Class B shares are a class of corporate stock whose voting power, dividend rights, and transfer rules are defined by the issuing company’s charter rather than by any universal standard. In most technology companies, Class B shares are the super-voting class held by founders and insiders, typically carrying 10 votes each. At Berkshire Hathaway, the same label means the opposite: a subordinate share with a tiny fraction of the voting power of Class A. The letter alone tells you nothing. The charter tells you everything.
What Class B Shares Actually Are
No federal law or stock exchange rule assigns a fixed meaning to “Class B.” Each company’s certificate of incorporation spells out exactly what rights attach to each letter class, and two companies can define their Class B shares in opposite ways.
In the most common pattern among U.S. tech firms, Class B is the super-voting class. Founders and early executives hold these shares, which typically carry 10 votes each compared to one vote for the publicly traded Class A shares. Alphabet, Meta, and dozens of other technology companies follow this model.
Berkshire Hathaway flips the convention. Its Class B shares carry only 1/10,000th of the voting power of a single Class A share, making them the subordinate class rather than the controlling one.1Berkshire Hathaway. Class A vs. Class B Stock When Snap went public in 2017, the shares sold to the public (Class A) carried zero votes, while insiders held Class B and Class C shares with all the voting power.2U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Snap Inc. Prospectus (Form 424B4) Read the charter before assuming what a share class label means.
The reason companies build these structures is straightforward. A founder taking a company public needs outside capital but does not want to hand new shareholders enough votes to change leadership. Selling a low-vote class to the public while keeping a super-voting class inside preserves control, and the arrangement also blocks hostile takeovers, because an outside buyer cannot accumulate enough shares to force a change.
How Voting Power Typically Works
Voting is where Class A and Class B diverge most sharply. In a typical tech-company structure, each Class A share gets one vote and each Class B share gets ten. That 10-to-1 ratio means a founder holding Class B stock can control shareholder votes, including board elections and approval of major transactions, while owning a small fraction of the total shares.
Alphabet takes the concept further with three classes. Class A (ticker GOOGL) carries one vote per share, Class B carries ten votes and is held by insiders, and Class C (ticker GOOG) carries no votes at all.3U.S. News & World Report. GOOG vs. GOOGL: Why 2 Classes of Alphabet Stock? Buying GOOG is buying economic exposure with zero governance influence.
Dividends and Economic Rights
While voting power is unequal by design, cash-flow rights are usually identical. Both classes receive the same dividend per share and the same pro-rata distribution if the company liquidates. Controlling shareholders engineered the structure to preserve their economic upside alongside their governance authority, so equal dividends are the norm rather than the exception. Any deviation from equal economic rights has to be spelled out in the charter.
Trading and Liquidity
Class A shares are almost always the ones listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ and available to retail investors. They trade freely, with millions of shares changing hands daily.
Class B super-voting shares are closely held by founders, executives, and early investors. They are frequently not listed on any exchange, and even when they are, they come with restrictions on who can buy them. The illiquidity is intentional. Keeping the super-voting stock off the public market prevents outsiders from accumulating governance control.
Conversion and Transfer Rules
A dual-class structure only survives as long as the rules governing Class B shares keep the super-voting power where it belongs. Those rules fall into three categories.
Voluntary Conversion
Class B super-voting shares almost always include a provision letting the holder convert them into Class A shares at any time, typically on a one-for-one basis. This creates a price floor for Class A stock: if Class A ever traded at a meaningful discount to Class B, insiders could convert and sell, closing the gap through arbitrage. The conversion only runs one direction. A Class A holder cannot convert up into Class B.
Sunset Provisions
Many companies build expiration dates into their dual-class structures. These sunset clauses automatically convert all Class B shares into Class A shares when a triggering event occurs, collapsing the structure back to one share, one vote.
- Time-based sunsets expire the structure after a set number of years, commonly five to ten after the IPO. Texas Roadhouse converted in 2009 after a five-year sunset, and MaxLinear converted in 2017 after seven years.4Council of Institutional Investors. Companies with Time-Based Sunsets on Dual-Class Stock
- Event-driven sunsets trigger conversion on the death, incapacitation, or departure of the founder or controlling shareholder.
- Dilution sunsets collapse the structure when the controlling group’s ownership falls below a defined threshold, commonly somewhere between 5% and 25% of outstanding shares.4Council of Institutional Investors. Companies with Time-Based Sunsets on Dual-Class Stock
Not every dual-class company includes a sunset. The Council of Institutional Investors has pushed exchanges to require time-based sunsets within seven years for any newly listed dual-class company.
