War on women, war on Iran, war on investors, but Jack Dorsey has a “Love” hat at least

Written By Matt Moscardi

Story of the Week (DR):

  1. War

    1. Saudi Aramco CEO issues stark warning: Iran war could bring ‘catastrophic’ shock to global oil

    2. Prediction markets face questions on Iran war bets, from regime change to nuclear detonation

      1. The Maduro Capture (Jan 2026): Just hours before the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a new Polymarket account wagered $30,000 on his removal

      2. Israeli Military Indictments (Feb 2026): At least two individuals in the Israeli defense forces were reportedly indicted for using classified intelligence to place winning bets on the specific dates of military strikes in Iran

      3. National Security Risk: A recent report by Responsible Statecraft warns that officials with the power to influence military timing could alter operations to maximize their payout

      4.  The Atlantic Council recently warned that foreign adversaries can "weaponize the odds" by dumping money into a thinly traded market to create a false narrative that a country is about to collapse, potentially triggering a real-world panic or bank run.

      5. Kalshi (private)

        1. 1/13/25: Kalshi names Donald Trump Jr. as strategic advisor

      6. Polymarket (college dropout Shayne Coplan)

        1. 8/26/25: Kalshi Advisor Donald Trump Jr. Joins Rival Polymarket Board

          1. Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital is making an eight-figure investment in the controversial prediction-market company.

  1. AI Jobs

    1. Anthropic just mapped out which jobs AI could potentially replace. A ‘Great Recession for white-collar workers’ is absolutely possible

      1. The most AI-exposed group is 16 percentage points more likely to be female, earns 47% more on average, and is nearly four times as likely to hold a graduate degree compared to the least exposed group.

    2. Sam Altman admits AI is killing the labor-capital balance—and says nobody knows what to do about it

    3. Oracle expected to slash thousands of jobs as massive AI spending creates financial cash crisis

    4. Layoffs are feeling awfully tempting for a lot of companies right now

    5. CEOs are using one number in the AI age to decide how many people they still need

      1. Revenue per employee

    6. Patreon's CEO says AI will be a 'bloodbath for the world's creative people' unless tech companies pay up

    7. Atlassian slashes 10% of workforce to 'self-fund' investments in AI and enterprise sales

    8. The unexpected 92,000 drop in payrolls is a clue we might be reading the AI jobs narrative all wrong

    9. Worker pain

      1. AI Is Forcing Employees to Work Harder Than Ever

      2. AI Job Loss Is Breaking the Psyche of Workers, Psychiatrist Warns

      3. ‘AI brain fry’ is real — and it’s making workers more exhausted, not more productive, new study finds

    10. Economist Dambisa Moyo says CEOs must play a role in sustaining the consumer class as AI eliminates jobs

      1. This could only happen if we weren’t controlled by the TechBro Dropout Gang

  1. CII

    1. ‘Not a goodbye…’: What Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen told employees after announcing decision to step down

      1. Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe for 18 years, will step down once a successor is appointed, while continuing as board chairman.

    2. Google Hands Sundar Pichai $692M Package Tied to AI Bets

      1. Package uniquely ties executive pay to Waymo autonomous vehicle and Wing drone delivery venture performance

      2. Compensation structure sets precedent for linking CEO pay to specific AI business unit success rather than overall company metrics

      3. So now CEOs can either game their bonus by obsessively focusing on one thing or doom the rest of the company by obsessively focusing on one thing or both

    3. As You Sow Files Lawsuit Challenging Chubb’s Refusal to Put Shareholder Proposal Addressing Climate-Driven Insurance Crisis on Company Proxy

      1. The proposal asks shareholders to vote on whether Chubb should commission a report assessing whether pursuing subrogation claims against parties responsible for climate change could reduce losses, benefit shareholders, and help preserve affordable homeowners insurance.

      2. This lawsuit follows the SEC’s decision to abandon its longstanding role as a neutral arbiter in the shareholder proposal process. In November 2025, the SEC announced that it would no longer review corporate no-action requests under Rule 14a-8, effectively forcing these matters into court—an expensive and lengthy process.

      3. Sen. Elizabeth Warren Slams SEC As 'Lap Dog For Trump's Billionaire Buddies' After It Dismisses Another Crypto Case

        1. "The SEC should not be a lap dog for Trump's billionaire buddies"

    4. Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s Owner, Settles Antitrust Case With Justice Dept

      1. That was fast

      2. Live Nation Entertainment board includes Trump administration bro Richard Grenell 

        1. 2 of 12 are women

        2. Grenell is somehow the president of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts despite no background in anything resembling “the Arts.”

        3. He replaced a woman, Deborah Rutter. The chair is President Trump. Of course. And the board now is down to only one woman: 2 years ago it was 60% female.

    5. Glass Lewis recommends voting against Starbucks director over ‘board-level E&S oversight’

      1. New York State Comptroller, New York City Comptroller, SOC Investment Group, Canadian responsible investment association SHARE, Merseyside Pension Fund, and Trillium oppose the re-election of lead independent director Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, as well as Beth Ford, chair of Starbucks’ Nominating and Corporate Governance (NCG) committee.

