6 ms·

I hope if someone can provide some statistics on how many YC companies shutdown after X years. That would be very interesting.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
https://www.ycdb.co/ https://www.ycdb.co/
LiamHz 6y ago
This has info (year, exit / dead, one line description) of 1281 YC companies [0] Out of the 49 companies in the S11 batch, 10 exited, 17 are "dead", and 22 have no status. Most of the companies from the W16 batch have no status listed. [0]: https://yclist.com/ https://yclist.com/
- _adamb 6y ago
  My guess is that lots of the no-status ones there are chugging along just fine. No exit, no death. I'm part of Tovala (W16) and in our case, no-status means still in business. I can confirm that's the case for a handful of others too. In our case, YC was super valuable. We've never been more focused than when going through the program. They make available so many resources you're desperate to grow and try things so you can get as much as possible out of the program. Even though it has been a while since we were in the bay area for the program, we are still seeing many benefits by the huge and growing network of YC companies. I can't speak for our co-founders but if we could go back in time, we would absolutely take part in the program again.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    At some point “chugging along” rounds down to “failure” for employees with equity compensation. Particularly at 10 years when it expires.
    - benjaminjosephw 6y ago
      Who would consider building a successful and stable business a failure? Surely not the people that helped build it. Isn't early employee equity compensation more a case of "if the founders make a lot of money from this, I deserve a fraction of that too" rather than being an IOU in place of compensation?
      - throwaway2048 6y ago
        The people who invested money in it expecting explosive growth at high valuations.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - ticmasta 6y ago
        not if you traded early comp for the promise of astronomical equity returns. Especially if you were sold hard on this by the founders; in this scenario they have failed because the goal was not to build a stable, self-sustaining business.
      - closeparen 6y ago
        Equity compensation is asking employees to invest their labor in the company. If you’re honest about your intention not to generate any return on their investment and they do it anyway, I guess that’s fine, but it seems more likely that people taking those offers are being misled. Sustainable businesses can buy the labor they need with present cash flows and don’t need to sell people on the possibility of future ones.
        gus_massa 6y ago
        And that's why every time someone ask how much salary reduction they must accept because they got a .1% equity, the best answer is $0. (And get the offer in written, just in case.)
    - s11doingfine 6y ago
- akavi 6y ago
  Is this list still being updated? PagerDuty isn't listed as exited, despite IPO-ing last year. Edit: And Flexport isn't listed at all (Should be W14, IIRC)
- 2arrs2ells 6y ago
  The database maintained by YC is going to be a lot more accurate: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?batch=S11&status=Active https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?batch=S11&status=Acti... For S11, 21 companies are still active, with 5 (GoCardless, Segment, Zeus, Vidyard, and Sift) in the "YC Top 100" (valued at $150mm or more). At least one (Segment) is valued at $1bn+.

toomuchtodo 6y ago

https://www.ycdb.co/ https://www.ycdb.co/

LiamHz 6y ago

This has info (year, exit / dead, one line description) of 1281 YC companies [0] Out of the 49 companies in the S11 batch, 10 exited, 17 are "dead", and 22 have no status. Most of the companies from the W16 batch have no status listed. [0]: https://yclist.com/ https://yclist.com/

_adamb 6y ago
My guess is that lots of the no-status ones there are chugging along just fine. No exit, no death. I'm part of Tovala (W16) and in our case, no-status means still in business. I can confirm that's the case for a handful of others too. In our case, YC was super valuable. We've never been more focused than when going through the program. They make available so many resources you're desperate to grow and try things so you can get as much as possible out of the program. Even though it has been a while since we were in the bay area for the program, we are still seeing many benefits by the huge and growing network of YC companies. I can't speak for our co-founders but if we could go back in time, we would absolutely take part in the program again.
- closeparen 6y ago
  At some point “chugging along” rounds down to “failure” for employees with equity compensation. Particularly at 10 years when it expires.
  - benjaminjosephw 6y ago
    Who would consider building a successful and stable business a failure? Surely not the people that helped build it. Isn't early employee equity compensation more a case of "if the founders make a lot of money from this, I deserve a fraction of that too" rather than being an IOU in place of compensation?
    - throwaway2048 6y ago
      The people who invested money in it expecting explosive growth at high valuations.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - ticmasta 6y ago
      not if you traded early comp for the promise of astronomical equity returns. Especially if you were sold hard on this by the founders; in this scenario they have failed because the goal was not to build a stable, self-sustaining business.
    - closeparen 6y ago
      Equity compensation is asking employees to invest their labor in the company. If you’re honest about your intention not to generate any return on their investment and they do it anyway, I guess that’s fine, but it seems more likely that people taking those offers are being misled. Sustainable businesses can buy the labor they need with present cash flows and don’t need to sell people on the possibility of future ones.
      - gus_massa 6y ago
        And that's why every time someone ask how much salary reduction they must accept because they got a .1% equity, the best answer is $0. (And get the offer in written, just in case.)
  - s11doingfine 6y ago
akavi 6y ago
Is this list still being updated? PagerDuty isn't listed as exited, despite IPO-ing last year. Edit: And Flexport isn't listed at all (Should be W14, IIRC)
2arrs2ells 6y ago
The database maintained by YC is going to be a lot more accurate: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?batch=S11&status=Active https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?batch=S11&status=Acti... For S11, 21 companies are still active, with 5 (GoCardless, Segment, Zeus, Vidyard, and Sift) in the "YC Top 100" (valued at $150mm or more). At least one (Segment) is valued at $1bn+.