Short of some entity buying all stock and taking the company private (to then withdraw profits), there would be no way to return profits to shareholders.
The companies currently not doing those things are in a growth phase, with the expectation that in the future they probably will be issuing dividends/buybacks.
Berkshire-Hathaway has only paid dividends once since Buffet took over, and is the highest priced stock listed on the NYSE.
And they are not wrong. As long as the name on the token takes a prominent place in public consciousness people will flock to it and early investors will be able to sell it for more. If you want to see what's sufficient for people to invest in something look at shiba inu crypto token or WIF.
Who would create a company for 100k if it can sell it to gamblers for millions when it goes public? Plenty of people. There's whole industry of angel investors fuelled by thay dynamic.
That's what shareholders want you to think. But societally and economically companies are mostly for everything else. If no company ever paid a single dividend or never bought back any of its stock nothing bad would happen. There are a lot of companies doing exactly that.
But if companies stopped doing everything else they do that they are supposedly not for, the economy would end.