Who really controls a tech company once it goes public

This is an explainer of the popular dual-class share structure during the 2019 wave of tech IPOs. The structure let founders and early investors retain outsized control even after going public. I visualized the gap between ownership and voting power at Lyft, Pinterest, and Zoom — showing, for example, how Lyft’s founders owned just 5% of shares but held 49% of the voting power through “super-voting” stock — while Uber notably bucked the trend by embracing a one-share-one-vote structure.