There are certainly downsides to it, but you’ll notice that most of the biggest companies of the last 20 years had a dual class stock structure that gives the founders a high level of control.

The most efficient government is a benevolent dictatorship, the problem, of course is that benevolent dictators don’t live forever and sooner or later you get a non-benevolent one.

These sorts of dual class share structures avoid that issue by generally becoming common stock on transfer so it turns into a democracy with the end of the dictator.

With an IPO you at least got to spend several years seeing how the dictator did.

SEC and most states like delaware where companies incorporate do have minority shareholder protections, regardless of these terms.

A board of directors can screw shareholders even without one controlling director.

The protections for minority shareholder are seperate.

Also the news of malpractice by directors like you mention leads to SEC investigations and stocks come crashing down before they can sell it (as they must declare their stock sales a few days before doing it)

It's actually a crime in the US not to manage a public company in the interest of the shareholders. (There was a large case which Ford lost establishing the way this is interpreted now which many people argue is why it gets interpreted in such a shortsighted way so often although personally I'm not sure.)

It makes sense, you're disposing of the capital the shareholders own.

The alternative is enshittification of the entire product lineup to include ads, exorbitant subscription prices, reduced functionality along a painful price gradient, morphing into a dopamine social product, or a goal to rent real-life assets for to an increasingly impoverished population. Pee in your piss bottle while delivering that Amazon package until we can figure out how to automate your job away too. The shareholders demand it!