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Ginkgo 401(k): company match and investment options
Does your 401(k) vote the way you would? $83m of the $132m in the Ginkgo plan votes in secret. Fidelity 500 Index Fund, the most common fund in the plans we track, publishes every vote: answer 3 of its ballots, then see your result.
The question on the ballot
As filed
Ginkgo 401(k) match and balances, from the filing
- Company money in
- about $6,580 per active participant
- $5m in plan year 2024
- Employees saved
- about $19,740 each
- $17m in plan year 2024
- Average balance
- $84,700
- 1,560 people with a balance
- In the plan
- $132m
- at the end of plan year 2024
Company money is the match plus any other employer contributions, averaged over all 836 active participants, including anyone who did not contribute. The filing reports dollars, not the match formula; the plan’s summary plan description states the formula.
1,560 people have a balance in the Ginkgo 401(k), and it holds $132m. Of the $131m whose vehicle the plan reports, 63.1% sits in funds that publish no record of how they voted your shares — collective trusts and separate accounts, which unlike a mutual fund file no Form N-PX and leave no public trace of a single vote.
SourceThe plan’s own annual report to the Department of Labor — Form 5500, Schedule H, plan year 2024 · filed by GINKGO BIOWORKS, INC. as “GINKGO 401(K) PLAN” · EIN 263118890, plan number 001 · search the filings
| What the plan holds | Voting record | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Common/collective trusts | NONE | $78m |
| Registered funds (mutual funds and ETFs) | PUBLISHED | $49m |
| Pooled separate accounts | NONE | $5m |
| Participant loans | No shares to vote | $767,928 |
| Insurance company general account | NONE | $248,181 |
Every asset class the plan itemised on Schedule H, straight from the filing. These are categories, not fund names: Schedule H asks what KIND of vehicle the money is in, never which one, which is why no fund is named on this page.
Why there is no list of Ginkgo’s funds anywhere
Some employers file a Form 11-K with the SEC each year, and it contains a schedule naming every investment in the 401(k), fund by fund. Ginkgo does not file one, and that is not an oversight: a plan only has to file an 11-K when interests in it are registered securities, which in practice means the 401(k) offers a company stock fund. Plans that pay equity as RSUs outside the plan, as most large technology employers do, never trigger the requirement.
So the only public account of this plan is the Form 5500 above, which reports what categories the money sits in and never which funds. That is the whole reason this page can tell you 63.1% of the identified money votes in secret and cannot tell you which manager cast those votes.
Why the secrecy, and what you can do
A mutual fund has to file Form N-PX every year listing every vote it cast on your behalf. A collective investment trust does not. It is a bank-run vehicle sold only inside retirement plans, it is cheaper, and it is now where most 401(k) default money sits — including most target-date funds, which is where savers who never chose anything are put.
Check whether your plan offers any registered mutual fund as an alternative — those publish their records, and you can read them here. If it does not, the menu itself is the thing that has to change, and that is a decision made by the plan’s fiduciary committee, not by you alone.
See how funds that do publish voted →
CoverageThe plan reports the vehicle for 100% of its assets.
Other employer plans
The largest employer plans on the site, and a few more. Each page shows what the plan’s funds did with the shares its savers paid for.