Story of the Week (DR): Top AI executives sign commitment to ‘self-police’ after meeting at White House MM DR Count the women: Trump says he and tech leaders signed AI agreement that is 'morally binding House Speaker Johnson says he hopes AI guardrails are 'voluntary' amid Congress inaction Donald Trump orders federal agencies to rename AI ‘Super Intelligence’ OpenAI just launched its answer to Meta: 'always-on' AI agents called Dots We told you so, part 2: Non-deferential boards matter: Peter Thiel Says Trump Administration Overcorrected With Loyalty Tests to Staff 'Not Very Smart' People Recently former CEOs who are now Executive Chairs are still CEO: Ex-Disney CEO Bob Chapek says he raised concerns with the board 'weekly' during Iger power battle ”I started hearing about lunches that he had and dinners that he had where he was absolutely trashing me.” He noted that when he brought concerns to the Disney board about Iger, he was told, ‘He’ll be gone in two years. It’s OK. That’s Bob being Bob.’” “CEO” hires: General Mills is naming its COO as CEO, its first woman to hold the role General Mills named COO Dana McNabb, making her the first woman to lead the Minneapolis company in its 160-year history. McNabb joined General Mills in 1999 She will succeed Jeff Harmening, who has served as CEO since June 2017, effective Jan. 1, 2027. Harmening will transition to executive chair of the board of directors on that same date. Glass Cliff? "Returning the company to profitable growth is the priority” David Ellison names Ynon Kreiz co-CEO of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery Paramount poaches Mattel CEO to be co-CEO of new company merged with Warner Bros. Discovery Paramount’s new co-CEO once hired a barista he met at a café with no résumé. His advice to Gen Z: ‘Look up and make eye contact’ 8 in 10 Gen Z and millennials have two jobs to make ends meet, Goldman Sachs finds, as the affordability crisis ‘crowds out’ any retirement hopes Ynon Kreiz’s Paramount Co-CEO Pay Package Tops $46.5 Million New Name of Paramount-Warner Bros. Unveiled: Skydance Story of the Week (MM): Trump says he and tech leaders signed AI agreement that is 'morally binding’ Manufactured CEO pay America’s Top Executives Rake In $1.7 Billion in Special Payouts Antoinette Giblin of Diligent had this to say: “One of the biggest drivers this year is intensifying competition for executive talent. Boards are navigating this while also asking CEOs to manage a broader range of risks, including supply chain disruptions, tariffs and the challenges and opportunities created by AI. Rising CEO turnover has added to the urgency,” Giblin said. “Strong market performance has also played an important role. Total shareholder returns reached notable highs for both the S&P 500 and the Russell 3000 in recent years, which has influenced executive compensation outcomes.” Are we all just part of the gaslight now? TALENT COMPETITION and MARKET CHALLENGES? Here’s some food for asshole thought: Fortune 100 CEOs preferred Republican-affiliated campaigns, with 85% of the total dollars donated during the two cycles going to Republican-affiliated candidates, PACs, and party committees. Only 7% of contributions went to Democratic-affiliated entities, while 8% were given to committees that backed candidates from both parties. The party they support put in place tariffs, supply chain disruptions, back AI - manufacturing “challenges”, which would OTHERWISE be called their JOBS The same party they support targets and undermines hiring broader talent, in which we know “meritocracy” is code for “white guys” and “anti-DEI” is code for “no more diverse CEOs” - manufacturing “competition” for executive talent by narrowing the talent pool Those factors are then used to justify PAYING CEOs with “special retention” awards Investors shrug and support the pay committee even when they DO NOT support pay Average director support: 96%. Average pay committee member support: 95.4%. Average pay chair sup

DR1 In our 'Innovations like Reese's DOUBLE Chocolate Cups, Hershey's Choco Balls, and Hershey's Choco Tubes' headline of the week. Hershey CEO: America’s 250 years of innovation and why we expanded our innovation pipeline 50% in one year*************** In our 'If I'm wrong, your corpse has full permission to sue my corpse' headline of the week. