WHO DO YOU BLAME: Campbell’s poor people rant, OpenAI sex bears, Kohl’s succession, Walmart HR

Live from The Hyderabad Public School, a private high school in India which features notable alums 1) Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, 2) Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen 3) former Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga, 4) Fairfax Financial CEO Prem Watsa, and 5) Procter & Gamble CEO-designate Shailesh Jejurikar, it’s an all-new Terrific Tuesday edition of Business Pants, featuring Analyst-Hole Matt Moscardi! On today's Lead Independent Turkey called November 25th, 2025: the Who Do You Blame? Game!

Our show today is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for FREE.

DAMION

1. Campbell's Places VP on Leave Following Viral 'Poor People' Rant

1. Martin Bally, Campbell Soup Company’s vice president and chief information security officer: “"We have s--- for f---ing poor people. Who buys our s---? I don’t buy Campbell’s products barely anymore. Bioengineered meat — I don’t wanna eat a piece of chicken that came from a 3-D printer."

1. He also allegedly made derogatory comments about Indian coworkers and – according to the recording – claimed he sometimes came to work under the influence of marijuana: "F---ing Indians don’t know a f---ing thing," the voice on the recording says. "They couldn’t think for their f---ing selves."

2. The statement follows claims made by former Campbell’s security analyst Robert Garza, who filed a lawsuit in Wayne County Circuit Court alleging that Bally launched into an hour-long tirade during what was meant to be a discussion about Garza’s salary.

3. Campbell’s: “We are proud of the food we make, the people who make it and the high-quality ingredients we use ... The comments on the recording are not only inaccurate—they are patently absurd.

1. Campbell’s also noted that Bally is not involved in food development. “Keep in mind, the alleged comments are made by an IT person, who has nothing to do with how we make our food,” the statement concluded.

2. WHO DO YOU BLAME?

1. The founding families:

1. Voting power: (35%) Mary Alice D. Malone - 18% Bennett Dorrance- 15% Archbold D. van Beuren - 2%

2. Board influence (76%): Mary Alice Dorrance Malone (61%; board member since 1990); Archbold Dorrance van Beuren (9%; wealth management); Bennett Dorrance (6%: bachelor’s degree in art history from Princeton University and a master’s degree in sustainable leadership from Arizona State University); Mary Alice Dorrance Malone Jr (accomplished equestrian, and a luxury fashion entrepreneur) MM

2. Investors: 11/18/2025 AGM

1. Average director support 98% (9 over 99%): 

1. 43% yes simple majority vote; regenerative agriculture program including pesticide reduction outcomes 11% yes; say on pay 99% yes

3. An unserious food board of 9 non-family board members:

1. No food: Fabiola R. Arredondo (family investment trust); Howard M. Averill(former Time Warner CFO); Maria Teresa (Tessa) Hilado (former CFO Allergan); Grant Hill (NBA); Sarah Hofstetter (e-commerce sales); Marc B. Lautenbach (global shipping); Chair Keith R. McLoughlin (appliances); Kurt T. Schmidt (weed and pet food); 

4. CEO Mick J. Beekhuizen: 13 years with Goldman Sachs in roles including Managing Director in the merchant banking division

5. American pop-artist Andy Warhol for somehow making Campbell’s Food company eternally relevant 

1. Q3 2025 Gender Diversity Index

1. Little Movement on Boardroom Gender Diversity: 30% of Russell 3000 board members are women, a figure that has stayed within a narrow 30% to 30.3% range over the past five quarters.

2. Percentage of Boards with 50% Women: Across the Russell 3000, 6% (175) of boards are composed of at least 50% women, while the remaining 94% (2,736) have less than 50% female representation.

3. New Female Director Appointments Hit Record Low: 22.3% of new directors on Russell 3000 boards are women. This represents the lowest percentage recorded in the study (since Q12017)

4. WHO DO YOU BLAME?

1. The anti-DEI MAGA movement

2. Nominating Committees, specifically their Chairs MM

3. Passive Investors (BlackRock, Vanguard, etc)

4. The proxy experts: ISS, Glass Lewis, etc.

5. Previous female board members who retired or died: if they were immortal maybe the numbers would be better?

1. OpenAI announces shopping research tool in latest e-commerce push

1. OpenAI announced a new tool called “shopping research” that will generate detailed, in-depth shopping guides.

2. The guides include top products, key differences between the products and up-to-date information from reliable retailers, OpenAI said.

3. “With these new abilities, we can have shared prosperity to a degree that seems unimaginable today; in the future, everyone's lives can be better than anyone's life is now.”

