Groupon, a daily deals platform and Uber Technologies, a ride-hailing and delivery platform, faced a common issue related to a new revenue recognition standard (and later amendments) adopted by most public companies in 2018. The amendments were designed to help companies determine whether the nature of their obligation to customers was to provide the specified goods or services to the customer directly (acting as "principal" and reporting revenues on a gross basis) or to arrange for another party to provide them (acting as "agent" and reporting revenues on a net basis).

In February 2008, as world markets slid deeper into economic decline, J. Michael Pearson joined Valeant Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharmaceuticals company, then based in a quiet suburb of southern California. By August 2015, the stock price peaked, valuing the company at nearly $90 billion, up from $2 billion in 2008. In that time, Valeant had made over 100 acquisitions with total revenues growing from roughly $750 million in 2008 to over $10 billion in 2015. The explosive growth of Valeant in just seven-and-a-half years was not without purpose.