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yreadtoday at 5:18 PM1 replyview on HN

If you are sharing revenue (royalties, licenses based on revenue, costs that scale directly with revenue) doesnt that count as cost of goods sold?


Replies

infectotoday at 7:46 PM

Typically R&D is not part COGS. It’s absolutely part of the bottom line when you will typically recognize the cost over some period of time to try to get a true picture of the business.

It’s also easier to strip it out of the picture to think about how much it costs to serve the next token. If you can have great economics to serve the next token (profitable) you can always figure out ways to further reduce your R&D costs.

Now they are absolutely intertwined but I don’t think this is ever as big of an issue that people make it out to be. Replace token with any widget, this is how businesses measure themselves.