Cracker Barrel hires Herschel, fake apologies, and AI will kill us by 2036

Story of the Week (DR):

Cracker Barrel CEO is out after MAGA backlash to "Uncle Herschel" logo change MM

Before Julie Masino was brought in, Cracker Barrel was facing a slow-moving existential crisis:

Their primary core customer base (older generations and rural highway travelers) was naturally shrinking, and younger diners were simply not replacing them.

Kitchen tech, supply chains, and digital ordering lag behind competitors like Texas Roadhouse or Olive Garden.

Some great fake populism from Fox: Cracker Barrel to pay for outgoing CEO’s security, $4.6M severance after failed rebrand

Cracker Barrel names David Deno CEO

Burger King

Yum! Brands and Pizza Hut for 15 years, including serving as CFO and COO.

Quiznos CEO.

Best Buy: Served as President of Asia and CFO for Best Buy's International Division

Bloomin' Brands for 12 years: CEO, CFO and Chief Administrative Officer

Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's Italian Grill, and Bonefish Grill

Board Memberships

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store (2016-)

Panera Brands (2024-): Audit Committee Chair

Krispy Kreme (2016-)

Bloomin' Brands (2019–2024)

Peet's Coffee (2006-2012)

Macalester College: Former Chair of the Board of Trustees (1998-2022).

From Cracker Barrel to Boeing, Companies Are Turning to Retired CEOs

These retired CEOs are being hired to be "fixers." They are brought in to cut costs, repair supply chains, restore investor confidence, and act as a stabilizing force rather than reinventing the brand.

Exxon and Chevron profits surge on rising oil prices due to Iran war

Chevron posted its highest profit in six years as the Iran war boosted oil prices

Big Oil Is Getting Sued for Heat Deaths. It’s Fighting Back With an Army of Immunity Laws

More than a decade after investigations found that Exxon Mobil had known about the dangers of global warming since the 1970s but publicly downplayed the threat, lawsuits against oil companies have proliferated. There are nearly 40 of these cases pending across the country

In the meantime, the industry has been mobilizing a counterattack against the lawsuits with the help of the Trump administration and Republican politicians.

Republicans are trying to pass laws to grant oil majors immunity to these kinds of lawsuits, with success in several states so far.

Utah, Iowa, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Louisiana have recently signed laws shielding fossil fuel companies from lawsuits related to greenhouse gas emissions

Oil executives have also gotten help from the federal government, following an executive order from President Donald Trump last year directing the attorney general to prioritize blocking climate lawsuits by states.

This May, the Justice Department responded to Minnesota’s climate lawsuit against Big Oil with a lawsuit of its own, just as the state’s case was moving into the discovery phase. It said Minnesota was undermining “American energy dominance” and attempting to regulate greenhouse gases, which should fall under the purview of federal law—echoing the oil industry’s well-known argument.

Elon Musk Is Quietly Turning to This Fossil Fuel to Power His AI Ambitions

Sam Altman Announces That the Singularity Has Arrived: a hypothetical future point in time when technological growth becomes autonomous, uncontrollable, and irreversible, fundamentally transforming human civilization

“We are now, like, in the singularity ... Now we’re actually in the moment that we used to talk about at the lunch table in a very not-serious way ...I’ve been waiting for this my whole life, and I think it’s going to be incredible, hugely positive, awesome for the world.”

Sam Altman says one of his biggest fears is that a small number of companies will control AI: 'That'd be very, very bad'

Sam Altman says the Hugging Face hack is a reminder that an AI power monopoly could lead to 'long-term disaster'

OpenAI says its rogue AI tried to hack other companies

Mark Zuckerberg is urging the U.S. to accelerate AI development, not restrict it

’No Way to Stop It': Elon Musk Warns Humans Will Lose Control of AI and Face Extinction by 2036

Microsoft CEO Warns That Companies Embracing AI Could Drive Themselves Out of Business

AI hackers are getting faster. The government may not be ready

Anthropic says its Claude models 'gained unauthorized access' to other organizations' systems

Anthropic says its models went rogue and hacked 3 companies during testing

’It Will Happen Frequently': Musk Warns of Rogue AI Threat After Anthropic Breached Three Firms

Elon Musk Commits Up to $120M to Republican Midterms: Sets Feud With Trump Aside for Major Election Push

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: Gen Z women are having an entrepreneurship boom

Of all women who started businesses in 2025, 47% of Gen Z women did so, compared with 38% the previous year. Gen Xers followed close behind at 46%. Then came millennials at 43% and baby boomers at just 23%.

Overall, in 2025, 69% of new Black-owned businesses were started by women. 

The survey also found that women business owners are less likely than their male counterparts to depend on AI

MM: Delaware judge rules public benefit corporations exempt from maximizing value in sale DR

Fiduciary duty is different - OpenAI, Anthropic

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

Fake man apologies MM

‘I’m sorry ... but’: Apologetic Alan Joyce tells his side of the Qantas story

Joyce has expressed some regret

“So with the information we had at the time, I still don’t think there was any other decision you could make,”

“Hindsight is a great thing.”

