Born to Be Wired, Built to Control: John Malone’s Lessons for India’s Founders
- AltG
- Sep 23
- 3 min read
Startup founders in India pour their lives into building companies — often ending up with less than 5% ownership by the time the IPO bell rings. Deepinder Goyal today owns just 3.8–4% of Zomato. Vinay Sanghi of CarTrade Tech holds around 2.66%. These are men who built the house but no longer hold the keys.
Enter the knight in shining armor: dual-class shares. One class for investors (1 share = 1 vote). Another for founders (1 share = up to 10 votes). This structure lets
founders raise capital without surrendering control.
John Malone: The Original Architect
Long before Silicon Valley, John Malone rewrote corporate control. He understood that cable networks were capital-hungry — billions needed upfront, years before profits arrived.
His solution:
Class A shares for the public, 1 vote each.
Class B shares for himself, 10 votes each.
With this, Malone could own less than 10% economically but still dictate strategy at Liberty Media and Charter Communications. That voting control allowed him to:
Spin off Liberty Broadband, Sirius XM, Discovery, and more.
Engineer tax-efficient mergers that created tens of billions in shareholder value.
Keep his empire intact while other cable founders were diluted into irrelevance.
As Malone writes in his memoir Born to Be Wired, a “single copper strand” turned from TV signals into the internet backbone. What really mattered, though, was that his dual-class armor let him play the long game — compounding for decades without losing the wheel.
From Malone to Menlo Park
Mark Zuckerberg took Malone’s playbook to Silicon Valley. At IPO in 2012, Zuckerberg owned 28% of Facebook but his Class B shares (10 votes each) gave him 57% of the voting power.
Even today, with his economic stake below 14%, Zuckerberg still controls ~61% of voting rights. That’s why he could:
Buy Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 despite market skepticism.
Spend $19 billion on WhatsApp in 2014, which later became Meta’s most-used product.
Bet tens of billions on the metaverse — a decision Wall Street hated but couldn’t block.
Contrast that with Travis Kalanick. At Uber’s peak, he owned around 7–8%, but after scandals in 2017, the board stripped super-voting rights. By the time of Uber’s IPO in 2019, it was a one-share-one-vote company. Kalanick, the founder who made “Uber” a verb, was forced out.
Two extraordinary founders. Two extraordinary fates. The difference? The shield of dual-class shares.
Why This Matters in India
India’s regulators have now opened the door. Since 2019, SEBI allows Superior Voting Right (SVR) shares, capped at 10:1. The rules:
Only promoters in executive roles can hold them.
Mandatory sunset clauses (5 years, extendable to 10).
Voting rights capped at 74% of total.
On certain critical issues (like related-party transactions), SVR shares revert to 1:1.
This framework is designed to balance investor protection with founder control. But the opportunity is clear: Indian entrepreneurs don’t need to be hostages to dilution anymore.
For Deepinder Goyal, Vinay Sanghi, or the next wave of AI, fintech, and consumer-tech founders, SVRs aren’t just a technical option. They are the difference between being a builder-owner and being a hired CEO in your own creation.
The Bottom Line: Born to Be Wired, Built to Control.
John Malone engineered it. Mark Zuckerberg institutionalized it. Travis Kalanick lost it.
Indian founders now have the same choice. Capital builds empires. Control builds legacies.
Disclaimer: AltG, including its principals, directly or indirectly, may hold shares in the companies mentioned. This material, any views, comments or communication (above or in the past) is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice by Alternative Growth (hereafter referred to as “AltG”) in any form whatsoever. AltG does not make an offer to sell or solicit to buy any securities.
