Because share-based pay is added back in operating-cash-flow and excluded from most non-gaap earnings, a company paying heavily in stock can show strong adjusted profit and strong cash flow while its share count marches steadily higher.
The honest cross-check is share-count-trend. If diluted shares rise 3% a year, owners are giving up 3% of the company annually regardless of what the adjusted metrics say.
Example: Northwind Cloud grants $32M of stock-based pay on $210M of segment revenue, 15%. Diluted shares rose 2.4% over the year despite $40M of buybacks, so repurchases barely offset the issuance.
Related: non-cash-charges, share-count-trend, non-gaap, weighted-average-shares, adjusted-ebitda