• JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz
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      8 months ago

      Because profit requires you to pay taxes. It’s not uncommon at all for growing companies to invest and otherwise use up any profit they generate so the balance sheet stays negative while the company keeps growing in value.
      Also allows you to cry how those dirty 3rd party app developers are stealing all your profit boo hoo.

      When you look at the revenue growth of reddit, it’s not hard to see that if they were able to function at all when they had a revenue 1/10th of what it’s now, they could turn profit if they wanted to.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        It’s not uncommon at all for growing companies to invest and otherwise use up any profit they generate so the balance sheet stays negative while the company keeps growing in value.

        That’s absolutely true. But what exactly has Reddit been expanding into? Its not like they’ve got AWS like Amazon or they’re rapidly expanding their infrastructure footprint like NextEra or some novel product like OpenAI.

        As far as I can tell, the company’s biggest primary expense is administrative overhead. Not exactly value-add.

        • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Given that CEO pay was like 30% of their budget last year, administrative overhead seems like a good guess

        • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz
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          8 months ago

          Not a clue, but they did go from having 230 employees back in 2017 to 400 in 2018, 700 in 2021 to finally over 2000 in 2023.
          So they have to be doing something. …right?

      • db2@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        You mean Steve Huffman has said something that isn’t true? This is totally unprecedented! 🤡🤣

    • Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      You don’t have to be profitable to have a desirable stock, but usually there is some promise of future profitability (like Tesla for most of its history.)

      Not sure what reddit has going for it, though.

    • designated_fridge@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Who cares, we’re leaving an economy where no one cared about profitability. Just growth. It’s all about whether they can capitalize on that growth now.

      Spotify was the same. Turned a profit the first quarter after shifting the focus towards profitability.