Mark Zuckerberg picked a smart time to entrench himself. Amid sparkling quarterly results that delighted investors, the $310 billion social-networking powerhouse said on Wednesday it is creating a third class of non-voting stock. It will lock in control for the company's 31-year-old founder and chief executive. At least the weak corporate governance may help some good causes.
When Zuckerberg and his wife pledged last year to give away the majority of their Facebook shares to a new foundation they had formed, questions arose about how that might happen without him losing his grip on the company. Though he already holds 60 percent of the vote thanks mostly to a dual-class structure that affords him super-voting stock, there were scenarios in which his stake could be diluted.
