The game is to chase growth. If you are "profitable" you by-definition have money that you left sitting and didn't use for acquiring more customers. Once a com

The game is to chase growth. If you are "profitable" you by-definition have money that you left sitting and didn't use for acquiring more customers. Once a company is on a vc-funded path, they need to target hyper-growth, or the next round of funding won't be close-able. And when that's your goal, you spend it all trying to get the growth you'll need--so there's no "profit" and you NEED that next round of funding. Additionally, it may be difficult to transition from a fast-growth orientation to a profitability orientation because the board has been weighted with investors whose interests lie solely in this company maximizing it's chances of becoming a unicorn--anything else to a VC is essentially irrelevant. The company has a duty to those investors. For the entrepreneur playing this game, if they want to continue playing The Game of Unicorns in their future startups, success is largely about keeping investors happy by approaching "success" with the same definition the investors use (unicorn or bust). If they prove they can do this, they have a shot at getting their next startup funded. The net result is that startups rarely "make a profit" and the acquisitions are soft-landings for the entrepreneur and VC.