unit economics: everyone on the record — The Minutes https://minutesof.com/on/unit-economics/ Everyone on the record about unit economics: 13 verbatim quotes from 3 people, April 2013 to July 2026, in one chronology, each with a timestamp and a… en Sun, 30 Aug 2026 22:33:19 +0000 Bill Gurley: Gurley suspects some AI companies are reselling tokens below cost, creating unsustainable growth. https://minutesof.com/q/65d95540-d4fb-4137-a233-cc618df80c3c/ https://minutesof.com/q/65d95540-d4fb-4137-a233-cc618df80c3c/ “I suspect there are companies that are selling, reselling tokens from Amazon or Anthropic or whoever at a price lower than they're paying for them. And which looks like growth, but it is unsustainable.” — Bill Gurley, Forbes Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:00:14 +0000 unit economics Bill Gurley: Gurley cites Uber shifting from burning $2B yearly to generating $10B in free cash flow through u https://minutesof.com/q/f6c24726-1992-4b0d-a107-884385704465/ https://minutesof.com/q/f6c24726-1992-4b0d-a107-884385704465/ “I mean, Uber was burning 2,000,000,000 a year and Dara had 10,000,000,000 in free cash flow last year. Being able to make that shift, it's gonna require an innate understanding of your true unit economics.” — Bill Gurley, MIT Sloan VCPE Mon, 11 May 2026 19:59:13 +0000 unit economics Bill Gurley: Gurley argues the lifetime value formula causes more trouble for founders than success. https://minutesof.com/q/f2e50a80-64df-4924-a980-f2ed6d99078b/ https://minutesof.com/q/f2e50a80-64df-4924-a980-f2ed6d99078b/ “I think people get into more trouble with the LTV formula than they do, then they get success out of it.” — Bill Gurley, Young and Profiting Mon, 23 Feb 2026 11:01:05 +0000 unit economics David Friedberg: Friedberg asserts all biomanufactured food proteins are currently 10x more expensive than com https://minutesof.com/q/d9cd34f4-9900-4d78-9328-bc0f100f3df3/ https://minutesof.com/q/d9cd34f4-9900-4d78-9328-bc0f100f3df3/ “No matter what startup tells you, whatever they're gonna tell you, it's all 10 x more expensive. Some of them are coming down.” — David Friedberg, Venture Europe Thu, 09 Oct 2025 12:21:31 +0000 unit economics Bill Gurley: Gurley reports rumors that some best-known AI brands have negative gross margins from pricing bel https://minutesof.com/q/d36dd034-e36f-4370-9235-6b98149f4ca5/ https://minutesof.com/q/d36dd034-e36f-4370-9235-6b98149f4ca5/ “There's rumors of even some of the best known brands in AI having negative gross margin.” — Bill Gurley, BG2 Pod Thu, 31 Jul 2025 15:11:15 +0000 unit economics Bill Gurley: Gurley warns AI companies receiving server capacity for equity don't recognize their true COGS in https://minutesof.com/q/209f2c4d-3a71-4c64-9d3e-9e57dcde0186/ https://minutesof.com/q/209f2c4d-3a71-4c64-9d3e-9e57dcde0186/ “They're trading equity for server capacity. And so those companies are running on a day to day basis with a high COGS, but they don't know it” — Bill Gurley, McCombs School of Business Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:57:51 +0000 unit economics Bill Gurley: Gurley warns AI companies trading equity for server capacity don't recognize true COGS and get wa https://minutesof.com/q/0c835641-540c-4ab5-841a-5efd76b94e8b/ https://minutesof.com/q/0c835641-540c-4ab5-841a-5efd76b94e8b/ “They're trading equity for server capacity. And so those companies are running on a day to day basis with a high COGS, but they don't know it because they're not paying cash for it.” — Bill Gurley, McCombs School of Business Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:57:51 +0000 unit economics Bill Gurley: Gurley says Uber was already 20x bigger than the San Francisco taxi market when critics valued it https://minutesof.com/q/5ffad9d0-2541-45f5-90c8-0de940e5c6db/ https://minutesof.com/q/5ffad9d0-2541-45f5-90c8-0de940e5c6db/ “in San Francisco, we're already 20 x bigger than the San Francisco taxi market at the time he wrote it.” — Bill Gurley, McCombs School of Business Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:57:51 +0000 unit economics Brad Gerstner: Gerstner estimates robotaxi revenue per car drops from $140K to $100K due to increased supply l https://minutesof.com/q/ea7bebeb-7121-42d2-a106-d1176445a9de/ https://minutesof.com/q/ea7bebeb-7121-42d2-a106-d1176445a9de/ “When you do that in self driving, we think it goes down to about a 100,000. Why? Well, you have actually more rides in the self driven car.” — Brad Gerstner, BG2 Pod Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:23:12 +0000 unit economics Bill Gurley: Gurley challenges Waymo advocates to publish twenty-year financial projections showing how owned https://minutesof.com/q/c1dcb64d-025e-49b8-91e4-fbcfa495ed9f/ https://minutesof.com/q/c1dcb64d-025e-49b8-91e4-fbcfa495ed9f/ “Let's build a public Google Sheet of the twenty year financial statements for this thing, and let's put it out there in the public.” — Bill Gurley, BG2 Pod Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:23:12 +0000 unit economics Brad Gerstner: Gerstner models Tesla FSD penetration rising from 7% to 20% at $500 monthly maintaining contrib https://minutesof.com/q/d055430b-ac5c-4e0c-b804-af7d28d50882/ https://minutesof.com/q/d055430b-ac5c-4e0c-b804-af7d28d50882/ “I'm happy to pay $500 a month. You know, if you get to, you know, 20% penetration, then your contribution margin at Tesla, right, is about the same, even though you're charging half as much.” — Brad Gerstner, BG2 Pod Thu, 07 Mar 2024 16:29:00 +0000 unit economics Bill Gurley: Gurley explains large capital deployments force massive losses since companies lack infrastructur https://minutesof.com/q/7df9b2f2-0af2-4205-a2dc-91e161392ef3/ https://minutesof.com/q/7df9b2f2-0af2-4205-a2dc-91e161392ef3/ “the only way to deploy that amount of capital is to take on massive losses. There's there's no way to you know, these companies don't have massive infrastructure.” — Bill Gurley, Bloomberg Tech Wed, 02 Oct 2019 18:47:29 +0000 unit economics Bill Gurley: Gurley calls the lifetime value model a house of cards and an excuse. https://minutesof.com/q/d6c86e32-f353-489e-9ee0-0f991a2c9734/ https://minutesof.com/q/d6c86e32-f353-489e-9ee0-0f991a2c9734/ “I think this whole LTV model is a real house of cards. It's just an excuse to say.” — Bill Gurley, TechCrunch Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:27:35 +0000 unit economics