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Comment by thegenius | Hacker News Reader

if you read the 8k, they doubled revenues but more than tripled losses. all this nongaap bullshit. read the footnotes. they removed stock based compensation and depreciation. how in the hell are those non operational charges? stock soars. hrm... lets make it look like were profitable so our lottery tickets are worth more. no thanks

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Both are non-cash expenses, so makes sense to consider financials without them when looking at GAAP vs. Non-GAAP. They're certainly operational charges, but somewhat distort P&L.

I'm not even sure what you mean. They come out of shareholder equity, and all public companies use accrual and not cash-basis accounting. It makes zero sense to strip out those operational charges unless you want to appear profitable for some short-term benefit. I realize companies do this kind of crap. It absolutely does not make it right, and the folly of the stock market is just that: believing just because somebody said or did something that it is also correct, or that something is OK because it looks official on a SEC document.

Not saying I disagree. I don't think people should be looking at GAAP vs. Non-GAAP if they don't understand that one vs. the other doesn't make the company more or less profitable. My point is it helps better understand the company from an operational perspective when very high SBC or D&A can significantly distort actual expenses.

My point to you is that SBC and D&A are actual expenses in every way imaginable. Just because Twitter says not doesn't make it so.

I agree. Small companies can't get away with this. But if you raise over a billion apparently you can for awhile.

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