4. WHO DO YOU BLAME?

1. The sycophants: open letter sent to the board of directors

1. “We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgement and care for our mission and employees,” the letter continues before demanding that “all current board members resign,” appoint “two new lead independent directors.”

2. signed by a whopping 700 of the company’s 770 employees — including CTO Mira Murati, who the board briefly named interim CEO only to be replaced just a few days later, and Altman’s fellow cofounder Ilya Sutskever, who initially appeared to be one of the forces behind his ouster

2. New Initial Board (Nov 2023)

1. Bret “Salesforce” Taylor (Chair), Larry “Epstein” Summers, and Adam “voted to fire him in the first place” D’Angelo

3. New Board Members (Mar 2024)

1. Sue Desmond-Hellmann (former CEO, Bill “Epstein” & Melinda Gates Foundation); Nicole “Iran Contra” Seligman (former Sony GC); Fidji Simo (CEO of Instacart) MM

4. The wafflers: Ilya Sutskever and Adam D’Angelo

5. NOT Helen Toner: Director of Strategy at the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology and Tasha McCauley

6. Sam:

1. San Francisco, CA (Russian Hill): A historic mansion purchased for $27 million in 2020.

2. San Francisco, CA (Adjacent Homes): Three adjacent houses purchased for $12.8 million each (totaling $38.4 million) in January 2024. These purchases appear to be consolidating a potential mega-compound next to his original Russian Hill home.

3. Kailua-Kona, Hawaii (Big Island): A large, 22-acre oceanfront estate, quietly purchased in 2021 for $43 million (later listed for $49 million in 2025). It features multiple houses, a private marina/beach, helipad

4. Napa, CA (Ranch): A 950-acre ranch, reportedly purchased for $15.7 million in 2020.

1. Kohl's names Michael Bender as permanent CEO after a turbulent year and sales declines. WHO DO YOU BLAME

1. Ashley Buchanan: On May 1, 2025, Kohl’s board terminated Buchanan “for cause” following an outside investigation overseen by its Audit Committee. The investigation found that Buchanan directed Kohl’s to do business with a vendor founded by someone with whom he had a personal relationship. He also caused Kohl’s to enter into a multimillion-dollar consulting agreement involving that same person. Crucially, he did not disclose this personal relationship, which was a violation of Kohl’s code of ethics.

1. Golden hello: $17m equity and $3.75m cash

2. Former director Christine Day: Shortly after Buchanan was fired, Day resigned, citing “lack of transparency” and governance concerns. 

1. Day said she was frustrated that not all board members were kept informed of risks and that decisions seemed centralized (“Michael ‘handles’ everything … then ‘tells’ everyone what the decision is”). 

2. Kohl’s strongly disputed her characterization, saying her resignation was not “due to any disagreements” over operations or practices.

3. Investors: chair Bender named interim CEO 4/30/25… AGM 5/14/25

1. 95% yes bender; 55% yes pay; 89% yes Prising; 92% average; new chair 91% John E. Schlifske (2011-, longest-tenured)

4. Compensation Committee: “regularly and actively reviewing and evaluating our executive management succession plans and making recommendations to the Board with respect to succession planning issues”

1. Chair Jonas Prising (2015-)

2. Member Michael Bender

5. Michael Bender, who was the Board Chair and sat on COmp Committee and director since 2019, was named interim CEO

1. $1.475M/175% target up to 350%/$9.5M equity ($500k more than ashley) target/$200k aircraft (up from $180k for ashley)/$160k relocation

2. one-time award of restricted stock units (“RSUs”) valued at $3,775,000

6. The glass cliff: women and POC promoted to precarious leadership positions, such as the CEO or a board seat, during times of crisis, organizational turmoil, or poor performance MM

MATT

• Watchdog group warns AI teddy bear discusses sexually explicit content, dangerous activities. This is the $99 Kumma bear made by FoloToy using OpenAI’s service.  OpenAI said it was suspending Folotoy for violations of usage of ChatGPT.  WHO DO YOU BLAME?:

• Folotoy, who’s founder and CEO Larry Wang calls himself “Chief Geek Officer” and has a background in child psychology and behavioral science… oh, wait, not, he has background in computer science and was founder of a tech telecomm company and was a software developer for insurance before that.  But he’s obviously qualified to do this: “Kumma, our adorable bear, combines advanced artificial intelligence with friendly, interactive features, making it the perfect friend for both kids and adults. From lively conversations to educational storytelling, FoloToy adapts to your personality and needs, bringing warmth, fun, and a little extra curiosity to your day.”

