On disclosure, when the technology is moving faster than the language
A short essay on the duty to explain — and the harder duty of explaining in a vocabulary your shareholders can hold.
There is a duty to disclose and there is a duty to explain. The first is regulated; the second is governed. The two are easy to confuse, particularly when the technology is moving faster than the language is settling. A regulator may accept a disclosure that uses words your shareholders cannot quite grip. Your shareholders will not.
The better discipline is to write the explanation first, in the vocabulary your largest shareholder uses on its own quarterly call. Then check that the regulator-facing disclosure is consistent with it. That sequence puts the harder document first — which is what a chair is for.
A QUARTERLY LETTER
Four pieces a year. No automation.
A note from the practice four times a year — usually 1,500 words on what is happening in boardrooms that the press is not writing about yet.