alt Hacker NewsNah.
We know what good looks like in financial results and reputation. It's really not that complicated.
The rest of that bullshit isn't about evaluating a working company, it's about gamblers gambling on non-companies before they become real companies.
Sure, a college student can tell you if a company is making or losing money. But there are ample examples of "good" companies crashing because they didn't react to shifts in the market, which requires projecting into the future.
Blockbuster was good until it wasn't. Sears was good until it wasn't. Barnes and Noble was good, then it fell apart, and now it's good again. The lesson to learn is that by the time your financials say things are taking a turn, you're a year to multiple years late to start fixing the problem.