Last night, Pando reported that Apple is about to acquire Path, according to a single source in Apple's engineering team. We heard second-hand that Path is at least in talks with Apple. The idea that an app currently ranked no. 177 in the social networking category on iOS might end up in Apple's ion-strengthened embrace has left some in the tech community questioning their life choices.

In past six weeks former Facebook mafioso Dave Morin has changed his Twitter bio at least three times. Three versions of his mini memoir—"Small town guy," "Small town guy from Montana," and "Entrepreneur & Investor"—omitted any mention of Path, the struggling social networking startup that has raised $77 million in funding.

Is there a startup sadder than Path? No. The answer is no, because no other app sends out Baby, come back to me spam emails as desperate as this one. "A ghost town here," indeed.

If Path cannot be Snapchat, then it shall be the world's 9,000th messaging app. Dave Morin just spent some of his shady new funding to acquire a startup called TalkTo. Like the saying goes, you gotta spend your investors' money to lose your investors' money.

The tech industry will save the world because they know how to think differently—just not from each other. Path, the struggling sticker pack carrying case, is following the wisdom of the venture capital crowd and going ephemeral. At this point, if all the cool kids built a jumping off the bridge app, so would CEO Dave Morin.

How do you know your startup is bombing? It's so unpopular, even when users are getting unsolicited messages from robots saying "Make me cum now," there are so few of those users, it's like it didn't even happen.

When Path sprayed a cheap bottle of champagne in its own face over the weekend, touting a new, loathsome investor, it ended on a positive note. Not only is the superfluous social network staving off death a little longer, it's hiring! But will anyone fall for this dreck?

If you're wondering who the fuck would help give Dave Morin $25 more million to continue Path's jaunt toward nonexistence, here's your illuminating answer: Indonesia's Bakrie Global Group, a company notorious for its disasters. This app is just the latest.

Not long after Dave Morin laid off 20 percent of his employees in October, Path began hemorrhaging valuable staffers.

Dave Morin's social networking app Path laid off 13 employees today, which represents 20 percent of the company's staff. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the layoffs, saying, "We're working to realign the company to support continued innovation and Path 4.0."

After a steady spell of buying its way to the top of download charts, Path is plummeting out of even the top thousand iPhone apps—which makes sense, given that the app has never become popular outside of geek niches. But, guys wasn't Path supposed to be worth half a billion dollars, at least?

Dave Morin, spammy app guy and interpreter of God's will, has finally realized virtual stickers aren't going to make Path profitable. His radical idea: ask people to pay for a yearly subscription to Facebook Lite.

Dave Morin, the smug Silicon Valley smoothie and Facebook alum, has never been easy to like. He runs a boutique social network that spams your friends, he's married to an insufferable plagiarist, and once boasted to Vanity Fair of the "bespoke app" he made for his secretary. Now, here's one more reason to think he's a jerk:

At least when it comes to HR at Facebook, Path, Squarespace, and Etsy. The following composite was pieced together by Branch co-founder Cemre Güngör, and shows just how unimaginative the Idea Economy can be.

We've already touched on the moral cost of spamming your users to rattle up hype—but what about actual cash dollars? According to an insider, Dave Morin's tiny social network is spending huge money to pester your friends to join.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a company that makes virtually no money at all might get a massive, billion dollar price tag out of thin air (but at least people use Tumblr!). According to TechCrunch tipsters, the small and shady social network's spam blitz might've worked.

Path is not a popular app. Outside of privacy crusaders and various geek niches, it's virtually unknown—a sanctimonious social network built to appeal to Facebook's haters, that ended up appealing to few. But for some reason, it's spiking in popularity around the world. Inexplicable, right? No—just shady spam tactics and money at work.

All signs point to Path being desperate for user growth: first spam recidivism, and now a deal with Sprint. Out of the box, popular Android smartphones will put a direct link to download Path in your face, whether you want it or not.

It sure looks like it, according to the laments of one frustrated Brit—he says Dave Morin's twee Facebook respite has been bombarding his friends without permission, even after he deleted it.