This single slide — marked up in the yellow scrawl of SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son — captures this era's euphoria over the hyper-scaling of tech startups, combusting with extremely low interest rates:
The big picture: Cash gushers chase indefensible valuations on delusional growth prospects and paths to profitability, with little regard for the reality of the underlying business and market structure.
Startups aimed at reducing household waste have previously lacked the kind of mass consumer backing and potential for scale that investors like to see. That’s changing now.
Why it matters: Consumers produce waste — plastics, packaging and food — at nearly every moment of the day, from the bag that holds new bed sheets to the sugar packets with a dinner espresso.
