Story of the Week (DR): Skydance Adds Bobby Kotick and Laurene Powell Jobs to Board, Taps Tony Blair as Adviser Former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Was Once Reviled by Gamers. Now He's Joining Skydance's Board of Directors The crisis began in July 2021 when the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) sued Activision Blizzard, alleging a pervasive "frat boy" culture of rampant sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation Initially, Kotick and leadership claimed they were unaware of the severity of the issues or blamed them on a few bad actors However, in November 2021, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell investigation that squarely implicated Kotick. The report detailed several severe allegations: Concealing Misconduct: The report alleged that Kotick had known about multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and assault across the company for years. He reportedly failed to inform the board of directors about the severity of these claims, including alleged rapes and out-of-court settlements. Protecting Accused Executives: In one specific instance, the HR department recommended firing a co-head of the developer studio Treyarch after an investigation found he had sexually harassed a female employee. Kotick allegedly intervened and overruled HR to keep the executive at the company. Threatening an Assistant's Life: The report surfaced Kotick’s own history of alleged misconduct, including a 2006 incident where he left a voicemail threatening to have his assistant killed. A spokesperson for Kotick later admitted to the voicemail, claiming it was "hyperbolic" and noting that he had apologized and settled the matter out of court. Private Jet Lawsuit: The WSJ also reported on an incident involving a private jet Kotick co-owned, where a flight attendant claimed she was sexually harassed by the pilot. When she complained, Kotick allegedly told her he would ruin her financially. Kotick was never formally fired or removed by the board, instead his exit was orchestrated through a massive corporate buyout. Amid plummeting stock prices and reputational damage, Microsoft swept in to buy Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion in January 2022. Kotick officially stepped down in December 2023. Because he left as part of a successful merger rather than being fired for cause, he walked away with an enormous "golden parachute" payout, cashing out hundreds of millions of dollars in stock and severance packages. Anthropic Has Been Aggressively Lobbying the Vatican to Consider AI Consciousness According to new reporting from the New York Times, the company has for months been wining and dining religious scholars across the world in secret, NDA-secured meetings to convince them that AI models think and feel, too. Anthropic even reportedly went after the Pope. Christopher Olah, a cofounder and senior researcher at the Claude chatbot maker, aggressively lobbied the Vatican after learning Pope Leo XIV’s official position on AI, per the reporting. Christopher Olah: Canadian; studied mathematics at the University of Toronto for one year before dropping out to "support a friend accused of terrorism;" received a Thiel Fellowship in 2012; previously worked at Google and OpenAI; atheist Sam Altman Warns Against 'Religious Force' in AI After Elon Musk's Grok Calls Jesus 'Son of God' OpenAI's Altman: Ascribing religion to models a "safety issue"' SEC Warns Activist Investors After Climate Push at Exxon Mobil, see Matt (1) MM DR Story of the Week (MM): OIL #1: SEC Warns Activist Investors After Climate Push at Exxon Mobil Report of Investigation Pursuant to Section 21(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934: Climate Action 100+ and the Election of Directors at the May 2021 Annual Meeting of ExxonMobil Corporation In the context of ExxonMobil’s 2021 director election, the investigation examined whether members of CA100 used the organization as a means of coordinating their votes to influence the outcome of the contested director election at the 2021 annual meeting The evidence also suggested CA100 and its members pressured BlackRock and State Street to support CA100 ̶flagged matters submitted to a shareholder vote, including the May 2021 election of dissident directors to ExxonMobil’s board. On the other hand, Vanguard never became a member of CA100, and the investigation did not develop evidence that BlackRock or State Street agreed to vote proxies in certain manners or shared their proxy voting intentions with investors or others associated with CA100. Report goes on to say that Ceres pressure Blackrock and State Street (and conveniently ignores Vanguard, who also voted for Engine No 1 directors but DIDN’T join CA100) - but Blackrock only joins after GPIF pulls 25bn in assets (GPIF, not a Ceres member, a Japanese pension fund) Most of this report is an indictment of Mindy Lubber (retiring CEO of Ceres) and non profit culture, where they routinely overstate how important they are to change and their ability to actually create pressure - I worked there, they do shit all - they make noise and claim credit. My job was to “generate new investments in cleantech” - a non profit telling a multi trillion dollar asset manager how to allocate capital, pressure companies, or do due diligence, is f*****g laughable. And the report says as much: the minutes also detail discussion between BlackRock and Ceres regarding the ExxonMobil board refresh campaign: “Talked about scoping good board candidates for Exxon campaign – [BlackRock] said there was ‘no chance that they would ever help us with that’.” The focus on convening non profits and the rescission of 14a-8 have one thing in common: protecting oil companies. 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). Exxon has been so pissed, they diluted the board by increasing size and appointing their own directors, sued Arjuna Capital for a shareholder proposal (which Arjuna was legally allowed to file), and hired ATKINS HIMSELF as an advisor 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 OIL #2: To Block Solar Energy Projects, One Community Lumped Them in With Junkyards and Adult Bookstores there were 888 state and local laws restricting renewable energy across 48 states, according to Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. The center’s database shows restrictions in more than 30 of Indiana’s 92 counties Montgomery County is not one of them. Its limits are indirect, stemming from a comprehensive planning process in 2024 that includes wind and solar as undesirable land uses, based on focus groups with residents. The county’s list of undesirable uses also has junkyards, landfills and adult-oriented businesses, among others Meanwhile, there are now 159 data centers in Indiana OIL #3: Oil Companies Are Begging the Supreme Court to Let Them Off the Hook For Climate Change Assholiest of the Week (MM/DR): DR: Kentucky bourbon CEO fired after lawsuit alleges hidden cameras recording family members, minors nude: report "The Board and leadership of TKC Distilling, the parent company of The Kentucky Castle and True Story Whiskey, have terminated the employment of CEO Wes Henderson, effective immediately, in light of allegations outlined in a recently filed lawsuit," Charity Bird, an attorney for TKC Distilling, said in a statement. the son of master distiller Lincoln Henderson Kyle Henderson, one of Wes Henderson's sons, will take over as CEO of both The Kentucky Castle and True Story Whiskey while the board conducts a full and independent investigation One of six sons: the entire leadership team MM: Men (again) ‘Masculine energy’ is costing companies billions Mark Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan that the corporate world needed more “masculine energy” and a culture that “celebrates the aggression a bit more.” Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ 2024 global study of occupational fraud, men committed 75% of cases and caused higher losses: a median of $158,000 per case, versus $100,000 for women. In 2018, a Harvard Kennedy School study described work as a “masculinity contest” governed by four implicit norms: show no weakness, display strength and stamina, put work first, and treat colleagues as rivals. These researchers then created a survey to measure how strongly a workplace follows these norms. When scores were high, they found more toxic leadership, less psychological safety, more bullying and harassment, and more burnout and intention to quit.[...] The damage shows up in harassment settlements, legal fees, and workers’ compensation claims Harvard Business School researchers analyzed data on some 50,000 workers and found that avoiding a toxic hire is worth $12,489 to a company, more than twice the amount that a top-1% performer brings in. On the flip side: In 2025, private education and healthcare, where women hold 77% of jobs, added around 800,000 positions while all other sectors combined lost about 500,000, according to this analysis of BLS data Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR): DR: Diesel prices are rising worldwide. So are electric truck sales Electric trucks cost too much. California has a law for that: SB 1213 will force truck manufacturers to disclose data to curb price gouging — and open new state financing options to help fleets switch to cleaner vehicles Honda plans highway test of tech that charges moving trucks MM: PepsiCo's fizz fades as GLP-1 drugs and activist investor Elliott's targets test its snack
