I got an email from reddit to the address for one of my old Reddit logins. The text, in part, when visiting the URL they provided (had to be logged in, not all of my old handles could see it):
Yes, it’s really happening this time, and as we take the next step toward becoming a public company, we’re inviting all eligible redditors to participate in Reddit’s IPO.
“Eligible” you note skeptically? Yes. Unfortunately, there are a ton of imposed legal restrictions defining when, who, and how we do this. So while our goal is to give all redditors the same access to stock as institutional investors (why should they have all the fun?), our lawyercats tell us we must follow specific rules listed below.
Our Directed Share Program (“DSP”) is set up to let eligible users and moderators own a piece of Reddit by purchasing Reddit stock at the same price as institutional investors when we IPO. We will offer this opportunity to as many redditors as we are able to accommodate, and the number of people who can participate is limited.
I wonder if, for example, an activist investor could swoop in and buy a fuckton of stock to sway stock holder votes and the like. Is that something that’s detailed in IPO terms, all the shares that are “spoken for” and the percentages of those stakes?
I’m sure it’s not a large enough percentage for the Reddit community to make any meaningful impact; the current owners wouldn’t want that.
They want to have their payday and get out, there’s no way they’d release enough stock to let that happen. I’m sure this is some ploy to convince the most active people to keep it up so they look good.
And don’t forget, these active users and mods need to provide all their identity information. Makes sense on the stock purchasing part, but having real identities tied to profiles… just what their AI models need.
There’s class A shares, with 1-to-1 voting rights, class B shares that you can trade 10-to-1 for class A shares with voting rights, and class C shares with no voting rights. They haven’t said, but I’m sure they’re only going to offer class C shares.
Thanks for that. I am investment-dumb, but am trying to learn by paper trading and reading a ton of investopedia.
bet these shares come with no voting rights.