This is very interesting question and answer is not so simple.
First, if a company is a startup which is not yet profitable and burning investors money you should assume that the company is failing. Yes - you might be wrong (i.e., the company is AirBnB, Dropbox, etc.) not but in 95% of cases the company will eventually fail. In this case, just ask CEO/CFO/your manager about what is runaway, cash on hand, etc.
Second, if a company is already established (out of startup mode) then you can see signs:
- senior management leave (they have access to more informations than you)
- rapid flip-flopping on features and priorities (maybe caused by above)
> a startup which is not yet profitable and burning investors money you should assume that the company is failing
If a startup doesn't have a period where it is "not yet profitable and burning investors money", then it didn't need investors in the first place. The whole point of venture capital is to enable the existence of "convex" business models that require a period of revenue-less work before anything happens.
There are many type of businesses that need to 'burn investor money' before income. Those investors can be (partly) the founders but when R&D of a product takes millions because of external factors then you cannot prevent spending only investor money at least until you have something to sell.
First, if a company is a startup which is not yet profitable and burning investors money you should assume that the company is failing. Yes - you might be wrong (i.e., the company is AirBnB, Dropbox, etc.) not but in 95% of cases the company will eventually fail. In this case, just ask CEO/CFO/your manager about what is runaway, cash on hand, etc.
Second, if a company is already established (out of startup mode) then you can see signs:
- senior management leave (they have access to more informations than you)
- rapid flip-flopping on features and priorities (maybe caused by above)
- TPS reports become a norm