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At Startup School in April 2008, PG cited a '50% success rate.' The full video of his talk is located here: http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/paul-graham-at-st

• knightinblue 17y ago
  What exactly constitutes 'success' tho?
  • SwellJoe 17y ago
    He defined it during that talk as, "the founders are now 'rich', by some definition of 'rich'". Meaning, I think, that 50% of those folks, once vested in their respective acquiring companies, wouldn't actually have to work if they didn't want to. Note, though, that the first batch was an outlier. No other batch has produced that many exits that fast. One could easily argue that ambition and dedication to being in it for the long haul is higher amongst more recent founders, however, and a low digit millions acquisition isn't as attractive.