Filed under: Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), Motorola (MOT)

No doubt, there are many shareholder activists. But with Eric Jackson — who manages Ironfire Capital LLC — he is a bit different. That is, he uses social media, like Google Inc (Nasdaq: GOOG)’s YouTube, to help with his campaigns against companies like Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT).

Well, I recently had a chance to interview him:

Why did you setup your fund? What’s your take on shareholder activism?

After last June’s Yahoo! annual meeting, when they changed CEOs following a high “against” vote by shareholders towards the current board, several friends and supporters encouraged me to think about setting up a fund. Frankly, they and I were a little surprised what I had been able to accomplish owning only 96 shares of the company. Many people had told me it was a waste of time and I had no chance of gaining support for an alternate “Plan B” for Yahoo! But we showed that the quality of ideas matter more to other shareholders than the quantity of shares owned. My hard costs were negligible for the campaign: a $30 webcam and a couple of JetBlue tickets to California. Several people said: “You need to do this on a larger scale.” Ironfire Capital will allow me to do that.

Continue reading Eric Jackson: shareholder activist talks up social media

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 12:32 am and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.