[Scoundreller]

You can buy publicly traded companies without going through brokers/stock exchanges.

What can be assured is that the exchange can be booked at a market value, which can never be guaranteed in a private sale in an opaque market, risking shenanigans to shift value beyond the contribution limit.

(You can say a corp’s initial shares have zero value, but we can all agree here that a Corp formed to execute on a startup team’s plan/idea absolutely does have value).