[EvanL]

Companies in burgeoning industries at this scale are concerned with longevity, specifically outlasting their competitors. Not short term profits.

They are thinking more along the lines of "how can we make 10 billion dollars per year, for the next 150 years." Think General Electric.

That's why they require huge amounts of money from investors, so they can aggressively grow to a size where other companies can't touch them.

The huge amount of capital is sort of like a moat.

When you're larger, you have something called economy of scale. Which means you have enough resources to do stuff the smaller guys can't do.

When you're larger, you also have something called a data advantage. Which means you know so much more about your customers, you can predict things and make decisions the smaller guys can't.