That doesn't mean the money is real.

If we're going to get into a debate about what money is and represents, you might have an argument. If we accept that we use currency to exchange for goods, services, and labor, it is real money.

Then what is the function of the stock market for the economy?

You are arguing for an extremely simplistic vision of money that does not exist.

God I can't wait to get out of the grind.

I'm over halfway to freedom, I really want FIRE so I never have to deal with this corporate bullshit again.

It goes a layer further than that even. If the rate at which that growth is happening isn't itself growing then investors start getting nervous.

"intensity, clarity, and bold execution"

Not just "intensity".

Xbox should’ve been the prestige product for Microsoft (just like Logic/Final Cut for Apple) but Xbox itself depleted any prestige it ever accumulated over the last few years.

The stock market is a way to publicly trade partial ownership of companies. The value of a stock is whatever people are willing to pay for it. That's based on speculation but at least somewhat anchored in the companies' revenues and profits/losses.

The revenues and profits/losses are real values reported quarterly. Projected revenues are just that - estimated future predictions. Of course there can be fraud, but that's unlikely from a company as large as Microsoft.

Event DJT, which has a valuation based on nothing but speculation and political loyalties still reports that they are losing money hand over fist.

It's not only "more". The company I work for had "record profits, far and beyond anything we were expecting" in 2021. In 2022, we were told that the company made more than in 2021, but didn't meet the earnings projections. That's still record profits, but phrased like a loss.

Not only must the line go up, but it has to go up faster than it did before. Nothing less than exponential growth.

The stock market is a way to publicly trade partial ownership of companies. The value of a stock is whatever people are willing to pay for it. That's based on speculation but at least somewhat anchored in the companies' revenues and profits/losses.

Sometimes it is but no the stock market is often very unanchored from any real sense of value and as a result all of the money involved becomes a part of something unreal that will catastrophically collapse at a later point.

Exhibit A) See Uber, it isn't even a business in any pure capitalist sense since it has never or almost never turned a profit.

No, the macro-economic function of the stock market is to determine the capitalist value of things, the stock market IS the hallucination at the center of the value of currencies like the US dollar.

You clearly believe in some magical power of rationality to the stock market like people believe in God, I can only debate you so far before your rhetorical defenses become purely emotional and based on feelings not facts.

Technically they don't - it's a lie told often by CEO. But its a lie.
https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Fiduciary-Duties-of-the-Board-of-Directors.pdf