Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct: Class C - 0 Votes (GOOG) Class A - 1 Vote (GOOGL ~4% higher cost per share) Class B - 10 Votes (Not publicly traded)
I still can't believe that investors are willing to trust Larry and Sergey in perpetuity(same goes for Zuckerberg and there are many other corporate doing this gambit). Sure, I like all the weird sideprojects, but what happens when they decide to build a 100B Monolith on a moon? If you happen to own Class C shares, you have no say. If you own Class C and to some extent A shareholders get a raw deal. The Class B holde…
Shareholders don't really "own" a company in the traditional sense. They own a specific package of claims against the company in the event of dissolution, voting rights, etc. In the simple case of a company with one class of shareholders, the analogy between owning X% of the shares and owning X% of the company is fairly close, when you have differentiated share classes that analogy is less close.
And shareholders own because they choose to acquire the stock under specific terms. If they don't like the terms, they can just not accept the deal that would give them the stock. I don't see how its morally wrong that someone that bought a set of claims that don't include voting rights, or include smaller voting rights than some other set of claims, has exactly what they bought.