Unlocking Braden's Potential

September 22, 2017 8:22 AM

Activist investors are everywhere. [pdf] This is a parody powerpoint deck, with jokes about finance and parenting. You have been warned.
posted by thedaniel (32 comments total)

At least they don't recommend breaking Braden up and maximizing his potential by bringing in second-round investors to manage the parts left over after the sale, although it's an idea that could be sandboxed. What should really worry the management team is not the tepid linear growth going forward in the near-term but how it is destined to plateau at year 20 or so.
posted by chavenet at 8:41 AM on September 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

Oh shit I am already 100% ahead of the game with "Improve(d) bedtime efficiency". Nice.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:57 AM on September 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Mark W. Dealy: "not mad, just disappointed" gets my vote.
posted by Flannery Culp at 9:15 AM on September 22, 2017 [11 favorites]

Shit, this is hilarious! I am a copy editor/content specialist working for a bunch of (awesome) psychologists at a consulting firm, and I can't tell you how many PPTs I've put together that are essentially just like this—only they're not all about toddlers and are never this funny. I forwarded the link to my whole firm, and from the sounds of it, it's quite popular. Thanks, thedaniel.

Slide 8 kills me.
posted by heyho at 9:17 AM on September 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

I seem to recall reading that Dog Dog has retained legal counsel. This could get ugly.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 9:22 AM on September 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

I'm starting all my work decks with "This is a parody powerpoint deck. You have been warned."
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:39 AM on September 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

I can feel myself in this presentation raising a counter point, "Braden would have *already* maximized cross vertical integration if he'd stop picking his nose and eating it. Let's focus team effort on the nostril sector."
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:41 AM on September 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Came for the leveraged buyout financed by issuing debt secured by Braden's college fund, left disappointed. QPC is just leaving money on the table.
posted by allegedly at 9:47 AM on September 22, 2017 [8 favorites]

What should really worry the management team is not the tepid linear growth going forward in the near-term but how it is destined to plateau at year 20 or so.

Without intervention, Braden will continue to age at a rate of 1 year per year.
posted by gauche at 9:51 AM on September 22, 2017 [10 favorites]

But, but, the defined plan does nothing to address either Braden’s underwhelming performance nor the documented managerial lapses. This plan is faulty!
posted by KGMoney at 9:52 AM on September 22, 2017

We laugh, but with the emerging interest in "investing" in students by taking a cut of their earnings post-college earning instead of making college affordable, we pretty much are at a point where somebody on Wall Street probably is doing this analysis in an attempt to ID the college kids most likely to provide a positive ROI post college.
posted by COD at 10:08 AM on September 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

19pgs? Call me back when that deck is more like 190 pages. You gotta lean into your parody
posted by JPD at 10:09 AM on September 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

COD: "we pretty much are at a point where somebody on Wall Street probably is doing this analysis in an attempt to ID the college kids most likely to provide a positive ROI post college."

Isn't this more or less what private student loans already are?
posted by crazy with stars at 10:28 AM on September 22, 2017

If by "human potential" you have anything more ambitious in mind than the ability to have a little agency over major life decisions, enough happiness to function and enjoy moments of beauty from time to time, and otherwise manage to be a basically kind and decent person who can be content and has time to "fart around" in their life, as Vonnegut put it, your entire worldview is fucked. The only goal of parenting should be to prepare your kids to be able to live relatively happily and securely, give them the critical thinking tools to weigh options and make good choices that work for them and are prosocial, and that's it. If your living your fantasies of achievement out through your kids or counting on them to put you on easy street one day, you're a shit parent and terrible human being and that will be noted in the private book of judgy judgments I secretly keep in my inner coat pocket.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:30 AM on September 22, 2017

QPC is just leaving money on the table.

That's not really a problem until Braden is tall enough to reach it.
posted by aubilenon at 10:35 AM on September 22, 2017 [17 favorites]

Spearheded sharp reduction of daughter’s Breyer horse collection

Well fuck this guy then.

**rearranges Breyer horse collection**
posted by emjaybee at 10:39 AM on September 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Spearheded sharp reduction of daughter’s Breyer horse collection

I need this guy.

