Relevant information:<p>Alphabet: GOOG (non-voting class C) closed Friday at a 2.8% discount from GOOGL (1x voting class A)<p>Zillow: Z (non-voting class C) closed Friday at 1.1% discount from ZG (voting class A).
I was just thinking about Snap the other day.<p>Social media platforms seem to be pretty fickle. Of course there are a couple of behemoths such as FB who don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, but how does a company like Snap create a moat around their business or keep it defensible long-term?<p>Please don't take my question to mean that I don't see the product/company as compelling. I don't personally use Snap (when I did a little bit, I enjoyed it), but I guess I just don't understand how to valuate a company like this. Is it mostly branding wherein, somehow someway, they've managed to completely own a certain demographic (here it seems 25 year-olds and under) and they are, therefore, seen as a new medium/platform where brands will be putting a lot of their ad spend?<p>Forgive the rant, just wondering how people think about this.
I have to say it feels like the founders want to have their cake and eat it. They want the money that comes from an IPO but they don't want to give up any control. Facebook is the same, Zuckerberg has the majority of the voting shares but a lot less than 50% of actual shareholding. This seems to be becoming increasing common with tech start ups.<p>If you want others to invest and take on a financial risk then they should get an equal and fair voting share. If I was the stock exchange I would ban this kind of crap.
Curious if this is part of a larger trend in IPOs across industries? And if something is driving it other than unique founder celebrity status'.<p>And if I were to make a bit of a leap, if this is an anti-democratic trend we're witnessing.
A stock with no voting power and no dividends is entirely worthless. You're basically just giving your money away to the company.<p>It's akin to buying shares in The Green Bay Packers, where fans can buy ceremonial shares of the Packers, with absolutely no value.<p>I don't understand why you would buy a share like this, besides relying on the Greater Fool theory to make money. It's essentially like buying a collectible like a baseball card and hoping that you can sell it to some other fool at a later time.