I'm always surprised how often people naively talk about "runway" when looking at the health of a startup (or any company).
These arguments always presuppose that the reason companies exist is to keep people employed, and thus 'runway' assumes they can keep doing that is for N years.
But runway is a more or less meaningless piece of information unless you're looking at just a few months and have to close shop soon.
Whether a startup or a publicly traded company, you only invest because you think that runway most certainly ends in a massive reward for you. The claim that "hey we can keep existing for N months!" is not interesting to investors. Even if a startup has 10 years of cash on hand, if they aren't showing the potential for rapid growth, especially when investors are less interested in risk, they're still going to die.
These arguments always presuppose that the reason companies exist is to keep people employed, and thus 'runway' assumes they can keep doing that is for N years.
But runway is a more or less meaningless piece of information unless you're looking at just a few months and have to close shop soon.
Whether a startup or a publicly traded company, you only invest because you think that runway most certainly ends in a massive reward for you. The claim that "hey we can keep existing for N months!" is not interesting to investors. Even if a startup has 10 years of cash on hand, if they aren't showing the potential for rapid growth, especially when investors are less interested in risk, they're still going to die.