they're talking about book value, which is all the AAR garbage VC's throw around with their infinite TAMs and all the other clutches of bullshit capitalists need to put in their nests to make themselves feel like they arn't just very complex parasites.

So, in one aspect, like the Matrix, they're not lying: they litterally see that on the paper they're reading from.

But like in the matrix, they just need to be unplugged from the bullshit machine to recognize that this money doesn't exist in the real world.

Scientists, particularly the ones who get ragged on, you know, social scientists, are now well aware that no matter how well any given social goal works in the lab; no matter how much pscyhology they evaluate, depend on, etc, what matters is real world implementation.

Thier sheets of cash raining in from some future valuation simply do not exist in a vacuum, but they want to pretend it does.

So we're litterally watching capitalists look at their piece of meat inside the matrix, and telling us: they do not care that it doesn't actually exists, because on the Capitalism ledger, it feels like real meat.