Featured Media Mentions
“You could argue there’s never been a moment in history where a private-company founder has more power,” says Adam Epstein, an adviser on corporate governance to CEOs and their boards.
"The Age of Tech Superheroes Must End," The Wall Street Journal, Christopher Mims, June 7, 2018
The Wall Street Journal (CEO deference)
Advocates for small-caps say that thin liquidity hurts the sector. Light trading volumes in a company’s shares can make it harder for the company to raise capital or even to entice top talent with stock-option grants, said Adam Epstein, founder of Third Creek Advisors, which advises small-cap firms.
“It’s a pretty austere challenge for these companies,” he said at the SEC meeting.
"Upstart Exchange Blasts Nasdaq Plan to Boost Small-Stock Trading," The Wall Street Journal, Alexander Osipovich, April 23, 2018
The Wall Street Journal (SEC Meeting)
“When boards fail to effectively oversee ‘tone at the top,’ when companies devolve into win ‘at all cost’ (culture), it’s often because the board is inexperienced or lacks sufficient time to focus thereon,” Epstein said. “In the valley, the problem is rarely (the former). It often has more to do with the fact that investors/directors often are on many boards, and also have day jobs.”
“Zenefits Struggles Show VC’s Are Not Paying Enough Attention,” San Francisco Chronicle, Thomas Lee, February 18, 2016
San Francisco Chronicle (Zenefits)
"The weaknesses you see at Sony and other companies, large and small, can’t be fixed by installing one more fire wall or some new antivirus software. By the time the good guys zig, the bad guys are already zagging.”
“Forget the Gossip, These Are the Lessons of the Sony Hack,” Bloomberg Businessweek, Paul M. Barrett, December 16, 2014
Businessweek (Sony Cyber Breach)
“The 10b5-1 rule created a safe harbor for executives from insider trading. Opportunistic trading is what they are trying to obviate. When you are an insider and you are trading opportunistically, why is filing a little form supposed to make me feel like you are complying.”
“Directors Take Shelter in Trading Plans,” The Wall Street Journal, Susan Pulliam and Rob Barry, April 25, 2013
The Wall Street Journal (10b5 plans)
"The small-cap ecosystem has changed materially since 2008, but unfortunately pre-IPO board composition practices have remained largely the same.”
“Advice for Pulling Off a Successful IPO,” Forbes, Tom Taulli, January 30, 2013
Forbes (IPOs)
Articles
Blog
Sorry VCs, Direct Listings Are Not a Magic Elixir
Spotify Technology and Slack Technologies, each multibillion-dollar companies, listed their shares for trading on the New York Stock Exchange in the past two years. But unlike the typical initial public offering (IPO), neither company received any financing proceeds. Why would a company go through all the trouble of an IPO and elect not to raise […]
The Case for Deregulating Small-Caps
There are roughly now half the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange as there were in the mid-1990s, and there is no shortage of dire media pronouncements about what it all means. The alarmists tend to share the same economic biases, and the arguments in favor […]
Small-Cap Boards Can’t Afford to Ignore CEO Communication Skills
Seasoned small-cap fund managers are forensic observers: they parse everything they read and hear. Many have learned that small-caps are risky enough on a good day, but when the company is also run by a CEO who is a poor communicator, the risks escalate. Yet it’s amazing how few small-cap boards monitor and evaluate the […]
Why Today’s Founder CEOs Should Google… Google
Lore has it that when Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page raised some $25 million from venture capital icons Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital in 1999, they promised they would hire a CEO to run the company. After announcing in July 2001 that Eric Schmidt would be CEO of Google, Brin and Page went […]
A Resolution for Governance “Experts”
Every week I sit with small-cap board members who are confused by what they read in governance books and articles and hear at conferences. Sometimes I mention various experts that board members should consider reading or events they should consider attending, and the response is often the same: “Why would I do that, those people […]
