"they did not 'give themselves a very significant portion of the company' because they ALREADY owned it. It is not unusual for the original owners of a company to retain majority ownership and sell less than half the company in a public offering."
well said... google google share structure if you want to see some tightly held ownership within the structure of a publicly traded company... and yes the owners of google made themselves rich... they made quite a few others rich a long the way too... some of them early investors... may Leo and Menon become filthy rich... so that i may be merely rich :-)