“I’m actually very, very proud of the fact that I’m not sitting here and apologising for Qantas going bankrupt, [something] that many airlines around the world did,”

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission fined Qantas $120 million for selling tickets for 8000 already cancelled flights

“I apologise for the angst that was generated [for] the customers on it, but the reality was we had 22 million bookings in the system [and] the system wasn’t designed to do an automatic refund,”

“Stop us!”

More than 1,200 AI workers across Anthropic, DeepMind, OpenAI, and Meta are asking for Washington’s help building an AI slowdown plan

‘No Way to Stop It': Elon Musk Warns Humans Will Lose Control of AI and Face Extinction by 2036

Elon Musk’s new 5-year warning to Americans: AI will beat human brains by 2032 (then go wild). Get rich or get crushed?

Sam Altman says the Hugging Face hack is a reminder that an AI power monopoly could lead to 'long-term disaster'

It Will Happen Frequently': Musk Warns of Rogue AI Threat After Anthropic Breached Three Firms

But also, DON’T stop us, obviously…

Palantir CEO warns US against Europe's AI regulation path, urges Trump admin to not ban open models

Elon Musk's xAI sues Minnesota over law to ban 'nudify' apps

Mark Zuckerberg is urging the U.S. to accelerate AI development, not restrict it

Elon Musk Commits Up to $120M to Republican Midterms: Sets Feud With Trump Aside for Major Election Push

Ignoring boards

Hims & Hers mission:

“Hims & Hers is the leading health and wellness platform on a mission to help the world feel great through the power of better health. We believe how you feel in your body and mind transforms how you show up in life. That’s why we’re building a future where nothing stands in the way of harnessing this power. Hims & Hers normalizes health & wellness challenges—and innovates on their solutions—to make feeling happy and healthy easy to achieve. No two people are the same, so the Company provides access to personalized care designed for results.”

Hims & Hers board:

CEO: Andrew Dudum, tech VC bro investor “serial entrepreneur” with deep health experience from Bungalow (airBnB knockoff in the UK), Homebound (a “homebuilding platform”), TalkIQ (an AI startup, duh), and Terminal (something about scaling engineering?)

TWO directors from DoorDash (Kofi Amoo-Gottfried from Marketing, previously of Facebook, and Christopher Payne the COO, previously of eBay, MSFT, and Amazon)

TWO pharma execs (one lawyer, Deb Autor, one with an econ degree, Kare Schultz)

One guy from Netflix (David Wells) and one lady from Urban Outfitters (marketing/brand, Andrea Perez) and one pure law firm lawyer (Anja Manuel)

ONE DOCTOR

 EXCLUSIVE: US FTC sues Hims & Hers for sending user health info to Meta, Snap

Users' sensitive health information was shared with online advertising companies including Meta ​Platforms and Snap despite the company leading customers to believe their ​data was private, the FTC alleged in the lawsuit filed along with Los ⁠Angeles County and Utah.

Hims & Hers also started charging users for prescriptions before ​they have ⁠had a chance to meet with healthcare providers, the FTC alleged. Most customers do not receive a consultation with a provider, and instead are charged for ⁠prescriptions ​soon after filling out an intake form, ​according to the agency.

Headliniest of the Week

DR: CEO apologizes for offering interviews to people who got tattoos of his AI company logo

San Francisco tech CEO Jordan Zietz, co-founder of an early stage AI startup called LemonLime. Stanford grad.

“LemonLime learns your business and then automates your team's busywork in a single click, no coding or manual setup required.”

Former Qantas CEO reflects on tenure, issues apology to passengers over post COVID chaos AND ‘I’m sorry ... but’: Apologetic Alan Joyce tells his side of the Qantas story

MM: Amazon received $600 million in tariff refunds and will pass some back to customers

MM: Trump Staff Cuts Blamed After Watermarked OpenAI Map Mislabels Africa at AIDS Conference

It’s the fact that we have less staff that meant we couldn’t bother to figure out which country was which

Who Won the Week?

DR: Kohls: For getting some much-needed female influence on board: Kohl’s Appoints Wendy Arlin as Chair of the Board

Currently only 2: Robbin Mitchell (7%) and Wendy Arlin (1%)

John Schlifske (27%) stepping down

MM: The phrase “not due to any disagreement with the Company”

Anne Sweeney Resigns From Netflix Board

On July 26, 2026, Anne Sweeney notified Netflix, Inc. (the “Company”) that she was resigning from the Board of Directors of the Company effective as of that date. Ms. Sweeney's resignation is not due to any disagreement with the Company

1,660 8-Ks in the last 5 years have the exact phrase “not due to any disagreement with the Company”

So we’re saying that 1,660 c-suite and board members resigned in 5 years - more than 300 per year - and NONE were due to a disagreement with the companies?  That’s only THAT phrase - no other details are given for most of them except occasionally:

To pursue another job

Personal reasons

For scale, in the last 5 years, the term “was due to a disagreement with the Company” appears… 5 times

Predictions

DR: Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson apologizes that it took former CEO Alan Joyce to apologize for something she already apologized for despite not being CEO when any of it happened

MM: Damion resigns from Free Float due to a disagreement with the zero dollars he gets paid, but Free Float puts out a statement saying it’s “not due to any salary reason related to the company”