That’s a different cash flow than what the article is talking about.

Cash flow and the discounted cash flow model for valuation are different things.

Cash flow over a period is simply cash in-cash out, and having cash on hand for business operations. It ignores profitability. You can be cash flow positive and be running a business that loses money as long as money comes in faster than it leaves. Or if you get an external source of cash like investments.

The discounted cash flow valuation defines cash flow as “investor returns”. So in the case of a business you’d be looking at EBIDTA or net revenue, not cash flow itself.

Or even if you did use cash flow, you’d need to look at cash flow over the life of the investment, not 1 or 2 years. Accounting tricks like deferring expenses or accelerating revenue increases cash flow over the short term, but eventually it gets accounted for.

Selling $1M of product, at a $1.1M cost that you don’t pay until next year is $1M of positive cash flow this year, but nobody is giving that a positive valuation.