That term gets used way too often and way too loosely. At some level, everything is a Ponzi Scheme. I think "pump and dump" is more accurately descriptive. And you never know: YC suppressing bad press on HN and promoting good press could be considered market manipulation.
Everything isn’t a Ponzi scheme though. The current well known profitable tech companies were all profitable before they IPOd except for Amazon and Netflix(?). Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Intel, Nvidia, etc.
Have there been any successful sustainably profitable tech companies to go public since Facebook?
$FB was barely profitable, IPOing with a 400 P/E. And they had losses in two consecutive quarters a year after the IPO[1].
AMZN wasn't profitable for 7 years, then fell to unprofitable again in 2012 and 2014[2].
AAPL was net in the red from 1996 to 2003[3].
So, were all these companies "Ponzi schemes" during the eras where they were investing in growth?
And if your only qualification is to "be profitable" for something not to be a Ponzi, then why are you here ragging on places like Coinbase? Coinbase is a 5.7 P/E company with $4b in net cash right now.
So, you don't even bother respecting what I wrote? Cool. I'm sorry I bothered to help you.
If your definition of "Ponzi Scheme" is simply that a company is profitable the moment they go public, then not even the original Ponzi Scheme was a Ponzi Scheme.
