What’s The Matter With Delaware? | Hal Weitzman | TMR

Emma hosts Hal Weitzman, executive director for intellectual capital at the University of Chicago Business School, to discuss his recent book What’s The Matter With Delaware?: How the First State Has Favored the Rich, Powerful, and Criminal-and How It Costs Us All. Weitzman walks Emma through the history behind Delaware’s role as a corporate haven, beginning with Woodrow Wilson’s crackdown on New Jersey’s corporate leniency pushing companies to Delaware, the next closest haven to New York before they shift the conversation to what makes Delaware so the perfect American version of the Cayman Islands, from its small size (both in population and geography) to its location. Expanding on the conversation, Hal and Emma walk through various elements of this industry known as “the Franchise”, from building an entire legal infrastructure for corporate issues to sponsoring the rapid turnover of entire corporations in a Ponzi-scheme-esque manner and allowing for the anonymous creation of LLCs, all serving to bolster the state’s status-quo – as per “the Delaware Way."

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Hal Weitzman editor-in-chief of the Chicago Booth review. Author of what's the matter with Delaware how the first state has favored the rich, powerful, and criminal and how it cost us all. Hal thanks so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much for inviting me on. of course. so just some staggering statistics that I was not aware of until researching for this interview in your book. I did not realize that Delaware, one of the smallest states in the country, has two-thirds of U.S. public companies registered there. let alone private companies. and there are way more corporations than people in the state. I mean I knew that it was the place to incorporate. and you know that Biden is the credit card Senator and that's where he was from. but I did not know how massive it was. I guess we can just start there with the sheer volume of corporations in the state of Delaware. yeah I mean so you put your finger on it. two-thirds of the biggest companies in America The Fortune 500 are Incorporated in Delaware. of course that doesn't mean they're actually there. right this is legal fiction. It means that they have a registration in Delaware. and we can talk a little bit more if you want about what that means. but most companies of any size that are listed in the United States are incorporated or officially registered in the state of Delaware. As you said Delaware has a population of just over a million people. so it's about the size of the Grand Rapids or Tucson Metro area. but it has 1.8 million corporations that are legally there. now as I said they're not physically there. you don't have to go to Delaware to register in Delaware. We talk a little bit about the process but these are not companies that have a physical location necessarily in Delaware. but they are officially registered there. and you know get various of a variety of benefits from being there. so it's not just the credit cards as you say, it's a whole variety of companies that you and I use every day. It's impossible to avoid Delaware. Delaware is everywhere. Think about just Google and Amazon and Facebook and Linkedin and Twitter and Visa or Mastercard or your phone Verizon ATT T-mobile Sprint. Delaware is the corporate air that we all breed.