Step 01
Read the filings, not the press release
Every score begins with the proxy statement (DEF 14A), compensation tables, and plan mechanics — the primary sources that reveal what management is actually paid to do.
Incentives Index
Measuring whether management is paid to serve shareholders
A research platform in development that scores how well corporate management incentives align with the interests of long-term shareholders — built on primary filings, published in the open.
In development — the framework below is being built and tested now
The Purpose
One question, asked consistently, across every company
Executive compensation is the quietest and most powerful force in corporate behavior. It decides whether a management team invests for the next decade or manages the next quarter — whether it builds value or simply reprices it.
The Incentives Index exists to answer a single question with discipline: is this management team paid to do what is good for long-term shareholders? Not what the company says. What its incentive structure actually rewards.
Why it matters
Two companies in the same industry can look identical on the income statement and behave completely differently — because they pay their leaders to chase different things. Make that structure visible and much of the "mystery" of corporate decisions disappears.
The Methodology
How each alignment score is built
Step 02
Score the incentive structure
We evaluate the metrics that trigger payouts, the performance windows they use, ownership requirements, and how aggressively pay tracks share count, debt, and buybacks rather than durable value.
Step 03
Weight for the long term
Structures that reward multi-year capital discipline and real returns on capital score higher than those that reward short-term EPS engineering or metrics management can manufacture.
Step 04
Publish a transparent grade
Each company receives a clear alignment grade with the reasoning shown — no black box, no proprietary hand-waving. You can see exactly why a score is what it is.
The Long-Term Vision
A permanent, growing reference — not a hot take
The goal is a durable, expanding library of alignment grades that readers can consult the way they would a reference work: company by company, sector by sector, updated as filings change rather than as headlines do.
Over time the Index is intended to pair directly with the essays and podcast — every score linked to the reasoning that produced it, so a grade is never a number to take on faith but a conclusion you can follow.
- People do what they are rewarded to do — so read the reward before you read the strategy.
- Alignment is structural, not rhetorical. What the plan pays for matters more than what the letter to shareholders says.
- Short-term metrics can be engineered. Long-term capital discipline is much harder to fake.
- Transparency over precision theater: a clear, defensible grade beats a false-precision number.
Be here when the first scores are published
The Incentives Index is being built in the open. Subscribe to be notified when the methodology and first company grades go live, or start with the essays that lay the groundwork.