Unduly Influenced Boss (Sumner Redstone Pt. 5)

Viacom and CBS President, Sumner Redstone, is back in the news this week. He removed Phillipe Dauman and George Abrams, who are directors of Viacom, as Trustees of one of his trusts. They are contesting their removal by alleging he is incompetent. In a huge twist of irony/self-preservation/whatever you want to call it, only six months ago they testified he was competent to remove a girlfriend as his health care proxy.

Three brief points:

1. The stakes in the previous battle involved who could make his health care decisions if he could not (while the real plot was whether he could change his will to disinherit his former girlfriend) while these stakes are who gets to control Viacom and CBS after Redstone's death.

2. I think if Redstone is in a wheelchair, being fed by a feeding tube, and able to communicate only through an aide now, and was in the same condition six months ago, he was likely incompetent at both junctures.

3. Dauman and Abrams have reaped what they have sown. Being close to Redstone is like having an alligator as a pet - it might seem cool, but eventually it (i.e. he) will devour you.

2 Broke Girls? Pt. 2

At the risk of turning this into People Magazine, a quick corollary post to the most recent post on nonagenarian Sumner Redstone and his mental capacity and estate planning.  Sydney Holland is Redstone's 44 year old former live in girl friend who was mentioned in the Vanity Fair article about him.  She is a composite of LA stereotypes - movie producer, real estate flipper, founder of an eco-conscious line of yoga clothing, and president of her own small foundation.  While living with Redstone, she was also involved with a man her own age, George Pilgrim, who had served two years in prison for income invasion.  He lived with his parents in Sedona after being released from prison.  He and Holland would fly between LA and Sedona on private jets.  Pilgrim had been unaware of Holland's relationship with Redstone prior to the Vanity Fair article. When Redstone became aware of Holland's relationship with Pilgrim, he immediately excommunicated her from his house and life.  She and her bodyguards now hang out at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills.  Pilgrim was the subject of a Vanity Fair update in which his emotions ranged from anger and perplexed road kill to wistfulness.

Points?  Between billionaires, private jets, prison time, Beverly Hills hotels, and body guards, there is little here that applies to most people except "don't act like people in LA."