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Comment by VengefulCynic | Hacker News Reader

They're essentially reducing the value of the shares of stock. Each share of Google stock has a value as a portion of the overall company and also includes the right to vote in board elections and exercise voting rights on any measure put to shareholders.

To simplify, let's say I own 10% of Google, what this stock split does is leave me with a 10% ownership stake in Google, but only in possession of 5% of the voting rights in a board election - effectively taking away half of my oversight of the company by fiat.

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>To simplify, let's say I own 10% of Google, what this stock split does is leave me with a 10% ownership stake in Google, but only in possession of 5% of the voting rights in a board election - effectively taking away half of my oversight of the company by fiat.

That doesn't appear to be the case at all. If you currently own 10% of the voting shares of Google, on the day of the stock split, you will still own 10% of the voting shares -- the same shares, in fact. But you'll also now own ~10% of a new class of non-voting shares. Heck, if you wanted to, you could sell your new non-voting shares and use the money to buy voting shares, and end up with an even larger percentage of the voting shares than you had before.

It's just that you can't -- and couldn't have even before this -- acquire a majority of the votes, because they remain in the hands of the founders, who aren't selling.

Wrong. If you owned 10% your voting power: 100% - big shots share: 37.6 + directors share: 61.4% == 1%. So your 10% share = .1% voting power. They said as much in the IPO:

>> New investors will fully share in Google's long term economic future but will have little ability to influence its strategic decisions through their voting rights.

Sounds like you should sell your GOOG shares then if you think this is a problem. Yes, it is about maintaining power for the current cabal running the company but they are being very open about this fact. If the value of the shares will truly be diminished by the loss of voting rights then I expect the market price of those shares to reflect this and now would be a good time to sell.

GOOG is down about 4% today.

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