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And what percent of that can we assume Paul owns? He certainly is a rich man.

by pdq 13y ago

gline 13y ago
I think YC takes mid single digit percentages in some form early on? So you figure they get diluted down over time and maybe they have, as a firm, 1-2 percent of the total, so, maybe, 150-250mm? And then PG certainly has a big chunk of that - a quarter? A third? He was already pretty rich because he got Yahoo stock (in substantial amounts!) for selling Viaweb, and then Yahoo stock went on to increase by a factor of more than 10 to its peak - if he had 20% of Viaweb at sale (10mm on the day of the transaction) and got out at a reasonable time he had, say, 75mm by the early part of last decade... All of which is to say, it's true that YC has been very successful for all parties, and PG is probably much richer now than he was when he started it, but I suspect he'd say the money wasn't the important thing to him and based on these numbers I'd be inclined to believe him. Edit: incidentally, I think PG has probably been underpaid for his YC work - I suspect most investment firms do not add substantial value to the companies they invest in, but the YC brand is clearly enormously influential and, given the enormous amount of noise in startup-land, I bet the brand - which PG has worked on very carefully for years - is responsible for a meaningful percentage of the value of the portfolio.
jedc 13y ago
I would suspect that YC has done very well as a fund. But I also suspect that the partners have all made FAR more by investing individually into YC companies after they've been in YC. Here are links to some of the investments YC partners have made. (I suspect there are more... these are what are shown in Crunchbase.) Paul Buchheit: http://www.seed-db.com/investorgraph/investorview?investorid=366493 http://www.seed-db.com/investorgraph/investorview?investorid... Garry Tan: http://www.seed-db.com/investorgraph/investorview?investorid=378567 http://www.seed-db.com/investorgraph/investorview?investorid... So in a way... Paul's stake in YC is kind of irrelevant. :) (Also, I think he's having a lot of fun with YC, which really makes it irrelevant.)

And what percent of that can we assume Paul owns? He certainly is a rich man.

by pdq 13y ago

And what percent of that can we assume Paul owns? He certainly is a rich man.

gline 13y ago

I think YC takes mid single digit percentages in some form early on? So you figure they get diluted down over time and maybe they have, as a firm, 1-2 percent of the total, so, maybe, 150-250mm? And then PG certainly has a big chunk of that - a quarter? A third? He was already pretty rich because he got Yahoo stock (in substantial amounts!) for selling Viaweb, and then Yahoo stock went on to increase by a factor of more than 10 to its peak - if he had 20% of Viaweb at sale (10mm on the day of the transaction) and got out at a reasonable time he had, say, 75mm by the early part of last decade... All of which is to say, it's true that YC has been very successful for all parties, and PG is probably much richer now than he was when he started it, but I suspect he'd say the money wasn't the important thing to him and based on these numbers I'd be inclined to believe him. Edit: incidentally, I think PG has probably been underpaid for his YC work - I suspect most investment firms do not add substantial value to the companies they invest in, but the YC brand is clearly enormously influential and, given the enormous amount of noise in startup-land, I bet the brand - which PG has worked on very carefully for years - is responsible for a meaningful percentage of the value of the portfolio.

jedc 13y ago

I would suspect that YC has done very well as a fund. But I also suspect that the partners have all made FAR more by investing individually into YC companies after they've been in YC. Here are links to some of the investments YC partners have made. (I suspect there are more... these are what are shown in Crunchbase.) Paul Buchheit: http://www.seed-db.com/investorgraph/investorview?investorid=366493 http://www.seed-db.com/investorgraph/investorview?investorid... Garry Tan: http://www.seed-db.com/investorgraph/investorview?investorid=378567 http://www.seed-db.com/investorgraph/investorview?investorid... So in a way... Paul's stake in YC is kind of irrelevant. :) (Also, I think he's having a lot of fun with YC, which really makes it irrelevant.)