[swyman]

> You're not the owner of the company when you own 1-millionth or whatever of it.

There is no single "owner" of a public company. Everyone who holds voting shares holds a share of ownership. Anyone is free to try to convince anyone else to vote their shares a certain way. Ultimately the board serves at the pleasure of the shareholders collectively, and that is exactly how activist investors like Starboard work.

[Grishnakh]

No, there's no single owner, however in most companies there's a small class of people who own a lot of the stock and have a huge amount of power, while most shareholders have very little stock (esp. if it's owned as part of a mutual fund) and no real power.

So yeah, if you have enough shares that the board really wants to listen to you, complain away. For most people though, that's a waste of time. Just sell your shares and move on. The board doesn't give a rat's ass about some people who just own shares through their retirement funds, only what really large investors want, as those people have the power to affect their position on the board.