> people invest in your business, the business uses their money to achieve more

that was what normally would happen. However, in the last few decades of IPO, it's become common to have two classes of shares - one being the controlling shares that founders hold on to (with 10x the voting rights), and a 2nd class of ordinary (common!) shares with 1x vote per share.

This means the founders (and early investors perhaps) don't give up any controlling stake of a company at all when the IPO while only selling common shares. Doing this means they get to control the company's operations and financial moves, without shareholder oversight, but obtain all of the shareholder investment cash.

You could argue this can lead to better management, as the founders are more likely to care about the company than professional managers that typically would be hired to manage a public company. I say that is only an argument of luck of the draw, rather than a good argument against the above share and voting right splitting.

Look at facebook/meta - would that company be as invested in things like the metaverse, etc, if zuckerberg weren't in a controlling position?