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Comment by jagjit | Hacker News Reader

Well, a manifestation of the main reason I stay away from owning stocks of tech companies. They do not share profits with the stock holders and pretend to know better how to put cash to use, because their current business generates a lot of money.

Not only does Google not share any profit with the shareholders, it is now taking more debt. Google does not need the cash for its business. The only use this cash may be put to is to make acquisitions. Hubris of the highest order when company managements think they know much better than shareholders, how to best use the profits the company generates.

Of course, in technology business, it is very easy for management to claim that they can become irrelevant very fast if they do not do so and so acquisition - just look at Nokia or Microsoft. Which may be true. But it does not take away from the fact that, shareholders do not share much profit in tech companies.

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"Hubris of the highest order when company managements think they know much better than shareholders, how to best use the profits the company generates."

I hope you're not seriously suggesting that in a publicly traded company the shareholders know better than the management how the value of the company can be increased, therefore generating shareholder value? Google does have a publicly stated dividend policy, a policy that in the end is decided if not at least tolerated by the shareholders; tolerated presumably because they agree that it will give them the best ROI on their investment.

Well, the one thing I am suggesting for sure is that when I buy a stock in a company, I own a part of the company and as a result own a part of the profit.

And I am seriously implying that the managements in tech companies do not necessarily know better how to use the profits. And sharing the profits with stock holders is not to be looked down upon.

So I'm a business selling stocks. I can sell them to a market which will buy them purely on the speculation that they will rise, costing me nothing over time, or I can sell them with a promise to pay the people who buy them money for the rest of the existence of the stock....if the market's willing to buy the purely speculative sort, what economic sense does it make for me, the company, to sell the other?

When a company is paying dividends it is usually because the stock has been flat, and there are no expectations for growth.

     I own a part of the company and as a result 
     own a part of the profit

You don't own any part of the profit, even if you would have a majority share. You own something only when it is given to you, otherwise it belongs to the company.

Also, voting power is directly proportional to how much you own. Why would you expect to have any saying in how the company is being handled if you own something like 0.01%?

     I am seriously implying that the managements in
     tech companies do not necessarily know better
     how to use the profits

Well, they got there in the first place, so they do have some credibility.

You sound like a value investor interested in dividends; good on you. However a large fraction of wall street is interested in "shareholder value", a nebulous phrase that boils down to "the share price is always going up".

As a rule, paying dividends doesn't increase the share price. Reinvested profits, huge mergers, along with bold press releases, increase the price.

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