Agree?

Fully agree.

Not just pre-PMF, raising more than whats truly needed in your Series B & C lends you to scale up pressures - and most startups crumple then.

Valuations take a hit because the scale up led hypothesis didn't play out. Layoffs inevitable follow because you've assembled a large team to help scale and now you're gasping for breath.

Always advise startups to be very careful who you seek your inputs from. "Lets raise as much as we can" is a disaster waiting to happen. A lot of them did this in the funding deluge of 2021 and we're seeing those aggressive positions unwind through 2023 with the layoffs.

what does n-1 and n+1 mean here

Agree. If you have money you will just throw it at the problem by hiring people, marketing and building without validation and most importantly you won’t worry about the P&L .