Ah I have this perfect revenue generating machine, guaranteed to be able to get infinite revenue, just need to find a VC for it...

Here's the secret, you give me $1 and I give you $1.20 in return . rinse and repeat ad infititum

So... MoviePass? :)

Another important distinction is that a company like Airbnb could be profitable overnight if it wanted to. It is choosing not to.

I've heard this statement made many times about start-ups. The problem is often that, in changing their economics to generate a profit, they could allow competitors to take all their market share.

In the case of AirBnB with their $93b market cap to get a P/E of say 35, they would need to generate $2.6b in profit, so could they do that and not crater their market?

You have a good point. Still, many other hyped internet companies couldn’t be profitable even if they wanted to.