When Founder Supervoting Rights End at 10 Public Companies
Only Two Reviewed Companies Have a Hard Time-Based Companywide Sunset; the Rest Depend on Founder Events, Thresholds, Transfers or Holder Votes
By Lee BaileyPublished September 11, 2026Sources reviewed through August 26, 2026Version 1.010 public companies
Key findings
Only two of these 10 founder-control structures have a hard time-based companywide sunset
Airbnb has an explicit December 14, 2040 companywide deadline, while Zoom's Class B structure ends no later than the 15-year anniversary of its IPO closing if no earlier trigger occurs. The other reviewed structures rely on founder events, ownership or class thresholds, transfers, holder votes, or combinations of those mechanisms.
2hard time-based companywide sunsets
Airbnb and Zoom.
9structures with a death or disability conversion trigger
The scope and transition period differ by company.
3structures with an explicit founder service / role trigger
DoorDash, Shopify and Zoom.
This is a selected 10-company cohort. A founder-specific share conversion is not necessarily the same thing as ending the entire dual-class structure.
How often each sunset trigger appears in the reviewed cohort
Categories overlap. These bars count companies whose reviewed terms contain each trigger; they are not a governance score or a measure of shareholder friendliness.
Trigger prevalence across 10 companies
Counts from reviewed SEC-hosted governing documents and issuer descriptions.
Death / disability trigger9 of 10
Founder ownership / liquidity threshold4 of 10
Service / role trigger3 of 10
Class dilution threshold3 of 10
Hard time-based companywide sunset2 of 10
One company can appear in several categories. A 5% class-dilution trigger is not the same thing as a founder retaining 25% or 35% of a historical holdings baseline.
The two hard time-based companywide sunsets
Airbnb: December 14, 2040
Companywide Class B conversion no later than December 14, 2040, unless an 80% Class B vote selects an earlier date or event.
Founder-held Class B can convert earlier after a founder death or disability, so the founder-specific clock and companywide 2040 deadline are separate.
Zoom: 15 years after the IPO closing
Companywide conversion on the 15-year anniversary of the closing of Zoom's IPO if no earlier trigger occurs.
The governing disclosure states the rule relative to the IPO closing. This study preserves that formulation rather than deriving a calendar deadline from a second source.
Two structures that resist a one-line “sunset” label
Meta: transfer conversion, but no current founder-event or calendar sunset
The current charter does not state an automatic founder-death, founder-service, ownership-threshold, class-dilution, or fixed-calendar sunset. Older proposed charter terms are not imported into the current rule set.
All Class B can convert on a date, time, or event specified by holders of a majority of the outstanding Class B voting separately as a class.
Shopify: two different sunset systems
Shopify has two separate sunset mechanisms: a founder-specific Founder Share sunset and a class-dilution conversion for all Class B. They must not be collapsed into one threshold.
The Founder Share Sunset Date is board-set 9–18 months after a Sunset Event, defaulting to 9 months if the board does not set a date; the Founder Share drops to one vote and founder-associated Class B is to convert by that date.
The reviewed conversion and sunset rules
The table summarizes the legal mechanics at a research level. Use the linked primary sources for the full permitted-transfer, trust, proxy and classholder-vote details.
No fixed time-based companywide deadline in reviewed terms
Founder event: Founder-held Class B converts 9 months after that founder's death or disability, extendable by independent directors to no later than 18 months after that event.
Threshold: Companywide final conversion when Class B is less than 5% of aggregate Class A plus Class B outstanding.
Transition: Founder death/disability conversion is deferred 9 months and may be extended to a maximum of 18 months.
All Class B converts to Class A on the Final Conversion Date: a two-thirds Class B vote, Class B falling below 5% of aggregate Class A plus Class B outstanding, or 9 months after the death or disability of the last founder, extendable by independent directors to no later than 18 months after the last applicable founder event.
Founder-specific conversion and the companywide Final Conversion Date are distinct; death or disability of the last founder can make the two coincide.
No fixed time-based companywide deadline in reviewed terms
All Class B can convert on a date, time, or event specified by holders of a majority of the outstanding Class B voting separately as a class.
The current charter does not state an automatic founder-death, founder-service, ownership-threshold, class-dilution, or fixed-calendar sunset. Older proposed charter terms are not imported into the current rule set.
No fixed time-based companywide deadline in reviewed terms
Founder event: Companywide conversion occurs 12 months after Tony Xu's death or permanent and total disability.
Threshold: Board-fixed conversion 61–180 days after Xu and permitted holders fall below 35% of the Class B held by Xu and permitted entities at the charter baseline.
Service / role: Board-fixed conversion 61–180 days after termination for cause, or after Xu both ceases officer/employee/consultant service and ceases board service under the specified departure conditions.
Transition: Death/disability has a 12-month transition; specified ownership/service triggers use a board-fixed window of 61–180 days.
All Class B converts to Class A on the earliest applicable Tony Xu ownership, death/disability, cause-termination, or combined service-and-board-departure trigger, with board-set timing where specified.
The 35% test is a founder-holdings threshold tied to a baseline, not a test that the Class B class itself has fallen below 35% of outstanding shares.
No fixed time-based companywide deadline in reviewed terms
Founder event: A co-founder's Class C converts to Class B nine months after that co-founder's death; the founders also have a proxy arrangement that becomes effective on death or disability.
Threshold: A founder's Class C converts to Class B when that founder's outstanding Class C falls below 30% of the Class C held by that founder at the IPO closing baseline.
Transition: Founder Class C conversion follows nine months after death.
Once no Class C shares remain outstanding, all Class B converts to Class A; the Class A class then carries voting rights under the charter structure.
Snap explicitly states that termination of either co-founder's employment does not remove the same significant voting power; service termination is not a Class C conversion trigger.
