4 ms·

YC company valuations, aggregated by initial back-end language

17 points by AlchemistCamp 6y ago

yen223 6y ago
The source link is equally interesting: https://charliereese.ca/article/top-50-y-combinator-tech-startups https://charliereese.ca/article/top-50-y-combinator-tech-sta...
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  It's a fantastic write-up and amazing how it's still so out of date so soon. Just Stripe and Coinbase have added more market cap than the entire top 50 including Stripe and Coinbase from when the report was published half a year ago. Of course private valuations fluctuate wildly but Coinbase in particular has been extreme. Two more relevant links: Stripe (currently on the HN front page) https://www.ft.com/content/b9949a88-6c09-4de5-92e7-73994bb2b62f https://www.ft.com/content/b9949a88-6c09-4de5-92e7-73994bb2b... Coinbase https://www.axios.com/coinbase-valued-100-billion-direct-listing-9b43e316-7ff7-4f6a-a1db-4dc2481a93ee.html https://www.axios.com/coinbase-valued-100-billion-direct-lis...
AlchemistCamp 6y ago
tldr; Based on the available data, about 3/4 of the total market cap is from companies whose initial back-end language was Ruby. Python is a distant second place and then it trails off quickly.
j-pb 6y ago
I'd argue that there is are two hidden variables that cause ruby to be such a good predictor. Ruby was "the go to web language" in the cabrian "web 2.0" years, where the web tranformed from a "space of personal websites" into a "space of commercial servives and monopolies dependent on the network effect". So the actual predictors are, "web" and "2000s", which give the startup a high probability of being the first one to fill an ecological niche.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  Wasn't "PHP the go to web language"? I'm pretty sure Ruby has never matched its popularity for web. Maybe it did for sysadmin kinds of tasks. Or do you mean that those using PHP just didn't get into YC?
  - j-pb 6y ago
    Php is "old world" tech in that it's great for web pages, but not so much for web apps. Ruby was the first "webapp" language before node.
- zumu 6y ago
  Those are good ones. I'd imagine there's many other relevant dimensions as well. As we all know, correlation does not imply causation. To your point, I'd like to see when these companies were founded, their lines of business, as well as what kind of competition they were facing when they went to market. The space Stripe in seems extremely lucrative, for example.
  - yen223 6y ago
    At the very least, this shows that using Ruby is not an impediment to success. I don't think I can say the same for some other languages.
ksec 6y ago
If only they could contribute 0.01% of their market cap towards Ruby the language itself would be nice.

17 points by AlchemistCamp 6y ago

The source link is equally interesting: https://charliereese.ca/article/top-50-y-combinator-tech-startups https://charliereese.ca/article/top-50-y-combinator-tech-sta...

AlchemistCamp 6y ago
It's a fantastic write-up and amazing how it's still so out of date so soon. Just Stripe and Coinbase have added more market cap than the entire top 50 including Stripe and Coinbase from when the report was published half a year ago. Of course private valuations fluctuate wildly but Coinbase in particular has been extreme. Two more relevant links: Stripe (currently on the HN front page) https://www.ft.com/content/b9949a88-6c09-4de5-92e7-73994bb2b62f https://www.ft.com/content/b9949a88-6c09-4de5-92e7-73994bb2b... Coinbase https://www.axios.com/coinbase-valued-100-billion-direct-listing-9b43e316-7ff7-4f6a-a1db-4dc2481a93ee.html https://www.axios.com/coinbase-valued-100-billion-direct-lis...

AlchemistCamp 6y ago

tldr; Based on the available data, about 3/4 of the total market cap is from companies whose initial back-end language was Ruby. Python is a distant second place and then it trails off quickly.

j-pb 6y ago

I'd argue that there is are two hidden variables that cause ruby to be such a good predictor. Ruby was "the go to web language" in the cabrian "web 2.0" years, where the web tranformed from a "space of personal websites" into a "space of commercial servives and monopolies dependent on the network effect". So the actual predictors are, "web" and "2000s", which give the startup a high probability of being the first one to fill an ecological niche.

AlchemistCamp 6y ago
Wasn't "PHP the go to web language"? I'm pretty sure Ruby has never matched its popularity for web. Maybe it did for sysadmin kinds of tasks. Or do you mean that those using PHP just didn't get into YC?
- j-pb 6y ago
  Php is "old world" tech in that it's great for web pages, but not so much for web apps. Ruby was the first "webapp" language before node.
zumu 6y ago
Those are good ones. I'd imagine there's many other relevant dimensions as well. As we all know, correlation does not imply causation. To your point, I'd like to see when these companies were founded, their lines of business, as well as what kind of competition they were facing when they went to market. The space Stripe in seems extremely lucrative, for example.
- yen223 6y ago
  At the very least, this shows that using Ruby is not an impediment to success. I don't think I can say the same for some other languages.

ksec 6y ago

If only they could contribute 0.01% of their market cap towards Ruby the language itself would be nice.