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A comment on To raise or not to raise. Parent comment

Re:To raise or not to raise by true_religion on Thursday February 16, 2012 @01:43AM (#3597685)
Don't the founders of Google maintain a controlling interest in the company, even now so many years after IPO?

I think a common tactic is to sell preferred non-voting stock during IPO, and retain voting stock for the founders. They get to keep control of the company, in exchange for standing last in line during a possible liquidation.

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Re:To raise or not to raise by bri3d on Thursday February 16, 2012 @10:48AM (#3599136)
Google maintain a controlling interest, but the founders themselves don't. I believe at IPO the founders controlled about 37.6% of the votes in Google and the board controlled 61.4%. So Google still got to direct Google (rather than their public investors), but the founders personally could be overrun by the board.

Facebook is one of the very few companies I can think of which is IPOing with a personal controlling interest from a founder.

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