{"id":227,"date":"2012-04-24T05:00:30","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/myersthoughts.com\/?p=227"},"modified":"2015-01-28T12:58:46","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T20:58:46","slug":"facebook-governance-iss-zuckerberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/facebook-governance-iss-zuckerberg\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Governance and ISS &#8212; I Support Zuckerberg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For each unique company and unique situation, I believe they should utilize business structures, financing strategies, and all other tools that help them keep their company unique. \u00a0For this reason, I cheer on Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook for their ability to utilize unique investment terms and corporate structures to suit their purposes.\u00a0 I applaud them for being able to garner these terms and to recognize the importantance of doing things differently when the circumstances demand or allow it. Some of these differences include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Zuckerberg being able to maintain voting rights for many shares held by others<\/li>\n<li>Utilizing restricted stock to compensate employees\u00a0rather than the traditional stock options used by Silicon Valley companies<\/li>\n<li>Being able to alter significant, standard terms from the venture capitalists who invested in Facebook<\/li>\n<li>Utilizing the dual class structure also utilized by Google, Zynga and other older companies like the Washington Post and the New York Times<!--more--><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For investors, these changes are not necessarily in\u00a0their favor, but investors always have the option\u00a0to not invest if they do not feel the trade-off\u00a0is worth it.\u00a0 <a title=\"Institutional Shareholder Service\" href=\"http:\/\/www.issgovernance.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Institutional Shareholder Services\u00a0<\/a>criticized Facebook and other companies in their white paper &#8220;Tragedy of the Dual Class\u00a0Commons&#8221; when they said &#8220;This is a governance profile with a defense against everything except hubris.&#8221;\u00a0 The <a title=\"California State Teachers' Retirment System\" href=\"http:\/\/www.calstrs.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">California\u00a0State Teachers&#8217; Retirement System <\/a>has also criticized Facebook&#8217;s governance structure.\u00a0 From their perspective, the criticism is probably warranted.\u00a0 I believe, however, it is more important to allow companies to pursue their unique structures and strategies rather than force all companies into a mindless formula applied to all companies regardless of their circumstance.\u00a0 If investors do not like it, they can pass on the investment.<\/p>\n<div class=\"postmeta_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"postmeta classifications small\"><span class=\"post_categories\">Categories:<a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/category\/financing-funding\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Business Financing &amp; Funding<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/category\/competitive-advantage-and-differentiation\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Competitive Advantage &amp; Differentiation<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/category\/hr-culture-is-strategic\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Culture Is Strategic<\/a><\/span><br \/><span class=\"post_tags\">Tags:<a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/differentiation\/\" rel=\"tag\">Differentiation<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/facebook\/\" rel=\"tag\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/financial-strategy\/\" rel=\"tag\">Financial Strategy<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/financing\/\" rel=\"tag\">Financing<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/investment\/\" rel=\"tag\">Investment<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/investment-terms\/\" rel=\"tag\">investment terms<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/tag\/mark-zuckerberg\/\" rel=\"tag\">Mark Zuckerberg<\/a><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For each unique company and unique situation, I believe they should utilize business structures, financing strategies, and all other tools that help them keep their company unique. \u00a0For this reason, I cheer on Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook for their ability to utilize unique investment terms&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/facebook-governance-iss-zuckerberg\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,4],"tags":[96,35,84,47,86,32,95],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Competitive Advantages, Differentiation Strategy | Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg | Mason Myers Business Blog for Owners, Investors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Business owner and investor Mason Myers offers expert insights on competitive advantages &amp; differentiation strategy on his business blog, masonmyers.com.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/facebook-governance-iss-zuckerberg\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Competitive Advantages, Differentiation Strategy | Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg | Mason Myers Business Blog for Owners, Investors\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Business owner and investor Mason Myers offers expert insights on competitive advantages &amp; 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