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I'm still shocked super voting shares are a structure that we decided as a society should even be legal. With some of the most powerful monopolies today being a

I'm still shocked super voting shares are a structure that we decided as a society should even be legal. With some of the most powerful monopolies today being also controlled by people basically accountable to nobody, it feels really dystopian we can't remove them somehow.

bpodgursky 4y ago
I mean, nobody was obligated to buy minimally-voting shares of $FB. Our legal system's default assumption is that contracts that aren't clearly exploitative are valid, and this seems pretty tame by that measure.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  I suppose. Perhaps this generation of technocrats burning their empires to the ground will make people more hesitant to invest in shares without power in future companies.
plorkyeran 4y ago
That's more of an argument against private ownership of companies over a certain size than weird voting rules for shares. Zuckerberg has merely retained the power that he would have had if Facebook had stayed private. If Meta does collapse due to Zuckerberg's missteps and there's a lot of very angry shareholders, it's possible that it'll result in this type of split-class voting shares becoming illegal. Financial regulations tend to be reactive rather than proactive, so things default to being legal until they very clearly are a problem.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  Sort of, but public companies generally can grow much larger than private companies. There's something to be said for the fact that Zuckerberg is using a public company like his private company because it's architected to give everyone else less control. If it was all his money, fine whatever, but he's burning shareholder value and shareholders have no power to do anything about it, and that seems wrong, IMHO. But yeah, I haven't checked, but to my knowledge split-class voting shares are relatively recent innovations? It may take some corporate collapses before any change is made to the regulations.
  - Uw7yTcf36gTc 4y ago
    they have the power to leave the stock. nobody is forcing them to be stuck with this arrangement but themselves.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

bpodgursky 4y ago

I mean, nobody was obligated to buy minimally-voting shares of $FB. Our legal system's default assumption is that contracts that aren't clearly exploitative are valid, and this seems pretty tame by that measure.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago
I suppose. Perhaps this generation of technocrats burning their empires to the ground will make people more hesitant to invest in shares without power in future companies.

plorkyeran 4y ago

That's more of an argument against private ownership of companies over a certain size than weird voting rules for shares. Zuckerberg has merely retained the power that he would have had if Facebook had stayed private. If Meta does collapse due to Zuckerberg's missteps and there's a lot of very angry shareholders, it's possible that it'll result in this type of split-class voting shares becoming illegal. Financial regulations tend to be reactive rather than proactive, so things default to being legal until they very clearly are a problem.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago
Sort of, but public companies generally can grow much larger than private companies. There's something to be said for the fact that Zuckerberg is using a public company like his private company because it's architected to give everyone else less control. If it was all his money, fine whatever, but he's burning shareholder value and shareholders have no power to do anything about it, and that seems wrong, IMHO. But yeah, I haven't checked, but to my knowledge split-class voting shares are relatively recent innovations? It may take some corporate collapses before any change is made to the regulations.
- Uw7yTcf36gTc 4y ago
  they have the power to leave the stock. nobody is forcing them to be stuck with this arrangement but themselves.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]