I understand how they potentially benefit the individuals who buy them, but what do companies get out of selling them besides a little money just selling them?
In: Economics
You sell stock to raise money to grow your company.
Stock is ownership in a company.
So you offer stock to others, they buy the stock and now you have money you did not have before. The tradeoff is you may have owned 100% of your company and after selling stock you no longer own 100% and must answer to your stock holders.
A famous example of this is when Steve Jobs was fired from Apple. He started the company but was fired because he did not own a majority stake in the company (they re-hired him several years later).
So, why did Jobs sell all that stock and lose control? Because in order to build computer he needed many millions of dollars and the only way to get that in short order was to sell shares in the company. A few million people throwing a few hundred dollars at him means hundred of millions of dollars to ramp up production.
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