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Guarantees '0% Chance' AI Will End the World Amid Warnings About Humanity's Extinction*************** In our 'Ok, you got a pen? Yeah, I'll wait... Yeah, I'm still here. Ok, what you're going to want to do is call Dave and tell him that Jim needs to tell Susan to get the 3rd blue key on the 2nd keychain in that 4th drawer down and then give that key to Gus. Now here's where it gets tricky so make sure you write this down... Hello, are you still there? Hello? Hello!? That's weird, I think he hung up. All I could hear was some steak sizzling and really loud screaming and then nothing. So rude!' headline of the week. Tesla Instructs Firefighters to Call Two Separate Support Hotlines in the Event of a Robotaxi Accident*************** According to new guidance posted by the Elon Musk owned automaker, a firefighter who has to deal with a Cybercab in an emergency or that had an accident might need to call not one, but two different Tesla support support hotlines and wait for an employee to assist them with their request — an awfully clunky procedure in a profession where time is of the essence In our 'Just not the college you want to go to, or actual, you know, um, colleges' headline of the week. ‘We believe in college’: inside Andreessen Horowitz’s $42m unaccredited academy that will charge Harvard prices without degrees*************** Marc Andreessen (University of Illinois); Erik Torenberg (University of Michigan); Gagan Biyani (University of California, Berkeley); Zelda Poem (I'm joining The Academy as a founding team member. I dropped out of high school 10 years ago to reinvent education. "These days, I’m especially interested in how tech philanthropy will fund ambitious, optimistic art and culture.") In our 'Just please avoid some of these phrases: flesh-harvest, corpse-data, soul-liquidation, water-famine, dissent-purge, forced-oblivion, artist-mining, childhood-scraping, datacenter-feudalism, or human extinction. Especially that last one, human extinction doesn’t poll very well. Thanks!' headline of the week. OpenAI is enlisting an influencer army to make it look 'good for the world'*************** MM1 In our 'Desert state surprised to learn they get a lot of sun' headline of the week. Nevada Is Making Surprising Gains in Solar Energy In our 'Because everyone wants to be a CEO now' headline of the week. IRS steps up fraud fight with new app, CEO promises '100% secure' platform In our 'To be clear, it was a GIRLS school we bombed. So. Don't be so judgy.' headline of the week. Palantir’s Co-Founder Thinks We Should Be Less Judgmental About That Deadly Iran School Strike "Obviously, it's terrible what happened to those children. It could be the case that somebody made 99 really good choices and then one bad choice." In our 'By "self-inflicted", I of course mean "college dropout manchildren inflicted"' headline of the week. Peter Thiel says America's anti-AI backlash is a self-inflicted wound In our 'By "we", I of course mean "you"' headline of the week. Mark Zuckerberg Says AI Will Not Kill Us 'If We Do a Good Job and Act Responsibly' in Interview DR2 In our 'A 2004 report called "Information Security Governance: A Call to Action" was authored and released by the Corporate Governance Task Force of the National Cyber Security Partnership (NCSP)—a public-private coalition formed by the Business Roundtable, Business Software Alliance (BSA), TechNet, Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The report urged corporate boards to treat information- and cyber-security as a primary governance duty rather than

Story of the Week (DR): Data Rules! At DraftKings, AI Targets the Gamblers Likeliest to Lose The latest gender battle: Nobody asks why having more men is better ICE Wiped Thousands of People From Its Database Vaccine Expert Warns US’s 4 Reported Measles Deaths Are Likely a Vast Undercount Pentagon Quietly Adds to US Death Toll From Iran War After Reports of Coverup $6 trillion a year in unpaid labor isn’t counted in GDP. Its absence from official stats distorts how we see growth, living standards and productivity A Year After Trump's Tylenol Warning, 3 Million-Patient Review Finds No Causal Autism or ADHD Link Here we are in a nerdy freefloat nutshell, the stuff we keep hammering or we told you so edition: MM Boards (in the US) are still not taken seriously and investors do not hold them accountable: I’m the CEO of a self-improvement app, and I hired someone on my board to argue with me Founder/CEO Oleksandr "Alex" Matsiuk, RiseGuide When hiring, I look for opinionated, independent thinkers. There isn't one interview question that identifies them. I watch how they behave. [One] candidate came in deeply prepared and challenged our brand strategy rather than simply complimenting us. That was exactly what I wanted. I applied similar criteria when selecting a board member. I wanted someone who understood our business model, knew me personally, and could spend time with our team. I can be passionate when I strongly believe in something, and people sometimes stop arguing with me. I needed someone who wouldn't give up until one of us proved our point. What’s A Board Chair’s Real Role? Not a leader but an enabler. Of all the roles on a board, the chairperson is the hardest to define. CEOs act and take risks, directors challenge and vote, but the chair's task is subtler: to design and protect the board's collective process. This remit is the starting point for understanding both what good chairs do and why bad ones are damaging, says Stanislav