[tptacek]

No, Airbnb was self-evidently not the wrong kind of money. It was unclear whether Airbnb could succeed, but if it did, it was obvious how it would make truckloads of money. It’s practically the archetype of a shoot-the-moon business model.

[logicallee]

why isn't the fact that they're printing money on that model proof that they can succeed in that model?

[tptacek]

I think we're talking past each other. I brought my company up as an example of "the wrong kind of money" because we're a services company, and no matter how much money we're printing today, we're unlikely to liquidate for 10x forward revenue. Airbnb, on the other hand, has a business model that can do that.

[logicallee]

OK. I had thought you brought it up because you couldn't land any funding despite being able to generate great returns. Actually your example is orthogonal to startups that can't raise money for their big plans.

My original point was just that VC's don't write enough checks. thanks for the exchange.