The Idiot Index

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Sector
Capital ExtractionApplied to enterprise and developer-platform software companies. COGS captures hosting, support, and customer-success costs; the Markup Ratio is meaningful but the Operational Markup is the load-bearing indicator because most platform investment flows through OpEx (R&D, S&M).
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Capital Extraction in Software Platform · FY 2023

16 of 40 companies · highest first
  1. 1
    DBXDropbox
    315% of net profit returned to shareholders — funded beyond current-year earnings
    sector median 0.8495Top 3%
    3.1522
    × buybacks+dividends / net income
  2. 2
    JKHYJack Henry
    182% of net profit returned to shareholders — funded beyond current-year earnings
    sector median 0.8495Top 9%
    1.8150
    × buybacks+dividends / net income
  3. 3
    FTNTFortinet
    122% of net profit returned to shareholders — funded beyond current-year earnings
    sector median 0.8495Top 16%
    1.2225
    × buybacks+dividends / net income
  4. 4
    MANHManhattan Associates
    109% of net profit returned to shareholders — funded beyond current-year earnings
    sector median 0.8495Top 22%
    1.0900
    × buybacks+dividends / net income
  5. 5
    IBMIBM
    102% of net profit returned to shareholders — funded beyond current-year earnings
    sector median 0.8495Median range
    1.0219
    × buybacks+dividends / net income
  6. 6
    VRSKVerisk
    100% of net profit returned to shareholders, 0% reinvested
    sector median 0.8495Median range
    0.9955
    × buybacks+dividends / net income
  7. 7
    SNPSSynopsys
    99% of net profit returned to shareholders, 1% reinvested
    sector median 0.8495Median range
    0.9941
    × buybacks+dividends / net income
  8. 8
    CDNSCadence
    88% of net profit returned to shareholders, 12% reinvested
    sector median 0.8495Median range
    0.8798
    × buybacks+dividends / net income
  9. 9
    ADBEAdobe
    82% of net profit returned to shareholders, 18% reinvested
    sector median 0.8495Median range
    0.8192
    × buybacks+dividends / net income
  10. 10
    AKAMAkamai
    80% of net profit returned to shareholders, 20% reinvested
    sector median 0.8495Median range
    0.8014
    × buybacks+dividends / net income

Not yet covered (24)

These companies are in the Software Platform cohort but don't have a Capital Extraction computed for FY 2023. Either the underlying inputs aren't tagged in their XBRL filings, the DEF 14A pay-ratio narrative didn't parse cleanly, or this fiscal year hasn't been ingested for them yet.

What this measures

Full methodology →

How much of net profit goes to shareholders rather than back into the business.

Ratio
Capital Extraction
Sector
Software Platform
Methodology version
v1.0.0
Formula
(Buybacks + Dividends) / NetIncome
Sector context

Applied to enterprise and developer-platform software companies. COGS captures hosting, support, and customer-success costs; the Markup Ratio is meaningful but the Operational Markup is the load-bearing indicator because most platform investment flows through OpEx (R&D, S&M).

What share of after-tax profit is returned to shareholders rather than reinvested. Universal across sectors — works for banks, insurers, REITs, and utilities where the Shareholder Extraction ratio (which divides by R&D) is undefined. A value of 1.0 means 100% of net income flows back out to shareholders; above 1.0 means the company is funding shareholder returns from sources beyond current-year earnings (debt, retained cash, asset sales).

Source data: PaymentsForRepurchaseOfCommonStock, PaymentsOfDividends, NetIncomeLoss (us-gaap) or ProfitLoss (ifrs-full).