He Foresaw Bud Light Losing $30 BILLION - Then Built the Fix to End Woke Capital

July 31, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In 2021, Anson Frericks, then a top executive at Anheuser-Busch, tried to set up a distribution deal with Black Rifle Coffee Company. The customer bases overlapped perfectly — the same people drinking Budweiser at night were drinking Black Rifle Coffee in the morning. Frericks saw a natural business fit. His legal team in New York City told him no. The brand was deemed "too controversial." That moment crystallized something Frericks had been watching for years: corporate America was no longer making decisions based on what customers wanted or what made business sense. It was making decisions based on an ideological scorecard imposed from above. Frericks left Anheuser-Busch, co-founded Strive Asset Management with his high school friend Vivek Ramaswamy, and is now building a healthcare startup using AI to tackle serious mental illness.

The Machinery Behind "Woke Capital"

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

Never miss an episode of The Ben Shapiro Show

Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

What you'll learn

1 Timestamped Outline
2 (02:14) **Guest Introduction: Anson Frericks** - Former Anheuser-Busch president who saw the Bud Light collapse coming, co-founded Strive Asset Management, and now leads Radly Health
3 (03:50) **Inside Anheuser-Busch's Shift Away from Meritocracy** - Frericks describes how a once-great American company abandoned its founding ethos
4 (04:53) **Why Corporations Embrace Stakeholder Capitalism** - The forces that pressure companies to abandon shareholder primacy
5 (07:06) **Shareholder Capitalism vs. Stakeholder Capitalism** - The two competing models and why one has dramatically outperformed
6 (09:17) **How ESG/DEI Creeps Into Corporate Boards** - The mechanism by which these ideologies infiltrate companies
7 (11:04) **The Consumer Asymmetry Problem** - Why companies tilted left even when it hurt their customer base

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Vivek Ramaswamy

Show Notes

Titans On Tomorrow Ep. 1 with guest Anson Frericks

Presented by Ethos: https://ethos.com/titans

In a new show on business and finance at this transformative time for the global economy, Ben Shapiro talks directly with the founders, CEOs, and investors building the next decade.

Anson Frericks spent 11 years climbing to the top of Anheuser-Busch, becoming President of Sales and Distribution. He watched in horror as the company he loved traded its relationship with customers for an elitist stakeholder capitalism scorecard. Anson saw the Bud Light collapse coming before it cost the company $30 billion in market value, writing the definitive account of it in his bestseller Last Call for Bud Light.

Ben and Anson break down:

• What really happened inside Anheuser-Busch before the Dylan Mulvaney fiasco

• Why BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard have outsized power over corporate America, and how Strive is fighting back

• Whether corporate neutrality is enough, or if conservatives need to push harder

• Why he left the culture wars behind to build an AI company tackling serious mental illness

• What's next as AI, biotech, and capital markets reshape the American economy

- - -

Today's Sponsors:

Ethos - Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/titans. Application times may vary. Rates may vary.

VCX - VCX, by Fundrise, gives everyone the opportunity to invest in the next generation of innovation, including the companies leading the AI revolution, space exploration, defense tech, and more.

Visit https://getVCX.com for more info.

Cardiff - If you've been in business for at least a year, and are pulling in $20,000 a month in revenue, apply now for up to $500,000 in same day business funding at https://Cardiff.co/ben.

Real growth. Fast funding. Cardiff—Borrow better.

ZipRecruiter - 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for FREE today at https://ZipRecruiter.com/DAILYWIRE

- - -

DailyWire+

Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe

📲 Download the free Daily Wire app today on iPhone, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, and more.

📰 Follow me on the Daily Wire app or DailyWire.com to read my daily articles and receive my Friday newsletter.

📘 My book "Lions and Scavengers: The True Story of America (and Her Critics)" is available here:

https://dwplus.shop/LionsandScavengers

👕 Get your Ben Shapiro merch here:

https://d