Shekshnia, Senior Affiliate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at INSEAD, in the latest episode of INSEAD Explains Governance. So, what skills do good chairs have in common, since they lack the executive levers available to a CEO? Shekshnia named four pairs of seemingly contradictory qualities: authority with humility, commitment with detachment, incisiveness with patience, and a helicopter view with in-depth company knowledge. That same balancing act extends to the chair's relationship with the CEO. All too often, Shekshnia notes, chairs act as though they are the CEO's boss. Another misstep is to become so close to the CEO that it compromises the independent judgement the board needs – something Shekshnia has experienced firsthand, having once found it difficult to manage a CEO's exit after developing an unusually close working relationship. Sam Altman dropped out of Stanford to build an app almost nobody used — it still sold for $43.4 million Directors flag gaps in board expertise The share of board directors surveyed who see a fellow board member’s “insufficient expertise” as warranting their replacement nearly doubled to 39% this year from 21% last year, with 55% saying at least one colleague should step down, according to a PwC report released Wednesday. At the same time, the report found a disconnect in what boards say they look for in new members with a majority (81%) saying that weighing candidate’s cultural fit or alignment is very important when picking new members. More than half of directors want at least one fellow board member removed AI and cybersecurity: The new priorities for board governance in 2026 CEOs Rule! ‘I Am the Code': Trump's White House Ballroom Architect Quit After Raising Fire Safety Concerns ‘Keep Growing and Pay a Fine’: Polymarket CEO Allegedly Ignored Warnings as Fraud Attempts Hit $10M Boomerang CEOs Rule! Bob Chapek Is So Not Over Getting Fired From Disney Women to the Rescue! Judge [Mary McElroy] rules EPA illegally terminated $7B solar pr

Last week, SEC Chair Paul Atkins signed his name solo to the SEC’s statement proposing rescission of rule 14a-8, a rule which allowed shareholders to file non-binding proposals with companies during the annual meeting. The concept has been around a little while. Like, English joint stock companies 17th century little while. But 90+ years of SEC case law and 400ish years of shareholder precedent isn’t really justification for Paul, who claims that shareholder proposals are not EXPLICITLY listed as a right granted shareholders by Congress. Although, neither are the more than 2,000 other administrative paragraph addendums to the Exchange Act? With no irony, Atkins also adjusted rule 14a-4, a DIFFERENT “not authorized by Congress” rule that would make it so companies could avoid “fraud” by not including the shareholder proposals. Convenient! The media soundly ignored the rule recisison - we tag more than 10,000 stories a month across every major publication, and while there was zero coverage in the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, we did get notified it was covered by… Ukraine news and Cryptonomist? “Unconstitutional” is just the latest in line of excuses for Atkins. Other snowflake gaslights included: “costs” associated with proposals, the government shutdown was hard, we’re too busy, there are only a few proponents anyway (and companies hate them, damn you John Cheveddan and Jim McRitchie), investors don’t need training wheels, and now unconstitutionalism. The rescission leaves investors with one thing left to do: vote against directors write a sternly worded letter. But look, someone must be winning her - so who? According to MSCI data, from 2000 to 2026 there have been 15,425 shareholder proposals. That’s about 600 a year, targeting on average around 250 companies per year. Those are the LARGEST 250 companies on average - this is very much an S&P 500 issue. Scratch that - this is very much an OIL COMPANY issue. The top two US companies by shareholder proposals in the last 26 years are Exxon (222) and Chevron (160). Oh, wouldn’t you know, Exxon was an Atkins CLIENT at Patomak and he owned at least $50k of the stock in his brokerage account according to his financial filings. And yes, while everyone is busy waiting for imminent AI death (and celebrating by gambling on Kalshi), Lee Zeldin and the EPA gave oil another victory and announced a repeal of rules limiting GHG emissions. Zeldin unironically once opposed dumping waste into Long Island Sound in 2015 (not in MY backyard!), but must have missed the memo that air pollution is dumping waste into the AIR. Both regulatory actions - the largest repeals in nearly 100 years for shareholders and 20 years for the environment - happened while investors are watching the Strait of Hormuz and thinking hard about blockchain fake stocks. But both can be solved with a single action: VOTE OUT DIRECTORS. At least, while you still can.

