Serious investors look at balance sheets, less then what CEOs say. Elon Musk -- as an example-- says all kinds of things that don't really happen. Mark Zuckerberg is arguably less grandiose. When FB changed their name to Meta, said they were committed to the metaverse the stock didn't dump. When the really big investments in consumer VR hit Meta's balance sheet, there was a big drop.

Think of it as the difference between the waiter describing dishes with ingredients you don't really understand (or maybe even taste) vs presenting the bill for the meal.

If a company’s value was completely representated within their balance sheet, you would just run a computer program and be done. The problem is 1) balance sheets can be manipulated in legal ways to support a specific narrative 2) growth is governed by vision + strategy + execution.

For example, Apple the year before the iPhone got launched isn’t an attractive investment. They’re a one hit wonder with the iPod saving them from bankruptcy and the market has been fully saturated. The year the iPhone gets released their balanced sheet hasn’t really changed.