[NovemberWhiskey]

Companies have a book value, which is the value of their assets after their liabilities, to which their shareholders are ultimately entitled.

Many of the tech companies do share buybacks, which increases the ownership of the shareholders who hold the stock.

The value of a share is predicated on the belief that the company will start to pay dividends at some point. Apple, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft all pay dividends at this point.

If the executive team at Amazon or Facebook came out to say "we will never pay a dividend"; firstly, there would be a shareholder revolt and the board of directors would be removed and replaced; secondly, there would also probably be a massive shareholder lawsuit against the directors personally for violating their fiduciary obligations.