"Profitability Is a Distraction"
Dear Limited Partners,
Some of you have asked whether our companies will ever turn a profit. I want to address this concern directly and then dismiss it. Profitability is a distraction. The greatest companies of our era lost staggering sums for years, and we have decided to focus exclusively on that part.
A profitable company has, in a sense, given up. It has stopped investing in growth and started settling for "making money," a timid, small-minded goal. Our founders dream bigger. They dream of losing money at a scale historians will study.
This year one of our companies actually became profitable. We were horrified. We urged them to immediately hire 200 people, open four international offices, and launch a product nobody requested, in order to restore the heroic losses that signal ambition. They complied. Disaster was averted. They are unprofitable again, and we could not be prouder.
Profit can wait. Indefinitely.
Unprofitably yours,
Chadwick "Chad" Burnsworth III
Managing Partner