Joe Grundfest (Stanford): 2026 Predictions and 2025 Reflections
In this annual year-end episode, Evan Epstein and Joe Grundfest reflect on the major governance and market developments of 2025, from IPOs and AI to Delaware law and executive compensation. They also offer clear-eyed predictions on the trends boards should be watching as they head into 2026.
Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein · Joe Grundfest, Evan Epstein
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Show Notes
(0:00) Intro
(2:00) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel.
(2:45) Start of interview. *Reference to prior episodes with Joe (E1 from '20, E35 from '21, E84 from '23, E123 from '24 and E161 from '25)
(4:43) IPO Environment. Reference to paper by Mark Roe: Half the Firms, Double the Profits
(11:58) Elon Musk's $1 Trillion Pay Plan "We will pay you an outrageous amount if you achieve preposterous results."
(14:40) Delaware's Supreme Court Decision Reversing the Chancery's Rescission of Elon's $56B (now $139B) Tesla comp
(20:08) The AI Bubble "We're either in a bubble or a bubble is inevitable."
(25:24) OpenAI's Restructuring *more about the restructuring in this article
(28:18) Predictions on Elon Musk vs OpenAI trial
(32:47) Delaware Exodus "I describe Delaware now as the prostate of corporate law" "it's too soon to make a move from Delaware"
(36:16) Evolution of the Caremark Doctrine "the big enchilada"
(38:09) Delaware Attorney Fee Awards. *Reference to Joe Grundfest's paper on this topic.
(40:34) SEC enforcement focus
(41:20) Biggest winner in business in 2025
(42:42) Biggest loser in business in 2025
(44:11) Biggest business surprise in 2025
(44:46) Best corporate governance trend from 2025
(46:00) Worst corporate governance trend from 2025
(48:28) What’s the biggest corporate governance trend to watch out for in 2026
(50:00) Thoughts on SEC (and other agencies) having Commissioners from a single party
(54:34) The Chicken!
Joe Grundfest is W.A. Franke Professor of Law and Business Emeritus at Stanford Law School, and Senior Faculty of the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance
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