Blackrock: the World's Largest Fund (2026)

BlackRock owns 5% or more of 97% of the companies in the S&P 500. Crazy. All right, what's up guys? Today we're going to be talking about BlackRock, one of the largest, most influential financial behemoths in the world. These guys own north of $9 trillion of assets. It's hard to understand how much really $9 trillion is. The US annual GDP is about $20 trillion, so it's about half. And they actually own as much as about $30 trillion of assets through through their technology platforms, which we'll get into in a second. And essentially with each dollar they take on, they extend their influence. All right. So let's talk a little bit about BlackRock, how they started and essentially how their business model even works. So Larry Fink founded the company back in 1988. Fun story. They actually originally founded it as Blackstone with Steve Schwarzman. And then Larry Fink and Steve Schwarzman got in a fight and, you know, kind of decided that Blackstone will stay in the private markets. And BlackRock will operate in the public markets. So BlackRock's core business model is that of ETFs, exchange-traded funds, and mutual funds. So these are all more public funds, right? On this channel, we talk a lot about private funds like venture capital, private equity, real estate, but there's also public funds, ETFs, mutual funds, etc. It's important to understand, you know, the voting that takes place when you're investing in these things. So today I could go buy, you know, one share of Apple and I would essentially get one voting right for that company. These companies, they will propose, you know, different changes of agendas to their common shareholders. They'll say, hey, should we hire a new CEO? Should we change our business direction strategy? High-level directional moves of the company. And then the shareholders vote on where they think the company should go. So where BlackRock and Vanguard and all these other financial services companies really leverage influence is through these ETFs and mutual funds. So ETFs and mutual funds are great because if I don't want to just buy Apple, I can go buy an ETF that will go out and buy hundreds of stocks, right? So it's good for me because it's diversified. I think it's important to understand the difference between ETF holder and an ETF provider. So if you go buy one share of an ETF, you're an ETF holder, but you have essentially surrendered your voting rights to the ETF provider. So BlackRock's core business is through iShares where you buy their ETF. They now basically with the money that they have, they get a vote for you. So, you know, it may not seem that small, but remember, they have $9.5 trillion of assets under management, so they have a lot of voting power. Check out this statistic, guys. So BlackRock owns more than 5% of 97% of the companies in the S&P 500. Do you guys realize how crazy that is? A 5% shareholder of Apple or Microsoft or Google, like, they have a lot of influence. So all of the largest companies want to work in harmony with one of their largest shareholders and stakeholders, which is BlackRock. It's not you anymore. You surrendered that right. It's now BlackRock. Let's talk a little bit about what this influence does. The fact that they now have their hands in all of the largest companies, pension funds and endowments, they've got their hands in the governments. What does this really mean for you? I think there's reason for, you know, somewhat of legitimate concern. But everyone is going to act in their irrational self-interest. Larry Fink is going to do what's going to make him the most money and his shareholders the most money, period. So there's 3 main things that I want to talk about regarding BlackRock and potential conspiracy theories about how they are leveraging their influence to take over the world. The first would be how they're leveraging their political influence. The second would be their software called Aladdin. And then lastly is around kind of this ESG initiatives. So a lot of people are just freaking out because BlackRock has board members on the White House committee or on the presidential committee. You know, there— it's all this conspiracy, you know, theory. But in reality, government affairs and government relations and lobbyists, like, it's a core function of any large business. Political risk is a real risk, essentially where the government makes a regulation that is potentially detrimental to your business. Any large company is going to come in and say, hey, look, this is how we see the situation. This is how we want regulation to impact or evolve around this decision. I was at the White House last fall. From there was a head of government affairs from almost any large company— your Intels, your Microsofts, your Apples, your BlackRocks, right? Because they're essentially lobbying for the best interests of their company. Is that really a problem? No, I think that's just how the world works. There's got to be a liaison between company objectives and regulation. And I think that's our, you know, our current system. All right. So let's talk about another conspiracy around the software called Aladdin. Aladdin is portrayed as this illustrious, secretive artificial intelligence that's going to take over the world. Ultimately, I think that it's really just a really good financial insights software. They came out with it in the late '90s and they had all this data that they were aggregating from their shareholders and from their different investment products. Because, you know, they were starting to really scale. And so they, instead of outsourcing to an external CRM or data software, they said, let's build our own. And it's a really great software, gives them financial insights of their customers, of the trades, of the markets. So they use it internally and then they also license it out to external portfolio managers to utilize that software because it provides a lot of financial insights. I don't think it's any different than like a Bloomberg terminal or like your PitchBooks and Prequins. You know, there's these elite financial databases. And the thing about Aladdin is that they just keep it in-house. So I don't think that BlackRock is utilizing this artificial intelligence to take over the world. Ultimately, it's just a really good technology that they're using to make the most money for them and their shareholders. Lastly, you know, is maybe one that has a little bit more merit— this conversation around ESG. So for somebody that doesn't know, ESG is— it stands for Environmental, Social, Governance. It's honestly a subjective score that we're trying to use to measure the impact of companies, but it's kind of trash because it's so easily manipulated. BlackRock essentially was one of the initial advocates for ESG, advocating for its presence and the needs for companies to have an ESG score. And so that looks really good from initial take. There's reason to critique them for virtue signaling, where they essentially are trying to show that they're progressive and helping the environment and helping the world, but in reality they're not taking a firm stand on any one position or other. They're honestly playing middleman a little Because on the other side, while they're promoting and being an advocate for these ESG products, they're also still housing all these controversial companies and products like, you know, military production or oil and gas or, you know, anything that could be conflicting to the environment. Again, they're acting in their self-interest. What would you do in that situation if you had to take a stand and then eliminate 20% of your profits because you're going to lose all this business? What position would you take? So I think that's kind of where they play. So I don't anticipate them trying to take over the world from a political agenda or ruin the environment or save the environment. Like, I think they're just going to be very neutral. All right. So now that you understand BlackRock's business model and you understand some of the conspiracies, let's summarize here for today. BlackRock has a lot of influence. Okay, period. They own 5% of 97% of the companies in the S&P 500, at least 5%. Essentially, they get to dictate how our financial markets work. They have a lot of influence. They have a lot of expertise. And ultimately, I think they're filling a need in the marketplace. There are pros and cons with BlackRock being so good. Like, the problem is with each dollar I give BlackRock, with higher AUM, they can lower their fees. So between them and Vanguard, it's really hard for smaller players to compete with these large asset firms because that's the question here, right? Like, well, what do we do about it? What do we do about the fact that there's this massive financial player? I think really the only thing that's going to dethrone them as one of the market leaders is if they don't adopt to change, especially over the past few decades, the way our fiscal markets have been developing and changing. It's radical. It's crazy how fast everything's moving, especially with the introduction of artificial intelligence. I mean, I wouldn't be too terribly concerned. I mean, I would just look at it from the perspective of, look, BlackRock owns trillions of dollars and they're using that to benefit themselves and their portfolio companies and their shareholders, right? If you're one of those shareholders, great. You know, you'd want them to be doing the best by you and for you. But there is room for concern. You know, the fact that they just have So much influence in the market. So let me know what you guys think, you know, drop your comments below. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Talk to you guys soon. Bye.