Skip to content

Raw data: Unicorns with the biggest losses

Published on 25 Comments on Raw data: Unicorns with the biggest losses

Over at MarketWatch, Jeffrey Lee Funk and Gary Smith present a list of Silicon Valley's biggest losers:

I don't have any real comment on this except yikes. I didn't quite realize you could lose this much money. I'm such a hayseed.

25 thoughts on “Raw data: Unicorns with the biggest losses”

    1. Austin

      They lost the money they got from selling stock shares + they lost the revenue they got from selling whatever it is they sell. So for example, if Uber got $25.2B in stock sales revenue and another, say, $100B in users paying fares, but then shelled out $156.9B in compensation to drivers, labor costs for the software developers and back office workers, costs for operating or renting server space to process all the trip bookings, etc., they would have netted $31.7B in losses. It's what happens when your business model has you providing lots of unprofitable services.

      $ 25.2B
      +$100.0B
      -$156.9B
      =$ 31.7B in losses

      1. Austin

        There might have been a reason why taxi companies had higher fares than Uber for so long... perhaps undercutting the regulated taxi fares wasn't such a profitable idea after all?

        1. memyselfandi

          The main expense in many if not most cities for taxi operators is the taxi license. By refusing to get these as is legally required, Uber eliminates the top expense of their competitors and can thus charge much lower prices. It's amazing hw breaking the law can reduce costs.

      2. memyselfandi

        You're missing the point of where did the 6.5billion in losses above euity come from. presumably in bank loans or bonds as suggested in original comment.

    2. johnbroughton2013

      Accounting losses and net outflows of funds (cash) are two different things. So yes, if a company borrows money, that's not included in "funds raised" (equity/investments).

      Another non-cash expense (so, no outflow of cash, but adding to losses) is stock compensation. If a company issues (say) $10 million of stock, as compensation, that's an expense, but it's not a cash outflow.

      1. memyselfandi

        You're missing the point of where did the 6.5billion in losses above euity come from. presumably in bank loans or bonds as suggested in original comment.

  2. kahner

    Also good to note that Uber's CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi's was paid 20 million in 2021 and varies but is usually in the 10-50 million dollar range. Nice gig.

  3. golack

    And how many are still out there losing money??? (What--they all are!!!)

    Aren't you missing some of the biggest losers? (Ok, the article mentioned Theranos, but they were pikers, only losing half a billion...)

  6. rick_jones

    Startup trajectories suggest most will fail, but I wonder, what were Amazon’s cumulative losses over how long before they were profitable?

    1. golack

      Amazon spent a lot of their revenue building out the infrastructure of its businesses, with little to no return to investors, and investors were fine with that. That's different from using investor money to subsidize their operations for years on end to grow market share. In other words, I don't think Amazon was selling their books at a loss whereas Uber was using investor money to subsidize rides, at least until recently.

    2. GenXer

      Amazon became profitable fairly quickly. It started in Bezos's garage in 1994 and turned its first profitable quarter in 2001. Over those first 4 years, it had cumulative losses of $2.86 billion.

  8. pjcamp1905

    Palantir? How does Peter Thiel still have money to blow on yahoos? Are other people letting him lose their money for them?

  9. tinfoil

    Here's a site from 17 months ago with a similar message, but also with nice graphs comparing them to Amazon (which itself was somewhat of an exception compared to, say Google and Facebook). Amazon took 9 years to turn a profit and 15 to wipe out cumulative losses. Some of the companies on this list make Amazon look really good!

    https://wolfstreet.com/2021/07/05/todays-unicorns-have-bigger-cumulative-losses-than-amazon-had-lost-money-far-longer-than-amazon-still-dont-show-a-turnaround/

  10. jamesepowell

    Some of these companies might pan out. I've heard people speak well of Rivian's pickup truck & I am starting to see them regularly on the Los Angeles freeways. Just like I started seeing Teslas a few year ago & now they are everywhere.

    Then again, remember the Bricklin?

Comments are closed.