No, Blackrock and Vanguard don’t secretly control everything...

[scarpfish]

I've been a Vanguard investor for 20 years. All this time, I never realized the illuminati was ME.
👉🙋👈

[MortalRoomba]

This confirms the deep dark Bagel conspiracy theory 😵‍💫

[death-king]

Larry Fink (CEO of Blackrock) literally said in a interview that "you have to force social change" and that's what he's trying to do with these ESG scores.

[markymark]

Patrick Bet-David was founder and CEO of PHP Agency, a known MLM scam. Not the most trustworthy guy.

[sergiomartinez]

I have money in some Vanguard ETFs. I must be part of the conspiracy.

[yannickwehr]

While you are of course correct that Vanguard and Blackrock don’t „control everything“ I feel like you’re downplaying the amount of power these companies DO have. Even if the stocks are only AUM and even if they don’t control where the money goes, they still exercise the voting rights for the shares they own. And having 8% of voting rights (actually more than that since not every shareholder participated in votings) in most major companies is a massive amount of power.

[ThePlainBagel]

To add some additional points:
- ~66% of Blackrock's AUM, and ~80% of Vanguard's AUM, is managed passively according to an external index, meaning they don't really choose how that money is invested.
- Yes, Blackrock and Vanguard DO retain some of the voting rights for the funds they manage (a point I unfortunately couldn't cram into the 60 second limit), but again they only hold a small percent of overall float, AND they are actually leaders in passing along a good amount of the voting power to investors. Half of Blackrock's passive AUM is eligible for this pass-through voting, and Vanguard introduced a similar program this year.
- None of this is to claim these companies don't have influence, It's simply to highlight that they aren't masterminding how most companies are run. Their influence competes with other massive asset managers (E.G. Berkshire Hathaway with AAPL) AND they themselves must answer to their investors. Their motives are largely tied to the motives of their millions of clients.

[neddiego]

Bank of New York Mellon owns everything cuz they have $42 Trillion Assets Under Custody 😂

[LobotomyTC]

These companies have mastered the art of soft power, which only requires a certain monetary threshold for entry. After that, the true currency is influence. Their Wikipedia articles alone are enough to show you what they're up to. It's no secret conspiracy when they say it in front of cameras.

[WingofTech]

To be fair, controlling assets like those is powerful but it requires trust. Big clients would steer clear if they were mismanaging the money we’d have big problems.

[Bradenfree]

Hi Richard,
So what happens to the voting rights of these large asset managers?
How do they choose to vote with our money and do we have control over how they choose to shape corporate policy?
Honest questions

[anonymous]

If you have Patrick Bet-David as your go to for financial advice, you deserve whatever happens to you 😂

[Greenstrtjs]

why are they buying up so much real estate then? what is the soul purpose what make investors and share holders drawn to them? what benefit do they have to society as whole?

[Nierez]

Now release it in Spanish so I can send it to my whole family.

[Jeff]

Hey guys, lets all trust the government 😀

[curtisw]

Blackrock and Vanguard don’t need majority control to have significant influence over companies.

[SpectreXS]

Sure they don't literally own the assets, but "it would be a shame" if your company dropped a few points off of your ESG score and it would happen to be de-listed, lose investors or something huh... It's foolish to think them "running" everything implies direct ownership. It's about Control.

[NXaiUL]

It can't be denied that they have undue influence. Influence that not just clashes head to head with governments but also shapes them.

They might not own almost all of the world, yet, but if the current situation continues it won't be long until they actually do. Keep fighting on technicalities, while their assets and profits grow.

[Alpha_Bravo]

This brother may not understand what power is. The CEO of Black Rock is also involved deeply with the WEF. Sam Bankman and his organization was nowhere near Black Rock’s status. Just for scale

[Cleisthenes]

That money isn't theirs but they manage it and lets be real we the passive investor are just that passive but the corporations like Vanguard and BlackRock who our funds sit with wield the power because they manage the mass of passive funds.

If they bring in some rule about ESG how many passive 401k types are going to look into it and complain that they must not implement this shit? Be real.