It would probably be profitable if they didn’t employ 2000 people to run what is in essence a large but relatively basic forum system.

It's still not an absurdly profitable venture even if you drop head count to 300-500 which is likely a reasonable number. A lot of people could have good careers in that smaller reddit, but it's not a multi-billion dollar unicorn.

That still seems high for what Reddit is. I would have expected them to have 50-100 employees at most.

Reddit is pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars and that number has been rapidly increasing.

They would have easily reached profitability without doing this.

Yes but would they reach the 30% YoY growth in perpetuity we consider mandatory in the modern economy? Fast may seem good but it's actually slow when compared to the fastest horses. Every company must be a unicorn, so sayeth the investors.

> would they reach the 30% YoY growth in perpetuity we consider mandatory in the modern economy

Straw man. If you tell investors you'll grow at 30% YoY for the foreseeable future, and raise money on that premise, you can't turn around after failing to deliver and blame "the modern economy." Plenty of businesses–most of our economy–run on low-growth or steady-state business models.

>> would they reach the 30% YoY growth in perpetuity we consider mandatory in the modern economy

> Straw man. If you tell investors you'll grow at 30% YoY for the foreseeable future, and raise money on that premise, you can't turn around after failing to deliver and blame "the modern economy." Plenty of businesses–most of our economy–run on low-growth or steady-state business models.

Not exactly. The rest of the economy may run on "low-growth or steady-state business models," but the VC investors that control funding for technology businesses demand "30% YoY growth in perpetuity." It's a cultural problem.

> the VC investors that control funding for technology businesses

Reddit was held by a media company, Condé Naste. It chose to raise growth equity from VCs, among others. In summary,

The whole world needs to slow down and take a breath.