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It's certainly much worse. It's often difficult to tell when a company is dead unless they announce it. Many other failures (likely most of YC's portfolio) wil
by smt88 2y ago
It's certainly much worse. It's often difficult to tell when a company is dead unless they announce it.
Many other failures (likely most of YC's portfolio) will have died by being acquired for less than the most recent valuation, meaning YC lost money on the deal. These sometimes look like successful exits unless you know the details.
- xmprt 2y agoAlso, it's not counting many of the startups from the last few years which haven't had enough time to fail. If the denominator is the total number of exits then it's probably much lower than 4k.
- muzani 2y agoCompanies also almost never announce their death. Startups go to die quietly. Paul Graham says the best indicator is they don't reply to emails, but this is usually something that's not very visible. https://www.paulgraham.com/die.html https://www.paulgraham.com/die.html
- nradov 2y agoThat's one signal, but it's surprising how many established companies that appear to still be going concerns also don't reply to emails even when I literally ask about buying something. And I'm not talking about my own little consumer purchases, I mean emails from my work account to vendors with the potential for significant ongoing revenue. Strange.
- threeseed 2y ago> will have died by being acquired for less than the most recent valuation, meaning YC lost money on the deal Does YC really lose money on all acquihires ? Because it seems like most of the batches look to be purpose built for it.
- withinboredom 2y agoI'm sure they build the investing deal where they get all the money and the founders get a token amount.