The short list of Silicon Valley female CEOs at well-known tech companies just got a little longer. Andrew Ross Sorkin and Evelyn M. Rusli of The New York Times Dealbook broke the story today that Yahoo has named Marissa Mayer as CEO (its fifth CEO in five years). Mayer comes to Yahoo from a prominent executive role at Google, having been hired originally as employee number 20 and the first female engineer at Google. Yahoo’s press release announcing Ms. Mayer’s appointment as President, CEO and a member of the board
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Dual-class voting; A trend toward eliminating shareholder rights?
By Trent Dykes on
Posted in IPOs and M&A, Startups
John Melloy’s article entitled “The Dictators of Silicon Valley: Facebook, Google Stripping Shareholder of Power” highlights an interesting trend among tech companies that have gone public in the past several years – implementing dual-class voting structures. The general idea behind these dual-class voting structures is to keep control in the hands of the individuals (usually the founders) who supposedly know what is best for the company and to shield a company from potential public company shareholder activism and hostile takeovers. Control is maintained by either giving the founder shares more votes per share than the shares issued to the public (or issuing non-voting shares to the public) – for example, founders would hold Class B common stock entitled to 10 votes per share, while the general public would hold Class A common stock entitled to one vote per share.
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Perspectives on M&A from Corp Dev Execs at Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.com
By Trent Dykes on
Earlier this week, I attended the TechNW 2011 conference organized by the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA). The conference was very informative and full of interesting presenters and topics. The corporate development panel discussion moderated by Tom Huseby (General Partner and founder of SeaPoint Ventures) was particularly interesting for startups (and relevant to my practice). The panelists were Neeraj Arora (Principal, Corporate Development at Google), Ryan Aytay (VP of Corporate Development at Salesforce.com), Ryan Cooper (Corporate Development Director at Microsoft), and Amin Zoufonoun (Director of Corporate Development at Facebook), all companies that have grown a great deal through partnerships as well as acquisitions of other companies. The general discussion surrounded merger and acquisition activities and drivers from the perspectives of Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.com.
Two specific questions relating to the value of investment bankers in the M&A context and timing of the M&A process stuck out because they are questions that frequently come up with early stage companies.Continue Reading Perspectives on M&A from Corp Dev Execs at Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.com