In October 2014, after what William D. Cohan of Fortune Magazine described as a "brilliantly executed campaign" involving "withering public criticism" of the firm's leadership and "careful courtship" of its major shareholders, Smith effectively took control of Darden Restaurants, a Fortune 500 company that owns Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse. Among Smith's criticisms was that the pasta at Olive Garden was inadequately salted. On the HBO program Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver did a three-minute comedy bit based on Starboard's presentation. As of February 1, 2018, it had been seen by nearly four million viewers. While owning less than 10% of the firm, Smith replaced the entire board and became Darden's chairman. By doing so, wrote Cohan, Smith "fired a shot over the bows of directors everywhere," informing them that shareholders were now in the ascendant, and "managers ignore them at their peril." According to Cohan, "the scope of Smith's triumph with Darden has left jaws hanging open across Wall Street and beyond. Only in a handful of times in the past few years has an activist managed to replace an entire board of directors, and never at a company the size of Darden." After Starboard took over Darden, its stock went up by almost 60%.
