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That is a pretty strange way of defining profitable where you are losing money.

Accounting is complicated. For example, let's say you buy a box for $50, pay it right away, then sell the box and deliver it on December for $100, but the buyer only pays you in January.

Then you need to publish your results for this year. How do you do it?

P&L statement:

Revenue: $100

Costs: $50

Profit: $50

Cash flow statement:

Cash from sales: $0

Cash paid to suppliers: $50

Net cash flow: -$50

So you had a negative cash flow, but was profitable.

Think of it this way. Imagine if airbnb took its 1 billion dollars and bought bars of gold, and put those bars of gold in a vault.

Is airbnb losing money, because it now has 1 billion dollars less in cash, and 1 billion dollars more in gold bars?

No, it is not.

Actually, IIRC (and correct me if I'm wrong) for accounting purposes, gold counts as "cash & cash equivalents", so if it bought $1B in gold bars, AirBnB's cash wouldn't change.

Gold as a commodity (bonds). Gold bars are not liquid.

Bonds can be considered cash equivalents if they have short maturity.

Gold is highly liquid, and from what I've read, it can be considered (in bullion) cash equivalents, except for banks, that due to Base 3 regulations can only consider part of their gold holdings as cash equivalent for liquidity purposes.

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