TheCorporateCounsel.net

We know Silicon Valley is its own beast. The general proxy season data shared every year isn’t always indicative of how things are going for the largest SV-based tech companies, making benchmarking somewhat difficult for companies in this cohort. Luckily, the team at Fenwick publishes its SV 150 list ranking the largest Silicon Valley-based public technology and life sciences companies by revenue and publishes reports comparing vote results and governance practices. Late last month, it issued its report on 2026 annual meeting results (available for download). Here are some key ways the SV 150 diverged from the S&P 100 in 2026:

– The total number of stockholder proposals on which SV 150 companies voted increased slightly in 2026, while the total number of stockholder proposals on which S&P 100 companies voted decreased. The number of stockholder proposals at SV 150 companies increased slightly from 67 in 2025 to 70 in 2026. The S&P 100 saw a decrease from 204 in 2025 to 187 in 2026. This decrease can be attributed primarily to a decrease in the number of compensation proposals (20 in 2025; 7 in 2026) and policy issue proposals (147 in 2025; 110 in 2026), offsetting an increase in governance proposals (34 in 2025; 68 in 2026).

– The total number of policy issue proposals increased slightly for SV 150 companies, but decreased for S&P 100 companies. While S&P 100 companies saw an overall drop in policy issue proposals, including a significant drop in anti-discrimination/diversity proposals (44 in 2025; 21 in 2026) and a more modest drop in environmental/sustainability proposals (48 in 2025; 39 in 2026), SV 150 companies saw a slight increase in these proposals (32 in 2025; 34 in 2026), which included a noticeable rise in environmental/ sustainability proposals (4 in 2025; 9 in 2026). For S&P 100 companies, the only category of policy issue proposals that increased from 2025 to 2026 was human rights proposals (20 in 2025; 27 in 2026).

– Average support for stockholder proposals decreased at SV 150 companies and increased at S&P 100 companies. Average support across all categories of stockholder proposals (compensation, governance, policy issues, and general business) decreased for the SV 150 companies, from 18.0% in 2025 to 17.1% in 2026, with a sharp decrease in support for compensation proposals (22.5% in 2025; 7.3% in 2026), an increase in support for governance proposals (29.8% in 2025; 33.2% in 2026), and a decrease in support for policy issue proposals (9.2% in 2025; 4.6% in 2026). For the S&P 100, average support increased across all categories of stockholder proposals from 12.5% in 2025 to 16.2% in 2026.

– Meredith Ervine