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1280 Companies[1] — 1 IPO Kingmakers... hardly. I remember going to a Commonwealth Club talk in January of 2013 titled: "Y Combinator:The Secret in this Incub

1280 Companies[1] — 1 IPO Kingmakers... hardly. I remember going to a Commonwealth Club talk in January of 2013 titled: "Y Combinator:The Secret in this Incubator's Sauce". They talked about how YC exits are on par with or worse than any person trying to start a company. Sure there is tons of support when you're in the program and they really try to ensure soft landings through their relationships, but it's hardly a machine where your entrance into YC guarantees you a billion dollar valuation and great IPO. Saying that, I still think YC is a wonderful program. It's what business school should be — starting and running a company; not talking about it. They have amazing leadership, mentorship, relationships and community in place which remove huge barriers from starting a company. I advise everyone I know who has a company idea to apply every semester. [1] - http://yclist.com http://yclist.com

chaostheory 9y ago
This gives a better picture than yclist https://www.seed-db.com/accelerators https://www.seed-db.com/accelerators If you look at the runners up to YC, they're still far behind on a lot of metrics
shafyy 9y ago
What makes you think business school is strictly for people who want to be entrepreneurs? Now, I agree that all these new "Entrepreneurship Master's" are a bunch of BS, but business school per se might have its merits.
- joeblau 9y ago
  I don't think business school is for people that want to be entrepreneurs. I have a lot of friends who think that business school is for people who want to become entrepreneurs. Business school is for people that want to learn how to run and optimize other peoples businesses. I'm currently enrolled in Harvard's Executive MBA program and it's a great program, but it's focused on how to optimize a company that's already moving. I've also attend a few YC Startup Schools and those are optimized for someone who wants to create something from scratch. There are a lot of overlapping concepts, but Startup School and Business School clearly have different goals. After thinking about it, you're right — Business school probably should't be renamed, but more explicit: Run Someone Else's Business School. And YC is more like: Run Your Own Startup School.
asaph 9y ago
> 1280 Companies[1] — 1 IPO > Kingmakers... hardly. An IPO is not the only measure of success. Some successful YC companies are opting to remain private longer e.g. AirBnB, Coinbase and some have been acquired e.g. Heroku, Reddit.
- joeblau 9y ago
  Being acquired or acqui-hired(soft landing) means the company (and probably the culture) is gone. I worked at BBN Technologies back in the mid 2000's. This is the company that co-founded the internet, they have the second domain name ever registered (bbn.com)[1], their engineers co-invented foundational technologies that make the internet work today. In 2009, they were acquired by Raytheon[2]. As a stand alone company, BBN was not able to generate sustainable value, but Raytheon as the prime contractor is able to. Also, being private longer but losing money is not sustainable. If companies are private and profitable, then that's a different story. AirBnB is still raising money[3] and their valuation is almost too big for them to get acquired. Their only successful exit is an IPO or becoming so profitable that they can buy out their investors. Coinbase is making a killing so they might be sustainable especially with the growth of the cryptocurrency market over the past 2-3 years (And the fees they keep charging me). SalesForce & Condé Nast have generated more value out of Heorku and Reddit than YC. Don't get me wrong — I love YC products. I stayed at an AirBnB in March in Vancouver, I bought some Ethereum today on Coinbase, I updated a site I maintain[4] which has been running on a free Heroku Dyno for 5 years+ and my Reddit birthday is January 19, 2010. YC companies have the same challenges that everyone else has even with their power and influence. There needs to be more of a track record of YC companies succeeding disproportionally to other companies before I could classify them as kingmakers. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_registered_Internet_domain_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_r... [2] - https://www.raytheon.com/ourcompany/bbn/ https://www.raytheon.com/ourcompany/bbn/ [3] - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb/funding_rounds/funding_rounds_list https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb/funding_round... [4] - https://gitignore.io https://gitignore.io
  - nl 9y ago
    I’d note the article specifically says when AirBnB is planning to IPO. Private market valuations are more risky than public markets, but it isn’t 2008 anymore, and the ecosystem of large funds funding large growth rounds is well understood now.
austenallred 9y ago
YC companies are collectively worth over $80 billion. They’ve invested in about 1500. Considering they’re almost always first money in, those are not even in the same zip code as normal returns. Those numbers are absolutely astounding.
- majani 9y ago
  The 'worth' of a private investor's portfolio is a vanity metric. A more precise measure of YC's success would be money invested VS realized returns. Are those figures available?
  - austenallred 9y ago
    It’s not really a vanity metric in this day and age. A lot of the best companies aren’t going public... ever. The measure that determines whether it’s a vanity metric or not is liquidity. If there are a dozen investors willing to buy stock at $x it’s worth $x.
    - sanderjd 9y ago
      > The measure that determines whether it’s a vanity metric or not is liquidity. Ok, are those figures available?
      - austenallred 9y ago
        There’s not really a way to get those numbers outside of asking a bunch of random people. I can say that I worked at a company that wasn’t in the top 50 and the market for shares was completely liquid. Most of the time at $100m+ valuation it should pretty active.
        dsacco 9y ago
        I think you should clarify what liquidity means in your anecdote, because liquidity is a function of time and volume. Definitionally speaking, shares in a private company are not as liquid as shares in a public company. So what does "completely liquid" mean? Could every owner of private shares find a buyer if they wanted to? If not, what subset could? That these figures are not public is a very important discussion point, because it does introduce some level of anecdata and arbitrary speculation into the discussion. That's not to say you're wrong, but it's certainly imprecise and questionable.

