CxD #90 Women Who Kick-Ass Edition
Women!
Women are all over the place and deserve to be acknowledged for their achievements way more than they currently do. So this issue of CxD is a gallery of genuinely amazing accomplishments that required more character than most people have. Let yourself be inspired!
1. Simone Giertz wanted a Tesla pick-up truck. But Tesla doesn’t yet make one. So: she made it her own damn self! People with character have fear like the rest of us; they just say “fuck it” and get after it anyway. Any volunteers to help me make my own Truckla?
2. You’re probably waiting to get going on the most important thing you want to do.
Why?
Don’t wait.
Selah Schneiter is eleven years away from drinking age and she’s already climbed one of the most challenging rock faces in the world. The procrastinator in you says “let’s do this other thing first so that we can be safe from judgement.” Nod politely and go do what needs doing anyway. And then send an email to cxd@characterbydesign.com letting me know what that is.
3. Watch Episode 3, Season 3 of Queer Eye for a deeply moving profile of the Jones’s sisters, two women hustling hard everyday in their small BBQ business to help pay for their daughter/niece’s college expenses. They undergo profound changes, some external, but most internal to their character, which is where change matters most––but sometimes you do need both to get you going. I let loose a few gentle tears during this one, not least for how much the Queer Guys do most of their work through compassion.
If you don’t mind spoilers, click here for an update on these two amazing women.
If election day happened tomorrow, this is whom CxD would vote for. Read this New Yorker profile to better understand why.
4. “On September 20, 2016, John Stumpf, the C.E.O. of Wells Fargo, appeared before the Senate Banking Committee to defend his company’s role in one of the biggest financial scandals in recent memory. Wells Fargo employees, who were under pressure from senior management to meet overly aggressive sales targets, had opened more than two million bank and credit-card accounts for customers who had never asked for them.
The tone of the questioning was initially courteous. Then Elizabeth Warren spoke. Peering over her glasses, she launched into a series of questions so scathing that the Senate chamber fell silent. “Since this massive, years-long scam came to light, you have said repeatedly, ‘I am accountable,’ ” Warren said to Stumpf. “But what have you actually done to hold yourself accountable? Have you resigned as C.E.O. or chairman of Wells Fargo? . . . Have you returned one nickel of the millions of dollars that you were paid while this scam was going on?”
Warren pressed Stumpf on whether he had fired any senior executives over the revelations (he hadn’t); paraphrased his comments, on an earnings call, about how lucrative the sales-quota strategy had been; and asked him to tell the audience how much money he had made personally as the company’s share price shot up during the years of the fraud. When Stumpf declined to answer, Warren supplied the number: two hundred million dollars.
“A cashier who steals a handful of twenties is held accountable, but Wall Street executives almost never hold themselves accountable,” Warren said. “Not now, and not in 2008, when they crushed the worldwide economy. The only way that Wall Street will change is if executives face jail time when they preside over massive frauds.” She declared that Stumpf should be criminally investigated, accusing him of “gutless leadership.”
A video of the exchange, posted on YouTube, became a sensation. One news site called it an “epic takedown”; another described Warren “verbally destroying” Stumpf. In May, when I met Warren on the campaign trail, she told me that she was “furious” as she went into the hearing. “He was building a business model for a huge financial institution that was built on knowingly cheating people,” she said. “I figured that he deserved every punch he got.”
How’s that for fierce integrity? Read the rest of this important profile here:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/can-elizabeth-warren-win-it-all
Did y’all enjoy another free issue of CxD? If so, please consider subscribing! Your generosity muscle will feel so damn good!
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