Have you looked at Alphabet or other big company board? One thing you will notice is that lot of board members are actually from giant investment funds (3 in ca

Have you looked at Alphabet or other big company board? One thing you will notice is that lot of board members are actually from giant investment funds (3 in case of Google, much worse for companies like Microsoft). Regardless of who owns voting shares, these investors have huge say on how things gets done. For example, they can threaten to dump their stock or not buy in anymore. Because of small daily volumes relative to market cap even small dumping can have huge price swings in stock. For public companies, their stock is literally a currency. They use it for acquisitions, hiring and so on. These investors can reject motions in board voting and usually always want to tighten screws for short term gains. Now you should have more understanding on why Google was forced to hire people like Ruth Porat as CFOs and why she can cut down on so many projects for "more business focus" and increase "shareholder value". Owning majority voting shares are not that useful as they were hyped up to be.