chaostheory 9y ago

This gives a better picture than yclist https://www.seed-db.com/accelerators https://www.seed-db.com/accelerators If you look at the runners up to YC, they're still far behind on a lot of metrics

shafyy 9y ago

What makes you think business school is strictly for people who want to be entrepreneurs? Now, I agree that all these new "Entrepreneurship Master's" are a bunch of BS, but business school per se might have its merits.

joeblau 9y ago
I don't think business school is for people that want to be entrepreneurs. I have a lot of friends who think that business school is for people who want to become entrepreneurs. Business school is for people that want to learn how to run and optimize other peoples businesses. I'm currently enrolled in Harvard's Executive MBA program and it's a great program, but it's focused on how to optimize a company that's already moving. I've also attend a few YC Startup Schools and those are optimized for someone who wants to create something from scratch. There are a lot of overlapping concepts, but Startup School and Business School clearly have different goals. After thinking about it, you're right — Business school probably should't be renamed, but more explicit: Run Someone Else's Business School. And YC is more like: Run Your Own Startup School.

asaph 9y ago

> 1280 Companies[1] — 1 IPO > Kingmakers... hardly. An IPO is not the only measure of success. Some successful YC companies are opting to remain private longer e.g. AirBnB, Coinbase and some have been acquired e.g. Heroku, Reddit.

joeblau 9y ago
Being acquired or acqui-hired(soft landing) means the company (and probably the culture) is gone. I worked at BBN Technologies back in the mid 2000's. This is the company that co-founded the internet, they have the second domain name ever registered (bbn.com)[1], their engineers co-invented foundational technologies that make the internet work today. In 2009, they were acquired by Raytheon[2]. As a stand alone company, BBN was not able to generate sustainable value, but Raytheon as the prime contractor is able to. Also, being private longer but losing money is not sustainable. If companies are private and profitable, then that's a different story. AirBnB is still raising money[3] and their valuation is almost too big for them to get acquired. Their only successful exit is an IPO or becoming so profitable that they can buy out their investors. Coinbase is making a killing so they might be sustainable especially with the growth of the cryptocurrency market over the past 2-3 years (And the fees they keep charging me). SalesForce & Condé Nast have generated more value out of Heorku and Reddit than YC. Don't get me wrong — I love YC products. I stayed at an AirBnB in March in Vancouver, I bought some Ethereum today on Coinbase, I updated a site I maintain[4] which has been running on a free Heroku Dyno for 5 years+ and my Reddit birthday is January 19, 2010. YC companies have the same challenges that everyone else has even with their power and influence. There needs to be more of a track record of YC companies succeeding disproportionally to other companies before I could classify them as kingmakers. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_registered_Internet_domain_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_r... [2] - https://www.raytheon.com/ourcompany/bbn/ https://www.raytheon.com/ourcompany/bbn/ [3] - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb/funding_rounds/funding_rounds_list https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb/funding_round... [4] - https://gitignore.io https://gitignore.io
- nl 9y ago
  I’d note the article specifically says when AirBnB is planning to IPO. Private market valuations are more risky than public markets, but it isn’t 2008 anymore, and the ecosystem of large funds funding large growth rounds is well understood now.

austenallred 9y ago

YC companies are collectively worth over $80 billion. They’ve invested in about 1500. Considering they’re almost always first money in, those are not even in the same zip code as normal returns. Those numbers are absolutely astounding.

majani 9y ago
The 'worth' of a private investor's portfolio is a vanity metric. A more precise measure of YC's success would be money invested VS realized returns. Are those figures available?
- austenallred 9y ago
  It’s not really a vanity metric in this day and age. A lot of the best companies aren’t going public... ever. The measure that determines whether it’s a vanity metric or not is liquidity. If there are a dozen investors willing to buy stock at $x it’s worth $x.
  - sanderjd 9y ago
    > The measure that determines whether it’s a vanity metric or not is liquidity. Ok, are those figures available?
    - austenallred 9y ago
      There’s not really a way to get those numbers outside of asking a bunch of random people. I can say that I worked at a company that wasn’t in the top 50 and the market for shares was completely liquid. Most of the time at $100m+ valuation it should pretty active.
      - dsacco 9y ago
        I think you should clarify what liquidity means in your anecdote, because liquidity is a function of time and volume. Definitionally speaking, shares in a private company are not as liquid as shares in a public company. So what does "completely liquid" mean? Could every owner of private shares find a buyer if they wanted to? If not, what subset could? That these figures are not public is a very important discussion point, because it does introduce some level of anecdata and arbitrary speculation into the discussion. That's not to say you're wrong, but it's certainly imprecise and questionable.