"Stock-based compensation is not an accounting footnote - it is a structural feature of modern corporate finance that touches all metrics investors rely on.

None of this is to say that SBC is inherently wrong. In the early stages of the corporate lifecycle, equity compensation is a rational and necessary tool.

However, when mature, cash-generative businesses continue to issue stock at startup-era rates, they are conducting a slow, silent wealth transfer from long-term shareholders to employees, often behind a wall of adjusted metrics."