FRIDAY WRAP: OpenAI’s Facebook board, QVC’s racist, clean energy investment spikes, and an MSCI EM ESG ETF down 0%

Introduction

IT’S FRIDAYYYYY!!! And we are LIVE, and ALIVE. This is Ari the Data Queen, joined by AnalystHole Matt Moscardi, Jessie the Money Whisperer, and Hazelnut Rallis. On today’s weekly wrap up: Compassion training at the largest private employer in the US, Open AI’s Sam Altman still in the news, and ISS outdid themselves and started offering a worse voting option.

Story of the Week (DR):

1. Boeing whistleblower who warned of aircraft safety flaws found dead

1. A family friend of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett says he warned her not to believe reports of suicide: “I said, ‘Aren’t you scared?’ And he said, ‘No, I ain’t scared, but if anything happens to me, it’s not suicide.’”

2. Boeing workers warn that whistleblower John Barnett “made powerful enemies” before his alleged suicide

3. A Boeing whistleblower says he got off a plane just before takeoff when he realized it was a 737 Max

2. OpenAI has 'full confidence' in CEO Sam Altman after investigation reveals he was fired as a “consequence of a breakdown in the relationship and loss of trust” between him and the prior board

3. State Department-Commissioned Report Warns AI Could Be an 'Extinction-Level' Threat

4. Ira Millstein, a longtime advocate for corporate governance changes, dies at 97. Over his decades-long career, Millstein pushed for company boards to exercise more independent oversight, keeping corporate leaders in check.

5. In honor of Ira: QVC apologizes to Asian community, vows increased DEI work after 'offensive' email to customers AB MM

1. The email in question came with the subject line "You’ll love this bag longtime" and was sent on International Women's Day. 

2. The apology from QVC President Mike Fitzharris: "Earlier today, you received a marketing email for our Today's Special Value® that used derogatory language that is offensive, particularly to the Asian community and women, in the subject line. As the president of QVC®, I am personally sending this email because I want to apologize deeply that this happened."

3. The subject line is apparently in reference to the phrase "me love you longtime," which has long been considered offensive to Asian women and carries sexual connotations.

1. The phrase was popularized in the 1987 movie "Full Metal Jacket," when an actress portraying a Vietnamese prostitute said the line while trying to attract American johns during the Vietnam War. 

2. Esquire wrote in 2021 that "It’s a weaponized phrase deployed to put down Asian diaspora women, to make us the joke. It's used to reduce Asian and Asian-American women to sex objects." 

4. Fitzharris added that the use of the phrase by QVC "runs counter to our values and principles as an organization and is in no way reflective of our commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion."

5. Qurate Retail

1. 22% female with 4% influence (exec team is 4 men and a female lawyer; pf course Chief Legal Officer Renee Winn has received a total of $2M over the last three years while Executive Chair Maffei has received $45M, including his personal use of a corporate apartment, the cost of miscellaneous shipping and catering expenses)

1. John Malone/son Evam) 73%/Executive Chair Greg Maffei 10%

1. Charter: 7/3

2. Live Nation 18/6

3. TripAdvisor 30/11

4. SirisuXM 31/12

5. Liberty Broadband 25/8

6. Zillow 33/5

7. Warner Brothers Discovery 23/19

8. Liberty Global 18/5

Goodliest of the Week (AB):

1. Women Aren't Getting the Big Jobs at Goldman Sachs, and They're Heading for the Exits

1. I don’t want to hear it Damion “HoW iS tHiS gOod?!” and we gotta focus on the second half of the headline here.. “THEY’RE HEADING FOR THE EXITS”.

2.  A WSJ analysis found two-thirds of the women who were partners at the end of 2018 have left the firm while just under half of male partners did the same

3. No woman currently runs a major division or is seen internally as a credible candidate to one day succeed Chair and CEO David Solomon aka DJ Sol. 2 of the 8 executive officers at Goldman are women—in legal and accounting aka non revenue generating positions. If you’re thinking “wow! Does this mean their Chief People Officer/Human Resources is a man?” you’d be very wrong - there isn’t one.

2. Walmart Wants to Teach Store Managers Compassion

1. LARGEST PRIVATE EMPLOYER IN THE US (1.6M) putting a focus on people-skills training

2. Walmart brings about 2,000 managers a year to its headquarters to discuss how to relate to workers and customers

3. “Trainers reinforce the message that Walmart’s success is possible only if the store managers take care of their workers, the customers and community where they operate”

3. The Inflation Reduction Act has injected $240 billion into clean energy MM DR

1. An analysis by Rhodium Group and MIT of US investment in clean energy shows that for every $1 the government invested, the private sector spent nearly $5.47, leading to nearly a quarter-trillion dollars flowing into the clean economy in just one year.

