Yes. Read up on how it all works, or ask an LLM about it.

...is explaining it here too much of an effort, or what? Like I don't mean to be rude, but that really doesn't strike me as an unreasonable question to ask.

When you go to your brokerage account and buy a share of Google, you aren't buying it from Google, you're buying it from some other random shareholder out there who wants to sell. Google does not see a cent of that money.

In general, the only times a company gets money when you buy shares are if you participate in an IPO, or if an already-public company decides to offer more shares for sale in order to raise some money, and you buy some of those shares. (There are exceptions, but retail investors like you and me usually don't get invited to participate in those deals, though.) The vast majority of shares that trade hands on the markets every day are not owned by the company whose name is next to the ticker symbol.

I don't know what you do and don't know, and what misunderstandings you're operating under, and threaded forums really aren't set up for the kind of back and forth it would take to do a proper calibration so as to give an appropriate answer that is at the right level of explain-y, and not mansplain-y/condescending. But what the hell, I'm waiting on a build (rust).

Companies IPO and sell shares. The company gets paid by people who want to own shares. The company IPOs and sells 1000 shares at $50 each, gaining them $50k which they can then use to buy a new whatever. Then, in a market like NYSE, other people can buy and sell stock. If I think the stock is undervalued I offer to buy 1 from someone at $55. that person gives me 1 stock, I give them $55, netting them $5. The company is not involved in this transaction and does not get anything from that specific transaction.

Now that the price is at $55, the company could decide to sell additional stock, now at $55 instead of $50, but that's a separate event from the transaction that happened previously. So the company does benefit from the stock price being high, but not directly off each transaction.

I've omitted all the details, but I think that's enough to get the gist of it.

Read up on Capital Markets (Stocks / Bonds). Ways for companies to raise money.

HN/VC is NOT the traditional way for companies to raise money.

Buying outside a IPO is called the secondary market. If nobody could buy a share in the secondary market, the stock is almost worthless. Just like your private company with one round of funding and shares. If you can't sell them, they aren't worth much.