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by f69281c 1931 days ago
It's kind of crazy to see a tech IPO that doesn't come with the boilerplate "we make zero profit, we've never made profit, and we have no idea how to change that in the future" caveat.
1 comments

Uhhh, are we looking at the same S1? Coursera currently loses money, has never been profitable, and does not provide any indication of when or if they will ever be profitable.

From the S1:

We incurred net losses of $46.7 million and $66.8 million in 2019 and 2020, respectively, and we had an accumulated deficit of $343.6 million as of December 31, 2020. We expect to incur significant losses in the future. We will need to generate and sustain increased revenue levels in future periods to achieve profitability, and even if we achieve profitability, we may not be able to maintain or increase our level of profitability. We anticipate that our operating expenses will increase substantially for the foreseeable future as we continue to, among other things...

These expenditures will make it more difficult for us to achieve and maintain profitability. Our efforts to grow our business may be more costly than we expect, and we may not be able to increase our revenue enough to offset our higher operating expenses. If we are forced to reduce our expenses, it could negatively impact our growth and growth strategy. As a result, we can provide no assurance as to whether or when we will achieve profitability. If we are not able to achieve and maintain profitability, the value of our company and our common stock could decline significantly, and you could lose some or all of your investment.

Arguably - take away every University’s endowment and watch how they’d do. Doubt they’d differ too much from Coursera.