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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

Elastic Co isn’t profitable by definition it isn’t “doing fine”.

From their SEC filing:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1707753/000119312518...

We have a history of losses and may not be able to achieve profitability or positive cash flows on a consistent basis. If we cannot achieve profitability or positive cash flows, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may suffer.

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You're right they're not profitable — and neither is MongoDB — but the point is that AWS launched an Elasticsearch service 3 years prior to Elastic having a very successful IPO supported by stellar metrics (also found in the SEC filing you linked). So the statements made at the beginning of this thread are probably a bit premature.

Only in tech do people think that a money losing company is “successful” because they were able to convince investors to buy stock instead of defining success as having a business model where income is greater than expenses.

In reality long term profitability is the only metric that matters for a corporation

And in contrast to these startups with their "success" AWS is printing cash for amazon which releases surprisingly few "metrics" beyond $ in and $ out.

And at the end of the day. What else matters when measuring whether a profit seeking corporation is successful?

Literally every S1 filing will have some sort of language like that. They are required to list the risks that may harm them.

They haven’t shown a profit yet. So you don’t have any proof that they have a sustainable business model.

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