It's very hard to value most companies that are at this stage on net profit because most of them are just breaking profitablity (so their net profit will be 0). Basically if you valued companies on net profit you would never acquired a startup (since most of them are unprofitable). Thus, they tend to use other financial metrics (including total sales) and also build a business operating plan to ensure the company can move to profitablity. This is the case for all companies in the early stage (it's not something new to the internet age).
The expected path for startups is:
1) find product market fit
2) build growth
3) build revenue
4) move to a sustainable operating model where at least your gross margins are positive
5) move to cash profitability
6) congrats you've made it and now are a normal sustainable company
Glassdoor was on step #4 and was probably close to #5. Valuing based on net profit would only work on companies in step #6.
The expected path for startups is: 1) find product market fit 2) build growth 3) build revenue 4) move to a sustainable operating model where at least your gross margins are positive 5) move to cash profitability 6) congrats you've made it and now are a normal sustainable company
Glassdoor was on step #4 and was probably close to #5. Valuing based on net profit would only work on companies in step #6.