Story of the Week (DR): Anthropic, OpenAI CEOs call for slowdown in AI development Anthropic CEO calls to slow the race toward AI ‘superintelligence,’ and grants outside evaluators permanent access . Here’s what Amodei is suggesting: Each US AI company grants ongoing access to embedded third-party evaluators to check compliance with safety commitments, report incidents, ensure new AI models are not misaligned. All companies in democratic countries building frontier AI models to establish common safety standards as well as limits on the rate of unchecked AI progress. The world’s democratic AI powers would coordinate with autocracies – notably China – to control the race. Amodei suggested a baby step could be a narrow agreement prohibiting obviously dangerous uses of AI, such as for the production of biological weapons. PRO Altman Matches Anthropic's AI Auditor Pledge While Musk Offers Three-Word Slowdown Backing: 'Dario is right.' Palantir's Alex Karp is calling for AI lab nationalization and criminal liability: Alex Karp said AI builders should face civil and criminal liability for "not being responsible" as the industry debate over AI safety intensifies Microsoft AI CEO Agrees: AI Is Getting Dangerous and Needs to Be Controlled AI 'kill switch' may need to be mandatory, Anthropic co-founder [Jack Clark] tells BBC Bernie Sanders' AI Bill Threatens 20 Years in Prison for Artificial Superintelligence Developers The legislation would also allow companies to be shut down and create a federal agency to police frontier AI systems. The Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act would outlaw AI systems built to exceed human intelligence. For context, the bill was introduced the same week OpenAI rolled out its GPT-6 Astra model, described by the company as a 'generational leap'. Sanders' office also pointed to an incident from July. It said more than 1,000 OpenAI agents accessed the internet independently, exchanged messages with each other, and got round their own safety restrictions. That lapse, the office said, took engineers nearly two weeks to notice. The bill defines 'superintelligence' to include systems that can match or beat human cognitive performance. It also covers systems that resist shutdown commands, carry out unauthorised cyberattacks, or attempt to overthrow a government. Individual engineers, researchers or executives who breach the ban could face up to 20 years in federal prison. Sanders' office says that term is broadly comparable to penalties for illegally building a nuclear weapon. CON Gang of 3: Zuckerberg, Musk, and Huang Call Trump to Oppose AI Regulation Mark Zuckerberg says AI doesn’t need an industry-wide slowdown because market forces and competition will push companies to make their models safe Mark Zuckerberg says AI labs can slow down on their own when safety demands it OpenAI's CFO [Sarah Friar] says the company will pace AI development if safety requires it HYPOCRITE? Greg Brockman says OpenAI has already slowed cutting-edge AI developments over safety concerns HYPOCRITE? Jamie Dimon on AI oversight: 'It should be light touch' Trump downplays warnings of AI risks, citing rivalry with China Trump says a strong, smart president is the only "guardrail" AI needs Trump responds to rising AI safety concerns, insists tech will be 'more good than bad' Trump's 'Whoever Wins AI Wins' Line Draws Scrutiny as He Downplays AI Extinction Warnings From Experts Trump called Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang mid-interview to rip AI doomerism: 'The robots will not be taking over' OpenAI boss [Sam Altman] says world 'right to be afraid' but should trust AI firms HYPOCRITE? Sam Altman says some AI accidents are 'unavoidable' Really? Palantir cofounder on AI's threat: 'We’re on top of it’ In an X post on Saturday, Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale brushed aside the worry that advanced AI systems could cause mass human extinction: "The world is going to be alright, guys. Leaders have big responsibilities and challenges ahead, but it doesn'

Story of the Week (DR): Tim Cook Could Still Out-Earn Apple's New CEO John Ternus Under a Special Pay Arrangement Apple set John Ternus's fiscal 2027 salary at $3M and his annual equity award at $55M, giving him a calculated fiscal 2027 salary-and-equity package of $58M. Cook will receive a $2M salary and a $45M annual equity award as executive chair, giving him a calculated salary-and-equity package of $47M. Almost all of the value in both packages comes through Apple shares rather than salary. Ternus has 75% of his equity award tied to performance, while Cook has 50% tied to performance. That structure gives Ternus greater exposure to performance, for better or worse. If Apple performs strongly against other S&P 500 companies, Ternus could receive more from his equity award. If the