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Facebook stock has never had any meaningful voting right. The shareholders aren't losing anything they never had before.

If you don't like it, don't buy the stock - becoming a shareholder and then complaining about voting rights is an angle shoot.

> problems like CEOs losing money quarter after quarter but still getting bonuses and ever larger golden parachutes...

You're thinking of appointed CEO's. Founder CEO's, especially those with voting control, almost never grant themselves bonuses or golden parachutes (they don't have to, they own the stock)

The very similar prices of GOOG vs GOOGL kind of contradicts your assertion that the voting rights of shares are particularly valuable.

Well... my apologies for not emphasizing more that it's my feeling of value. Not necessarily the market's... as you're right, by and large the market doesn't care. But their darlings are still performing well.

I think a lot of investors are largely ignorant of the voting fact and I also think, most don't get involved until things go badly; so, we'll see how the long term plays out to really know.

OTOH, Larry and Sergey already controlled more than 50% of the votes before the split.

That's a very good point.

I wonder if there are any other companies with stock structures similar to Google but without all powerful founders that would provide more data on this question? I don't know of any off the top of my head but my knowledge in this area isn't particularly strong.

The New York Times had similar structure to Google for almost a century.

But did they have 2 classes of publicly traded stock, one with voting right & one without, that could be compared? I don't think so?

Not exactly what you're looking for, but several companies have different voting power for different classes of publicly traded stock

> Many companies list dual-class shares. Ford's dual-class stock structure, for instance, allows the Ford family to control 40% of shareholder voting power with only about 4% of the total equity in the company. Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which has Warren Buffett as a majority shareholder, offers a B share with 1/30th the interest of its A-class shares, but 1/200th of the voting power. Echostar Communications demonstrates the extreme power that can be had through dual-class shares: founder and CEO Charlie Ergen has about 5% of the company's stock, but his super-voting class-A shares give him a whopping 90% of the vote. [1]

[1]: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/fundamental/04/092204.a...

Probably because GOOG's voting power is negligible when compared to class B shares (not available on open market) that have 10x the voting pwoer

I seem to recall reading that GOOG pays a larger dividend to make up for the lack of voting rights though. Did I misunderstand that?

Google does not pay out dividends.

I don't think you are alone in your opinion. I agree with you.

I found the tone in this exchange particularly galling:

'"The cat's in the bag and the bag's in the river,'' he messaged Zuckerberg. "Does that mean the cat's dead?" Zuckerberg texted back, not understanding the spy speak.

Andreessen replied: "Mission accomplished "'

> It's removing a great deal of value from one's share. That value is being able to vote. I'm not a FB shareholder but if they had removed my voting power (or rather made it a 1/3 of what it was) I'd want compensation and then I'd sell my shares.

Fully agree.

> This sort of crap is propagating a big issue: the separation of management and control from ownership of companies. It invites irresponsibility and selfishness because the cost of such to management is continuously decreasing. While the owners (shareholders) are the ones to pay the real price for their actions.

This is a non-issue if your point 1 in upheld. I am happy to own FB shares without voting rights if I am compensated for giving up those rights upfront. I would know that my shares mean no control on the company and hence I value them less over some other company's shares where I have got voting rights keeping everything else same.

"everything else" basically being dividends which FB doesn't pay out.

I think he showed his class when he tweeted against India after losing Free Basics campaign.

Edit: typo

> It's easy to say he's a "visionary" now but the markets facebook has ridden its growth on were not a result of it being amazing.

Facebook's growth over the last few years is a direct result of Zuckerberg's decision to get serious about mobile advertising and his acquisition of Instagram.

I think you misspelled "Sheryl Sandberg"

Correct.

It's Becoming Clear That No One Actually Read Facebook's IPO Prospectus Or Mark Zuckerberg's Letter To Shareholders http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-stock-letter-shareho...

The entire company was structured so he had control, forever. The only reason to buy stock is if you think he will continue to print money. I think it is refreshing to have a company built to be able to completely ignore quarterly profits and activist investors fighting for short term gains.

I agree with you in principle but this is a special case. Mark Zuckerberg is is as close to bottled lightning as you get when it comes to his vision and leadership of FB. The acquisition and scaling of Instagram was superb. Lesser leaders would have just rolled it into Facebook Photos instead of letting it remain a stand alone product. I have little doubt that Oculus will eclipse this feat. Keeping him happy and focused is in the shareholders' best interest.

> I agree with you in principle but this is a special case. Mark Zuckerberg is is as close to bottled lightning as you get when it comes to his vision and leadership of FB.

Then they should have kept the company private. Once you go public, you have to play by the same rules as every other public company.

> you have to play by the same rules as every other public company.

Let us speak truth. At that size, scale, and reach, you play by a different set of rules and even get to define some of them.

That may be true, but then Marc shouldn't have been secretly backchanneling support. He should be asking the tough questions, not advising against the challenges of the board. Did Marc say to the other members, "hey I'm going to give Mark a heads up on this"? Likely not. If Zuckerberg was not allowed to keep control I assume he wouldn't be divesting so I see no benefit to shareholders.