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Methodology

How Living Teardown tears a company down: where the figures come from, the five questions every business is rated on, and how each teardown is kept current.

Where the figures come from

Every figure comes from the company's own filings with the SEC: its annual reports (10-Ks) and their XBRL facts, read from EDGAR. Ten years of each business are computed in code. A reported number links to the filing it was taken from; a computed one shows its formula and the figures it was computed from. Restated years replace the originals, fiscal years are named by the day they end, and stock splits are applied to the years before them.

As private companies join, each figure says what it rests on: the company's own statements, a press report, or our estimate, each labelled and linked to its source.

Five questions about the business

  • Technology edge

    How hard is the product to build again?

  • Switching costs

    How hard is it for a customer to leave?

  • Growth runway

    How much room is left, and how fast can it be taken?

  • Profitability

    How much of each dollar of revenue becomes cash the business keeps?

  • Reinvestment

    Does the business put its cash to good use, dilution included?

Each axis is scored out of ten with its reason, and each is read on its own: a business can be exceptional at one and weak at another, so the five are never averaged into one number. Ten is as good as the question gets among the companies on the site. Compare two or three businesses axis by axis.

How a teardown stays current

  • The figures follow each new annual filing.
  • The teardown itself is revised when something material changes in the business: a new product line, a shift in pricing, a change in who uses it.
  • Every revision is dated and says what changed and why, in a public change log (from Nov 3, 2026); each earlier version stays readable as it was published.
  • Between revisions, updates record what happened and what it does to the business: stronger, weaker or unchanged.

What it is for

Living Teardown explains how technology businesses work and how they are performing, for tech workers, builders, founders and operators. It is general information, written for learning, and not personal financial advice: it does not know your circumstances.