I had this discussion with my manager once. I was of the opinion that there is no need for secrecy, which is why we were very forthcoming with the stats about reddit. However, he had one pretty good reason to keep financials and other stats secrets: It gives your competitors information they may not otherwise have.

For example, one stat is cost per unit. If your competitor knows that your cost per unit is say only 1% more than theirs, then they know how to undercut you to hurt your business.

I can see the logic in the case of a cut-throat competition. I want to argue that if you find yourself in a business keeping 1% secrets, it might be time to look for other solutions to your problem.

Part of the reason a company stays private is to have more control over the release of financial information. Why would a company that values privacy choose to do business with a firm (a16z) that it can't trust?

That doesn't give a motivation for the secrecy.

I don't know why someone would or would not do business with a16z. Was a particular contact breached here? I don't remember reading such an allegation, but I may have missed it.

Privacy is a reasonable thing to expect in basically all business transactions, regardless of whether it's listed specifically in a contract. Firms that want to maintain good relations with the startup community want to be seen as trustworthy.

I'm reading lots of justification, but no reason for why the secrecy is desired.

Competitive advantage is the reason for secrecy.

Interesting. Do you know of any ways to compute the competitive advantage of holding a given secret?