[purim]

Came here to point this out. I've seen many cash flow positive strong businesses end up in the hands of VCs by raising money. Remember that when you raise money and you don't hit "KPI" or any goalpost that can be manipulated and moved, you are gambling.

In the age of cheap capital, this might have been an attainable goal: Raise money, pump valuation and dump on retail. If not, get acquired by another startup unicorn. That is no longer the case. Many startups are going to run out of capital and not only is IPO out of the picture in 2023 and beyond, the "failacquired" is just going to be straight up "shut down" when they can't find buyers.

I saw this happening heading towards 2018 briefly and I am seeing even more number of desperate startup founders who turned their cash positive business into a cash negative by raising money.

It always puzzled me why startups were being told to lose money to grow quickly and its made me uneasy knowing that when the tide goes out, it does so rapidly.