Twitter’s long-awaited initial public offering is expected to arrive next week. But before you bust out your checkbook to own a piece of Silicon Valley’s latest hyped stock, consider this: Twitter has yet to earn any money. The company, whose initial share price range of $17 to $20 pegs its value around $11 billion, has posted a net loss of $134 million so far in 2013.
That hardly makes Twitter unique in today’s tech landscape. Increasingly, Internet firms—typically with a social bent—are amassing billion-dollar valuations without earning a dime. Venture capitalists and other investors hope that today’s scrappy startup is tomorrow’s Apple or Google (though those two companies were both profitable before they went public). The firms themselves often say they’re currently focused on growth instead of profits (though fast-growing Facebook still generated $205 million in earnings the quarter before its IPO).
Here’s a look at 9 companies that have crossed the $1 billion valuation threshold without having to worry about actually making money. Some will flourish: the New York Times called Google’s $27 billion IPO valuation “bubbly” in 2004, and today the company is worth twelve times that. Others will flounder: social game maker Zynga’s valuation peaked at $14 billion as a private firm but has since cratered to less than $3 billion as a publicly traded company. Either way, it’s worth understanding exactly how these companies plan to shift from red to black.