Google just put out an SEC filing saying founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin plan on dumping some of their holdings of the company's stock.


When they finish selling 5 million shares apiece, they'll still own 15% of the outstanding shares, but their voting power will have dropped below 50%. So they are ceding absolute control of the company.

From the filing:


Larry and Sergey currently hold approximately 57.7 million shares of Class B common stock, which represents approximately 18% of Google's outstanding capital stock and approximately 59% of the voting power of Google's outstanding capital stock.

Under the terms of these Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, and as a part of a five year diversification plan, Larry and Sergey each intend to sell approximately 5 million shares.

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If Larry and Sergey complete all the planned sales under these Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, they would continue to collectively own approximately 47.7 million shares, which would represent approximately 15% of Google's outstanding capital stock and approximately 48% of the voting power of Google's outstanding capital stock (assuming no other sales and conversions of Google capital stock occur).