The enigma of Satya Nadella’s board, kiss cam fallout, and Glass Lewis and ISS fight back (finally)

Story of the Week (DR):

1. Astronomer HR chief Kristin Cabot resigns following Coldplay ‘kiss cam’ incident MM

1. Astronomer’s human resources chief Kristin Cabot has resigned from the company following an affair that was caught on camera at a Coldplay concert.

2. The intimate moment between Cabot and CEO Andy Byron went viral on the internet after the two hid when Coldplay’s lead singer called them out during the concert.

3. Both Byron and Chabot have now resigned from Astronomer and have been removed from the company’s leadership team webpage.

4. They did it! Zero women! 10 execs/ 5 directors

2. Trump's order to block 'woke' AI in government encourages tech giants to censor their chatbots

1. Tech companies looking to sell their artificial intelligence technology to the federal government must now contend with a new regulatory hurdle: prove their chatbots aren't “woke.”

2. President Donald Trump's sweeping new plan to counter China in achieving “global dominance” in AI promises to cut regulations and cement American values into the AI tools increasingly used at work and home. But one of Trump’s three AI executive orders signed Wednesday — the one “preventing woke AI in the federal government” — marks the first time the U.S. government has explicitly tried to shape the ideological behavior of AI.

3. The move also pushes the tech industry to abandon years of work to combat the pervasive forms of racial and gender bias that studies and real-world examples have shown to be baked into AI systems.

3. OpenAI's Sam Altman warns of AI voice fraud crisis in banking

1. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned the financial industry of a “significant impending fraud crisis” because of the ability of artificial intelligence tools to impersonate a person's voice to bypass security checks and move money.

2. “A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication,” Altman said. “That is a crazy thing to still be doing. AI has fully defeated that.”

4. Uber will let women drivers and riders request to avoid being paired with men starting next month

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

1. DR: Top U.N. Court Says Countries Must Act on Climate Change

1. The International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ top court, issued an advisory opinion Wednesday that found all nations must tackle climate change and those that do not act could be obliged to pay reparations for the harm caused to the environment.

2. The ruling was the result of years of efforts by activists and small island nations. The case was first initiated by Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, a group of young Pacific Islanders facing the existential threat of rising sea levels, and led by the island nation of Vanuatu.

2. MM: Glass Lewis sues Texas over new ESG and DEI limits on proxy advisers

1. Glass Lewis is my new hero

2. ISS too

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. FCC approves $8 billion Paramount-Skydance merger

1. Paramount agrees to pay $16 million to settle Trump's CBS lawsuit

1. Suit was filed because Trump didn’t like the editing on a Kamala interview

2. Senators Investigate Whether David Ellison Cut Side Deal With Trump After $16 Million Paramount Settlement

2. Sam Altman and the “you should be worried about the thing I built” manbaby tech bro ethos

1. Sam Altman is terrified about a coming AI fraud crisis

2. Sam Altman is worried some young people have an 'emotional over-reliance' on ChatGPT when making decisions

3. Trump’s ‘anti-woke AI’ order could reshape how US tech companies train their models

1. When running AI giant OpenAI becomes too overwhelming Sam Altman turns to pen and paper—it’s a habit shared by Bill Gates and Richard Branson

3. Microsoft's Satya Nadella says job cuts have been 'weighing heavily' on him DR

1. Satya Nadella on the ‘enigma of success’ in the age of AI: a thriving business, but 15,000+ layoffs

2. “Before anything else, I want to speak to what’s been weighing heavily on me, and what I know many of you are thinking about: the recent job eliminations. These decisions are among the most difficult we have to make. They affect people we’ve worked alongside, learned from, and shared countless moments with—our colleagues, teammates, and friends. I want to express my sincere gratitude to those who have left.”

3. “I also want to acknowledge the uncertainty and seeming incongruence of the times we’re in. By every objective measure, Microsoft is thriving—our market performance, strategic positioning, and growth all point up and to the right.”

4. And yet, at the same time, we’ve undergone layoffs. This is the enigma of success…

4. Distractions

1. Elon Musk's Tesla Is Now the Most Hated Electric Vehicle Maker

1. Elon Musk Tells Tesla Investors to Focus on a Future Filled With Robots

2. Elon Musk Warns That Tesla Board Could Fire Him "If I Go Crazy"

2. Epstein

1. Trump’s order to make chatbots anti-woke is unconstitutional, senator says

3. Meme stocks

1. Beyond Meat?  Krispy Kreme?  Opendoor?  American Eagle? 

Headliniest of the Week

1. DR: Elon Musk wants more control of Tesla so activist investors can’t boot him—but not so much the board can’t fire him if he goes ‘crazy’

2. MM: The typical employee would have had to start working before the Revolutionary War to match average CEO’s 2024 pay

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: Satya Nadella’s bullshit (More than 15,000 positions—about 7% of the company’s global workforce—have been eliminated since January; $79M 2024 pay/408:1 CEO pay ratio):

1. “By every objective measure, Microsoft is thriving—our market performance, strategic positioning, and growth all point up and to the right” he wrote, noting the company’s capital expenditures, largely fueled by investments in AI and cloud infrastructure, are at historic highs. Despite these investments, he said headcount “is relatively unchanged,” given the simultaneous reduction of jobs.

2. Nadella called this tension the “enigma of success in an industry that has no franchise value,” arguing that success in tech is not permanent or evenly distributed. “Progress isn’t linear. It’s dynamic, sometimes dissonant, and always demanding. But it’s also a new opportunity for us to shape, lead through, and have greater impact than ever before.”

3. Expressing gratitude to those let go, Nadella acknowledged the human cost. “Their contributions have shaped who we are as a company, helping build the foundation we stand on today. And for that, I am deeply grateful.”

2. MM: People who pay CEOs - The gap between CEO and worker pay keeps increasing—and Trump’s policies are making it grow faster - and according to our analysis, directors on the pay committee have zero repercussions for overpaying.  11% of shareholder votes were less than 90% in favor of pay, but greater than 90% in favor of directors who set pay (in 2%, it was less than 75% for pay and greater than 90% for directors)

Predictions

1. DR: Satya Nadella divorces his wife and tells her he is “deeply grateful” but this is the “enigma of love”

2. MM: Someone in MAGA realizes that they don’t need to look for documents released related to Jeffrey Epstein to find connections between Trump and sex traffickers since he actually hired a former CEO of a sex trafficking ring, Linda MacMahon, to run the Education Department and the whole White House has been WWE-ified