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Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
Business
Michael Hiltzik

Michael Hiltzik: Meta and Twitter show the drawbacks of giving self-satisfied billionaires too much power

Back in the prehistoric era — in 2012, when Facebook staged one of the most hyped initial public stock offerings of all time — I warned the company's newly minted shareholders that they had become wedded to Mark Zuckerberg.

Then 28, the company founder became one of the most deeply entrenched chief executives in American business. Facebook's two-class stock structure allowed Zuckerberg to control 57% of all shareholder votes despite owning only about 28% of all its shares.

"You better hope he does everything right," I wrote, "because if he doesn't, he'll be harder to get rid of than tuberculosis."

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