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Executive Advice

Corporate Wokism, Men & Women

I had to laugh at the news that the WNBA is going to need “weeks and months” to decide (in essence) the definition of a “woman”, which will decide once and for all (or probably not, see below) who qualifies to play in their stupid little league.

Here’s the problem.  Women are by nature accommodationist.  They seek to make decisions based on consensus, something that takes all viewpoints and attitudes into account, and finally arrive at such decisions with the implicit (and sometimes explicit) understanding that the decisions may be altered at some point — even when the decision may be critical and a matter of foundation principle, as is the case here.

In this case, that approach is not only wrong, but completely wrong.

At the risk of sounding all mansplainy, allow me to offer some advice to the WNBA chicks.

  1. Whenever an executive decision is made, somebody’s going to get upset about it.
  2. The key to making the best decision is to decide whether that aggrieved person (or group) represents a significant obstacle or even threat to the future of your organization.
  3. If you are convinced that your decision is the right one for both the short-term and long-term viability of your organization, and that the opposition’s position isn’t, make sure you set up guardrails to ensure the decision’s permanency.

That’s the 200,000-ft perspective.  Here’s the nitty gritty:

Decide that the definition of a woman is someone identified as such on their birth certificate.  Period, end of statement, end of discussion.

Yes, I know there is a percentage of the population who were born female but turned out to be male, either by physiology or inclination — and vice versa.  And yes, I know that it’s a tragic circumstance for them.

Here’s what I also know:  decisions have to be made — especially in a corporate environment — that benefit both the organization and a significant majority of their employees.

Let me mansplain that further.

Allowing biological men to play in the WNBA will do two things, both fatal to the organization and to the game.

Whether you like it or not, a huge percentage of your already-tiny audience is going to react negatively to the spectacle of “cocks in frocks” taking over the game and rendering the contest meaningless.  With the disappearance of spectators — live or on TV — this is going to mean reduced interest from your advertisers, and a concomitant loss of revenue for your already-cash-poor organization.  That’s the corporate outcome.

As far as the sport is concerned, that dominance is going to subtract the entire essence of sport — of equals competing against each other.  Thus, adding the aforesaid cocks in frocks is just going to end up with teams recruiting more and more of them, which is going to harm your (actual) female performers both physically and in terms of their competitiveness.

Yes, that means that the gender-confused will be forever denied a chance to play in your competition.  It’s sad, but in real life, tiny minorities often get the short end of the stick.  It’s just the way of the world, and has been so forever.  All the good intentions aren’t going to change that, and most probably, such intentions are going to be very counterproductive to your corporate wellbeing.

So, if I may be permitted to use a very masculine term, the WNBA has to bite the bullet, and make the above — and correct — decision.

They won’t.  And the WNBA will begin its slide into oblivion.

You read it here first.

Classic Beauty: Googie Withers

Classic Beauty

Uncommon name, uncommon beauty, uncommon talent.  I first saw Googie (pronounced with hard “g”s, like Google) in  It Always Rains On Sunday , and while she was really good, I gave her no more mind.  Then I saw her in Once Upon A Dream, then in One Of Our Planes Is Missing, and was spellbound both times.  I’ve never seen her in anything else — which is surprising, considering that she was in  the movies for over seventy years.

Like so many actresses of the 1940s, she was done wrong by the hairstyles of the times…

Oh… did I mention that she started off as a dancer?

Of course, nobody’s perfect;  she ended up marrying some Australian actor and moving to Strylia, the poor thing.

What Price Collecting?

Finance, Morons & Idiots

Lots of educational video to watch today, because… it’s the weekend!

One of the reasons why wealthy people are looking at hypercars as fungible assets and investment vehicles [sic] is because they are wealthy enough to ride the ups and downs of consumer demand — why, for example, a rusted-out 1950s-era Porsche 911 or 1960s E-type Jag can ask for, and get, a premium price for that piece of junk.  Scarcity, of course, helps — which is why a rusted old 1956 Porsche 356 cabriolet will always be worth more than a worn-out 1975 Honda Civic:  the first is worth restoring, the second is only worth recycling.

If you’re interested in learning about this business — even or especially if you can’t afford to play in it — then I would suggest you watch Cars & Money, Rob Moore’s excellent podcast channel with his partner, Carl Hartley of Tom Hartley Motors.  Here’s one example.  (All the podcast episodes are long, about twenty minutes too long in my opinion, but they’re peculiarly fascinating.  This particular episode, you can quit at 1:28.00)

And speaking of watching, there’s the premium watch business, where Teddy Baldassarre, for example, plies his business.  (Here’s one.)