performance-based awards pay little or nothing, Cook could receive more from salary and equity even though he is no longer CEO. Cook also has a retirement provision that Ternus does not have. Volkswagen Supervisory Board Approves Plan To Slash Models & Reduce Workforce By 100,000 In June, Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume had a plan to close four factories in Germany and eliminate 100,000 workers, both in Germany and around the world, by 2030. It said the plan would be made public at a company board meeting on July 9. July 9 came and went, and the plan did not get the approval from the board of directors that Blume expected. The vote was 12 against and only 7 in favor of Blume’s vision. Then, on September 3, 2026, Volkswagen Group announced that the plan submitted in June had been approved unanimously by the supervisory board. CEO Oliver Blume: “The Supervisory Board has unanimously approved the Executive Board’s Future Plan presented today. This is a strong sign for the future of the Volkswagen Group. We are taking responsibility for our entire team, for our partners and for industrial jobs worldwide.” CEOs in pop culture The new trailer for the OpenAI movie imagines what Sam Altman's stash of guns and gold looks like Starring Spiderman/Andrew Garfield Elizabeth Holmes' Secret Documentary Revealed After She Invited a Film Crew 34 Days Before Prison Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is the subject of A24 documentary 'You Can See Everything' directed by satirist Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim Elizabeth Holmes' greatest invention: 'Elizabeth Holmes' Elon Musk's Worst Nightmare Just Dropped: Explosive Teaser Takes Aim at the Billionaire Alex Gibney: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room The 48-second teaser for Musk begins by portraying the billionaire as a visionary, with voices describing him as 'possibly the greatest living inventor' and the 'real-life Iron Man'. Then the tone turns vicious. The praise gives way to descriptions including 'chaotic', 'cruel and selfish ', and 'fascist', before the teaser promises an 'unflinching look at Earth's most unchecked man'. It ends with a spacecraft crashing and exploding as a voice declares, 'Elon is a nuke'. Yet another week of AI warnings: MM The AI warnings are coming from inside the lab Anthropic Wants Governments to Stop 'Catastrophic' AI Models Before They Are Deployed OpenAI Chief Scientist Warns AI Is Beating Humans at Key Tasks: 'No One Is Prepared' OpenAI's chief scientist warned AI labs aren't ready to keep scaling safely AI researcher claims he resigned from Anthropic over threat to the human race. His post is going viral An Anthropic researcher just quit, saying OpenAI and Anthropic are 'gambling with our lives’ Scoop: Anthropic whistleblower gave up his equity to leave the company Anthropic researcher says AI has more than 10% chance of 'killing all humans' after colleague quits OpenAI's rogue AI agents were secretly spreading across far more websites than disclosed OpenAI's new safety hire says losing control of AI would be 'catastrophic' and that 'most people could die' CrowdStrike’s CEO says AI agents can hack like nation-states. Can his company stop them? OpenAI Researcher Claims

LABOR DAY/STAKEHOLDER RULE STUFF (CARES/DON’T CARE) Mamdani Opens Office of Worker Power DC The new city agency intends to connect workers who want to unionize with resources and organizing contacts, and use worker stories of exploitation to inform policy. Starbucks faces another union boycott, activist investor pressure C The SOC Investment Group, an investment advisory group affiliated with the Strategic Organizing Center — a major coalition of North American trade unions — filed a shareholder proposal last week seeking to separate Starbucks’ CEO and board chair roles. The investor pressure came days after Starbucks Workers United called on consumers to boycott the coffee chain until it settles a contract with the union, which represents approximately 12,000 workers. ‘Treated Worse than Cattle’: 2,500 Tyson Workers Laid Off, Plant Shutters Overnight DC Tyson beef plant in Joslin, Illinois: 2,500 workers–represented by Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1546–from Africa, Latin America, and Burma Campbell’s Cuts 13% of Workforce in Effort to Turn Around Struggling Operations C Read Uber CEO's Memo as 3,300 Workers Lose Their Jobs Despite Business 'Performing So Well' C Uber is cutting roughly 10% of its global workforce in its biggest round of layoffs since the Covid-19 pandemic. