cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers and institutions — or teach a generation of students at Harvard or anywhere else.”
And an unidentified Trump administration official told Politico that companies and organizations should end their association with Summers.
The former Treasury secretary, along with Bill Clinton and the Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, are among the Democratic figures whom the Justice Department is investigating over Epstein ties — at President Trump’s behest.
Economist Warns That Trump’s Investments in the Tech Industry Could Crash the Whole Economy
Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato, a University College London economics professor:
“I think the kind of capitalism Trump has is crony capitalism.”
“I would describe crony capitalism as Mafia-like. You’re showing your upper hand. You’re handing out favors to some. But then divide and conquer. Picking and choosing without a particular strategy.”
She argues that the Intel deal is poorly designed because it doesn’t have any conditions to incentivize the company to be build new products, while the government simply acts as a passive investor.
All SNAP recipients required to reapply as Trump admin cracks down on fraud: 'Business as usual is over'
SEC to Allow Companies to Block Shareholder Proposals
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it will not express opinions to requests from companies asking to exclude shareholder proposals from their proxy voting materials during the 2025-2026 proxy season, effectively allowing companies to avoid voting on issues proposed by investors such as climate, sustainability and diversity at annual meetings.
Elon Musk is set to make more than every U.S. elementary teacher combined
Washing Post: Bezos
White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia: World’s richest person wanted to ‘purge’ propaganda from Wikipedia, so he created a compendium of racist disinformation
STAKEHOLDERS RULE!
‘We’ve probably made housing unaffordable for a whole generation of Americans’: top real-estate CEO on the real cost of Covid economic firefighting
Sean Dobson, CEO of The Amherst Group
Ford CEO says he has 5,000 open mechanic jobs with 6-figure salaries from the shortage of manually skilled workers: ‘We are in trouble in our country’
CEO James D. Farley, Jr: $24,861,866; 253:1.
Ford Family Executive Chair William Clay Ford, Jr. 20,379,912; 207:1
$519,845 for personal use of aircraft
$1,394,538 for security
E
Only 16% of Large Companies on Track for Net Zero
Missing at U.N.’s Climate Meeting: American Executives
WOKE DATA
Disney ditches 'diversity' and 'DEI' in business report for the first time since 2019
Nearly half of LGBTQ characters AXED from TV amid Trump-era rollback of woke DEI initiatives
According to Deadline, around 41% of the 489 LGBTQ characters that were on the small screen this year will not return due to series cancellations and endings.
AI
Jeff Bezos is putting $6.2 billion—and himself as co-CEO—behind a new AI startup
Project Prometheus
Vik Bajaj: Stanford
OpenAI accused of ‘consistent and dangerous pattern’ rushing product to market that is ‘inherently unsafe or lacking in needed guardrails’
The nonprofit Public Citizen is now demanding OpenAI withdraw Sora 2 from the public, writing in a letter to the company and CEO Sam Altman that the app’s hasty release so that it could launch ahead of competitors shows a “consistent and dangerous pattern of OpenAI rushing to market with a product that is either inherently unsafe or lacking in needed guardrails.”
Sora 2, the letter says, shows a “reckless disregard” for product safety, as well as people’s rights to their own likeness and the stability of democracy.
OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the age of AI, CEOs quietly signal that layoffs are a badge of honor
People Are Having AI “Children” With Their AI Partners
Eli Lilly CEO says he has 'at least 1 or 2 AIs running' during every meeting he's in
David Ricks: Ricks said he doesn't like OpenAI's ChatGPT for science-related questions — "It's too verbal," he said. Instead, he prefers Anthropic's Claude and xAI's Grok.
Still, he has to be careful to watch for hallucinations, an issue the frontier model companies are still trying to tamp down.
The CEO of $2.2 billion AI company Turing can’t live without ChatGPT, swears by his Kindle, and has only taken 2 weeks of vacation in 7 years
Jonathan Siddharth; Stanford
STUPID
The CFO Centre names Natalie Garfield as new CFO
Heinz goes all-in on Thanksgiving leftovers with squeezable turkey gravy