Runway
The distance between now and the moment everyone quietly updates their LinkedIn.
"We have eight months of runway, which finance calls four."
Burn rate
How fast the company sets investor money on fire to stay warm.
"Our burn rate is fine if you do not think about it, which is the strategy."
EBITDA
Earnings before all the parts that make the earnings look bad.
"We are profitable on an EBITDA basis, ignoring rent, payroll, and reality."
Down round
A funding event celebrated in the press release and mourned in the cap table.
"We raised at a down round, or as the email called it, a strategic recalibration."
Cap table
A spreadsheet that quietly decides who in this room actually got rich.
"I read the cap table once and never felt the same about my equity."
Pro forma
Numbers describing a future that exists only in the deck.
"The pro forma has us at a billion in revenue by a year that keeps moving."
Cost center
What finance calls your entire team right before the reorg.
"We got reclassified from strategic to cost center on a Tuesday."
Haircut
A polite word for the money you were promised getting noticeably shorter.
"The valuation took a haircut. It is basically bald now."
Bridge round
Emergency funding to reach the next funding you also cannot reach.
"We are raising a bridge round to bridge to the bridge."
Disrupt
To enter an industry you do not understand and add an app to it.
"We are disrupting laundry by making it a subscription you cannot cancel."
Thought leader
Someone who tweets opinions at 6 a.m. and calls it a career.
"He became a thought leader by being wrong loudly and early."
Growth hack
A trick to acquire users that works exactly once and ruins it for everyone.
"Our growth hack was emailing your entire contact list without asking. Bold."
10x engineer
A developer ten times as productive and ten times as impossible to work with.
"Our 10x engineer rewrote everything in a language only he can read."
AI-powered
A label applied to any product containing at least one if-statement.
"It is AI-powered. The AI is an intern named Kyle answering chats."
Move fast and break things
A philosophy that works great until the thing you break is in production at 2 a.m.
"We moved fast and broke things. The things were customer payments."
Hustle
Doing the work of three people for the salary of one and posting about how grateful you are.
"Rise and hustle. I have not slept since Series A."
Web3
The same internet, now with extra steps and a wallet you will lose.
"We put it on Web3. Nobody can use it, but it is decentralized."
Visionary
A founder whose vision is consistently three years away and one round of funding short.
"He is a visionary, meaning the demo does not work yet but the keynote slaps."
MVP
Minimum Viable Product. The 10% of what you promised, shipped early and rebranded as lean.
"The MVP has one feature and three disclaimers."
MVP
Most Vanishing Person. The teammate whose camera, mic, and Slack dot all go dark the instant work is assigned.
"Assign a task and watch the MVP achieve total invisibility."