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The character Russ Hanneman on the TV show “Silicon Valley” took it a step further stating that having no revenue to speak of makes a company more valuable. It’

The character Russ Hanneman on the TV show “Silicon Valley” took it a step further stating that having no revenue to speak of makes a company more valuable. It’s satire…but is it?

arcturus17 4y ago
In a way it isn’t because no revenue at all can excite the imagination infinitely more than underwhelming revenue.
maccard 4y ago
> It’s satire…but is it? Depends on your definition of value. If a companies max revenue is $X, the farther away from $X they are the more of a return you can hope to get!
HNDen21 4y ago
This was the Masayoshi Son/Adam Neumann playbook for WeWork... growth above all
robbiep 4y ago
A company with no revenue can potentially raise at a higher valuation with a company of $1 of revenue - because now it’s real and investors will start making their mind up about the actual possiblities of the investment
- foobiekr 4y ago
  Directly experienced this - having actual _profit_ makes it hard to encourage fantastical storytelling about how big the upside is. It's the company future equivalent of mark-to-market. Revenue .. well, if you can get huge revenue with huge losses and convincingly demonstrate (mostly by spending) that more losses (= more capital) means more revenue can actually take you a long way. Almost all of the "unicorns" and "decacorns" embraced this model - lose $2-5 per $ of revenue but able to demonstrate almost unlimited market. Most of those companies can never, ever be profitable entities.
ihaveajob 4y ago
I've heard this time and time again in SV circles. It probably is for the right founder who is able to paint a rosy picture and a nice story. I'm not that kind of person, so it's bonkers to me.
- papito 4y ago
  Like Adam Nuemann. You have to be tall and loud. Doesn't matter if you are making sense or not. Sometimes VCs act like gullible women on a date who are enamored by a douchebag, I swear.
JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
It matters what portion of the cycle we are in. We used to be in the voting portion, now we are in the weighing machine portion and things are very different. “In other words, the market is not a weighing machine, on which the value of each issue is recorded by an exact and impersonal mechanism, in accordance with its specific qualities. Rather should we say that the market is a voting machine, whereon countless individuals register choices which are the product partly of reason and partly of emotion.” -Security Analysis 1934

The character Russ Hanneman on the TV show “Silicon Valley” took it a step further stating that having no revenue to speak of makes a company more valuable. It’s satire…but is it?

arcturus17 4y ago

In a way it isn’t because no revenue at all can excite the imagination infinitely more than underwhelming revenue.

maccard 4y ago

> It’s satire…but is it? Depends on your definition of value. If a companies max revenue is $X, the farther away from $X they are the more of a return you can hope to get!

HNDen21 4y ago

This was the Masayoshi Son/Adam Neumann playbook for WeWork... growth above all

robbiep 4y ago

A company with no revenue can potentially raise at a higher valuation with a company of $1 of revenue - because now it’s real and investors will start making their mind up about the actual possiblities of the investment

foobiekr 4y ago
Directly experienced this - having actual _profit_ makes it hard to encourage fantastical storytelling about how big the upside is. It's the company future equivalent of mark-to-market. Revenue .. well, if you can get huge revenue with huge losses and convincingly demonstrate (mostly by spending) that more losses (= more capital) means more revenue can actually take you a long way. Almost all of the "unicorns" and "decacorns" embraced this model - lose $2-5 per $ of revenue but able to demonstrate almost unlimited market. Most of those companies can never, ever be profitable entities.

ihaveajob 4y ago

I've heard this time and time again in SV circles. It probably is for the right founder who is able to paint a rosy picture and a nice story. I'm not that kind of person, so it's bonkers to me.

papito 4y ago
Like Adam Nuemann. You have to be tall and loud. Doesn't matter if you are making sense or not. Sometimes VCs act like gullible women on a date who are enamored by a douchebag, I swear.

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago

It matters what portion of the cycle we are in. We used to be in the voting portion, now we are in the weighing machine portion and things are very different. “In other words, the market is not a weighing machine, on which the value of each issue is recorded by an exact and impersonal mechanism, in accordance with its specific qualities. Rather should we say that the market is a voting machine, whereon countless individuals register choices which are the product partly of reason and partly of emotion.” -Security Analysis 1934