[scarface74]

Unless you are a buying stock at a public offering, most "stock investing" is not investing into a company. The company doesn't benefit from the money you are "investing". If you bought $1 million shares of Google. Google doesn't get that money or use it for its operations.

[refurb]

I'm referring to people who sold the business they owned. To me, that would be the most common way someone would end up with hundreds of millions of dollars of income in a single year.

If you owned stock in a public corporation, you'd be smarted to sell it over time to reduce the tax impact.

[g4rthv4d3r]

that is simply not true. the more you buy stocks in a company, the more its market cap goes up. with higher market cap, it is easier to invest in new businesses, acquire other companies, hire better people through stock incentives, etc...

[scarface74]

Market cap doesn't go up based on people buying shares. You are just trading ownership.

In theory, the market cap of the company is the current value of all future returns.