Kiss cam surveillance, director “license”, baby antisemitic Grok, and “woke” is dead

Your thoughts on the kiss-cam episode

1. Andrew Ross Sorkin’s note yesterday about Andy Byron, the C.E.O. of a tech start-up caught on camera with a colleague from H.R. at a Coldplay concert, struck a nerve with DealBook readers, who have flooded our inbox with responses: “The moment seems to encapsulate the pervasive schadenfreude within our culture, especially our office culture, and a deep-seated animosity toward bosses and colleagues,” Andrew wrote. “It highlights a zero-sum mentality in which a colleague’s success is perceived as your loss, and their failure your gain.” He added that, “The incident also underscores our surveillance state.”

2. Here’s what readers had to say:

1. “The surveillance state is a bit aggressive of a take on this. They were lovingly embracing at a concert during a love song while the kiss cam was on the prowl.” — Bob McMurtry

2. “The public is not just reacting to someone else’s misfortune, it is reacting to the utter hypocrisy revealed yet again by those in power who dictate rules that others should follow, yet arrogantly disregard following them themselves. Employees endure hours of H.R. training on the impropriety of workplace relationships, especially between manager and subordinate, yet the actual HEAD of H.R. engages in an affair with her married C.E.O. Do you not see the specific irony of this outing?” — Jim Woidat

3. “I don’t think we commoners’ resentment of C.E.O.s is so much about jealousy as it is about pay inequality (their pay rate today vs. what it was a few decades ago) and stuff like golden parachutes.” — Tom Eshbaugh

3. What nobody is talking about:

1. Before the kisscam: 12 executives (11 men and Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot); 6 directors (all men)

2. They’ve also disabled their LinkedIn links and yet

3. Astronomer board launches investigation after viral Coldplay 'kiss cam' video appears to show CEO embracing HR chief

1. DealBook Hot Take: Board members should be licensed

1. Jonathan Foster, a consultant and former managing director at Lazard, has served on more than 50 corporate boards. Along the way, he says, he has encountered directors who have stayed too long, or ones whose “knowledge of financial statements and M&A is lacking.” He drew on that experience in “On Board: The Modern Playbook for Corporate Governance,” his new book.

1. One of his big ideas for improving director performance: “a license,” he told DealBook, like the kind required “for investment bankers, doctors, lawyers, even massage therapists.”

2. That, he said, “might increase confidence in corporate directors.”

3. How it would work: Some of the requirements Foster envisions include 10 years of work experience, being at least 35 and passing an exam covering legal standards, basic accounting and finance principles, and ethics. “It doesn’t have to be particularly onerous,” he said, comparing it to the Series 7 exam for financial advisers.

2. To issue licenses, he says, the New York Stock Exchange could oversee an organization like Harvard Business School or the National Association of Corporate Directors. He says he sees the arrangement as akin to how the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board operates under the authority of the S.E.C. That independent nonprofit group, he noted, “has commissioners, and they go do their thing, but they’re ultimately responsible to and can be pre-empted by the S.E.C.”

3. Is it workable? DealBook asked Edward Rock, a professor of corporate governance at the New York University School of Law. He said he worried that standardized requirements for diverse companies could disqualify board members with otherwise strong attributes. For example, he wrote in an email to DealBook, “Why would anyone want to prevent Mark Zuckerberg (28 at the time of Facebook’s I.P.O.) or Larry Page and Sergey Brin” — both in their thirties when Google listed — “from serving on the board of directors of Facebook and Google?”

1. (Foster said exceptions could be created, including for founders.)