2. The report found that the investments have not only increased since the legislation passed, the rate of growth has quickened as well

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. Sam Altman will return to OpenAI's board with three new directors DR

1. “Our primary fiduciary duty is to humanity.” - they are still a NON PROFIT organization board, NOT A VENTURE BACKED STARTUP…

2. Sue Desmond-Hellmann

1. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

2. Corporate boards: Facebook (2013-2019), Pfizer (2020- ), now OpenAI

1. At Pfizer, connected to 25% of the board, 7% influence, has a stellar 0.052 controversy batting average - as in, every company she sits on the board of is a controversial shit show 

3. What we need is guardrails like Facebook for AI!

3. Nicole Seligman, lawyer (not the human rights kind)

1. Represented Oliver North, ex-president of Sony America

2. Harvard BA, Harvard Law, clerked for judge that presided over US v. Microsoft

3. Was executive at Sony America during the 2011 playstation hack that exposed 77 million users personal information - 13 years later, still one of the top ten largest hacks in history

1. After which, she joined the Council on CyberSecurity board which works on cybersecurity - learn by failing?

4. Fidji Simo

1. CEO of Instacart

1. Ex Facebook!  Head of the App, president of “Video, Games, and Monetization”

2. Started at eBay while Pierre Omidyar (founder and Frenchie) was there

3. Board of Shopify, Instacart - solid 0.171 controversy batting average!

2. Side note: Damion predicted in 2023 that Fidji would be tagged as the next CEO of Facebook!

5. So let’s summarize - we have a board with Bret Taylor (ex Twitter chair, Salesforce founder, worekd at Google, worked at Facebook and created the like button), Larry Summers (grumpy grandpa Harvard who thinks women are unable to compete with men and was master of Harvard when Zuck founded Facebook), Adam D’Angelo (founder of Quora, former CTO of Facebook), Sue DH (who was on board of Facebook), Fidji Simo (who lead monetization at Facebook), and the only NON FB alums Sam Altman (the master and founder) and Nicole Seligman (who oversaw one of the largest hacks in history and has a history on boards of CBS/Viacom under dictators)...

6. These fuckers trolled us with three women who all owe themselves to dictators on a board full of dictator lovers that just added the dictator to the board???

1. Follow up: CTO of OpenAI “not sure” where Sora, new video generation model, got trained!

2. Sail-powered cargo ship 'shows potential of wind'

1. Cargill says the data "underscores the potential" of wind to reduce the shipping industry's carbon footprint.

3. Nelson Peltz AB MM

1. “Restore the Magic”!

1. The campaign branding alone betrays how fucking stupid and trivial the whole effort is - at the cost of more than $40m to shareholders

2. MAGA smell

1. Disney brand used to mean “family” in the traditional American sense

2. Disney the company expanded the definition of family to include all flavors of family, expand the customer base

3. Becomes the central cog in the anti-woke movement against them - bring back the traditional family, stop being inclusive

4. Peltz wants to add board-level review of creative engine - a board lacking any creative humans will run creative?

1. Goal is to get back to “old” Disney

2. How old are we going?  Like vaguely to openly racist and homophobic 50s-80s Disney?  White family values ABC 90s-00s Disney? 

3. Also, here’s a strategy…“Insist on a DTC strategy to earn Netflix-like 15-20% margin”

1. Oh, if you insist, now we’ll do it

2. This is petulant billionaire bullshit - case study 273 that white dudes with billions need other fucking careers… take up gardening or something… so far we’ve got…

1. Ackman vs. Harvard (why?  They took my money wrong)

2. Musk vs. everyone not Musk (why?  Because I said so)

3. Peltz vs. Disney (why? They wouldn’t return my calls)

Headline-iest (ALL):

1. AB: "I don't know why I said that": Minnesota senator calls female Delta pilot a "stewardess" during hearing - Gene Dornink

1.  What’s Missing From Railroad Safety Data? Dead Workers and Severed Limbs AB

2. MM:

1. Nursing a drink at a local bar, Eugene Parham, 83, railed against the "woke agenda" he insists is ruining his country (the article is just the headline and a picture of an old man with a beer - there is no other text)

2. “Really bad timing”: Meta is killing misinformation analysis tool on August 14

3. MSCI Emerging Markets ESG Leaders Equity ETF Stock Price Down 0% MM DR

3. DR: Entertainment insider says ESG funding is why woke entertainment keeps getting made despite losing audiences: Games industry veteran Mark Kern argued that ESG has enabled a 'system of suppression and fear and forced politics that has permeated gaming, comics and movies'

1. Here’s your expert: Started at blizzard; co-founder of Red 5 Studios that made one game (Firefall: open world shooter); fired by his own board in 2013. No other information about his career. LinkedIn still lists him as CEO of Red 5

2. Favorite typo: Unilever boss braces for fight with shareholders amid potential $19 pay packet

Exhausting-est of the Week (JS):

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: Don Lemon?

2. AB: 

3. MM: Alternative meat!  Jeff Bezos' philanthropic fund is pouring $60 million into alternative meats to try to make them taste better

4. JS: 

Predictions

1. DR: Don Lemon ends up in the bottom of a pond in a Tesla stuck in reverse with shatter-proof windows with a note wrapped around an Oscar trophy saying ‘blame the Haitian cannibal migrants’

2. AB: Nelson Peltz drops Disney proxy fight

3. MM: On the back of this headline: WeightWatchers, reeling from collapsing stock and Oprah’s departure in the age of Ozempic, vows to ‘prove the naysayers wrong’ and turn its fortunes around, the Weight Watchers classified board of directors decides to publish Free Float Analytics analysis of Oprah (7% influence and third worst on the board for TSR batting average anyway!) and votes to rename the company “Vegetables” and start a campaign called “you still have to eat SOMETHING” in an effort to fight off pill-based weight loss

4. JS: