Vivek Ramaswamy, author of the book “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” is involved in launching an asset management firm that will press companies to stick to excelling in business without wading into cultural and political issues.
Ramaswamy is co-founder and executive chairman of Strive Asset Management, a company that has raised more than $20 million and anticipates offering its first product later this year in the third quarter, according to what appears to be a company press release.
Strive will seek to challenge major asset managers BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, which oversee around $20 trillion of assets. The press release pegged the figure at more than $20 trillion, while the Wall Street Journal stated the three outfits manage $20 trillion in assets.
“Over the last two years, I have traveled the country and listened to the concerns of everyday Americans who want to be heard in the places where they shop, work and invest,” Ramaswamy said, according to the press release. “We want iconic American brands like Disney, Coca-Cola and Exxon, and U.S. tech giants like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and Google to deliver high-quality products that improve our lives, not controversial political ideologies that divide us. The Big 3 asset managers have fueled this polarizing new trend in corporate America, and that’s why we’re going to compete with them head-on to refocus American companies on the shared pursuit of excellence over politics.”
Many Americans have been displeased by companies staking out political and cultural positions that directly clash with their own views, but Strive will urge companies to stick to doing business.
“We will tell oil companies to be excellent oil companies and coal companies to be excellent coal companies and solar companies to be excellent solar companies,” Ramaswamy said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “A majority of Americans want companies to stay out of politics,” he said. “They want to have a separate space for where they shop, where they work, and where they invest from the places where they cast their ballots or engage in their political debates.”
Ramaswamy noted in a tweet that people from the major asset management companies have applied to join Strive.
“Really enjoying the flood of job applicants…including from BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard who say they are ‘fed up’ with the nonsense. Impressive backgrounds too, I’ll give our competitors some credit there,” Ramaswamy tweeted on Tuesday.