Publicly traded stocks will inevitably end up in the hands of whoever is more optimistic about a company's potential than everybody else with money to buy. It's

Publicly traded stocks will inevitably end up in the hands of whoever is more optimistic about a company's potential than everybody else with money to buy. It's like gravity. If you had a company that could somehow produce a million dollars every time a magic button is pressed, you could get immensely rich. But you could get even richer by selling that company if you found someone sufficiently convinced that they'd be able to scale that magic to two buttons. If geese that lay golden eggs were real, stock exchanges would be their dedicated killing zone.