CEO entitlement from share ownership?
"In its basic form, a corporation is a type of 'privileged democracy'. Instead of every citizen having a vote, votes are allocated on the basis of share ownership. In the most basic form, each share you own gives you 1 vote. In most public companies, very few shareholders vote [because their vote is statistically meaningless, and they have no particular insight into what they want in their Board]. This means that often the Board is voted in by a ""plurality"" [ie: 10%-50%] of shareholders who are actually large institutions (like investment firms or pension funds which own many shares of the company). Now, what do shareholders actually ""vote on""? You vote to elect individuals to be members of the Board of Directors (""BoD""). The BoD is basically an overarching committee that theoretically steers the company in whatever way they feel best represents the shareholders (because if they do not represent the shareholders, they will get voted out at the next shareholder meeting). The Board members are typically senior individuals with experience in either that industry or a relevant one (ie: someone who was a top lawyer may sit on the BoD and be a member of some type of 'legal issues committee'). These positions typically pay some amount of money, but often they are seen as a form of high prestige for someone nearing / after retirement. It is not typically a full time job. It will typically pay far, far less than the role of CEO at the same company.  The BoD meets periodically, to discuss issues regarding the health of the company. Their responsibility is to act in the interests of the shareholders, but they themselves do not necessarily own shares in the company. Often the BoD is broken up into several committees, such as an investment committee [which reviews and approves large scale projects], a finance committee [which reviews and approves large financial decisions, such as how to get funding], an audit committee [which reviews the results of financial statements alongside the external accountants who audit them], etc. But arguably the main role of the BoD is to hire the Chief Executive Officer and possibly other high level individuals [typically referred to as the C-Suite executives, ie Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, etc.] The CEO is the Big Cheese, who then typically has authority to rule everyone below him/her. Typically there are things that the Big Cheese cannot do without approval from the board, like start huge investment projects requiring a lot of spending.  So the Shareholders own the company [and are therefore entitled to receive all the dividends from profits the company earns] and elects members of the Board of Directors, the BoD oversees the company on the Shareholders' behalf, and the CEO acts based on the wishes of the BoD which hires him/her. So how do you get to be a member of the Board, or the CEO? You become a superstar in your industry, and go through a similar process as getting any other job. You network, you make contacts, you apply, you defend yourself in interviews. The shareholders will elect a Board who acts in their interests. And the Board will hire a CEO that they feel can carry out those interests. If you hold a majority of the shares in a company, you could elect enough Board members that you could control the BoD, and you could then be guaranteed to be hired as the CEO. If you own, say, 10% of the shares you will likely be able to elect a few people to the Board, but maybe not enough to be hired by the Board as the CEO.  Short of owning a huge amount of a company, therefore, share ownership will not get you any closer to being the CEO." You can apply for a position with any company you like, whether or not you are a shareholder. However, owning shares in a company, even lots of shares in a company, does not entitle you to having them even look at your resume for any job, let alone the CEO position. You generally cannot buy your way into a job.  The hiring team, if they are doing their job correctly, will only hire you if you are qualified for the job, not based on what your investments are. Stockholders get a vote at the shareholders' meeting and a portion of the profits (dividend), and that's about it.  They usually don't even get a discount on products, let alone a job. Of course, if you own a significant percentage of the stock, you can influence the selections to the board of directors.  With enough friends on the board, you could theoretically get yourself in the CEO position that way. If I own shares of a company, am I entitled to apply as position of   CEO? Sure, but anybody else can apply too. Who decides? The corporate board of directors, who are nominally chosen by a vote of the stockholders. I say nominally, because in practice they are nominated by the current CEO and it's very rare for stockholders to veto the CEO's choice. Once in a while a group of stockholders will nominate their own candidate for the board, but they rarely win. I'd like to think there's some socio-corporate or investor-relationship advantage to working or having the option to work in certain positions in said company -- especially by privilege or total outstanding share ownership numbers. Why? Simply holding a large number of shares doesn't necessarily mean you know anything about running the business.
