founder and shares?

Question

what determines how much shares a founder has in there company?
ex. if the company earns over a million dollars annualy and it decides to go public how much is the founder intitled to

Answer 1

It depends on the listing requirements of the stock exchange it intends to list on. If the requirement for the free float (the portion that can be publicly traded) is at least 20%, then the founder can hold up to 80%. There may also be a disclosure requirement to disclose the free float in every annual report.
There may be other requirements, say, the no. of public shareholders must be at least 1,000. The founder can get round this by giving his shares to his relatives and cronies.