The Burn Report

Case Studies in Capital Deployment

Real stories. Anonymous confessions. Learn from the legends who burned billions—and the ones who survived.

Fraud → Comeback

The Luckin Redemption

Luckin Coffee · China · 2017–Present

$864M
Raised
$300M
Fabricated
21,000+
Stores today

In 2020, Luckin admitted to fabricating $300 million in sales. They inflated revenue by 28-45% through fake transactions with shell companies. Employees created a fake operations database and altered accounting records. The SEC fined them $180M. They got delisted from NASDAQ. Filed for bankruptcy.

Then something wild happened. New management took over. They actually built a good coffee business. Today, Luckin has more stores in China than Starbucks. They emerged from bankruptcy in 2022. The stock is up 800%+ from its lows.

Lessons Learned

  • Don't fake $300M in revenue (obvious but apparently needs saying)
  • If you do commit fraud, at least have a decent underlying business
  • Management matters—new team turned a fraud case into a success story
  • China's market is big enough to overcome almost anything
Verdict: The greatest comeback in burn rate history. Now bigger than Starbucks.
Real Estate Tech

The Adam Neumann Masterclass

WeWork · NYC · 2010–2019

$47B
Peak valuation
$1.9B
Lost in 2018
$1.7B
Exit package

Adam Neumann redefined what's possible in capital deployment. $60M private jet. Tequila shots with employees after announcing layoffs. Trademarked the word "We" personally, then charged his own company $5.9M to license it. His jet crew found a cereal box of marijuana after a trip, so the plane left him stranded in Israel.

He renovated his office with a personal sauna, ice bath, and punching bag. Bought five homes including a $35M four-apartment combo in Gramercy. When it all collapsed, SoftBank paid him $1.7B to go away—including a $185M "consulting fee."

Lessons Learned

  • If you're going to burn money, burn it with conviction
  • Charisma can delay consequences for a surprisingly long time
  • Always negotiate your exit before they realize the numbers don't work
  • SoftBank will fund almost anything with enough "energy"
Verdict: The GOAT. Got paid $1.7B to leave. Currently raising for a new startup.
Hardware

The $700 Hand-Squeezable Bag

Juicero · Silicon Valley · 2013–2017

$134M
Raised
$750
Cost to make
$699
Sold for

Doug Evans convinced Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins to invest $134M in a WiFi-connected juice press. The machine cost $750 to manufacture but sold for $699—losing money on every unit before operational costs. They were burning $4M/month.

Then Bloomberg published a video showing you could squeeze the proprietary juice bags with your bare hands and get the same result. The $700 machine was functionally equivalent to... hands. Shut down 16 months after launch.

Lessons Learned

  • Before building hardware, check if hands already solve the problem
  • Losing money on every unit is not a "scale play"
  • IoT doesn't make everything better
  • Investors will fund anything if you say "disrupting" enough
Verdict: Peak Silicon Valley. Now a punchline in every pitch deck warning slide.
Streaming

$1.75 Billion in Quick Bites

Quibi · Hollywood · 2018–2020

$1.75B
Raised
6 mo
Lifespan
$6M/hr
Content cost

Jeffrey Katzenberg (DreamWorks) and Meg Whitman (HP, eBay) raised $1.75B for "quick bites"—short-form mobile video with A-list talent. They paid $6 million per hour of programming. Steven Spielberg, Kevin Hart, Kristen Bell. All for content designed to watch on a phone.

They expected 7M subscribers. They got 710K. Launched April 2020, announced shutdown October 2020. Sold to Roku for less than $100M. Katzenberg later said he was "proud to own the failure."

Lessons Learned

  • Nobody asked for "premium short-form mobile-only content"
  • TikTok exists and it's free
  • Experience doesn't guarantee success—it can actually hurt
  • $1.75B is a lot of money for an app nobody needed
Verdict: Record-setting capital efficiency: $2.46M burned per day of operation.
SaaS

$10M/Month on $600K Revenue

Fast · San Francisco · 2019–2022

$124M
Raised
$600K
2021 Revenue
450
Employees laid off

One-click checkout company. Stripe led their Series B at a $580M valuation. They had $600K in annual revenue while burning $10M per month. That's 450 employees generating less revenue than a decent Shopify store.

