[maverick-iceman]

A startup is a company which faces significant risk of its equity going to zero, which has also never had a period in which the risk of its equity going to zero was negligible.

Tesla is still a startup, so is Rivian

Google is not a startup, Bank of America back in 2009 wasn't a startup although risk of equity going to zero was huge, but it had a darn long spell in which the risk was nonexistent.

[sandworm101]

There are a few startups where that definition needs some flexibility, specifically startups that are based on large assets. A farm might be a startup, even though its key underlying asset (land rights) really will never approach zero. It could still fail without ever getting into net zero equity.

[maverick-iceman]

I mean equity market price, not equity book value.

Equity market price embeds every information about the company.