The Asset Managers

Three funds own pieces of everything, voting everyone's shares. Aladdin runs the models.

The documented layer: BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street hold combined stakes near or above 20% of most S&P 500 companies (academic 'common ownership' literature, Azar et al., studies competitive effects); Aladdin processes risk for $20+ trillion in assets (FT documentation); BlackRock executives ran pandemic-era Fed corporate-credit facilities under contract (2020, documented, with conflict-of-interest waivers). The lore's 'ownership of everything' misreads custody and indexing economics — the shares belong to fund holders. The node keeps the real concentration questions (voting power, common ownership) separate from the misreading.