A growth stock is engaged in an ongoing value creation process. In your scenario, it is also subject to all of the public disclosure requirements consistent with being a publicly traded company.
Ok, but now you're moving the goalpost. Does "new investors paying old investors" make something a Ponzi scheme or not? The legal definition is much more specific.
> A growth stock is engaged in an ongoing value creation process.
It's popular on HN to complain that companies like Facebook or Amazon destroy value. Or do you mean, create value for shareholders? Facebook and Amazon have never paid a dividend. If you buy stock and hold it all the way to bankruptcy (all companies die, eventually), you will have received no value.
> public disclosure requirements
Dogecoin, stupid as it is, is far more transparent than the machinations of any corporation.
Companies have a book value, which is the value of their assets after their liabilities, to which their shareholders are ultimately entitled.
Many of the tech companies do share buybacks, which increases the ownership of the shareholders who hold the stock.
The value of a share is predicated on the belief that the company will start to pay dividends at some point. Apple, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft all pay dividends at this point.
If the executive team at Amazon or Facebook came out to say "we will never pay a dividend"; firstly, there would be a shareholder revolt and the board of directors would be removed and replaced; secondly, there would also probably be a massive shareholder lawsuit against the directors personally for violating their fiduciary obligations.
