DR1

THINGS WE MISSED

The meritocracy is still a lie: ‘Don’t look at the résumé’: Elon Musk admits he’s ‘fallen prey’ to flashy credentials and says conversation matters most when hiring

“Generally, what I tell people—I tell myself, I guess, aspirationally—is, don’t look at the résumé,” he said. “Just believe your interaction. The résumé may seem very impressive…but if the conversation after 20 minutes is not ‘Wow,’ you should believe the conversation, not the paper.”

“I think goodness of heart is important.”

Four Black women. Nine degrees. Not one steady paycheck.

The president promised to save “Black jobs,” but his policies have resulted in fresh pain for the Black middle class as the employment gap widens.

Study: Women are more likely to get hired after taking GLP-1s

Zuck still sucks: Mark Zuckerberg Sure Sounds Eager to Get Young People Hooked on Online Gambling

The Meta CEO is developing a social network betting market app—and wants help from Polymarket and Kalshi.

Starbucks “Actively Reassessing” 2030 Climate Goal

Starbucks initially unveiled its climate goal in 2020, targeting a 50% reduction in Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 2030, on a 2019 basis.

While the company’s impact report indicates that it has succeeded in cutting operational emissions, with Scope 1 and 2 falling 17% since 2019, wider value chain emissions have continued to climb, with Scope 3 rising by 8% since 2019. With Scope 3 accounting for over 90% of overall emissions, Starbucks has seen its GHG footprint grow by 7% overall since 2019.

The reassessment of the goal comes as the company takes “a fresh, comprehensive look at our sustainability goals,” according to a blog post by Starbucks’ Chief Sustainability and Social Impact Officer Kelly Goodejohn, as part of the company’s ‘Back to Starbucks’ strategy initiated by CEO Brain Niccol.

From the Impact Report:

Overall Grants from the Starbucks Foundation

FY25 $13.6M ($31M)

FY24 $21.4M ($96M)

Delaware Court of Chancery Interprets New Section 144 and Applies Heightened Presumption of Director Independence

The Opinion arose in a common context in Delaware stockholder litigation: claims over director and management compensation. In the decision, Vice Chancellor Lori W. Will applied, for the first time, the statute’s heightened presumption of independence for directors of public companies determined by the board to be independent under the relevant NYSE or Nasdaq listing standards to dismiss derivative claims on demand futility grounds.

In conducting the demand futility analysis, which looks to whether a majority of the board can independently consider a stockholder demand to bring derivative litigation, the Court reasoned that the new statutory language requiring a plaintiff to plead “substantial and particularized facts” to rebut the “heightened” presumption of independence sets a higher bar than under pre-existing law. Specifically, the Court held that the addition of “substantial” to the existing standard that already required particularized facts meant that “a plaintiff must plead specific, non-conclusory facts of sufficient qualitative significance to support a reasonable inference of a material interest or relationship that would impair the director’s objective judgment.” The Court was clear that it is not a matter of quantity but rather quality, observing that “a collection of trivial facts” will not rise to the level of materiality required to satisfy this “heightened” standard. Applying that standard to the facts in the case, the Court concluded that the plaintiff’s allegations of various overlapping board positions, overlapping investments, and other “business ties” with the company’s founder and non-executive chairman were not sufficiently material.

DR2

The Boardroom Buy-In

The Taser CEO Who Says AI Is the Future of Policing

Taser and body-cam king Rick Smith is betting Axon’s dominance—and his own pay package—on his tech-driven vision

66% influence

Rick Smith: Every 30 seconds one of his Tasers is fired by somebody in the U.S., usually a police officer.

The pay package he and his board put together catapulted him to the top of last year’s list of the highest-paid CEOs, with a compensation package valued at $164.4 million.

33% no 2025; 10% no 2026

Smith has already hit three of seven goals. At the end of 2025, Axon estimated the shares underlying the full award could be worth nearly $386 million.

IN: Not a dictatorship

One share one vote

BlackRock 9.3%

The Vanguard Group 11.6%

Patrick Smith 3.5 %

OUT: Patrick Smith 66% influence MM

With Chair Michael Garnreiter (2006-); sits on Audit, Compensation Committee, and Nominating committees

Compensation Committee chair Hadi Partovi (2010-): Smith (‘91) and Partovi (‘94) both members of the Theta Eta chapter of Sigma Chi at Harvard

OUT: Patrick Smith ignores his board:

In the wake of the tragic 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Smith announced that Axon would begin developing Taser-e...