"If you own 1% of a company, you are technically entitled to 1% of the current value and future profits of that company. However, you cannot, as you seem to imply, just decide at some point to take your ball and go home. You cannot call up the company and ask for 1% of their assets to be liquidated and given to you in cash. What the 1% stake in the company actually entitles you to is: 1% of total shareholder voting rights. Your ""aye"" or ""nay"" carries the weight of 1% of the total shareholder voting block. Doesn't sound like much, but when the average little guy has on the order of ten-millionths of a percentage point ownership of any big corporation, your one vote carries more weight than those of millions of single-share investors. 1% of future dividend payments made to shareholders. For every dollar the corporation makes in profits, and doesn't retain for future growth, you get a penny. Again, doesn't sound like much, but consider that the Simon property group, ranked #497 on the Fortune 500 list of the world's biggest companies by revenue, made $1.4 billion in profits last year. 1% of that, if the company divvied it all up, is $14 million. If you bought your 1% stake in March of 2009, you would have paid a paltry $83 million, and be earning roughly 16% on your initial investment annually just in dividends (to say nothing of the roughly 450% increase in stock price since that time, making the value of your holdings roughly $460 million; that does reduce your actual dividend yield to about 3% of holdings value). If this doesn't sound appealing, and you want out, you would sell your 1% stake. The price you would get for this total stake may or may not be 1% of the company's book value. This is for many reasons: Now, to answer your hypothetical: If Apple's stock, tomorrow, went from $420b market cap to zero, that would mean that the market unanimously thought, when they woke up tomorrow morning, that the company was all of a sudden absolutely worthless. In order to have this unanimous consent, the market must be thoroughly convinced, by looking at SEC filings of assets, liabilities and profits, listening to executive statements, etc that an investor wouldn't see even one penny returned of any cash investment made in this company's stock. That's impossible; the price of a share is based on what someone will pay to have it (or accept to be rid of it). Nobody ever just gives stock away for free on the trading floor, so even if they're selling 10 shares for a penny, they're selling it, and so the stock has a value ($0.001/share).  We can say, however, that a fall to ""effectively zero"" is possible, because they've happened. Enron, for instance, lost half its share value in just one week in mid-October as the scope of the accounting scandal started becoming evident. That was just the steepest part of an 18-month fall from $90/share in August '00, to just $0.12/share as of its bankruptcy filing in Dec '01; a 99.87% loss of value. Now, this is an extreme example, but it illustrates what would be necessary to get a stock to go all the way to zero (if indeed it ever really could). Enron's stock wasn't delisted until a month and a half after Enron's bankruptcy filing, it was done based on NYSE listing rules (the stock had been trading at less than a dollar for 30 days), and was still traded ""over the counter"" on the Pink Sheets after that point. Enron didn't divest all its assets until 2006, and the company still exists (though its mission is now to sue other companies that had a hand in the fraud, get the money and turn it around to Enron creditors). I don't know when it stopped becoming a publicly-traded company (if indeed it ever did), but as I said, there is always someone willing to buy a bunch of really cheap shares to try and game the market (buying shares reduces the number available for sale, reducing supply, increasing price, making the investor a lot of money assuming he can offload them quickly enough)." Many times, specific CEOs are hired by the board in part because the board members will also at times in the future possibly be in the running to be the CEO of a company, and the previous CEO's they voted for in may wind up being on the board of the company they want to be CEO of. So one hand makes damn sure it's washing the other.  It's a very incestuous process and not uncommon for CEOs of one company to be sitting board members on another. "Yes yes, beholden to the shareholders at all possible costs of morals, ethics, or long-term sustainability. The wonders of the stock market.  Nonetheless, it's not entirely true. He has a responsibility to do what the shareholders want, which might not be ""profit above all."" Furthermore, since he is the biggest shareholder, he has the largest single say in what the shareholders want. In fact he and the Legg Mason company own just under 50%, so they pretty much get to decide between them what to do.  Now add to that the fact that being a patent troll isn't necessarily a profitable strategy, nor a particularly palatable behaviour, and it's pretty easy to say ""we will not go down this road,"" and get wholehearted approval.  FINALLY, it doesn't change the fact that Bezos is still a fucking hypocrite." Retail companies selling their real estate holdings isn't uncommon and is actually pushed for by shareholders sometimes (see Macy's and Starboard Value). The fact that the CEO bought them seems unique but not necessarily means there was an issue. I would think that type of transaction would get a lot of scrutiny so would be surprised if he could pull off any fuckery. The disclosure seems like it might be a pretty standard disclosure known as a related party transaction that again isn't in and of itself an issue ...ok, you understand that the board of directors don't collect all of the profit from a company, and that shareholders can sell stock, right?   It his honestly confusing to me that you have a problem with shareholders being given ownership in a company that is spun off from the company that they own. Warren Buffet also isn't the CEO of a major company - or at least one that matters in this context. He is the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. That is a holding company that owns a handful of other companies.  It doesn't have customers, it doesn't sell a product. It owns companies that do those things, some of which directly rely on technology and need their CEO to have a strong understanding of technology.  The things is though, that each of those companies? They have their own CEO - not Warren Buffett. Everything you say is true also of private companies, particularly ones that are publicly traded.  As a shareholder, you bet your ass I don't like it when the CEO I've hired is doing stupid shit like this instead of saving the company money and making me more money. First, the stock does represent a share of ownership and if you have a different interpretation I'd like to see proof of that. Secondly, when the IPO or secondary offering happened that put those shares into the market int he first place, the company did receive proceeds from selling those shares. While others may profit afterward, it is worth noting that more than a few companies will have secondary offerings, convertible debt, incentive stock options and restricted stock that may be used down the road that are all dependent upon the current trading share price in terms of how useful these can be used to fund operations, pay executives and so forth. Third, if someone buys up enough shares of the company then they gain control of the company which while you aren't mentioning this case, it is something to note as some individuals buy stock so that they can take over the company which happens. Usually this has more of an overall plan but the idea here is that getting that 50%+1 control of the company's voting shares are an important piece to things here. No necessarily.   