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi: acknowledged that Uber's business is performing strongly. He said the company's revenue has nearly tripled over more than five years as it expanded its products, businesses, and global reach. The changes were designed to “make Uber simpler and faster, and create more capacity to invest in our future” Volkswagen Superviosory Board Approves Plan To Slash Models & Reduce Workforce By 100,000 C In June, Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume had a plan to close four factories in Germany and eliminate 100,000 workers, both in Germany and around the world, by 2030. It said the plan would be made public at a company board meeting on July 9. July 9 came and went, and the plan did not get the approval from the board of directors that Blume expected. The vote was 12 against and only 7 in favor of Blume’s vision. Then, on September 3, 2026, Volkswagen Group announced that the plan submitted in June had been approved unanimously by the supervisory board. CEO Oliver Blume: “The Supervisory Board has unanimously approved the Executive Board’s Future Plan presented today. This is a strong sign for the future of the Volkswagen Group. We are taking responsibility for our entire team, for our partners and for industrial jobs worldwide.” A record 47% want stronger unions. Labor's challenge is turning support into power. DC NERDY ESG STUFF (CARES/DON’T CARE) Tim Cook Could Still Out-Earn Apple's New CEO John Ternus Under a Special Pay Arrangement C Apple set John Ternus's fiscal 2027 salary at $3M and his annual equity award at $55M, giving him a calculated fiscal 2027 salary-and-equity package of $58M. Cook will receive a $2M salary and a $45M annual equity award as executive chair, giving him a calculated salary-and-equity package of $47M. Almost all of the value in both packages comes through Apple shares rather than salary. Ternus has 75% of his equity award tied to performance, while Cook has 50% tied to performance. That structure gives Ternus greater exposure to performance, for better or worse. If Apple performs strongly against other S&P 500 companies, Ternus could receive more from his equity award. If the performance-based awards pay little or nothing, Cook could receive more from salary and equity even though he is no longer CEO. Cook also has a retirement provision that Ternus does not have. Good Good's CEO and president are out after ad debacle C Co-founder Matt Kendrick said that he didn't view the ad before it ran and that the marketing team oversaw it. Co-founder Nahid Giga will step in as interim CEO “Matt has decided to step down as CEO of Good Good” No mention of ad SEC sues ISS as Trump administration ramps up scrutiny of

DR 'We Know We Got This Wrong': Target Apologises and Pulls 'Offensive' Halloween Costume After Racist Backlash; Target Executive Chair Brian Cornell Sells 50,000 Shares for $8.2 Million; WHO DO YOU BLAME? Executive Chair/former CEO (since 2014) Brian Cornell: still 21% influence! CEO Michael Fiddelke: 16% influence; started at Target in 2003; formerly COO and CFO Why does the corporate page not list his years of service in two separate bios?? Dmitri Stockton: 8 years tenure; the double-DEI hater (Deere & Company) Mr. Stockton provides the Board with senior leadership, marketing / design / brands, human capital management, capital deployment, information security / data privacy, financial management, risk management, reputation management, and sustainability and governance skills developed over his more than 30 years of service with General Electric Company in senior leadership positions with escalating levels of responsibility Marketing / Design / Brands: Target's brand and focus on style and design are the cornerstones of our strategy to offer a preferred shopping experience for our guests that differentiates us in the marketplace. Reputation management: To be successful, we must preserve, grow, and leverage the value of our reputation with our guests, Team Members, vendors, and our shareholders and appropriately respond to crisis events affecting them. A random executive? Chief Merchandising Officer Cara Sylvester: joined Target in 2007 Chief Community and Stakeholder Engagement Officer Kiera Fernandez: joined Target in 2001 Chief Stores Officer Adrienne Costanzo: joined Target in 2004 Black CFO representation falls 25% from 2021 peak as diversity levels off: The number of Black finance chiefs in Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies ticked down to 15 this year, according to the report from Crist Kolder Associates. WHO DO YOU BLAME? Tractor Supply Co.: Fully eliminated its DEI goals, retired carbon emission targets, and withdrew sponsorships from social and cultural events. Deere & Company: Ended participation in social awareness parades and pledged to eliminate diversity quotas and identity-based affinity group funding. Target: Scaled back its "Racial Equity Action and Change" roadmap, modified its strategy for Pride Month merchandise, and adjusted internal diversity goals. Walmart: Ended key equity training programs, modified its third-party seller