No, you only pay the returns after you got funded. Except of contract enforcement in court, the investors have absolutely no way to force the company to pay up. That's what I meant by "legal obligations".
Of course, if you get yourself a reputation of not returning money to investors, you'll unlikely to get funded the next time, and if the investors have no way to force the company to pay dividends, they will fund few companies in the first place. The point is, maximizing salaries paid is a terrible metric, precisely because of bad incentives it creates.
> This applies only to companies that do not require capital to operate/grow.
But when they require capital to grow, you aren't returning the money to investors anyway -- what would be the point of that? The investors only expect the dividends once the capital needs of the company are satisfied, and once that happens, the company no longer needs the investors.
you need to get funding in order for company to continue operating. If you don't pay a decent return for the funding, you just won't get funded.
> Shareholders going on strike makes absolutely no difference for the company.
This applies only to companies that do not require capital to operate/grow.