But in this latter category, if you want to see all the costs of creating a watch collection — as an investment strategy — then please take a look at this one, (yeah, it’s A.I., but it’s factually correct) to find out how the big watch brands are bending collectors over the table:


(…and these guys are the worst, which is why I’ll never own a Rolex, because I’m not going to play their stupid game.)

Oh, and by the way:  the actual purchase price of these items is only the first lightning-strike on the wallet.  Then comes the (mandatory) servicing, the parts replacement, etc. etc. etc…. see how the insurance companies play ducks and drakes with your premiums.

Oh, and by the way, car manufacturers like Ferrari are equally guilty of the same kind of practices (which you’ll also learn from Cars & Money;  watch out for the word “allocation”).

 


…and Porsche is just as bad.

If a fool and his money are soon parted, then the duration of “soon” is shrinking faster than a cheap Chinese cotton T-shirt in the clothes dryer.

And when baubles like watches and performance sports cars start becoming investment assets, the Finance Fucks in companies like Rolex are going to start making marketing decisions (pro tip:  they already are).

It’s the utter cynicism of the whole business which gets up my nose.  My only consolation is that the fools who’re being thus led around by the nose are the super-wealthy who can afford to pay those bullshit prices.  And I have absolutely no sympathy for them.

Strategy Change

Morons & Idiots

Well, why not?

A majority of idiots in Gen Z have moved money out of investments and into a sports betting account. Twenty-six percent of Gen Z say “they treat sports betting as a deliberate, ongoing component of their financial plans,” according to a Bloomberg report.

Nothing like “fair and balanced reporting”, is there?  (I know, it’s Breitbart and not Fox News, but you get my drift.)

That 26 percent compares to 14 percent of Millennials, just six percent of Generation X, and one percent of Boomers.

“Sports betting is increasingly competing with traditional investing for younger Americans’ attention,” adds Bloomberg, “with more than a quarter of Gen Z investors saying they see gambling on sports as part of their long-term financial strategy.”

Gambling as a “long-term strategy.” The stupid; it hurts.

But let’s look at this whole thing from another angle.

The thing about sports betting is that if you take it seriously and look at the stats (as opposed to picking a horse because its name reminds you of yer Mum), there’s little difference between that and, say, playing the stock market.  Oh wait, those are serious investment vehicles. [eyecross]

And let’s be honest:  how many times have you seen one of those silly games where darts thrown into a random chart of stocks have yielded better results than those picked by analysts?  (I would love to see some kind of comparison of long-term results from the darts vs. the analysts, played each day, week or month over a twenty-five year period.)

Pro tip:  it’s all gambling.  Whether it’s a horse crossing the line first (at 27-1 odds) or GlobalMegaCorp Inc.’s share price doubling over the next six months, who can say?  Even better:  who’s not going to make money over the result of the next Dallas Cowboys game by picking the other team?

The only way people are going to consistently lose money on sports betting is when they start playing the minutiae:  points spreads, yardages, number of times Caitlin Clark is going to draw a flagrant foul for the rest of the WNBA season, etc.  (In the stock market, those kinds of  bets  I mean investments are called “puts”, and while the rewards can be astonishing, mostly it’s just the old “dropping dollars down a drain” situation.)

Rule of thumb:  the more complex the bet, the more likely you’re going to lose.

But I digress.  I have no problem with a small segment of Da Yoot trying a different way to increase their moolah.  I’m more interested in why they’re doing it, but not that interested, any more than I’m interested in why people still go to casinos, or why they bet on which raindrop reaches the bottom of the windowpane first.

Or whether Whizzbang Technologies’ IPO will yield 45% growth of stock value on the first day’s call.

I should point out that in my own yoot, I once got suckered into a golf game called “Yardbucks”, in which each yard of the golf course was worth a yard:  lose a 375-yard hole, and you’re down $375.  (There are typically more than 6,000 yards in an average golf course.)

I ended up losing only $15, and I only managed to lose that little because I won the last hole, a par-five 568-yard monster by fluking a 15-yard putt.

More to the point, I think I sweated out well over a gallon in those four hours,  and I’m pretty sure I did lasting damage to my heart.  I’ve never gambled on golf, or any other sport since.