> It's bananas to me that questions like these could be unanswered even 5 years after the business started.

Those are rookie numbers, Discord is coming up on 10 years old and has made zero dollars to date, yet is supposedly considering an IPO soon.

It's very common for tech companies to go public without being profitable. As long as their growth is good and they have a reasonable story for how they will achieve profitability, then it typically makes sense. Of course every company is different and not all will reach their profitability goals post-IPO, but in many cases, it wouldn't make sense to wait for profitability before going public.

Also reasons they need to go public. Growth is costly.

Discord has a fairly successful subscription product that is generating tens of millions in revenue. They most certainly have made more than 0 dollars. Profitable? Less likely.

Yeah I meant zero profit, poor wording on my part.

Discord has the user growth to make up for it. It’s practically a household name on the level of Google now. I see many people boosting servers too, so clearly they are making a bunch of money.

> This possibly cannot be the most efficient way for finding new solutions and "disrupting" stale industries?

The thing is, the people with far more information than we have, and with actual money on the line, think this is a good use of their money. They're not always right, of course, but the industry as a whole is profitable and is innovative and "disruptive".

So, yes, this can be a good way for finding new solutions. The most efficient? IDK but it's the best we've come up with so far.

What's really bananas is that your comment is just as relevant today as it would have been 15 years ago. It's been bananas for a while now.