Tried to raise at $1B. No takers. Offered to halve the ask and cut 50% of staff. Still no takers. Laid off all 450 employees in one day. CEO Domm Holland's last tweet: "Today is a very difficult day."

Lessons Learned

  • Revenue should probably exceed burn rate at some point
  • 450 employees for $600K ARR is approximately 449 too many
  • The VC gravy train does eventually stop
  • One-click checkout is not a $1B problem
Verdict: The poster child for 2021 excess. Now a cautionary tale at every board meeting.
Delivery

$1 Billion on Warehouses (1999 Edition)

Webvan · Bay Area · 1999–2001

$800M
Raised
$2M/day
Burn rate
$143
Spent per $100 sold

Online grocery delivery before anyone had broadband. Raised $800M including $375M in a 1999 IPO at $4.8B valuation. Immediately ordered $1 billion in automated warehouses from Bechtel—$35M per facility. None of the executives had grocery experience.

They spent $143 for every $100 of groceries sold. Burned $2M daily. Stock fell from $30 to $0.06. Laid off 2,000 employees. Became the symbol of dot-com excess.

Lessons Learned

  • Maybe prove the model before ordering $1B in warehouses
  • Grocery experience might matter for a grocery company
  • Spending $143 to make $100 is not a path to profitability
  • Instacart waited 15 years and it worked
Verdict: 25 years ahead of their time. Also 25 years ahead of the infrastructure.

Anonymous Confessions

Real stories from real operators. Names changed, lessons preserved. Submit yours below.

$2.3M

Hired an "AI strategy consultant" for $45k/month who delivered PowerPoints with stock photos. After 18 months, we had 127 slide decks and zero shipped products. He's now advising three of our portfolio companies.

Anonymous · Series B Fintech Consulting
$890K

Flew the entire 40-person team to Lisbon for a "strategy offsite." Budget was $200K. Came back with a new mission statement and a CEO who now lives in Portugal. The mission statement is on a wall nobody looks at.

Anonymous · Seed SaaS Team Events
$1.7M

Rebuilt our entire backend in Rust because our CTO read a blog post. The rewrite took 14 months. Our Node.js MVP handled the traffic fine. We now have the world's fastest API for our 340 monthly active users.

Anonymous · Pre-revenue Dev Tools Engineering
$430K

Hired a brand agency to redesign our logo. Six months later we had 47 logo concepts, a 200-page brand guidelines doc, and the exact same logo in a slightly different shade of blue. Our users didn't notice.

Anonymous · Series A E-commerce Branding
$3.1M

Opened a Singapore office to "expand into APAC." Hired 12 people. Got zero customers in 18 months. Turned out our product required US bank accounts. We now have a very nice empty office with a harbor view.

Anonymous · Series B Payments Expansion
$780K

Our CEO bought a Tesla for every employee who hit their Q4 targets. 11 Teslas later, we realized nobody hit their targets—he just really wanted to buy Teslas. Now we have an underground parking lot that looks like a Tesla dealership.

Anonymous · Series C Marketplace Perks

Submit Your Story

Share your capital deployment adventure. All submissions are anonymous. The best stories get featured.

  • 🔒
    100% Anonymous — We don't collect identifying info. No emails stored. No IP logs.
  • ✍️
    Real Stories Only — Fiction is boring. The truth is always funnier.
  • 🎯
    Include the Number — How much was burned? Specificity makes it real.
  • 📚
    Lessons Welcome — What would you do differently? Help others learn.

200 words max. We'll edit for clarity but preserve the essence.

All-Time Burn Leaderboard

Rank Company Burned Timeframe $/Day Outcome
#1
Quibi
Quick bites streaming
 $1.75B 6 months $9.7M/day Sold for <$100M
#2
WeWork
"Space as a Service"
 $1.9B 2018 alone $5.2M/day Bankruptcy (2023)
#3
Webvan
Grocery delivery (1999)
 $1B+ 19 months $1.8M/day Bankrupt
#4
MoviePass
$10 unlimited movies
 $300M+ ~2 years $411K/day Shut down, revived, TBD
#5
Juicero
WiFi juice press
 $134M 16 months $279K/day Shut down
#6
Fast
One-click checkout
 $124M ~3 years $113K/day Shut down
*
Luckin Coffee
The comeback kid
 $864M Ongoing Profitable now Bigger than Starbucks