Anat Alon-Beck: Private Markets and Waivers of Stockholder Inspection Rights

Welcome to the Boardroom Governance Podcast. I’m your host, Evan Epstein. In this episode, I talk with Anat Alon-Beck, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Her research focuses on corporate law and governance, including how legal and regulatory structures influence the shift in equities from public markets to private markets, and the rise of “unicorn” firms. In this podcast, we talk about one of the latest practices in unicorn companies compelling employees, who are not yet stockholders, to waive their stockholder inspection rights under Delaware General Corporation Law (Section 220) as a condition to receiving stock options from the company. We discuss some cases such as DOMO, Good Technology and JUUL, plus other corporate governance trends in venture-backed companies such as super-voting shares, FF preferred stock, and fiduciary duties of directors in private companies. If you like this show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review or sharing this podcast on social media. You can find all the show notes on the website boardroom-governance.com and please feel free to subscribe to the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at evanepstein.substack.com