Sources: New investors in Snap IPO won't get any voting power, while founders Spiegel and Murphy will retain 70%+ voting power despite owning 45% of the stock
Snapchat messaging app creators Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy are expected to retain more than 70% of voting power in the company …
Context & Ripple Effects
The November charter filing already signaled that Snap's co-founders would hold supervoting shares after the IPO; today's report sharpens that into an extreme version of founder control — new public investors receive no votes at all, while Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy convert 45% economic ownership into more than 70% of voting power.
That makes Snap a harder test case than prior dual-class listings: rather than diluted influence, IPO buyers are being offered zero governance rights, and the filing trail also shows how thoroughly the founders consolidated power early, including the $158M settlement that removed co-founder Reggie Brown.
First-order effects
- IPO investors would be buying shares with no voting rights, meaning they cannot vote out directors or block a sale even if the founders' performance falters.
- Spiegel and Murphy would retain unchallengeable board control from day one as a public company, with 70%+ of votes against 45% of the equity.
Second-order effects
- Institutional investors and governance watchdogs face a forced response: either accept vote-less stock as a marketable product or push exclusion of such listings from indices and mandates.
- Rival consumer-tech companies weighing IPOs gain a template for locking in founder control, pressuring exchanges and underwriters to decide whether no-vote classes are acceptable at scale.
Third-order effects
- If the structure prices well, the norm drifts from dual-class to zero-class voting, splitting public markets into capital-only shares and founder-controlled stock — a structural shift in what 'public ownership' means.
- Regulators and exchange rulemakers come under pressure to set boundaries on voting-rights tiers, since investor protections otherwise depend entirely on founders' goodwill.
The trend: Tech IPOs are moving from dual-class share structures toward total founder entrenchment, with Snap as the most aggressive data point yet.