Do you bring any unique value to the company other than a sweaty pair of hands?   Did you bring a unique skill, bring in investors, have relationships that are able to get the business off the ground, have intellectual property worth something to the business?  Did you cultivate the unique seeds or strain on your own before the business started?  These are all things one takes into consideration when dividng up shares in a company.  The question you need to ask yourself is could someone else have provided the sweaty hands other than you?  If yes, then unfortunately you provide no unique value to the business and that will be reflected in how share are portioned.   I'm speaking as a co-founder in a Silicon Valley tech company.   I've spent a lot of money with lawyers to understand this.   You should definitely talk to a lawyer. "These people are pretty off. Insider trading cases, outside of a tender offer context, require some sort of a breach of duty. It's not simply ""non-public material information"". You have to trade securities in interstate, based on or while in possession of the material non-public information, and in doing so is a breach of duty owed to the company or to the information source.  Now simply saying ""personal info"" about an executive does not tell me much about its materiality. So assuming it passes the materiality test, and assuming you yourself aren't a corporate insider, then the only thing left to discuss is whether or not it is misappropriation. To be misappropriation you need to be breaching some duty owed to your information source. Now this isn't just principal-agent duty, this can extend to friends and family if there is a pattern of keeping confidences. So unless you're this guys brother or doctor there really isn't a strong claim against you." They are actually pretty common and it's the reason that anyone who takes a Board seat at a company without D&amp;O insurance is playing russian roulette.  Now winning a shareholder suit on the merits (whether personal or derivative liability) is a whole different story - at least in Delaware Chancellery (fun fact DE has two judicial systems, one for corporate stuff with world class talent and one for everything else).    There's this doctrine called the 'Business Judgment Rule' which is a very high bar for a shareholder to overcome. Otherwise you'd see shareholder suits for every business deal that went wrong.  The other problem these Uber investors might run into is they haven't realized a loss, nor are they likely to have a negative return on the initial investment. Marking down a gain against a high water mark is an uphill battle.  Based on what it public, idk the cause of action, maybe Kalanick is going back on contractual language in his separation agreement (which is currently non-public) or that some of his actions as CEO could be considered self-dealing (again, not information currently in the public domain). Or maybe it's just a threat to put all the non-public shitty things he has done in a pleading and therefore put it in the public domain. Your question has already been answered, you divide the amount of shares you own * 100% by the total amount of shares. However, I feel it is somewhat misleading to talk about owning a percentage of the company by owning shares. Strictly speaking, shares do not entitle you to a part of the company but instead give you a proportional amount of votes at shareholder meetings (assuming no funky share classes). What this means is that someone who owns 30% of a company's shares can't just grab 30% of the company's assets (factories, offices and whatever) and say that they are entitled to own this. What they actually own is 30% of the voting rights in this company, this means that they control 30% of all available votes when the company calls a vote on corporate actions, choosing a new director etc. which is how shareholders exert their influence on a company. "I know some CEOs (for both big and small companies).  A few have admitted to me on a few occasions they themselves don't have the slightest idea about being a CEO.  The world changes too fast so they have absolutely no idea what's going to work and what isn't when it comes time to make decisions.  All they can do is rely on the recommendations of the people that work under them at which point it becomes a matter of trust:  Do you trust the recommendations from your CTO?  Who did he trust to make that recommendation?  The trust chain goes waaay down and it makes you wonder if the people who ""know"" (at the end of the chain) shouldn't have been able to just make the decision themselves." "By issuing additional equity. In this case, the pie isn't ""fixed,"" it's getting bigger. Now, to avoid lawsuits and other potential issues (some of which may be unavoidable), the owner will likely need to subscribe for additional equity himself.  Example:  100 shares outstanding. 51 to owner, 49 to 2 others.  That 49 will have to equal 20%, as none of their shares are being sold (likely). This means total shares will need to be increased to 245.  Subtract 49 from that number: 196  Marcus gets half of that at a determined price. 98  Owner must increase his stake from 51 to 98 shares. To do so, he'll need to contribute additional cash for the same price Marcus gets in on. That could be expensive." "Excellent observation! The short answer is that you don't own the firm, you own the right to your share of the profits (or losses) for the period that you worked there.  Technically you also have the right to vote to sell or disband the company (known as demutualization).   The workers at Equal Exchange voted in a clause to our bylaws to prevent this--basically a ""poison pill."" It says that if we ever sold the company we have to pay off any debts, return any investments (at the price paid), and give away any remaining assets to another company dedicated to Fair Trade. The effect is that there is no incentive for us to sell the company, so we don't worry about all the kinds of things you would if you were focused on an ""exit strategy."" But in this sense, ""ownership"" is even more compromised, right?   Back to your question, I think the answer is ""It depends on what you mean by ownership."" It is certainly not ownership in the conventional sense. I think of it more like a trusteeship. We are stewards of the enterprise while we have the benefits given to active workers, but we have a responsibility not just to maximize our own well-being, but that of the other stakeholders (our suppliers, consumers, investors, our communities, the environment, etc), including the people who worked there before (and left part of the profits in the company as retained earnings) and those that will come after us."