[eggsbenedict]

How do you explain the prices of Class-C shares which don't bestow voting rights to the holder? For example, GOOG trades for over 2000 a share. In fact, it even trades at a $50 premium over GOOGL, which offers voting rights. Strange.

[allendoerfer]

You don’t have to control a company personally, you can also rely on other shareholders to do that. You just have to know, somebody is voting in your interests, since you probably won’t do it (but again: you could).

I don’t know whether your statement about the price difference is true and if so, I don’t know why. Maybe different free float? My statement was about inherent value not short term price negotiations via stock exchange.

I thought about an actual attack against my argument: Stocks are just shares of companies, which sell stuff that is valuable because other people think so. Some stuff might have inherent value (because it can generate money), but in the end it still comes down to people deciding something has value. Turtles all the way down.

[pmoriarty]

"You don’t have to control a company personally, you can also rely on other shareholders to do that. You just have to know, somebody is voting in your interests"

How would you know they're voting in your interests?

I've never known how any other shareholder voted in any of the stock I owned. For all I know they could have been voting completely contrary to what I'd wanted.

No. Unless you own enough of a stock to vote and make a difference, stock ownership is not about influencing a company but just about hoping the value of the stock will rise, and there are many theories about why that might happen, from fundamental to technical analysis to people who invest based on the phase of the moon, divination, tips from friends, insider trading, trend following, news, etc.

[allendoerfer]

Those other shareholders also want the shares to retain value, so your interests are aligned regarding my initial argument that stocks are valuable because of the voting rights.