Every argument clarity score on this site is built from rows on this page. Each
question and answer was assessed with names hidden, the host's own answers included, on
four things from 1 to 5:
directness (does it answer the question asked), coherence (do the ideas follow),
precision (concrete details and clear references), compression (says a lot per word). The weighted
mix (30/30/25/15) is the exchange score. A person's published score averages their exchange
scores on raw tape only, at least 8 of them, shrunk toward the cohort mean.
Full method →
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q FDR brought in RFK's grandfather to start it off, he said, right? 91 years ago.
A He did. So, uh, throughout the years, SEC was never, I'd say, at the vanguard of You know, uh, pushing innovation and, and that sort of thing on the marketplace, but it, uh, at the same time was never kind of blocking it, just standing athwart, uh, progress, uh, blocking the street. And so, um, but, so one example is when I was, uh, a young lawyer and just joined the SEC in the early nineties, um, one day the chairman, Richard Breeden, came into my office and had a big stack of files and said, can you find out You know, why this hasn't been approved yet, and that was, um, the first ETF, uh, exchange-traded fund, and that's, uh, was called, uh, SPDRS, that's the S&P 500 index.
AI assessment note: “He did. So, uh, throughout the years, SEC was never”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 4 · Cm 4 4.60
Q So, so is the goal to get that back up? We want more companies public? Does the public participate in more things is better? Is that, is that an idea?
A I think so. To, to have a good, robust public market is great for, you know, Uh, average people to be able to invest, and if we can help make, uh, disclosure, um, issues fit for purpose so that, um, investors can actually sit down and read an annual report and understand what's going on with a company. Uh, like in, uh, when I was young, I, you know, my father Used to go through the anti-reports and proxy statements and things like that. Watch them do that and, you know, explain to me what was going on. So, you know, that, that people just don't do that anymore, and especially now that there, these disclosures are so voluminous. And one example I like to Um, give is the first section of the annual report, 10 K. It's called item one a risk factor. So I voted on that when I was a commissioner back in 2002 or three, whenever that was, and the commission adopted it, and the idea was, ah, that, ah, you know, the, the, the first thing that investors should see is what keeps management up at night. You know, and we thought it'll be a page or two of bullet points, and that, to convey that to the, Shareholders. So, 20 years later now, twenty-some years later, um, it, the risk factor section is the, ah, on average, according to surveys, The largest number of pages of any section.
AI assessment note: “I think so. To, to have a good, robust public market is great”
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 4 · P 4 · Cm 4 4.30
Q And so what, and so what else can we do to make IPOs more appealing? Is there anything else on your list?
A One final thing. So first is to, uh, right size the amount of disclosure so we don't turn people off from investing, and if even professional investors are Complaining about the amount, um, and complexity of it. That's just not doing anyone any good. It costs a lot. It's, it turns people off, and it obfuscates, you know, what's important. Secondly, litigation. And then third, as I'd submit, is the corporate governance area. So this, uh, you know, is not what people would normally kind of think about with public companies. But, uh, the one vital aspect that, uh, Shareholders have to do is elect a board of directors to represent them and to help, you know, guide the company and management basically through the CEO reports to the, to the board. And so that's a really important function, and every state that I know of requires an annual general shareholders meeting for the election of directors and retention of auditors and, and, and things like that. And so, um, unfortunately over the years, and basically the SEC was the one that kind of instigated this back in 1942, and some would say it's, you know, contrary to some state laws, and at least the ethos of the, of the state governance laws, um, that, you know, has allowed for, I'd, I call it the weaponization Of, uh, shareholder proposals. So, uh, shareholder proposal is, you know, something that the shareholder, a shareholder who …
AI assessment note: “first is to, uh, right size the amount of disclosure... Secondly, litigation.”
Partly raw tape
D 3 · C 3 · P 3 · Cm 3 3.00
Q stakeholders. But then if you actually look at how the proposals worked, it was actually going to completely change, uh, what future duty meant in a company, the ways we, the ways companies even operate, the ways they can Be efficient and succeed. Can you tell us anything that's, that's shifted about how you guys are doing things with ESG or stakeholder capitalism in the last, in the last decade?
A Well, SEC, uh, was, uh, uh, you know, not, uh, really addressing this. And so the, the, through the, uh, the proxy process, the shareholder proposal process, uh, you know, that was, um, you know, really being, uh, pushed, uh, by, uh, you know, uh, various, uh, groups and whatnot. And then you had, um, and then the, uh, these, uh, the proxy advisory firms were also supporting that and, uh, you know, in many times or oftentimes, I guess, Uh, you know, uh, advocating that these particular proposals, uh, be adopted by, uh, mutual funds and, and others, uh, to, to vote for that, uh, those proposals with respect to the public companies that the mutual funds were invested in. So that had profound, uh, effects, uh, you know, across, uh, various, uh, public companies. Um, and then NASDAQ, uh, adopted a rule that required, uh, Kind of quotas for, uh, board members.
AI assessment note: “SEC, uh, was, uh, uh, you know, not, uh, really addressing this.”
