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by adam_arthur 1239 days ago
FCF is a poor metric to use for RSU/option heavy tech companies.

Stock based comp directly dilutes shareholders, and using FCF hides the profitability hole that SBC creates for many of these companies.

FCF is more relevant for companies where net income adjustments are largely one time or moreso accounting gimmicky (depreciating real estate/assets to show a GAAP loss etc). SBC dilution is very real

2 comments

This. SNAP has been a publicly traded company for 6 years, one cannot just ignore and hand wave away this expense, especially given how much growth prospects have deteriorated.
I don't care about shareholders here, just their cash burn rate.
Well, they can materialize more cash at any time by issuing shares or raising debt. They're well above a fundamentally based fair value share price.

So not sure why FCF matters from your perspective. They could clearly become net income positive by reducing costs, if it became necessary