Beyond spez (and the fact that he is a greedy little pig boy), I’m curious about the corporate dynamics that prevent a company like Reddit from being profitable. From an outside perspective, they make hundreds of millions per year via advertising, their product is a relatively simple (compared to industries that need a lot of capital to build their product), and their content is created and moderated for free by users. Could any offer some insights or educated guesses? Additionally, I’m curious how this all ties into the larger culture of Silicon Valley tech companies in the 2010s.
This is a bad explanation. Dividends are paid out of retained earnings. They are actually taxed TWICE and investing money into the business is a capitalized under GAAP not expensed.
The actual reason is that pre-IPO companies prioritize revenue growth while they are raising money over expense control. The idea is once their growth flatlines they can cut expenses while maintaining their revenue.
I don’t know how taxes work wherever you are, but here in the UK dividends are exempt from corporate tax. Additionally everyone gets dividend allowance per year making part of your dividends tax free. Everything above is taxed progressively rendering dividends up to very large sums cheaper than corporate tax or salary.