Which is perfectly normal between businesses; pay $90MM to get rid of a $440MM lease contract. Heck, as a consumer, if I want to get rid of my car lease I need to pay a hefty penalty as well.

The notable part is not that they had to pay it. It’s that they chose to pay it. It reveals the magnitude of shift to WFH.

Has their revenue exploded? I thought advertising revenue was down this year.

Etsy & Pinterest are both public companies and this info can be found in their quarterly filings.

TL;DR Yes, revenue has increased. Etsy is spending very strong in advertising with Pinterest getting large amounts of it.

Disclaimer: Position in both companies.

Actually it seems to have flattened off:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/995107/pinterest-quarter...

I didn't entirely write what I meant correctly.

Etsy's revenue has greatly increase: https://www.statista.com/statistics/409407/etsy-quarterly-re...

A lot of Etsy's money did go to advertising. This has ended up in Pinterest's pocket. The fact Pinterest is flat during covid and entirely being an advertising company I consider still growth of revenue. The global advertising spend has greatly decreased, it'll eventually pick back up.

But, yes, you are entirely correct, on a direct statement level, revenue is flat.

For a company to pay almost a hundred million dollars to not rent office space in downtown SF, that's the abnormal part, compared to 2010-2019.

Are you suggesting they would have walked free between '10-'19 ? I am quite certain they wouldn't have.

10-19 they would never have got rid of space - and arguably other potential tenants would have paid them to relinquish their rights

Exactly that. They could have easily found another renter/sublet it for no money lost (potentially even gained) those days.

Yep, one company I work with closely made something like $16M through subleasing or leaseback (I forget the exact arrangement) in early 2019 after they decided to reduce their office footprint.