You probably talking about publicly traded companies: If you buy stock at IPO, direct listing or any other follow-on offering -- it goes directly to the company.

And the price you pay then already accounts for your future ability to resell your stock to anyone else later, stocks would valued way less if you could only sell it back to the company.

But also don't forget that public trading is only one market, there's also a huge market for private companies stocks. Those go directly to the company for its operations.

And I also haven't touched dividends.