The American Oligarchs, alpha male cosplaying tech bros, TikTok and the US company China Threat, ...

Introduction
LIVE from your ESG EV Dipstick, it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here at January 17th Studios, featuring AnalystHole Matt Moscardi. On today’s weekly wrap up: The CEO takeover has accelerated; bravery for sale at Costco; and men finally have power 
Our show today is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for FREE.
Story of the Week (DR):
DealBook: C.E.O.s hail the chief (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/elon-musk-jeff-bezos-mark-zuckerberg-attend-trump-inauguration-rcna187642) MM
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg to attend Trump's inauguration: The three will be seated together on the inauguration platform with other prominent guests.
About $200M (https://qz.com/trump-inauguration-fund-donors-amazon-openai-meta-1851724468/slides/15) so far (BIden about $60M)
Amazon: $2 million
Meta: $1 million
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg: $1 million (personal donation)
Robinhood: $2 million
Bank of America: $1 million
Goldman Sachs: Undisclosed
Google: $1 million
Microsoft: $1 million
Uber: $1 million
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi: $1 million (personal donation) 
Boeing: $1 million
Ford/GM//Hyundai/Toyota: $1 million
Ripple [Cryptocurrency]: $5 million
Apple CEO Tim Cook: $1 million (personal donation)
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: $1 million (personal donation)
etc.
In Farewell Address, Biden Warns of an ‘Oligarchy (https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/us/politics/biden-farewell-address.html?smid=url-share) ’ Taking Shape in America
President Joe Biden's farewell address Wednesday came with a series of warnings for the future of the country, among them that a rising “oligarchy taking shape” threatens American democracy: "Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead."
“... concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex," Biden said. "It could pose real dangers for our country as well."
"Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit." he said, appearing to refer to Meta’s ending its fact-checking program.
without safeguards, AI could "spawn new threats to our rights, our way of life, to our privacy, how we work and how we protect our nation."
​​161 years ago, a New Zealand sheep farmer predicted AI doom (https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/01/161-years-ago-a-new-zealand-sheep-farmer-predicted-ai-doom/)
On June 13, 1863, a letter titled "Darwin among the Machines" written by Samuel Butler (under the pseudonym Cellarius) published in The Press newspaper of Christchurch warned about the potential dangers of mechanical evolution and called for the destruction of machines, foreshadowing the development of what we now call artificial intelligence—and the backlash against it from people who fear it may threaten humanity with extinction. It presented what may be the first published argument for stopping technological progress to prevent machines from dominating humanity.
The letter drew direct parallels between Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and the rapid development of machinery, suggesting that machines could evolve consciousness and eventually supplant humans as Earth's dominant species.
"We are ourselves creating our own successors." he wrote. "We are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are daily giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race."
In the letter, he also portrayed humans becoming subservient to machines, but first serving as caretakers who would maintain and help reproduce mechanical life—a relationship Butler compared to that between humans and their domestic animals, before it later inverts and machines take over.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon (https://www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2025/01/goldman-sachs-ceo-david-solomon-on-ais-game-changing-role-in-banking/) says AI can write 95% of an IPO prospectus
The initial registration prospectus for an IPO, called S1, usually took a six-person team two weeks to complete. However, now 95 per cent of the work can be completed by AI in minutes, he said. 
Goldman Sachs chief David Solomon questions start-ups’ need to list (https://www.ft.com/content/4f20fbb9-a10f-4a08-9a13-efa1b55dd38a)
He also asked private companies to take ‘great caution’ before deciding to go public, adding that the depth of capital in private markets has made the need to go public redundant for many. 
Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):
DR: Costco (https://qz.com/costco-dei-trend-mcdonalds-meta-google-ford-1851739985) is holding the li...

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