No fixed time-based companywide deadline in reviewed terms
Founder event: Armstrong's death or disability triggers companywide automatic conversion; independent directors may delay the conversion by no more than six months.
Threshold: Board-fixed conversion 61–180 days after Armstrong and affiliates hold less than 25% of the Class B they held as of April 1, 2021.
Transition: Death/disability may be delayed up to six months; the founder-holdings threshold uses a board-fixed 61–180 day window.
All Class B converts to Class A on the earliest applicable Brian Armstrong ownership threshold, qualifying Class B/board approval, or Armstrong death/disability event.
The 25% test compares Armstrong's retained Class B with his April 1, 2021 baseline; it is not a 25% company ownership threshold.
No fixed time-based companywide deadline in reviewed terms
Founder event: Class B held by a natural-person holder or that holder's permitted transferees converts on that holder's death or disability.
Threshold: Companywide final conversion when Class B falls below 5% of the voting power of voting stock.
All Class B converts to Class A when outstanding Class B represents less than 5% of the voting power of stock entitled to vote generally in director elections; Class B holders can also approve conversion by majority Class B voting power.
A holder's death/disability converts that holder's shares; it does not by itself necessarily trigger companywide final conversion.
No fixed time-based companywide deadline in reviewed terms
Founder event: A Founder Share Sunset Event occurs on Lütke's death or disability.
Threshold: The Founder Share sunset is triggered when Lütke, immediate family, and affiliates hold less than 30% of the Class B baseline specified in the arrangement; separately, the Class B class converts when it is below 5% of aggregate Class A plus Class B shares.
Service / role: A Founder Share Sunset Event occurs when Lütke is no longer an executive officer or primary-engagement consultant and is also no longer a board member.
Transition: The Founder Share Sunset Date is board-set 9–18 months after a Sunset Event, defaulting to 9 months if the board does not set a date; the Founder Share drops to one vote and founder-associated Class B is to convert by that date.
All Class B restricted voting shares convert to Class A when Class B represents less than 5% of aggregate Class A plus Class B shares. Separately, the Founder Share and Lütke-associated Class B are subject to a founder-specific Sunset Event and transition.
Shopify has two separate sunset mechanisms: a founder-specific Founder Share sunset and a class-dilution conversion for all Class B. They must not be collapsed into one threshold.
Founder event: Companywide conversion six months after Eric Yuan's death or incapacity.
Service / role: Companywide conversion six months after Yuan no longer provides services or his employment is terminated for cause.
Transition: Six months after the relevant Yuan death/incapacity or service/cause event.
All Class B converts to Class A on the earliest of the six-month founder death/incapacity trigger, the six-month founder service/cause trigger, a majority Class B holder date, or the 15-year anniversary of the IPO closing.
The source defines the time sunset relative to the IPO closing. This release preserves that legal rule instead of manufacturing an exact calendar date from a separate source.
Founder event: Class B held by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, or Nathan Blecharczyk (or affiliates) converts nine months after that founder's death or disability.
Transition: Founder-specific death/disability conversion occurs on the nine-month anniversary of the event.
All Class B converts to Class A at the earlier of an 80% Class B holder-approved date/event or December 14, 2040.
Founder-specific death/disability conversion can occur before the hard companywide 2040 sunset.
No fixed time-based companywide deadline in reviewed terms
Founder event: A natural-person Class B holder's shares and permitted-entity shares convert on death. Larry Page or Sergey Brin may transfer voting control to the other contingent or effective on death under the transfer agreements, but those transferred founder shares convert nine months after the transferring founder's death.
Transition: Qualifying founder-to-founder voting-control transfers effective on death can preserve Class B for nine months after the transferring founder's death.
No companywide final-conversion deadline identified in the reviewed current terms
The reviewed current terms expose individual transfer/death conversion, not a fixed companywide final-conversion deadline.
Review SEC-hosted governing documents, securities descriptions, annual/quarterly filings, or issuer disclosures that state the enhanced-vote conversion mechanics.
Separate companywide class termination from founder- or holder-specific share conversion.
Classify explicit death/disability, service/role, founder-holdings, class-dilution, and hard time-based triggers without assigning a synthetic strength score.
Preserve company-specific transition periods, thresholds, and transfer exceptions. Do not infer an exact future trigger date unless the governing terms state one.
Latest included source filing date: August 26, 2026.
Limitations
This is the same selected 10-company cohort as P8H version 1.0, not a representative sample of public companies or dual-class issuers.
A founder-specific share conversion is not always the same event as companywide termination of a dual-class structure; this release keeps those scopes separate.
The study summarizes governing-document mechanics and does not predict when a contingent trigger will occur.
No governance-quality, shareholder-friendliness, or sunset-strength score is calculated; unlike triggers should not be collapsed into one ordinal ranking.
Transfer, estate-planning, proxy, trust, and classholder-vote exceptions can be detailed and company-specific; the public table is a structured summary, not a substitute for the governing documents.
Primary SEC sources
The study uses SEC-hosted governing documents and issuer filings. Older governing documents are included only where they remain the operative terms and a later filing confirms the structure is still in use.
When citing a sunset rule, preserve whether it is companywide or founder-specific and include the stated trigger or transition period.
Lee Bailey. “When Founder Supervoting Rights End at 10 Public Companies: Only Two Reviewed Companies Have a Hard Time-Based Companywide Sunset; the Rest Depend on Founder Events, Thresholds, Transfers or Holder Votes.” Grizzly Bulls, September 11, 2026. Version 1.0. Data snapshot August 26, 2026. https://grizzlybulls.com/research/founder-supervoting-sunsets
Do not describe Meta as having the old proposed founder death/service sunset; use the current charter. Do not collapse Shopify's Founder Share sunset into its separate Class B 5% dilution rule.