Right, but that specific activity is all visible on the financial filings, so how is that the same as the pre-IPO funding rounds that Uber was burning through?

Right, but that specific activity is all visible on the financial filings, so how is that the same as the pre-IPO funding rounds that Uber was burning through? If you take out a ton of debt while burning through cash reserves then your market price plummets. Same with issuing new equity, through dilution. At least pre-IPO, the investors could lock in favorable pay outs on their funding rounds - now this is all visible to the public investors.