Transfer Restrictions
Even without a sunset, Class B shares typically lose their super-voting power the moment they leave the insider’s hands. If a Class B holder sells or transfers shares to someone outside a designated group, usually limited to family members or trusts, those shares automatically convert into ordinary Class A stock.5Drexel University. The Non-Transferability of Super Voting Power: Analyzing the Conversion Feature in Dual-Class Technology Firms This conversion feature is especially common among U.S. technology firms and is the mechanism that keeps super-voting power from leaking into the public market over time.
Tax Treatment of Conversions
Converting Class B common stock into Class A common stock of the same company is generally not a taxable event. Federal tax law allows common stock to be exchanged for common stock of the same corporation without recognizing any gain or loss, regardless of whether the shares being swapped have different voting rights.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1036 – Stock for Stock of Same Corporation The IRS regulation implementing this section explicitly states that the rule applies even when voting stock is exchanged for nonvoting stock or vice versa.7eCFR. 26 CFR 1.1036-1 – Stock for Stock of the Same Corporation An exchange of common stock for preferred stock, however, would not qualify and could trigger a taxable event.
What This Means if You Own the Public Class
If you buy publicly traded Class A shares in a dual-class company, you are placing a bet on the founder’s judgment while accepting that your vote is largely ceremonial. The principle of one share, one vote does not apply, and your capital is at risk without a proportional say in how it is deployed.
For some investors, the trade-off is worth it. A founder with unshakeable control can make long-horizon bets without worrying about quarterly earnings pressure or activist campaigns. Research from the European Corporate Governance Institute found that dual-class firms had valuations roughly 13% higher than matched single-class firms at the time of their IPO, but that premium dissipated and eventually flipped to a discount approximately six to nine years later.8European Corporate Governance Institute. The Life-Cycle of Dual Class Firm Valuations The same structure that protects visionary leadership early on can entrench mediocre management later.
Index Exclusion
In July 2017, S&P Dow Jones Indices stopped adding companies with multi-class share structures to the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, and S&P SmallCap 600. Companies already in those indexes were grandfathered, but no new dual-class firm can join.9S&P Dow Jones Indices. S&P Dow Jones Indices Announces Decision on Multi-Class Shares and Voting Rules Index exclusion means less passive fund demand, which can dampen liquidity and price support.
Proxy and Disclosure Pressure
Major proxy advisory firms, including ISS and Glass Lewis, have recommended that institutional investors vote against directors at companies with unequal voting rights that lack reasonable sunset provisions. That pressure has pushed more companies to adopt time-based sunsets voluntarily.
Federal securities law already requires companies to disclose voting rights, any provisions that limit holders of one class relative to another, and the impact of board classification on cumulative voting.10eCFR. 17 CFR 229.202 – Description of Registrant’s Securities Proposed legislation introduced in early 2026 would go further, requiring companies with multi-class structures to disclose the voting power held by directors, executives, and anyone owning 5% or more of the total votes.11U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego. Gallego, Rounds Introduce Bill to Increase Transparency for Everyday Investors
Exchange Listing Rules
Both the NYSE and NASDAQ permit dual-class structures for newly listed companies, but they prohibit existing public companies from stripping voting rights from current shareholders through a new stock issuance or corporate action. NASDAQ’s Rule 5640 explicitly bars companies from issuing super-voting stock or capped-voting stock in a way that would reduce the voting power of existing public shareholders.12Nasdaq. Nasdaq 5600 Series – Corporate Governance Requirements A company can go public with a dual-class structure, but a single-class company cannot retroactively create one.
A Note on Mutual Fund Class B Shares
The term “Class B share” also appears in the mutual fund world, where it means something entirely different. A mutual fund Class B share charges no upfront sales fee but imposes a back-end sales charge, called a contingent deferred sales charge, when you sell. The charge typically starts at 4% to 8% and declines each year you hold the shares until it reaches zero, usually after five to seven years. Class B fund shares also carry higher annual 12b-1 fees than Class A fund shares.
Mutual fund Class B shares have largely disappeared. Regulators grew concerned in the mid-2000s that brokers were steering investors into them when cheaper Class A fund shares with volume discounts would have been more appropriate. Most fund companies stopped selling Class B shares, and many converted existing holdings into other share classes. If you encounter the term in a mutual fund context today, it almost certainly refers to a legacy holding rather than something you can buy new.