Profits, see you later, ciao!

The tale of new-age companies

- Karthik Anand Vijay

Have you seen the Netflix TV series ‘Money Heist’? This Spanish show focuses on a group of thieves who conduct a heist at the Royal Mint of Spain (where currency notes are printed). Their plan is to print €2.4 billion for themselves and then escape.

However, printing that much currency requires many days. So, the brain behind the plan, a guy called the ‘Professor’, orchestrates many illusions to keep the police busy and safeguard their plan.

Does this seem familiar? Aren’t so-called new-age companies making adjustments to their expenses to report ‘core profits’? It seems that the Professor and these new-age companies have something in common – they love creating illusions.

But there is one big difference between them. In the show, the Professor and his team manage to pull off the heist and escape, i.e., they get rich. These new-age companies, on the other hand, struggle to break even.

Don’t get us wrong, we don’t have anything against these companies. We believe that profits (and their conversion to cash flows) form the crux of a business. Each and every managerial decision should be aimed at generating sustainable profits. Of course, it is not right to paint all these companies with the same brush. Some of them make genuine profits.