      2. Ford was chair of the EPCI committee and now leads the NCG committee, which assumed some of the responsibilities of the EPCI when it was disbanded.

      3. In its benchmark policy proxy paper, Glass Lewis has recommended investors vote against Ford.

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

  1. DR:Uber rolls out women-only option in the US

  2. DR: CEOs of failed banks would have to surrender pay under bipartisan plan

    1. Senate legislation would mandate “clawbacks” of executive pay, three years after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

  3. MM: 24 states, Nintendo sue Trump over tariffs as refund fight grows

    1. Costco CEO Ron Vachris Pledges to Return Tariff Refunds to Shoppers

  4. MM: Andrew Yang says we should stop taxing workers — and start taxing AI

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

  1. War on Women: part 1

    1. Alex Karp

      1. Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power

      2. Palantir CEO Alex Karp thinks his AI technology will lessen the power of “highly educated, often female voters, who vote mostly Democrat” while increasing the power of working-class men.

      3. “This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power less. And increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters,” Karp said in a CNBC interview Thursday. “And so these disruptions are gonna disrupt every aspect of our society. And to make this work, we have to come to an agreement of what it is we’re going to do with the technology; how are we gonna explain to people who are likely gonna have less good, and less interesting jobs.”

      4. To Alexandra Schiff, ex WSJ reporter and daughter of Tom Wolfe, who wrote a semi adoring Silicon Valley book in 2017 holding Peter Thiel as a god (and now sits on this board with Thiel), and to Lauren Friedman Stat, who only seems to post Palantir sizzle reels and as best I can tell is married to a “David Stat” who is the name of a “Director” (not on the board?) of Palantir who is in a Form 4 for selling stock:

        1. What the fuck are you doing.  Do you read what this dude says?  Are you that cucked to the tech bro elite you can’t stop and say, “Hey, Alex, maybe tone down the suggestion you’re trying to stop female Democrats from voting?”

  2. War on Women: part 2

    1. Glass Lewis recommends voting against Starbucks director over ‘board-level E&S oversight’

      1. Because Starbucks disbanded the Environmental, Partner and Community Impact committee of the board - launched in 2023, dissolved in November 2025

      2. Committee launched after majority supported SHP to focus on labor issues

      3. Jorgen Knudstorp and Daniel Servitje, the OTHER committee members, somehow escape entirely

        1. Knudstorp is the Lead independent director, Niccol is the CEO and chair of the board (yes, chair)

      4. But instead of targeting Niccol or even Knudstorp, Glass Lewis targeted the female chair of the committee… ONLY

        1. If the CEO gets to be chair - doesn’t the CEO have to take responsibility for board overall? 

        2. If you have an LID, are they accountable??  Why would the chair of a committee be target without the chair of the board or LID?  Can a committee chair dissolve their own committee??

    2. Cracker Barrel - the scapegoat was the person of color who had “diversity” in their job description, not the longest tenured director who was also chair of the board but was a white guy - and Glass Lewis suggested voting out the brown dude

  3. War on Women: part 3 speed round

    1. DOGE, DEI, and climate change

      1. Black women were disproportionately impacted by DOGE cuts. A year later, they're rebuilding careers for themselves and each other

      2. I Watched 6 Hours of DOGE Bro Testimony. Here's What They Had to Say For Themselves

        1. Over the course of a six hour long or so deposition, Justin Fox, a former investment banker turned DOGE bro, refused to define what he believes counts as DEI; admitted he used ChatGPT to scan government contracts for terms such as “Black” and “homosexual” but not “white” or “caucasian;” and said that one of the grants he helped slash was “not for the benefit of humankind” before walking that claim back.

      3. Why ‘bringing your whole self to work’ is a trap, especially for women

      4. Former Goldman Sachs CEO says DEI programs are ‘counterproductive,’ arguing ‘you’re branding the people in that program’

      5. Climate change: Women face worst impacts as funding support falls short

        1. In 2025, a UN women report warned that under a worst-case climate scenario, up to 158.3 million more women and girls may live in extreme poverty globally as a result of climate change by 2050

Headliniest of the Week

  1. DR: Shell CEO's Pay Jumps 60% Despite Profit Drop and Fatal Accidents

  2. DR: Jack Dorsey Defends Wearing “Love” Hat While Firing 4,000 Employees in Pivot to AI: "I wanted to approach the whole situation with love."

  3. MM: Ozempic mania has even Olive Garden and The Cheesecake Factory cutting back on portion sizes

  4. MM: Cracker Barrel sales, traffic continue to slump months after failed rebrand

Who Won the Week?

  1. DR: National Museum of the American Indian and the coffee at CII, was actually pretty not gross

  2. MM: The Council for Institutional Investors Spring Conference, who got to witness Proxy Countdown live

Predictions

  1. DR: CII loses our phone number

  2. MM: The women start the uprising now: 

Matt Moscardi
Next

BLAME GAME: Broadcom pay, McDonald’s burger, Geo Group “coup”, Iran war