Liz 的观点 为什么 Meta 需要成为 AI 竞赛中的一员？它不是 Google，组织整个互联网；不是 Microsoft，美国企业的操作系统；也不是 Amazon，数字商业的骨干。这些公司在网站、软件和购物的未来上拥有生存攸关的利害关系。Meta 卖广告。AI 可能会改变这门生意 —— 但同样可以说 Salesforce 和 JPMorgan，Marc Benioff 和 Jamie Dimon 都没有把股东的数十亿美元倾注于构建前沿模型。他们是 AI 的客户，而非制造商。
Liz’s view Why does Meta need to be a player in the AI race? It isn’t Google, organizing the entire internet; or Microsoft, the operating system of corporate America; or Amazon, the backbone of digital commerce. Those companies have an existential stake in the future of websites, software, and shopping. Meta sells ads. AI could transform that business — but the same could be said of Salesforce and JPMorgan, and neither Marc Benioff nor Jamie Dimon is pouring billions of shareholders’ dollars into building frontier models. They’re customers, not manufacturers, of AI.
然而，Mark Zuckerberg 控制着 Meta，并想把它打造成 AI 巨头。这两个事实解释了这则新闻 —— 昨天由 Semafor 独家披露，Meta 正在创建一类新的无投票权股票。这听起来枯燥乏味。其实不然。这一举措让 Zuckerberg 能够发行新股 —— 用于资助收购、用巨额薪酬包招募 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 的明星人才，或者单纯融资 —— 而不稀释他对 22 年前创立的这家公司的控股权。
Mark Zuckerberg, however, controls Meta and wants to make it an AI behemoth. Those two facts explain the news, scooped yesterday by Semafor, that Meta is creating a new class of nonvoting stock. It sounds dry. It isn’t. The move lets Zuckerberg issue new shares — to fund acquisitions, recruit OpenAI and Anthropic stars with massive pay packages, or simply raise cash — without diluting his controlling stake in the company he founded 22 years ago.
根据异常详细的文件披露的 Zuckerberg 与董事会的讨论，另一个推动因素是：他可能被迫出售股票以支付潜在的加州亿万富翁税。（在上个月的谈判中间，他告诉 Meta 董事会，计划公开挂牌出售他在帕洛阿尔托的房子，一场公关噩梦在等着他。）保持在 AI 前沿成本高昂，而 Meta 的信用评级低于 Alphabet、Amazon 和 Microsoft，限制了其持续借贷的能力。
Another motivating factor, according to unusually detailed filings that lay out Zuckerberg’s discussions with the board, was the possibility that he’d be forced to sell stock to pay a potential California billionaire tax. (In the middle of negotiations last month, he told Meta’s board he planned to list his Palo Alto house for sale publicly, a PR nightmare waiting to happen.) Staying at the frontier of AI is expensive, and Meta carries a lower credit rating than Alphabet, Amazon, or Microsoft, limiting its ability to keep borrowing.
它在将数据中心成本转移出资产负债表方面颇具创意，但这只能走到一定程度。在某个时刻，它将需要发行新股。现在它有了一个办法，可以在不让 Zuckerberg 失去对方向盘的掌控的情况下做到这一点。
It has been creative about shifting data-center costs off its balance sheet, but that can only go so far. At some point, it will need to issue new shares. Now it has a way to do so that doesn’t cost Zuckerberg his grip on the wheel.
股东会因为被分发没有公司决策权的股票而反抗吗？不会。Meta股东接受了这一冷遇，以及一项源自2010年代剑桥分析公司事件的250亿美元陪审团裁决，周三盘后交易中股价暂时上涨了2%。
Might shareholders revolt at being handed stock that comes with no say in how the business is run? Nope. Meta shareholders absorbed the snub, and a $25 billion jury verdict in a case stemming from the 2010s Cambridge Analytica episode, by temporarily sending the stock up 2% in after-hours trading Wednesday.
值得注意的是，Meta此前曾在2017年尝试为扎克伯格创设一类类似的无表决权股票，但因不受投资者欢迎而不得不放弃。
Notable Meta had previously made an attempt at creating a similar class of nonvoting stock for Zuckerberg in 2017, but had to scrap it because of its unpopularity with investors.