That's so unbelievably not true. Both can be difficult in their own right.
Making a lot of revenue is certainly not easy. Not a lot of business models scale up to making hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of revenue per year. Achieving that part is ridiculously difficult.
Making profit, on the other hand, is relatively simple: just control costs. We're making many millions of profit per year because we have a high profit margin. Making profit, relatively speaking, is easy.
For us to grow to hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue, that will be hard.
The idea behind valuing "top line" revenue is that the leverage there is unbelievable. If you increase your efficiency by 1%, you've instantly made tens of millions of dollars per year in profit. In the meantime, most companies voluntarily choose to pour all of their profits into growth, like hiring ahead of the curve.
It's only hard for you to grow to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue because of your profit margin. Start selling stuff for a loss and you'll have tons of revenue (given that your goods are in demand and you are selling them for less than everyone else). They're are tons of businesses with plenty of revenue but shit to show for it. The auto industry comes to mind...
Facebook is not selling physical goods at a loss, and the comparison is not apt.
Facebook is making a bet that if it hires a bunch of really talented people while they are available, those people will eventually make more money for Facebook than they cost them.
Don't confuse that bet with an inability to make profit should they so choose.
Making a lot of revenue is certainly not easy. Not a lot of business models scale up to making hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of revenue per year. Achieving that part is ridiculously difficult.
Making profit, on the other hand, is relatively simple: just control costs. We're making many millions of profit per year because we have a high profit margin. Making profit, relatively speaking, is easy.
For us to grow to hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue, that will be hard.
The idea behind valuing "top line" revenue is that the leverage there is unbelievable. If you increase your efficiency by 1%, you've instantly made tens of millions of dollars per year in profit. In the meantime, most companies voluntarily choose to pour all of their profits into growth, like hiring ahead of the curve.