I like the idea of doing an analysis like this, however deficient the data. It makes people think about it. That said, why not have a status line next to each

I like the idea of doing an analysis like this, however deficient the data. It makes people think about it. That said, why not have a status line next to each startup in the list on the YC page, that fetches updates from the startup website? Limit it to n characters and show the text and update time. This will also provide an automatic measure of when they last showed signs of life.