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Tobi Lütke: Most SaaS company value is impossible to capture under GAAP

Tobi L–tke · Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke: Remote Work vs In-Person; The Benefit of Setting Constraints | E997 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Apr 3, 2023 · at 44:59

Tobi Lütke is the CEO and co-founder of Shopify. He discusses why stock market fluctuations do not reflect internal company value like organizational capabilities.

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“Most of the value of, like, of a SaaS company is, like, extraordinarily hard to value from a GAAP perspective. Like, Shopify's ability to hire the best engineers in the world. Like, what is that worth? Like, it's, I think it's tens of billions as a competitive advantage. Not an asset on any asset sheet.”

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The claim, plainly

Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke claims that most of the value of a SaaS company is extraordinarily hard to measure under GAAP accounting, noting that Shopify's ability to recruit top engineers is a competitive advantage worth tens of billions that never appears on a balance sheet.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Mentioned

GAAP SaaS Shopify

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Tobi Lütke: Most SaaS company value is impossible to capture under GAAP

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