What are the board interlocks?

The site maps which S&P 500 companies share directors — highlighted directors sit on more than one board in the list — and offers an interactive director-network graph plus a full listing of every director and officer and the boards they sit on.

Is the site free to use?

The page doesn't mention any pricing or paywall; the visualizations, tables, and blog posts appear to be freely browsable, but no licensing or pricing terms are stated on the page.

Big Whale Hunting: Market Cap vs. Employees — The S&P 500 as bubbles filled with stick-figure employees

Big Whale Hunting is an interactive data visualization of S&P 500 companies in which each company is drawn as a bubble sized by market capitalization (as of 21 Oct 2026), grouped by sector, and filled with stick figures — one per 10,000 employees. Because every figure is the same size, how densely a bubble is filled shows employees per dollar of market cap. It is part of a broader suite of S&P 500 analyses including director interlock networks, institutional holders, and sortable comparison tables.

Key Features

Bubble visualization of market cap vs. employees

Each S&P 500 company appears as a bubble whose area is proportional to its market capitalization, grouped by sector. Inside, stick figures represent employees (one figure per 10,000), so a crowded bubble means low value per worker and a sparse one means high value per worker.

Sector grouping and ranking

Companies are grouped by sector and can be ranked by employees, market cap, employees per $1B of market cap, or market cap per employee.

Zoom and drill-down

Users can scroll or pinch to zoom in on small bubbles and click a company to view its details.

Sortable S&P 500 comparison table

A table of all S&P 500 companies sortable by name, stock symbol, sector, founding year, market cap (as of 21 Oct 2026), 2025 revenue, price-to-sales ratio, estimated employees, and number of board connections.

Director interlock network

An interactive graph showing board interlocks in the S&P 500 — which companies share directors, who sits on more than one board (highlighted in the table), and each director's role and other board seats.

Institutional ownership data

Top institutional holders per company based on SEC Form 13F filings as of 30 Jun 2026, covering investment managers only (excluding founders, families, and other non-institutional owners), with a note that totals can exceed 100% due to lent-out and jointly managed shares.

Supporting blog analysis

Companion blog posts on how connected the S&P 500 is through shared directors and who employs the S&P 500.

How It Works

Bubble-and-figures layout

Each bubble is an S&P 500 company, with area proportional to market cap and filled with same-size stick figures representing employees, making employees per dollar of market cap visually comparable across companies.

Annual-report employee data

Employee counts are full-time staff taken from each company's latest annual report, which means they can lag up to a year.

SEC filing-based ownership data

Institutional holdings are aggregated from SEC Form 13F filings as of 30 Jun 2026, covering investment managers only.

Pros & Cons

Pros

A distinctive visual approach: filling bubbles with stick figures makes market cap per employee immediately visible in a way tables don't
Covers the entire S&P 500 with sortable metrics (market cap, 2025 revenue, P/S, employees, board connections, founding year)
Connects several datasets — workforce, market cap, director networks, and institutional holders — in one suite
Interactive: zoom, click-through company details, sector filtering, and multiple ranking modes
Data sources and caveats are stated clearly (13F filing dates, market cap snapshot date, annual-report employee lag, 13F totals potentially exceeding 100%)

Cons

Who It's For

Best for

Investors and analysts who want a quick visual read on market cap versus headcount across the S&P 500
Researchers and journalists studying corporate governance, board interlocks, and institutional ownership
Anyone comparing S&P 500 companies by sector, revenue, valuation multiples, or workforce size

Not ideal for

Traders looking for real-time quotes or actionable buy/sell signals
Analysis of companies outside the S&P 500 (small caps, private companies, non-US markets)
Users needing fully current employee counts (data lags up to a year) or complete ownership pictures including insider/family stakes

Use Cases

Comparing market capitalization against headcount across S&P 500 companies and sectors

Identifying companies with unusually high or low market cap per employee

Exploring board interlocks to see which S&P 500 companies share directors

Researching institutional ownership of S&P 500 companies via 13F data

Building a ranked comparison of S&P 500 companies by revenue, P/S ratio, employees, or connections

FAQ

What does Big Whale Hunting show?

It visualizes S&P 500 companies as bubbles sized by market capitalization (as of 21 Oct 2026), grouped by sector, with one stick figure per 10,000 employees inside each bubble. The same-size figures make it easy to see which companies are worth a lot or a little per employee.

Where does the data come from?

Market cap is as of 21 Oct 2026; employee counts are full-time staff from each company's latest annual report (so they can lag up to a year); institutional holdings come from SEC Form 13F filings as of 30 Jun 2026.

Why are some companies missing or drawn with half-size figures?

The chart only shows companies above minimum employee-count and market-cap thresholds (a subset of the S&P 500), plus a few big companies with very few employees, such as Palantir and Welltower, which are drawn as one half-size figure.

Can I explore individual companies?