As a small startup I know I'm not really their core buyer, but I absolutely love Gitlab.
It's a bit worrying to think about the impact a purchase/merger might have on the product.
What the article doesn't make clear is how much of the company capital is public? If the founder owns 45% of voting shares and Google/Alphabet has 22%, are only 33% of the shares actually on the public markets?
Yes. So in effect this means that - conditional on the bylaws - they (a coalition of majority shareholders) can agree to deals without doing (proxy) votes. But since it's a public company the deal has to be fair to all (!) shareholders too. (And usually that's why a vote is "nice to have", but not sufficient. See the case of Tesla and Elon's compensation package, where laws protecting those who voted no on the package will override the shareholder vote. [thought it's pending appeal, etc.])
It's a bit worrying to think about the impact a purchase/merger might have on the product.
What the article doesn't make clear is how much of the company capital is public? If the founder owns 45% of voting shares and Google/Alphabet has 22%, are only 33% of the shares actually on the public markets?