It's not really a "sad indictment", there's nothing shady about re-investing your money into the business. It just so happens that if you are a fast growth comp

It's not really a "sad indictment", there's nothing shady about re-investing your money into the business. It just so happens that if you are a fast growth company doing that, it is no longer beneficial to use the same tools to compare to traditional large established slow growth companies. Amazon fairly and legally and morally (mostly) re-invested their positive cash flow back into their business, but looking at their P&L you can't tell if they are a year 0 startup or an amazing giant company - the cashflow, however, reveals a different story.