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That's pretty surprising...

You would think with 15K creators and their traffic they would be able to monetize better... having to cut down to only three employees suggests they aren't making much revenue at all...

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That's the unicorn way. Tech companies are encouraged, practically forced, to overspend in an attempt to show "hockey stick growth". This strategy has two positive properties for the investor: it ensures that the entrepreneur will be back before the VC to grovel for more cash in the next 24-36 months, and it gives the VC a way to kill investments he doesn't believe in anymore, despite what is a conventionally respectable and sustainable growth rate, by refusing to provide that infusion. Since most founders are naive 20-somethings, this trick works.

or three employees were bringing in all the money, and the others were overhead.

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