[TomOfTTB]

In a very theoretical way you are probably. right. But the real world doesn't work that way.

The reason companies resist paying dividends is because investors take that as a signal of maturity and maturity is the antithesis of growth in the market.

Once you start paying dividends you become the stock that people keep in their portfolio to hedge against market instability. Like Microsoft or GE which might grow slightly over the years but remains relatively flat.

Becoming that company makes it hard to move forward. You can't use stock options as a draw so it's hard to get talent and your generally viewed as static which makes it hard to get media attention. Hence the stagnation.

If you're an executive like Jeff Bezos who is actually committed to the company becoming "mature" basically means the CEO jobs is just maintenance from that point on and I don't think he's ready to do that yet