• OpenAI - obviously Sam Altman’s commitment to “the benefit of humanity” stopped short of “sex advice from baby toys,” even though he says having kids of his own will help him not destroy humanity.  I assume he’s not getting Sammy Jr a Kumma bear? DR

• OpenAI’s board - obviously if they had fired Sam Altman, there wouldn’t be sex bears using ChatGPT.  But Helen Toner was forced out by the rest of the board, investors, and public pressure - she’s since said, “But for years, Sam had made it really difficult for the board to actually do that job by withholding information, misrepresenting things that were happening at the company, in some cases outright lying to the board,” and that Altman gave them, “inaccurate information about the small number of formal safety processes that the company did have in place.”  Perhaps Altman said, “no, that teddy bear didn’t just say he loved oral sex, that’s just a misinterpretation.”

• Microsoft - Satya, despite misgivings from Bill Gates, threw $10bn at OpenAI in January 2023.  In November 2023, the board removed Sam Altman.  Turns out Microsoft had released a version of ChatGPT in India that Altman sanctioned outside of safety protocols - the board should have signed off, but Altman lied to them and hid it.  But rather than Microsoft pulling back the release and recognizing the damage it could do, they swooped in and “hired” Sam Altman 3 days after his firing.  Their $10bn investment might have been the first cog in a sex bear wheel.

• I'm the Chief People Officer at Walmart. I always wake up to the same U2 song and watch the 'Today' show. That is Donna Morris listening to U2’s “Beautiful Day”, the first thing she does is go online, she doesn’t drink coffee but drinks Diet Coke (“I’ve just never been a hot drink type of girl, I guess. I try to limit myself to two Diet Cokes a day, although every once in a while, I sneak in a third.”), she likes buying cookbooks but doesn’t use them.  Not mentioned: Walmart’s DEI rollback, the new CEO coming in, working for a family dictatorship, and any of her colleagues - as chief people officer, there are almost zero people mentioned. WHO DO WE BLAME FOR THIS EXISTING?

• Professional Conservative Snowflake Robby Starbuck - he claimed Walmart as his first “victory” after Trump’s election in the DEI rollback.  Post-Starbuck snowflake-ism, Morris might have had a job managing humans, but now her job is basically to send pink slips and make sure there aren’t TOO many swastikas in the bathroom stall.  A few is fine, but c’mon. So to pass the time, Morris is stuck giving interviews to Business Insider.

• Business Insider, who must have known Morris had the potential to give an insipid review of her day when this was her excuse for Walmart’s DEI rollback: "When you talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, all in part, there can be communities, and often the largest communities, that step back and say, 'Geez, I'm not sure if I'm even actually included'," Morris explained of the decision.  Which echoes… ROBBY FUCKING STARBUCK, who said to anyone who would listen: "This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America. This won't just have a massive effect for their employees who will have a neutral workplace without feeling that divisive issues are being injected but it will also extend to their many suppliers."

• Donna Morris, because as only we covered here when discussing the corporate move to blame the employees for every problem and getting fired, had this to say of her biggest red flag on an employee: “Nobody wants [to hire] a Debbie Downer.  [Someone who is] constantly negative. You know they’re going to show up [and] they’re going to bring the problem, never the solution.”  Literally, the JOB of HR is to field COMPLAINTS from employees about how their managers treat them - or is it too Debbie Downer to complain about racial discrimination of employees?

• Walmart’s board - they must have signed off on Morris getting hired, right?  Or a Walton?  Someone somewhere thought this was a good idea?  Take your pick:

• CFO of OpenAI Sarah Friar (who said OpenAI would need a government backstop, then clarified)

• Brian Niccol, the CEO of Starbucks who was given a golden hello, a golden parachute, and probably a golden shower, who just named to a “worst CEO” list

• The current AND former CEO of Walmart

• Steuart Walton, who couldn’t bother to even be named “Stuart” (he had to spell it with an extra “E”) with a claim to fame of marrying a Baywatch reboot actress, and Greg Penner, the son-in-law of a different Walton and snuck his way onto the board AND as co-owner of the Denver Broncos

• Tom Horton, retired American Airlines CEO who was CFO of American for years right before they declared bankruptcy, but somehow is remembered for “restructuring” them instead of bankrupting them?

• Marissa Mayer - yes, that Mayer, formerly of Yahoo

• Not one, but TWO different consultants

• Randall Stephenson, ex AT&T CEO, who, if I’m honest, seems to have actual integrity and I’m not sure why he’s here, plus two DEI directors (because they’re not white, so probably not qualified)