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Great post. In a recent interview this is exactly what Masa Son is talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDpdcWz_F_0 What I don't fully understand - isn't this covered by GAAP accounting in some way?

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Usage of GAAP is entirely up to the company. It might choose to not use GAAP policies on revenue recognition and expenses. Many non-public companies chose to do that if it means they can show their revenues growing faster than it actually is.

One of the example of this was Groupon. When they filed for IPO they were using gross sales as their revenue. And then deducting money paid to their partners as expense. SEC had to step-in and ask Groupon to restate their P&L statement so that the top line was net revenue instead of gross.

GAAP does cover this. Your "high upfront costs" would be capitalized. It wouldn't appear as a loss.

It depends on what kind of costs are we talking about. If it was something like "I give one year for free to get the client, and I will make money from them in the years to come because of course there is no reason to think they may switch providers later" I don't think it will be capitalized.

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