**glances at shelf after shelf of touched once Breyer horses**
posted by kjs3 at 10:44 AM on September 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

I made this and I'm kind of shocked by the response it's gotten. I thought it was going to be the dorkiest inside joke for only hardcore finance geeks. Maybe it is? But I guess I underestimated how many finance geeks there are.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:50 AM on September 22, 2017 [30 favorites]

I'm not a finance geek, just a parent. It's hilarious!
posted by Omnomnom at 11:04 AM on September 22, 2017 [3 favorites]

QPC commits possible fraud when they either ignore or try to conceal the regulatory hurdles of Braden v Bedtime RE: Her being the mother and having said so, put her foot down and counted "ONE......TWO......You don't want me to get to THREE." I hope the SEC is all over this!
posted by Megafly at 11:30 AM on September 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

I’m not a finance geek either, but I see a LOT of sales/investment pitches. You’d be surprised how well this resonates across professions.
posted by KGMoney at 11:30 AM on September 22, 2017 [5 favorites]

Sorry, without a discussion of breadstick volume I just can't take any turnaround plan seriously.
posted by praemunire at 11:40 AM on September 22, 2017 [2 favorites]

Frankly I was disappointed in the low number of experts consulted. I have heard that Melissa, who is the parent/CEO of Braden's classmate Jayden, has a LOT to say about Braden's performance, especially as compared to her own child. Melissa, whose son can already read twenty words of three letters each, as well as counting to thirty with 84% accuracy, has shared a number of tips with Braden's parents. Unfortunately, Braden's parents appear to be uninterested in Melissa's expert input, as proven by Braden's stagnant numbers. Melissa has also noted a distinct cooling of Braden's parents attitude towards her at pick-up time, despite her sincere efforts to help them capitalize on new research.
posted by Adridne at 12:25 PM on September 22, 2017 [6 favorites]

Quonset point is pretty quality inside baseball. My Tumblr is topographical feature LLC.
posted by JPD at 12:36 PM on September 22, 2017

See... this whole looking for investors thing? I don't think this prospectus will get far. I hear there is a real problem with his liquidity.
posted by Nanukthedog at 1:00 PM on September 22, 2017

Crazy With Stars Isn't this more or less what private student loans already are?

Not really. A loan is a loan. These newfangled "investments" allow students to promise to pay back x% of their income for, say 10 years after graduation, and then you are clear. So if you work at Starbucks slinging drinks for 10 years you don't pay back anything close to the retail cost of your 4 year degree. However, the kid that goes to Wall Street to run a hedge fund steal money from pension funds may end up paying back 3X what they could have gone to college for.*

Totally hypothetical, we all know the fund manager lawyer up to avoid doing that.
posted by COD at 1:11 PM on September 22, 2017

**glances at shelf after shelf of touched once Breyer horses**

SEND THEM TO ME

(only kidding)

(kind of)
posted by emjaybee at 1:25 PM on September 22, 2017

I think we got $50 on Craigslist for about 50 Breyer horses earlier this year. Granted, they weren't still locked in their boxes, because my daughter was a normal little girl that played with her toys! She also went on to talk me into buying her a horse at age 11, and is currently studying equine science in college.

So what I'm saying be careful with those things.
posted by COD at 1:32 PM on September 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm 90% sure this is the deck they're parodying. It's a goooooood deck.
posted by creade at 10:45 AM on September 23, 2017

I'm 90% sure this is the deck they're parodying. It's a goooooood deck

I didn’t read all 294 pages but I read enough to confidently say the one in this FPP that overeducated_alligator made is funnier.
posted by aubilenon at 9:21 PM on September 23, 2017

I'm 90% sure this is the deck they're parodying. It's a goooooood deck.

I was curious where all that went, and apparently Starboard won and got all their people in, and three years in, the stock has gone up but basically none of the specific recommendations they have actually got implemented. Maybe they salt pasta water now, but they sure didn't spin off their real estate or specialty brands, get rid of the fried lasagna bites that are repeatedly complained about, or cut the menu down to a reasonable size.

That feels like a bad precedent for Braden. I guess at least the investors will be happy.
posted by Copronymus at 2:49 PM on September 25, 2017

I'm 90% sure this is the deck they're parodying. It's a goooooood deck.

No - this genre is like a thing. There are probably 100 of them floating around out there.
posted by JPD at 2:11 PM on September 26, 2017