I think even if NVIDIA were founded recently, it still wouldn't have such a share structure. The companies that do have dual class shares are software companies that can grow significantly without raising a ton of capital. NVIDIA being a hardware company, that is a lot harder to do even today.
replyAnthropic is the most capitalist intensive company of all time and has a similar structure.
replyPer their S-1, Anthropic has on net spent almost none of the cash they raised.
replyare they just funding it via revenue?
replyYes. Turns out all the people claiming Anthropic was a terrible business have some extremely heavy goalposts to move.
replyThey may be.. Rest in piece.
replyAnthropic structure is way, way more complicated. Though it does indeed give full control to the founders, forever
replyBased on the publicly-available org chart [1], I gotta say that OpenAI's legal structure [2] is way more complicated than either.
reply1 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anthropic%27s_corpor...
2 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OpenAI_corporate_str...
Oh wow, that’s a whole other level of over engineered hierarchy
replyCrazy we even allow non-voting shares and multiple tiers of shares.
replyIt has worked out very well for my portfolio for 20 years now.
replyIf you cherry pick the winners, doesn't matter what the corporate structure is.
replyNot really. We allow for a lot of ownership conditions.
replyi'm actually pretty okay with non-voting shares, it's super voting that are the issue
replyHow and why would you?
replyThe theory is that if an investor is under no compulsion to purchase shares that entitle them to no say in governance, so if they do so, they only have themselves to blame.
replySo much for theory!
America has always been a land of inequality..
replyRemember all men are created equal.. except in reality they werent, just ask the Blacks, natives, Chinese and all the others.
Even today how many average Americans can call the President and have a chat even once ?
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replyAnd that’s precisely the sort of arrangement we should ban.
replyHumans need someone to be accountable to, even if it’s just some guy walking behind you saying “memento mori” twice a day.
Even among dual-class IPOs (which are the minority), only 18% of them have CEO control. [1]
replyThat figure raises to about half if you include all officers/directors.
[1] https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/Lowry%20-%20Buck...
Anthropic are planning a bizarre share structure that strips any voting power from shareholders. They will have a single special founders share, held by some new entity owned by the founders, that has 51% voting weight. 1 share to rule them all.
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