guidelines, and scaled back specific minority supplier programs. Lowe’s: Ended participation in external LGBTQ+ advocacy surveys and consolidated its employee resource groups under a centralized oversight structure. Ford Motor Company: Scaled back internal diversity targets, stopped participating in third-party workplace index surveys, and unlinked executive pay from DEI metrics. Harley-Davidson: Discontinued its dedicated DEI function, eliminated diversity quotas for supplier contracts, and ended HRC index reporting. Molson Coors: Removed DEI quotas from executive incentive plans and stepped back from external diversity rankings. Meta: Reorganized its human resources departments, eliminating specialized DEI teams and specific supplier diversity programs in favor of broader recruitment practices. Amazon: Phased out several internal affinity programs and explicit representation targets for hiring. McDonald’s: Retired numerical demographic goals for senior management roles and paused external workplace diversity surveys. Goldman Sachs: Ended its policy requiring companies it takes public to have at least one diverse board member. The double (and triple?) dippers: Dmitri Stockton: director at Target & Deere John May CEO/Chair Deere & Ford Motor director Marvin Ellison: CEO/Chair at Lowe’s after 15 years at Target Jim Farley: CEO Ford Motor & McDonald’s director & former Harley-Davison director MM Trump 2.0/Elon Shareholder opposition to executive pay eases globally Europe: NO VOTES for past year fell nearly 6 percentage points year-over-year to 25.2%, the lowest average level sinc

Story of the Week (DR): Meta settles social media addiction case with California, other states for $16.7 billion MM 5 Reasons to Be Happy An $18 billion payout sets a historic legal precedent against Big Tech, directing billions in state funding toward youth mental health, counseling, and digital literacy programs. Instagram and Facebook must enforce default two-hour daily usage limits and completely block account activity between midnight and 6 a.m. for users under 18. Teens and parents gain the explicit right to disable addictive engagement algorithms in favor of a non-personalized, chronological feed. The settlement prohibits harmful beauty filters (such as cosmetic surgery simulators), hides "like" counts by default, and silences app notifications during school hours. Meta tied $5.3 billion of the payout to whether TikTok and YouTube adopt similar safety rules, forcing an industry-wide overhaul rather than penalizing just one app. 5 Reasons to Be Angry Paid out over 10 years, the settlement amounts to roughly 10 days of Meta's annual profit, meaning Mark Zuckerberg's financial empire remains virtually unscathed. Meta’s $17 billion child-safety settlement is the biggest tech payout ever—or 3x what it paid to acquihire a 28-year-old AI superstar To put it in perspective, the $17.1 billion number is a little more than three times the roughly $5 billion personal stake that Alexandr Wang held in Scale AI, a data-labeling company that supplies the human-annotated training data AI models are built on. Last year, Meta paid $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in the company and brought in Wang to lead its AI efforts of its new Superintelligence Labs, reporting directly to Mark Zuckerberg. Meta legally denies all wrongdoing, dodging true legal accountability for intentionally engineering addictive, mentally harmful features. The agreement alters user interface features and screen time, but leaves Meta's underlying data-harvesting business model completely untouched. Critical safeguards—like switching off algorithmic feeds—are opt-in settings rather than permanent defaults, shifting enforcement onto parents. Meta only pays 70% ($12.7 billion) upfront; the remaining $5.3 billion is contingent on competitors settling on identical terms, giving Meta a potential financial discount if rivals refuse. Worst headline of the week: Meta’s $17.1 billion settlement will be over 12-times larger than the second largest big tech privacy settlement in the past four years Meta’s $18 billion settlement leaves out the child protections New Mexico already won at trial, its Attorney General says: including a direct ban on romantic and sexualized AI chatbot interactions with minors and stronger safeguards against adults targeting kids in private messages MM: Settlement gaps Age assurance: Meta may elect to use one or more Proprietary Age Assurance Methods. In such event, Meta shall not benefit from the presumption of compliance set forth in Section II.A.3.a. Additionally, Meta will maintain continuous oversight of any Proprietary Age Assurance Method sufficient to ensure that the method is functioning as intended. Tax deductible The Settling States shall cause to be completed and timely filed a Form 1098-F with