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Comment by nlittlepoole | Hacker News Reader

"We have incurred operating losses in the past, expect to incur operating losses in the future, and may never achieve or maintain profitability." haha

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This is boilerplate S1 language.

May I ask why? What would companies get out of doing that?

I imagine it's a legal disclaimer. Same reason every investing prospectus in existence says "Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns"

Are there legal implications if you use language like "we _hope_ to get to a profitable stage within one year"?

It's more that there are no upsides (saying "hope to" doesn't sound very certain, so no one is going to increase the price they'll pay for your IPO shares) and there are downsides if you don't become profitable within a year, once you've said you hope / intend to. So, the bottom-line incentives are not to say it.

There are a lot of laws and regulations around advertising stock for sale to the general public (as opposed to qualified private investors).

Companies have to be very conservative but thorough in the "Risk Factors" section, or get sued by investors claiming to have been misled later.

For example some of Google's Risk Factors from 2004:

> New technologies could block our ads, which would harm our business.

> We generate our revenue almost entirely from advertising, and the reduction in spending by or loss of advertisers could seriously harm our business.

> We are susceptible to index spammers who could harm the integrity of our web search results.

Unless I mean, you're profitable

I know 'burn the heretic' haha its just a concept

It's not like they could claim anything else. No company can guarantee that it will remain profitable.

"There's a sucker born every minute" didn't enter the American lexicon by accident, mind you.

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