4. Shareholders have an incentive to demand the most qualified board members, Rock continued, and they tend to do so.

2. Coca-Cola will roll out cane sugar version of namesake soda in the U.S. this fall

3. Private jet sales are poised for takeoff thanks to a revived tax break

1. A federal tax change now lets companies write off the full cost of buying a private jet in year one

4. Starbucks’ formerly remote CEO has bought a home in Seattle and he’s ordering all staff back to the office 4 days a week

5. Jeff Bezos taps former Amazon Alexa head to lead $10 billion Earth fund

6. Elon Musk's other companies could soon pour billions into his AI startup

1. SpaceX, the rocket company Musk founded and controls, is reportedly investing $2 billion into xAI, his AI startup best known for the chatbot Grok

2. Elon Musk promises Tesla shareholders a vote over buying equity in his Grok startup: ‘If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago’

3. Musk's xAI faces European scrutiny over Grok's 'horrific' antisemitic posts

4. Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is now working with the federal government

5. Elon Musk's Neuralink filed as 'disadvantaged business' before being valued at $9 billion

7. OpenAI warns that its new ChatGPT Agent has the ability to aid dangerous bioweapon development

1. A Staggering Proportion of Teens Say Talking to AI Is Better Than Real-Life Friends

2. Elon Musk announces Baby Grok AI chatbot designed specifically for children's learning needs

3. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov on French probe against Elon Musk’s Twitter: 

1. “at this point, any tech company can be declared a ‘criminal gang’ in France". Durov further stated that such investigations can be harmful for attracting investments”

1. Musk's X refuses to hand over data in 'politically-motivated' French investigation

2. Why Gov. Greg Abbott Won’t Release His Emails With Elon Musk

1. We asked Abbott for his and his staff’s emails with Elon Musk and Musk’s companies. The governor’s office won’t turn them over, saying some contain “intimate and embarrassing” information that is “not of legitimate concern to the public.”

8. The anti-woke

1. MAGA's tantrum over "woke" Superman is nastier than their usual whining

1. The MAGA talking heads are big mad that director James Gunn said that Superman is an immigrant. They were also furious that Gunn said Superman stands for “human kindness.”

2. Fox News: wondering if the movie would fail on the assumption that American audiences also hate kindness and immigrants.

1. Superman' Proves "Go Woke, Go Broke" Is a Joke – And That Major $125 Million Opening Weekend Confirms It

2. DEI-fueled investing is ‘ideological coercion’ of shareholders, Missouri AG warns amid new probe

1. "Missourians deserve answers as to why the unseen power brokers, controlling much of corporate America, are pushing a leftist worldview at the expense of millions of honest investors … These proxy advisors have held corporate America hostage with their radical ideologies. We are putting them on notice: Missouri will not tolerate ideological coercion disguised as investment guidance."

3. "Woke Or Not Woke?": Ubisoft's CEO Was Asked A Bizarre Question About Assassin's Creed Shadows In A Shareholder Meeting

4. In-N-Out billionaire Lynsi Snyder says she is leaving California: 'Doing business is not easy here'

1. Lynsi Snyder is In-N-Out Burger's billionaire owner and president. She inherited control in 2017 and it remains a private, family-owned business. The reclusive heiress has a $6.7 billion net worth.

9. Lufthansa CEO’s wife Vivian Spohr allegedly runs down woman in Sardinia, expresses ‘deep sorrow’

1. The victim, Gaia Costa, a resident of nearby Tempio Pausania, died at the scene from severe head injuries, according to local media reports. She had reportedly been crossing at a pedestrian crosswalk when she was hit.

2. The 51-year-old German businesswoman added that she was “at the complete disposal of the Italian judicial authorities for the necessary investigations and, while aware that such a great personal loss cannot be repaired, will take steps to mitigate its consequences.”

10. Mark Cuban says some of NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's key policies don't 'have a chance'

1. Mark Cuban says Elon Musk's new political party is 'really smart’ in a key way

11. Are they stealing our thunder POP QUIZ:

1. Did the average S&P 500 CEOs earn in less than two days what their typical worker earned in all of 2023?

2. Fake apologies popping up from CEO allegedly caught cheating

CEOs on boards is a governance blind spot — accepted as normal but long overdue for scrutiny