At least in tech there are people who have had decade+ long careers where it was very feasible to never work for a company that actually made more money than it spent. I've been at multiple startups that had VCs pressure leadership not to make profit because that would hurt growth of some other KPI of interest (users, revenue etc).

In the last few year many of these people have seen these companies go public, and their imaginary Options/RSUs suddenly turn to liquid assets. Company hasn't started making profits, P/E is negative, but TC has gone up by 50%-200%. That certainly feels like success.

Looking back at my own career the companies that made the least profit (including negative) are the ones that have paid me the most.

I'm old enough to remember the pre-dotcom bust chats of "new economy" and "things are different now", and how all of the stuffy old finance people who thought businesses should make more than they spend where ultimately proven correct.

For many people, even in their late 30s, the ability for a company to actually make more than it spends has been an academic curiosity, hardly relevant to the success of a company.

Agreed, and the opposite is true: I started at a small public company which had stopped growing and become profitable. It was targeted for a hostile takeover by PE who thought it could grow more.

To their credit it did, and (to the extent your willing to believe unaudited financials) again became profitable.

The stock and exuberance are the product.

> The stock and exuberance are the product.

I've worked at places where the slide decks were always full of exuberance. At one of them they were exuberant right up until the moment the staff found themselves locked out of the offices after being told that a liquidator was in charge.

It's not pretty.

Same!

The company I used to work for got acquired by a listed company. At the same time, I was doing finance module at the university. One assignment was to analyse a company's financial reports and come up with a conclusion. So I analysed the company I worked for and the outcome was that I need to get out. At the same time the company was sending communication as it's about to discover time travel and unicorn milk.

> At the same time, I was doing finance module at the university. One assignment was to analyse a company's financial reports and come up with a conclusion. So I analysed the company I worked for and the outcome was that I need to get out.

That's interesting. My OH is almost half way through her MBA and for one recent module, she chose to analyse her current employer's financial reports and come up with a conclusion. Her conclusion is also that she needs to get out.

I wonder how many tech employees can actually read a financial report, though?

> Her conclusion is also that she needs to get out.

It depends. I haven't been RIF'd before but would take a package if they were layoffs if I had the opportunity. I'd also use as much of unemployment as I could for as long as I could. Basically I'd be looking to maximize the amount of time I can go before I'd need another job.

Just because a company appears to be running out of cash doesn't necessarily mean you need to leave immediately if they do downsizing.

To my surprise hardly anybody outside, and even some inside, of finance can. Not that I'm an expert, but I understand a balance sheet, can interpret the expebse lines, understand a cash flow sheet and can read (after having been to a couole of audits) the SOX relevant audit statements of public US companies. And yes, those tell you an aweful lot about your employer. And yes, part of me came to the same conclusion as your OH and the OP.

Any good resources for a tech employee to learn about these things without having studied it?

The Economist Guide To Analysing Companies is a good start. Others would be corporate finance books or intro books to accounting.

Employees base company success on internal metrics and how they're being paid, few employees bother looking at publicly available numbers lest they "jinx" it.

(Or the ones that do see the writing on the wall and bail, or decide to ride it out as long as they can).

It truely shocking how little employees can care about their employers finacials.

Since Uber seems to be a benchmark for VC start-ups (Uber for X) and Uber is still losing money in the tens or hundreds of millions per year, I am not surprised that employees think that Klarna is a success.