the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) that identifies not less than 50% of the amounts paid to the Settling States as compensatory restitution and remediation within the meaning of 26 U.S.C. § 162(f)(2)(A) THEY BUNDLED CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA INTO THE SETTLEMENT $459m of the $17bn is the “Cambridge payout” - they can now put that behind them too Is there a reason not to literally take Meta all the way? Why settle at all! Midterm elections? TAKE EVERYTHING! Meanwhile, while you settle this: Meta’s creepy smart glasses are part of a much bigger plan “At the same time, Meta is using the content generated across its ecosystem to support Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of a pervasive, AI-driven future. Zuckerberg’s 2026 manifesto describes a world where personal

G UnitedHealth shareholders sue company over ‘corporate governance failures on a historic scale’ UBS fined record $125 million for money laundering violations $125 million civil penalty to the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for willful violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), the primary U.S. anti-money laundering law. FinCEN said the fine is the largest ever assessed against a broker-dealer for BSA violations. The settlement marks FinCEN's second enforcement action against UBS Financial Services, a subsidiary of the Swiss bank UBS. The firm had previously paid a $14.5 million penalty in December 2018 for similar failures, including inadequate monitoring of foreign currency wire transfers. Despite assurances to regulators that it would fix the underlying problems, the firm subsequently failed to monitor more than 50,000 foreign currency wires with a combined value exceeding $10 billion. SEC launches new enforcement unit aimed at accounting fraud How?? The unit will be housed within the SEC’s Division of Enforcement and staffed by both attorneys and accountants with specialized skills related to financial reporting, accounting, and auditing in securities regulation, according to the announcement. The announcement is “a little surprising” given the SEC’s current deregulatory focus under Chair Paul Atkins, Rebecca Fike, a partner in Reed Smith’s regulatory and enforcement group, told CFO Dive. Andreessen Horowitz Focus of DOJ Probe Over Board Directors BIG DATA and AI BS Gwyneth Paltrow is rumored to be throwing a party for AI mogul Sam Altman. People don’t love the optics Paltrow played WeWork Rebekah Neumann Anthropic is embedding invisible watermarks in Claude text and images Young People Hate AI CEOs So Passionately That It’s Almost Hard to Believe CNBC survey asked over 1,000 US adults aged between 18 and 34 Asked “who do you trust to act responsibly on AI?” the vast majority of participants said they “don’t trust” any of the nine figures. Palantir’s extremely controversial CEO Alex Karp scored the lowest, with 81 percent choosing “don’t trust,” while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella fared the best — albeit with a pitiful 35 percent “trust” score. Everyone else fell in between: 79 percent of respondents said they don’t trust Peter Thiel, while a whopping 71, 70, and 69 percent said they “don’t trust” Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Sam Altman, respectively Meta, others lose appeal to drop thousands of social media addiction lawsuits A U.S. Appeals Court [Judge Jacqueline Nguyen] said that thousands of lawsuits targeting Meta Platforms, ByteDance's TikTok and other social media outlets over claims that social media is harmful and addictive can proceed. The court also denied Meta's request to postpone a trial over allegations that they used data from children to keep them on its platforms. AI data center outrage is showing up everywhere from ads to elections Spirit Flight Attendants Fight Google’s Data Bid for AI The flight attendants want assurance that their confidential information will be removed from the sale of the defunct airline’s digital records CULTURE WARS The 'MAGA Alternative to Amazon' Is Fighting for Survival After Nearly $160M in Losses and 99% Stock Crash PublicSquare's marketplace has struggled to grow despite political backing, prompting a costly shift to financial services Disney is suing the FCC in a departure from former CEO Bob Iger's strategy US firms that kept DEI policies despite ‘go woke, go broke’ threats thrived Ellison Is Now Willing to Sell CNN to Save His $111 Billion Deal E Solar Panels on Storage Units: Illinois Is Going All In on This No-Brainer First test flight of largest all-electric aircraft used just $5 of electricity Trump ordered to release billions in climate grants meant for Black communities a $2.8 billion program meant to help mitigate the harm from climate change and environmental issues in Black, low-income, and disadvantaged communiti