You're right - it's pretty definitionally hard for businesses to be profitable early on. The problem is that this unprofitable period has been extended towards

You're right - it's pretty definitionally hard for businesses to be profitable early on. The problem is that this unprofitable period has been extended towards ludicrous ends. It used to be that you spend your Series A and B figuring out the business, and from Series C forward you've got your unit economics dialed in and are just pushing the "growth" button as hard as you can. Nowadays you get all the way to IPO without ever achieving positive unit economics: Uber, Lyft, DoorDash... You have companies raising (or trying to raise) Series E, F, G while they lose money on every transaction and make it up in volume. I suspect OP is talking more about that phenomenon - companies that are way too far along to not have positive unit economics on their core business.