Feb 17 2025 55 mins 1
(0:00) Intro.
(1:33) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel
(2:20) Start of interview. *Reference to prior episode with Rick (E14 from Aug 2020)
(3:32) Update on Public Benefit Corporations (PBCs) from prior episode (2020)
(6:00) Surge of VC investments in PBCs driven by AI startups. *Reference to E159 with David Berger on Anthropic's structure
(9:48) The OpenAI Controversy (conversion from non-profit to PBC)
(13:25) On Dual-Class Share Structures in tech companies
(17:10) On Danone and BP as examples of shareholder activism from hedge funds.
(18:57) On "Stay private vs Go Public" debate. *Reference to E157 with Tom Callahan, CEO of Nasdaq Private Market
(27:17) On the current ESG/DEI backlash ("I think it's an anti-shareholder backlash")
(30:52) On the current backlash against Delaware as the favored corporate home
(35:26) The McRitchie v. Zuckerberg Case (firm-specific vs diversified equity investors' fiduciary duties)
(46:54) On the concentration of power by institutional investors *Reference to E118 with John Coates, from Harvard Law School. Reference to Freshfield's report A Legal Framework for Impact (2021)
(52:03) Looking Forward: US boards under the EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence.
Rick Alexander is the CEO of Shareholder Commons. He is also a leading expert in public benefit corporations.
You can follow Evan on social media at:
X: @evanepstein
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/
Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/
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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
