No, cash flow and profit are both differentials of net value. But they are both noisy.

Ideally, profit abstracts away all the messy details of cash flow. If you buy a new robot, that's not a loss, that's an investment, so your profit shouldn't change (until the robot starts depreciating). So profit (not cashflow) is a better metric. On the other hand, you don't know that the robot will really be useful, so maybe cashflow is better.