Investors should run away as quickly as possible. If that quote from the Chief Revenue Officer isn't a red flag, I don't know what is.
To suggest that an investor can't earn a profit by putting cash into a business with a burn rate is as sophomoric as believing you can run a business on investor money without ever turning a profit.
So a company took 10 years of burning through cash until a moment it didn't. Is that supposed to mean it was a sound investment?
Seems like it worked out great for the early investors.
He could have talked about revenue growth, investing in expansion, CAC decreasing at scale, etc. There are many ways to approach this question that demonstrate a quantitative grasp of the business and inspire confidence. His answer was not one of them.
Twitter and Vice Media(as opposed to just the magazine) both have origins of 2006.
From the article:
>"In 2006, Vice started Virtue, a cheekily named ad agency that allowed the magazine to deploy its creative talents on behalf of brands. A year later, Vice became one of the first digital-media outlets to get into online video with vbs.tv, a digital-video site funded with a $2 million investment from Viacom."
Money just retains control of the industry on the long-term.
It's all about the power, and influence.
Murdoch isn't invested in Vice for shits.